The sin of being "The Man"
Does anyone take Mt. 23:10 seriously? Brad Hightower does, and shares his experiences in stepping outside the system of Christian leadership:
The reason Jesus prohibits titles and hierarchical structure in His church is because ambition within the social structure of religion will undermine our spirituality and deceive us. This subtle ambition to be something in the structure of religion will prevent us from entering the Kingdom life of poverty of spirit, meekness, mercy, and purity. Lately, I have found this principle to be true not just in theory but in practice.Brad, by the way, is mighty candid in confessing his own sin of identifying too strongly with being "the man."
posted by Milton Stanley at 11:49 PM
2 Comments:
It all comes back to heart doesn't it. It isn't the labels or even others. It is our hearts that are the issue.
If we see in our labels and what they mean before others something that is only righteously the Lords, then it is wrong.
If however, we have no need of labels and that which they seem to mean before man, yet others continue to place said labels upon us or we even continue to do what said labels seem to identify functionally, it is alright.
Again the issue primarily isn't the labels themselves, it is the hearts of those who seek the labels, have the labels or even of those who need to have people with certain labels in their lives.
I am not so sure that labels in themselves was what the Lord Jesus was concerned about. After all He accepted the label of Christ, Savior, Son of God, Son of Man, the Word, etc. He was our example in the earth as the Christ of God.
No, I agree witht he Reformation Bible Notes on this text (Matt 23:10), "His (Jesus) warning is against the temptation to accord human leaders the authority and perogatives that belong to God alone-a temptation here exemplified by the use of pretentious forms of address".
Paul had, accepted and even defended his label, role and identity of Apostle.
Again the issue remains, an issue of the heart of man and not primarily labels.
Sorry, didn't mean to get on my bandwagon again. Thanks for the link.
Exactly right, Phil. Functionally, we'll have labels. The challenge is not letting them go to our heads (or our hearts). I can certainly relate to Brad's situation, however. It's easy to get caught up in being "the man" and miss the grace that puts us in the positions we have.
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