What New Testament Leadership is

New Testament Church Leadership is Nurture

Nurture is a botanical term which describes the care and feeding of a young plant so that it grows properly to maturity. In 1 Thessalonians 2:7,8, Paul uses some distinctive words to describe nurture in the eyeball-to-eyeball relationships which accompany leadership responsibility.

He speaks of being "gentle," the word herioi, used often of a teacher, patient in the process of nurturing seemingly incorrigible students. As if that emphasis were not clear enough, he refers to the gentleness of a mother, not a hired baby-sitter. The word appears in the Old Testament to describe the Lord God's care of Israel, and in 2 Timothy 2:24 Paul uses the word to describe "the servant of the Lord".

But there is more to this emphasis on nurture. A gentle mother "cares for her little children." The word "care" is thalpe, which titerally means "to soften by heat" or "to keep warm." Deuteronomy 22:6, in the Septuagint, uses the word to describe a bird caring for its young by spreading its feathers over them in the nest. Such a mother loves those growing children (1 Thess. 2:7) Such yearning for the good of the group may ultimately result in a sacrifice on the part of the leader.

Where is assertiveness in all of this? The image of a sharp voice barking orders and running a tight ship? Again, a pagan culture distorts our understanding of spiritual reality. We identify leadership with toughness and ruggedness; God identifies it with tenderness. We think of leadership as "handling" adults; God thinks of it as nurturing children.

New Testament Leadership Is Example

The hard work of Paul's leadership spills out in verse 9. Both day and night, with great effort, he worked among the believers. His own life, and those of his colleagues, provided examples of holiness, justice, and blamelessness before God. Note that this behavior took place before the believers to facilitate evangelism.

In 2:5-6, Paul assures the Thessalonians that their leaders are human, not some kind of ecclesiastical giants who want to run the organization by sheer executive skill and personal power. The plural pronouns throughout this passage affirm again the biblical reality of team leadership

New Testament Leadership is Fatherhood

What does a father do? According to Ephesians 6:4, he, too, is responsible for the nurture of his children. In 1 Thessalonians 2:11, the words rendered "exhorted" and "comforted" are the words parakalountes and paramuthoumenoi, respectively. These commonly appear together in Paul's writing. The former is often used of divine ministry, but the latter is always a human word. Never used directly to mean God's comfort, it describes the way He works through people to minister to other people in the community of faith.

A father also "urges" his children (v.12). The word carries the idea of admonishing of witnessing truth so that they will walk in patterns acceptable to God.