This troubles me because there is an underlying self-assuredness (one might well call it arrogance) that I find at odds with the sort of life I see Jesus calling his followers to in the Gospels, the sort of life lived out in Acts and the rest of the NT. What I see there is always more of a limited understanding and a dependence on obedience to the command of God, the leading of the Holy Spirit, to know what is right to do. More than once in Acts, Paul tries to go in one direction, but the Lord sends him in a different direction. The sermons in Acts focus almost exclusively on the basic story of Jesus. The epistles give us more teaching content, but most of them deal with specific issues relating to their initial audiences. We can glean truths from them, but we have to be careful doing that outside their context. For example, Paul sends Onesimus back to be a slave under Philemon. Paul tells Philemon to receive him back in love, but he still sends him back. We could easily read this as Paul approving slavery (this IS how this was read in the antebellum South), but that is not how Paul intended it.

Don’t get me wrong, I am firmly committed to the foundational teachings of the Christian faith (e.g., those laid out in the Apostles’ Creed). But we affirm belief in those long before we understand what they mean. Believing itself is an act of obedience, a trust in the Lord and in the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. But how can the Spirit lead us into truth if our worldview already has it all figured out? How can we walk as disciples in obedience if our worldview enables us to make ethical decisions on our own? Do you notice how close this puts us to the original sin of Adam and Eve? To the extent that a “Christian worldview” lessens our dependence on the Holy Spirit to lead us into truth and teach us to walk in obedience, we should reject it as just another attempt to make ourselves gods, which is what all religion is. Which is sin. Which is why God hates religion.

The (in)famous rebuttal to this is that Christians are always supposed to be ready to give an account for the hope that we have (1 Pet. 3.15). Many Christians immediately take this to mean we need to have everything figured out, be able to explain it all, which is where the whole Christian worldview concept came from, just a nicer, more philosophically tame version of apologetics. But this gets it all wrong. Giving an account for our hope doesn’t mean explaining the whole story of the world. It means one thing. Telling them about Jesus. He is the reason we have hope. This brings us right back to Acts, where all they talk about the whole time is Jesus. What Jesus did while he was on earth. What Jesus did when we met Paul on the Damascus Road. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Our hope is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The opposite of all religions. Especially the Christian one.

In neglecting the teaching of the resurrection of the body, I think we show how little we appreciate the importance of the body – the human body – in the Christian faith. Christianity (especially in its north American Protestant-evangelical form) has become too much of a cognitive religion, more about thinking (we call it believing) the right things, less about doing things that demonstrate trust (what the Bible means by believing) in the Lord. This brings us much too close to the ancient heresy of Gnosticism. In this form of Christianity, we are less able to account for the fact that most acts of sin are bodily acts (e.g., adultery, lust) or involve physical objects (e.g., stealing, coveting).

We are also unable to account for the fact the Jesus required his followers to engage in acts that were primarily physical in orientation, e.g., feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick or imprisoned, laying hands on the sick and healing them of physical ailments. These are things Jesus did and set his followers to doing. Some of them we still do, but we often fail to understand the spiritual import of such acts precisely because we have severed the connection between the physical and spiritual in our thinking. They were not separate in Jesus’ thinking. Feeding the hungry was not some side project for Jesus, he set it as one of the fundmental criteria on which we will be judged – as in eternally judged.

Visiting those who are sick or in prison is not just a nice thing to do, it is a fundamentally spiritual act. Laying hands on someone who is sick and praying for them is a physical act that invokes real spiritual power to gain a phyiscal result. Does that even make sense to us? Or has the physical been so divorced from the spiritual that we cannot even imagine such a thing happening? Is this perhaps why we don’t see it happening?

Sometimes wounds leave permanent marks, don’t they? Battle scars. Jesus kept his. Often, we keep ours too.

Jesus didn’t have to, but he kept the scars. A deliberate choice. Have you ever pondered why? You could google it and find some interesting answers (Aquinas listed most of the ones you’ll find), but before you do that, take some time to pray and meditate on it yourself. What does his choice to keep the scars tell you about Jesus? About following him?

I think that’s enough to reflect on for a week. Or a lifetime.

There are some differences between Jesus and the rest of us. He knew the people he was dealing with fully, knew who to trust (fishermen and tax collectors); knew who not to trust (religious people). Not because they were fishermen or religious people, but because of what was in their hearts. We can’t know what’s in people’s hearts much of the time.
Despite this limitation, there are some important lessons for us here, attitudes Jesus had that we should emulate:
1. Cautious of who we entrust ourselves to, the default stance being don’t, then make exceptions as the Spirit leads (who does know all hearts)
2. Not needing the testimony/approval/affirmation of others, Jesus’ testimony of himself was enough, as is HIS testimony of us (not our own)

In short, we take the same approach as Jesus and put our trust in the same place he did. Jesus trusted himself; we trust him too. Spend some time reflecting on what it means to entrust yourself to others, why you need to be careful with this, and the difference it would make in your life and ministry if the only approval you need/want/accept comes from Jesus. I think some of us will find it frees us to do truly great things for the kingdom. I think some of us will find it sours us to the taste of our own Kool-Aid we’ve been too happily chugging down at the encouragement of others. I think some of us will find it does both.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

This is actually less of a meditation and more of a spiritual practice (that will lead to and include meditation). Find at least 15 quiet minutes and sit with this list of Spirit-fruits. Since these are fruits the Spirit produces in us (not self-made fruit), ask the Lord to highlight one of these that needs cultivating at this moment. It might be one you are really lacking in, but it also might be one you particularly excel at already. The Lord may want to shore up a weakness or further develop a strength. Try not to assume you know or go in with preconceived notions. Let the Spirit tell you.
When you hear from the Lord and have zeroed in on one, then meditate on what that fruit means, what it would like for the Spirit to produce that fruit (or more of that fruit) in your life. The Spirit will give you specific direction on tangible things you can do to participate in the production of this fruit. After all, even though the Spirit produces the fruit in us, we are not uninvolved in the process. Note that one of the Spirit-fruits is self-control; that is not a mistake or a logical contradiction. The Spirit produces the fruit, but our will has to be compliant with the Spirit’s work for fruit to be produced.
The Spirit will give you one specific fruit to work on for this moment and specific ways to work on that fruit – if you take time to listen.

What makes this book different is that Maxwell situates his leadership wisdom within the context where most leaders, burgeoning leaders, and would-be leaders are. The first section disabuses us of many common excuses for not leading where we are (this part is worth the price of the book by itself, read it over and over until you stop letting yourself make these excuses). The second section takes a realistic look at challenges one faces in the dangerous world of middle management. The next three sections explain how you can lead those above you, those along side you, and those under you (respectively). In these sections, Maxwell is at his contextual best. Even if you know some of this from his previous works, you will likely find some concepts you shelved for later applied in ways you hadn’t thought of (e.g., in the lead-up section, principle #4 “do more than manage – lead” is one you may not have thought of with regard to influencing your leader). The final section reinforces the value of leading from where you are.

There are also quizzes in the back (called a Workbook) to test yourself on each main concept, and each section has a (way too brief) review. You can also use the passcode included to access a free online self-assessment of where you are as a leader. Maxwell advises the reader to take the self-assesment first. This might not be necessary if you are decently self-aware as a leader, but those who have difficulty in that area would certainly benefit from this tool.

Overall, this is a worthwhile contribution to the growing leadership literature and I think a great place to jump into Maxwell for the first time for the many who do not live at the organizational apex.

If you haven’t read the commencement address Steve gave at Stanford in 2005, you should (it is perhaps the best eulogy for him anyone will give). You can also watch it on Youtube here.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs. Godspeed to you and your loved ones.