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Fighting for the Flock Without Fighting the Flock: Why Elders Must Be Not Quarrelsome · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. I'm really glad you're here
• 0:02
  today. We're doing something that it
• 0:05
  might feel a bit microscopic, but I think if we're honest, it
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  addresses this massive fracture we're all seeing.
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  Oh, for sure. You see in the culture and well,
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  unfortunately see it inside the church too.
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  We usually spend our time here on the really big systems, you
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  know, covenant theology, soteriology, the attributes of
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  God. But today we're taking a whole
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  stack of commentaries, lexicons, theological journals, and we're
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  aiming all that firepower at just two words in the New
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  Testament. 2 words that you could argue serve as the primary
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  immune system for the local church.
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  We're looking at First Timothy chapter 3, specifically verse 3,
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  and the qualification for an elder to be not quarrelsome.
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  Not quarrelsome. Yeah.
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  And on the surface, that sounds like I don't know a suggestion
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  for etiquette. Right, like something from a
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  finishing school. Exactly.
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  It just sounds like Paul is saying hey, play nice.
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  But the sources we've been digging into suggest something
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  much, much more serious is going on here.
• 1:01
  It's a foundational issue. It is, and we're living in a
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  very specific cultural moment. I was struck by how one of the
• 1:08
  articles in our stack refers to it.
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  It calls it the Outrage Industrial Complex.
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  That is such a fitting label, isn't it?
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  We function in this digital environment where, I mean, the
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  algorithms are literally built to monetize hostility.
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  They are. If you look at how social media
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  works, anger is the currency. It drives engagement.
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  It keeps eyeballs on the screen. So we're just constantly being
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  fed reasons to be furious. And that absolutely spills over
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  into how we view leadership. I mean, I catch myself doing
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  this. I'll see someone on a screen who
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  is loud, who is just blasting the opposition, who is owning
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  the other side, and my first instinct is to think, now that's
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  a strong leader. That's someone with a backbone.
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  It's the spirit of the age. We confuse volume with virtue.
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  We mistake, you know, a sharp tongue for a strong spine.
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  And the problem, as our sources really highlight, is that the
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  church isn't hermetically sealed off from the world.
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  We're breathing that same air. So congregations start to
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  resemble, well, political factions more than households of
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  faith. We start wanting our elders to
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  be St. fighters because we feel like the world is fighting us.
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  That's the. Tension right there.
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  We feel the pressure of a hostile culture, so we want a
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  hostile leader to punch back. But the whole premise of this
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  deep dive today is that this biblical requirement to be not
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  quarrelsome, it's not about having good manners, not at all.
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  It's a divine safeguard. It's a test of whether a man
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  actually understands the true nature of spiritual warfare.
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  It separates the man who fights the enemy from the man who
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  brings a war into the household of God to fight his brothers.
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  And that distinction, that is everything.
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  OK, so let's get into the text then.
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  We're in First Timothy 3. This is the list of
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  qualifications for an overseer. It's a familiar list for a lot
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  of us. Husband of one wife, silver
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  minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to
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  teach and then we land on this negative prohibition.
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  And to really feel the weight of this, we have to look at the
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  Greek. The word Paul uses here is a
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  machos. A machos OK help us take that
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  apart. So it's a compound word.
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  The root is machi. That word means a battle.
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  It can refer to physical combat, a fight, a war.
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  It's a really violent, visceral word.
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  It's the same root that James uses in Chapter 4 when he asks
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  what causes fights and quarrels among you.
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  He's using military language. So the root is literally war.
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  Correct. And then you have what's called
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  the alpha primitive at the front, the letter alpha, which
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  acts as a negator. It means not, so if you
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  translate it strictly literal, it means not a fighter.
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  Not a fighter. OK, now I have to play the
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  skeptic here for a second. Go for it because I can just
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  hear a listener saying wait a minute, I thought the Christian
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  life was a fight. We're told to fight the good
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  fight of faith. We're told to put on the full
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  armor of God. So if an Elser is not a fighter,
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  does that mean he's a pacifist? Does he just roll over when
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  Heresy comes knocking at the door?
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  And that is the critical nuance. It's a great question.
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  In secular Greek literature, so outside the New Testament, A
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  machos was sometimes used to describe a soldier who was
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  invincible. It meant he was a man you
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  couldn't fight because he was so skilled he would just destroy
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  you. But in the New Testament, the
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  usage shifts. It moves from describing a
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  military skill to describing a relational disposition.
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  So it's not about ability, it's about temperament.
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  Exactly. It's not that the man is
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  incapable of fighting, it is that he refuses to be at war
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  with the Brethren. He refuses to carry a warring
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  spirit into the family room. That's a perfect way to put it.
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  He knows where the battlefield is and he knows it is not the
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  elder meeting. He knows it is not the foyer on
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  Sunday morning. Now, there's an observation in
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  the commentaries about the placement of this word in First
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  Timothy 3, and I have to say this really struck me.
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  It sits in a very specific progression.
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  Oh, it does. One scholar calls it a
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  terrifying rogression of the loss of control.
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  If you look at the three negatives in a row first you get
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  my peritinen. That translates to not a
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  drunkard or, more literally, not lingering by wine.
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  So that's a loss of chemical sobriety.
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  OK, so number one is the drunkard.
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  Immediately following that is mapleuctin, which means not a
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  striker. This refers to physical
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  violence, someone who loses physical control and throws a
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  punch. And right next to not a striker
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  sits our word. A machos not quarrelsome.
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  That that is, that's an uncomfortable grouping.
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  It should be. It really should be because if a
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  pastor showed up to the pulpit drunk, I mean, he would be
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  removed immediately. No question.
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  If an elder punched a Deacon in the nose during a finance
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  meeting, he would be disqualified before he even left
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  the room. But Paul places the quarrelsome
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  man in the exact same category. The Holy Spirit is showing us
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  something here. He's showing us that a
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  quarrelsome spirit is a form of intoxication.
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  The quarrelsome man is drunk on his own opinion, drunk on his.
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  Opinion. I like that.
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  He's inebriated by his own sense of rightness, and it's also a
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  form of violence. He might not be striking you
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  with his first like the Pluckton, but he is striking you
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  with his words. He has lost control of his
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  temper and his tongue, just as much as the drunkard has lost
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  control of his faculties. That really puts a different
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  spin on the guy who is, you know, just passionate, right?
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  We often excuse sharp elbows and biting sarcasm.
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  A zeal, but the text here seems to label it as a lack of
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  self-control. A lack of self mastery.
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  And to heighten the contrast even more, look at the positive
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  virtue Paul pairs this with. He puts a Machos right next to
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  FBI. Which is usually translated as
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  gentle. Gentle or yielding, the
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  distinction is really helpful here.
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  So FBI key is the positive trait.
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  It means waving your rights for the sake of mercy.
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  It's the spirit that says, look, I have the right to win this
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  argument or to demand to this preference, but I am going to
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  yield for the sake of the relationship.
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  OK. A Macho's then is the negative
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  prohibition. Yeah, it is the restraint
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  against asserting your rights through conflict.
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  So if I'm hearing you right, EPIAC E is kind of like the gas
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  pedal of Mercy, Yeah, and a Macho's is the brake pedal on
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  aggression. That's a great analogy.
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  I like that a lot, and we just need to be crystal clear.
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  This does not mean the man is weak.
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  It does not mean he lacks conviction.
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  It means he possesses force, but he refuses to deploy it in petty
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  squabbles. He refuses to weaponize his
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  authority against the flock he's supposed to protect.
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  OK, this brings us to the theology beneath the behavior,
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  Because in our tradition, you know, we don't just want to
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  staple a list of rules to the wall.
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  We won't understand the why, of course, and our sources draw
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  Direct Line between this qualification and the doctrine
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  of union with Christ. This is so central to Reformed
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  ethics. We're not just trying to be
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  better people. We are acting out of a new
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  identity. Second, Peter 1.4 says we are
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  partakers of the divine nature. We are united to Christ.
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  He is the head, we are the body. And Christ is the Prince of
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  Peace. Right.
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  So if an elder is truly united to the Prince of Peace, then a
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  quarrelsome spirit becomes an ontological contradiction.
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  An ontological contradiction? That's a heavy phrase.
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  It is. It means it denies the reality
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  of who he is. It's not just a personality
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  quirk, you know, like having a bad sense of humor or something.
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  If he's quarrelsome, he is acting in direct opposition to
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  the very nature of the head to whom he is united.
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  So if the head is peace, the hand can't be making a fist to
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  punch the face. That's the picture, and this
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  leads us right into the Westminster Confession of Faith
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  Chapter 26 of the Communion of Saints.
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  I've got that text phrase right here.
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  It says that Saints are united to Jesus Christ their head, and
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  because of that they are united to one another in love.
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  Then it says, we're obliged to the performance of such duties,
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  public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good.
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  Mutual good. That phrase right there is the
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  diagnostic test for the quarrelsome man.
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  Does he use his gifts for the mutual good of the body?
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  And usually, no. I mean, if you've ever been in a
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  meeting with a truly quarrelsome person, they use their gifts,
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  their intellect, their memory, their theology.
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  They use them to dominate. To win.
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  They use them to win. A quarrelsome elder severs the
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  ligaments of the body of Christ. Instead of using his strength to
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  build up the communion of Saints, he tears at the very
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  fabric of that communion. He makes the body dysfunctional.
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  It's like an autoimmune disease. The body starts turning on
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  itself. It is, and This is why the
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  Puritans took this so seriously. John Owen in his work on the
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  mortification of sin, he just diagnosis the root of this
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  perfectly. He argues that external
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  quarreling is almost always a symptom of internal, unmortified
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  pride. Pride.
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  It seems to be the root of almost everything when you dig
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  down far enough. Doesn't.
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  It, it really is, Owen would say, that men fight because they
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  worship their own intellect. They desire supremacy.
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  They want to be the king of the theological hill.
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  So the remedy isn't just to, you know, close your mouth, you can
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  bite your tongue and still be seething with a quarrelsome
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  spirit on the inside. The remedy is killing sin
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  through the spirit. The elder has to learn to
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  distinguish between the good fight of faith, which is
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  fighting against heresy and the world, and carnal striving about
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  words, which is fighting against his brothers.
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  And that distinction is so difficult for some men.
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  They seem to think every disagreement is a heresy trial.
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  Yes, if you disagree on the color of the carpet in the
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  sanctuary or the order of the service, they treat it like
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  you're denying the Trinity. That's where we need the law.
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  We need the law to act as a mirror to expose what's really
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  going on in the heart. James 4.1 asks What causes
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  quarrels and what causes fights among you?
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  Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?
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  So it's an inside job. It's always an inside job.
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  The notes that we have here identify a few specific
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  idolatries that drive this kind of behavior.
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  The first one is the idolatry of Reputation.
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  OK, the idolatry of reputation. This is the belief that my
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  worth, my value, is tied to winning the debate.
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  If I lose the argument, I lose my standing.
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  I lose my value in the eyes of others.
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  So I fight it to the death, not for the truth, but for my ego.
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  It's a huge one for leaders. It feels like death to admit you
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  were wrong in front of the people you're supposed to be
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  leading. It does.
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  Then there's another one, the idolatry of self righteousness.
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  This is where you use theology as a weapon of dominance.
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  But the one that really stood out to me in the sources, it's
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  the sin of impatience. One author refers to the
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  quarrelsome man as a functional atheist.
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  Wow, that is a jarring label. Yeah, a functional atheist.
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  You have to explain that. It sounds extreme, I know, but
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  just think about the logic for a second.
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  The quarrelsome man is usually incredibly impatient.
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  He needs to fix you right now. He needs to win the argument
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  right now. OK, Why?
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  Because deep down he doesn't actually believe the Holy Spirit
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  is capable of doing his job. He acts as if unless he
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  aggressively intervenes and forces his opinion on you, God
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  can't convict you. So he's stepping in to do the
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  Spirit's work because he thinks the Spirit is too slow or too
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  incompetent. He's playing God.
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  He doesn't trust the Spirit to work in the other person's
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  heart, in God's timing. So he forces the issue with
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  anger and pressure, and in that moment he is living as if God
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  either doesn't exist or isn't competent.
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  That's functional atheism. Like it cuts deep, it really
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  does. So if the diagnosis is pride,
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  idolatry, and this this lack of faith in the Spirit, what's the
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  remedy? How does the gospel actually fix
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  a brawling heart? Well, we have to look to the
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  pattern of Christ first. Peter 2.23 describes Jesus right
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  in the heat of conflict. It says when he was reviled, he
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  did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not
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  threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who
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  judges justly. Just think about the restraint
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  that represents Jesus had the power to end those arguments
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  instantly. Absolutely.
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  He could have called down fire from heaven.
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  He could have silenced them with a single word.
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  But he didn't. He allowed himself to be LED
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  like a lamb to the slaughter. Why?
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  Because he was entrusting himself to the father.
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  He did not need to vindicate himself because he knew who he
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  was. And that's the connection for
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  us. It's the classic indicative
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  imperative dynamic, like we talk about so much because we are
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  justified by Christ. That is the indicative, the
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  settled fact we do not need to justify ourselves in every
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  single argument. We're already approved.
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  So I can lose the argument and still be safe.
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  You can be misunderstood and still be secure.
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  That reality breaks the power of pride.
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  We don't have to fight because we don't need to fight to prove
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  our worth anymore. Christ has already done that.
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  OK. I want to shift gears a little
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  bit to the practical side of this.
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  We've established the theology, but whenever we talk about being
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  not quarrelsome, there's always a risk, right?
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  We can swing the pendulum too far the other way.
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  We always tend to overcorrect, don't we?
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  We do, and the sources layout what they call the two ditches
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  of eldership. Ditch #1 is what they call
• 13:49
  pragmatic peace. Or more bluntly, cowardice.
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  Oh. Yes, this is the piece at any
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  price model, right? This is the elder who treats
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  conflict as the ultimate evil. He thinks his primary job is
• 14:02
  just to keep everyone happy, keep the boat steady.
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  So he never confronts, he never corrects, he never says anything
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  difficult. And it can look like gentleness
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  from a distance. People might say, oh, he's such
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  a nice guy. He never argues with anyone.
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  But our sources argue, and I think rightly, that this is
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  actually cruelty disguised as kindness.
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  If you refuse to confront error, you are surrendering the flock
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  to wolves. Titus 1.9 is clear.
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  An elder must be able to refute those who contradict sound
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  doctrine. If a wolf comes in teaching
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  heresy, or if there's serious sin festering in the
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  congregation, and the elder says nothing because he wants peace,
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  he's negligent. He's the hired hand who runs
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  away when the wolf comes. Exactly right.
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  That's ditch 1. OK, so ditch #2 is the warrior
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  or the brawler. This is the ditch of carnality.
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  This is the man who confuses combativeness with faithfulness.
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  He honestly thinks that the more he fights, the more faithful
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  he's being. He interprets every single
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  disagreement as a holy war that must be won.
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  He uses the language of discernment to mask what is
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  really just bitterness or pride. Yes.
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  And it creates a culture of fear.
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  People become afraid to speak up.
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  They're afraid to ask questions because they know he'll snap at
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  them or misrepresent their position.
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  And often this whole posture arises from a desire to be seen
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  as the strongman. Watchdog.
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  The watchdog, he wants that reputation.
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  So we have the coward on one side and the brawler on the
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  other. What's the middle path?
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  The middle path is the shepherd. The the phrase used in the
• 15:29
  material is just excellent. It says the goal is fighting for
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  the flock without fighting with the flock.
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  Fighting for the flock without fighting with the flock.
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  Is that again? Fighting for the flock without
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  fighting with the flock. Yeah, it's courage.
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  Join to gentleness. The elder must be able to say no
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  to error. He has to protect the sheep.
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  But he does it without an error of the heart, right?
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  He doesn't enjoy the fight. He doesn't destroy the sheep in
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  the process of trying to protect them.
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  Let's get really granular with this.
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  Suppose I'm on a search committee for a new pastor, or
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  I'm a church member trying to discern if a man is qualified
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  for eldership. How do I spot the quarrelsome
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  man? Because they can be very
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  charming. Oh, they can't.
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  They can be incredibly articulate.
• 16:15
  The source material gives us a pretty helpful diagnostic
• 16:18
  checklist. The first mark to look for is
• 16:21
  escalation. A quarrelsome man raises the
• 16:24
  temperature of a room. A godly elder lowers it.
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  When a disagreement happens, watch him.
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  Does he interrupt constantly? Does he react instantly without
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  thinking? Does he make these huge
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  universal claims like you always do this or this is exactly what
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  the liberals do? He takes a small spark, and he's
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  determined to turn it into a bonfire.
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  OK, so watch the temperature that's.
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  Good. What else?
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  The love of argument? You can almost see this in a
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  man's eyes. Does he enjoy the adrenaline of
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  the clash? Second, Timothy warns US against
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  foolish controversies, but this man tends to dive right into
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  them. He tends the breeding ground of
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  controversy. He's not actually trying to
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  resolve the issue. He's trying to perpetuate the
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  battle. It's like a sport for him.
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  It is. Then look at his tactics.
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  Does he use sarcasm as a weapon? Does he ask a loaded questions
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  designed to trap people? Is he always looking for those
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  gotcha moments? The question is, is he trying to
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  shame the other person or persuade them?
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  A man wants to humiliate his opponent, the shepherd wants to
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  win his brother. And then finally.
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  The relational fallout. This is the biggest.
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  Indicator of all, just look at the wake he leaves behind him.
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  Do people tend to avoid him? Does the room physically tighten
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  up when he starts to speak? Does he become the axis of
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  faction and division? Right.
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  If everywhere this man goes, there's division, strife, and
• 17:41
  people getting hurt, the common denominator is him.
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  He might claim he's just standing for truth, but the
• 17:48
  fruit is relational destruction, the source material.
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  Also mentioned something it calls a social media audit.
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  I think this is pretty much non negotiable in the modern church.
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  It has to be. It absolutely has to be.
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  You can have a man who is quiet and polite in the church foyer.
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  He shakes your hand. He asks about your kids, but
• 18:06
  then he goes home, opens his laptop and becomes an absolute
• 18:10
  brawler in the comment section. He's a lamb on Sunday.
• 18:13
  And a wolf on Monday exactly he. Posts sick burns.
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  He mocks other Christians. He gets into endless, bitter,
• 18:19
  pointless debates online, The source material argues, and I
• 18:22
  completely agree, that this disqualifies him if a man is.
• 18:25
  Known for his shark tongue online, he is disqualifying
• 18:29
  himself from the pulpit. You cannot separate the man from
• 18:32
  his digital footprint. The heart is the same.
• 18:34
  The Internet just removes the social filter and reveals who he
• 18:38
  really is. That is a hard.
• 18:39
  Word. But it's a very necessary one.
• 18:42
  Now let's talk about testing candidates, because it's easy to
• 18:45
  hide this stuff during a calm interview process, right?
• 18:48
  Very easy. The source talks.
• 18:49
  About something called the Crucible of shepherding.
• 18:52
  Yeah, the. Idea here is that the
• 18:54
  qualification of being not quarrelsome is not proven.
• 18:57
  When things are going well, it's proven under pressure.
• 19:00
  You don't test the hull of a ship in the calm of the harbor,
• 19:03
  you test it in the storm. OK, so.
• 19:06
  We have 4 specific tests listed here.
• 19:08
  Let's walk through them. First, the criticism test.
• 19:10
  This is vital. How does he handle being
• 19:13
  misunderstood or critiqued? If someone comes to him and
• 19:16
  says, pastor, I was really hurt by what you said on Sunday, what
• 19:19
  does he do? What's that first reaction?
• 19:21
  Exactly. Does he rush to vindicate
• 19:23
  himself? Does he get defensive and start
• 19:25
  to counterattack? Or does he have the humility to
• 19:29
  ask clarifying questions? Can he say, help me understand
• 19:33
  why you feel that way? Can you bear the sting of a
• 19:36
  false accusation without lashing out that requires.
• 19:39
  Immense humility and security in Christ.
• 19:42
  Second is the meeting test. This is about.
• 19:45
  How he behaves in deliberations with other leaders when they're
• 19:48
  sitting around the table and there's a disagreement, maybe on
• 19:51
  the budget or a hiring decision or a ministry philosophy.
• 19:54
  Does he treat the other elders as enemies to be conquered?
• 19:58
  Does he view the meeting as a battleground to be 1?
• 20:01
  And part of that is, can he? Lose.
• 20:02
  That's the key. Can he lose a vote without
• 20:05
  sulking? Can he lose a vote without going
• 20:07
  to the parking lot afterwards to lobby against the decision and
• 20:10
  undermine the unity of the elders?
• 20:12
  A quarrelsome man cannot handle not getting yeah, that parking
• 20:15
  lot. Meeting is the death of Unity.
• 20:17
  3rd on the list is the weakness test.
• 20:19
  This reveals his. Heart toward the sheep.
• 20:21
  How does he treat the immature, the slow, the needy, the
• 20:24
  socially awkward? The quarrelsome man is impatient
• 20:28
  with weakness. He often confuses weakness with
• 20:31
  malice. So a sheep is slow.
• 20:33
  To learn he thinks they're being rebellious.
• 20:35
  Precisely he. Snaps at them.
• 20:36
  He's harsh, but a true shepherd picks up the lamb.
• 20:40
  He has a very long fuse with the struggling St.
• 20:43
  And finally. The discipline test.
• 20:45
  This is when things get really serious.
• 20:48
  Church Discipline. Is necessary, but it is very
• 20:50
  dangerous ground for a quarrelsome man.
• 20:53
  The question to ask is does he aim for restoration or for
• 20:56
  punishment? Does he want to win the center
• 20:58
  back or defeat the enemy? If a man seems to enjoy the
• 21:02
  process of discipline, if he seems eager to excommunicate or
• 21:05
  rebuke, that is a massive red flag.
• 21:08
  The godly elder enters into the discipline process with sorrow,
• 21:11
  always hoping for repentance. These are excellent diagnostic.
• 21:14
  Tools. I mean, if search committees and
• 21:16
  congregations actually use these, we would save our
• 21:18
  churches so much grief. We do.
• 21:20
  We check. For theological precision, which
• 21:22
  is good, we need that, but we often fail to check.
• 21:25
  For spiritual reflexes, we need to know what his knee jerk
• 21:28
  reaction is when he gets hit. OK, So what are the?
• 21:31
  Instructions for the church. We have listeners who are
• 21:34
  members, lay leaders, deacons. What should they do with all
• 21:37
  this? Well.
• 21:38
  Regarding examining candidates, don't just look at the resume or
• 21:42
  how well he preaches A sermon. Conduct reference checks
• 21:45
  specifically about his temper, ask his former colleagues, asked
• 21:49
  his wife if that's appropriate and can be done safely.
• 21:52
  Ask his children, ask his coworkers, and ask this
• 21:55
  question. Does he make meetings safer and
• 21:58
  clearer, or tenser and more tribal?
• 22:00
  That's a great question. Then there's the congregation's
• 22:03
  responsibility when it comes time to vote.
• 22:05
  The source warns against voting for the strong end.
• 22:07
  This goes right. Back to that cultural anxiety we
• 22:09
  talked about at the beginning. When the world feels hostile,
• 22:12
  churches want a fighter. They want someone who will stand
• 22:15
  up to the culture and own the libs.
• 22:17
  So they vote for the guy with the biggest sword.
• 22:20
  But the warning is this. A man who fights the world with
• 22:23
  carnal weapons, with anger, vitriol, aggression, will
• 22:27
  eventually turn and use those same weapons on the church.
• 22:31
  That is a chilling. Thought the sword you hire to
• 22:34
  protect you will eventually be turned on you.
• 22:36
  It's inevitable. It's his nature.
• 22:38
  He is a fighter. If he runs out of enemies
• 22:40
  outside the walls, he will find enemies inside the walls.
• 22:43
  The church needs protectors, not aggressors.
• 22:46
  Then there's the issue. Of installation and oversight.
• 22:49
  So once we have these men in office, how do we keep them
• 22:52
  accountable to them? We need to charge.
• 22:53
  New elders publicly to be junkle make it part of the installation
• 22:57
  vows, and the existing elders must hold each other accountable
• 23:01
  for tone. It is not enough to correct bad
• 23:03
  theology, we have to correct bad tone.
• 23:06
  If an elder is harsh or sarcastic in a meeting, another
• 23:09
  elder needs to love him enough to pull him aside and say,
• 23:12
  brother, that was not the spirit of Christ.
• 23:14
  We need a culture. Where repentance is normal for
• 23:16
  leaders, not a sign of weakness. Yes.
• 23:20
  A culture where it is safe for a leader to stand up and say I was
• 23:24
  harsh, I sinned, I am sorry. That models the gospel for the
• 23:29
  whole flock more powerfully than 100 sermons on the topic as we
• 23:33
  start to wrap. Up here, I want to summarize the
• 23:35
  picture that we're seeing. The biblical elder is called to
• 23:38
  be a man of gentle authority. Gentle.
• 23:41
  Authority. He is patterned after Christ.
• 23:44
  Just think of Jesus. He was strong enough to silence
• 23:47
  every critic. He was powerful enough to calm
• 23:49
  the storm with a word, yet he was restrained enough to entrust
• 23:53
  himself to the Father. He watched the feet of the very
• 23:56
  man who would betray and abandoned him.
• 23:58
  It's strength. Under perfect control, it's the
• 24:00
  lion. Who is also the lamb I want to
• 24:02
  leave our. Listeners with one final thought
• 24:04
  from the source material, it connects this internal character
• 24:07
  trait of being a machos to the church's witness in the world
• 24:11
  this is where it. Becomes a powerful apologetic.
• 24:13
  The world expects the church to be just another special interest
• 24:16
  group fighting for power. They expect us to be loud,
• 24:18
  angry, and grasping for control, just like every other political
• 24:21
  tribe they see. They expect us to.
• 24:23
  Play by their rules exactly. But when leaders exhibit the
• 24:27
  Amacha spirit, when they refuse to return evil for evil, when
• 24:31
  they are reviled and do not revile in return, it offers an
• 24:34
  apologetic that no argument can overthrow.
• 24:37
  It shows the world that we possess a piece that they do not
• 24:40
  have. It shows them that we are
• 24:42
  citizens of a different Kingdom, a Kingdom where the.
• 24:45
  King conquered not by killing his enemies, but by dying for
• 24:49
  them. And if our leaders.
• 24:50
  Look like that, king, the world might just stop and listen to
• 24:53
  the message we are preaching. That's the goal.
• 24:55
  Fighting for the flock without fighting with the flock.
• 24:58
  Thanks for joining us on this deep dive into reformed
• 25:00
  thinking. We hope this challenges you,
• 25:02
  maybe to check your own heart before you send that next tweet
• 25:05
  or enter that next difficult meeting.
• 25:07
  We'll see you next time.