Spiritual Leadership

A Biblical Theology of the Role of the Spirit in the Leadership of God's People

Huffstutler

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781532603891
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Religione

How should we see the Spirit at work in spiritual leaders today? How did the Spirit work through spiritual leaders in the Bible? While many books on spiritual leadership look at the culture around us and offer sound advice from biblical principles, this study asks Scripture first what the Spirit did through spiritual leaders in the Bible in order to figure out what the Spirit should be doing through spiritual leaders today.

1

Introduction

Statement of Thesis and Purpose

The thesis of this study argues that a biblical theology of the role of the Spirit in the leadership of God’s people demonstrates a distinct work of the Spirit in biblical leaders.

The purpose of this study is to discover how a biblical theology of the role of the Spirit in the leadership of God’s people demonstrates a work of the Spirit in leaders that is distinct from other works of the Spirit such as prophecy, indwelling, or regeneration. Though these other works of the Spirit cannot be discussed in detail, it can at least be demonstrated that there is a distinct work of the Spirit involved in the leadership of biblical leaders.

Definition of Key Terms and Phrases

Key terms and phrases that require definition for this study are the following: “God’s people,” “biblical leaders,” “spiritual leadership,” “the Spirit of God,” and “the work of the Spirit of God in biblical leaders.”

God’s People

As it is used in this study, the term God’s people generally applies to the people of God in both the OT and NT. More specifically, the people of God in the OT refers to national Israel (Deut 7:6–9) and other nations on occasion (e.g., Egypt in Isa 19:25). The people of God in the NT refers to the church (2 Cor 6:16–18), a people of God not restricted by ethnicity (cf. Rev 5:9–10). For the purposes of this paper, God’s people or the people of God will refer to Israel and the church.

Biblical Leaders

The term biblical leader refers to anyone who has been formally recognized by God or his people to lead the people of God. As this term applies to leaders in the OT, though prophets and foreign leaders occasionally led God’s people in some way (e.g., Joseph, Cyrus, Daniel), this term will be limited to those who have been officially appointed by God or God’s people to be the head of Israel. With reference to men in the NT, the term biblical leader will apply to Jesus, the apostles, apostolic delegates, elders, and those who enjoy what is commonly called the spiritual gift of leadership.

Spiritual Leadership

The term leadership denotes any activity of a biblical leader that is an exercise of his authority over the people of God. This study limits its discussion to the activity of leadership that the Scriptural text explicitly or implicitly describes to be the result of the work of the Spirit. As the Spirit is involved in the exercise of a leader’s leadership, this leadership may be called spiritual. Unless otherwise noted, this paper will not use the phrase spiritual leadership beyond this narrow definition.

The Spirit of God

The Hebrew term rûaḥ and the Greek term pneuma carry a range of meanings,1 but, unless otherwise noted, the focus of this study involves uses of rûaḥ and pneuma when they mean spirit, and specifically the Spirit of God. Of the 305,500 words in the OT,2 the term rûaḥ occurs 394 times,3 and approximately 100 of these occurrences refer to the Spirit of God,4 roughly one out of every four occurrences. The ratio of the use of rûaḥ in comparison to the number of all the words in the OT is 1:785. The ratio of the use of rûaḥ with reference to the Spirit of God in comparison to the number of all the words in the OT is approximately 1:3055.

Of the 138,162 words of the NT,5 the term pneuma occurs 379 times,6 and approximately 275 of these occurrences refer to the Spirit of God,7 almost three out of every four uses. The ratio of the use of pneuma in comparison to the number of all the words in the NT is 1:365. The ratio of the use of pneuma with reference to the Spirit of God in comparison to the number of all the words in the NT is approximately 1:502.

These numbers indicate that, whatever meaning is in view for rûaḥ or pneuma , the use of pneuma in the NT (1:365) occurs more than twice as frequently as the use of rûaḥ in the OT (1:785). Also, for every time rûaḥ refers to the Spirit of God in the OT (100 of its 394 uses), the use of pneuma in the NT refers to the Spirit of God almost three times (275 of its 379 uses). A comparison of the ratios of the use of rûaḥ and pneuma to all the words in their respective testaments (1:3055 and 1:502) indicates that every time the OT refers the Spirit of God with the term rûaḥ, the use of pneuma in the NT refers to the Spirit of God six times.

Narrowing this data further, Chapter 2 will demonstrate that approximately 30 of the 100 OT uses of rûaḥ that refer to the Spirit of God are used in relation to the leadership of the leaders of Israel. Chapter 3 will demonstrate that approximately 90 of the 275 NT uses of pneuma that refer to the Spirit of God are used in relation to the leadership of NT leaders as defined above. Given this data, the discussion in Chapter 2 will be considerably shorter than the discussion in Chapter 3.

In defining the phrase the Spirit of God, it is necessary to recognize the progress and accumulation of revelation about the Spirit from one biblical era to the next. To define the Spirit according to the revelation of the OT alone would not yield the same definition as if one were to define the Spirit according to the whole of Scripture. This is not to say that the OT data about the Spirit contradicts what is found in the NT. It is to say, however, that the NT reveals developments and truth about the nature and role of the Spirit that was not given in the OT. The combined data of the OT and NT naturally yields a definition of the Spirit of God that is more complete than a definition of the Spirit of God from the OT alone.

A debated topic along these lines is whether or not the OT gives enough revelation to conclude from the OT alone that the Spirit of God is a person. Some believe the OT data allow the interpreter to conclude that the Spirit in the OT i...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Role of the Spirit in the Leadership of Old Testament Leaders
• Chapter 3: The Role of the Spirit in the Leadership of New Testament Leaders
• Chapter 4: A Systematized Biblical Theology of Spiritual Leadership
• Chapter 5: Biblical Theology and Spiritual Leadership in the Church
• Chapter 6: Conclusion
• Bibliography