Structure Versus Leadership

By David M. Battle
Originally Published in
Winter 2010
Over the years, the Church has contented with people who have forgotten basic hermeneutics.
They go through Scripture and study a single subject. As they read through the narratives,
they find what they believe to be is a specific pattern. They develop the pattern into a
template which is then used to interpret all passages in which that subject can be found.
Finally they take the template and make it a proscriptive mandate for the Church in all times
and places. In short, they take descriptive passages of Scripture and create proscriptive
mandates. This is a common cause for divisions to arise in the Church throughout history.

We can clearly see this in the matter of church governance. The Protestant traditions
contended with this problem. You have the episcopal forms of government which continue
the patterns that grew from time of Rome through to the Reformation itself. During the
Reformation, there was the reformed system in which councils of religious scholars ruled.
The Presbyterians said that the local church should be ruled by councils of presbyters. The
Puritans fought for a congregational government. The various forms of congregational
governments have tended to dominate among American churches, and American missionaries
have exported it to the rest of the world. Each group claimed to have found a divinely
ordained pattern in the Scriptures which supported their particular form of government. Yet,
they all have the same flaw. They take descriptive passages and create a proscriptive template.

In this essay, I will not be arguing against the use of these templates. In certain passages, a
particular template may be valid and may even be useful for understanding the passage. What
I will argue is that the template, though valid, should not be viewed as a universal norm for
all times and in all places. This is especially true when creating a particular structure of
government. Those who know history will understand this. Even the same form will change
structure over time. The Government of the United States in 1780’s was not the same in 1850.
It underwent a significant change in the 1860's and again in early 1900's. Even as I write this
essay, the U.S. government has undergone another massive transformation. The irony is that
none of these transformations have created the perfect society nor will they ever be able to do
so.

This history points to the second flaw of those who demand a specific structure of governance
as a divine mandate for the Church. They actually believe that if we only followed the right
template of governance all our problems will be over. This attitude is reflected by the ancient
Israelites when they demanded a king. They were tired of having a mere tribal structure that
was supplemented by the Levites and the priests. They were too divided. They needed more
unity in order to deal with the political and military pressures from the nations around them.
So they demanded a king who would be able to centralize power and effectively protect their
interests. Samuel felt that the people had rejected him, but God comforted him by noting that
the people had not rejected Samuel but God (1 Sam 8:7). This would seem to imply that the
governance structure that the tribes of Israel had before the monarchy was a divinely
mandated one. Yet, is this the case? Was the tribal structure of elders a divinely mandated
one?
The answer may surprise you. God did not mandate the tribal elder system of government. If
we look throughout the Old Testament one will find that the elders played an important roll in
the governance of the nation of Israel beginning in the tribal period, through the monarchies,
and into the post-exilic period. God used these elders to work out His plan. But He did not
mandate any of the various elder-forms of government.

When God was forming the nation of Israel, He gave Moses detailed instructions on how to
build the Tabernacle, how the priest were to dress, and how they were to conduct the rituals.
He instructed the people on how to distinguish between the holy and the mundane, the pure
and the impure. He also gave detailed instructions on matters of family, civil and criminal
justice. In all of these matters, God gave explicit instructions when forming His people into a
nation. Three books of the Bible are dedicated to how God wanted things to be run among
His people. Yet, the text leaves out one glaring omission on God's part: He gave little or no
instructions on the precise structure that would govern the nation.

How could He overlook such a basic point? Is He not concerned about the governance of His
people? Should not His nation have an organized way of doing things? I would say, “Yes”,
but for some reason God did not find the matter of structure or even form to be important
enough to spell out. In fact, God did not instruct Moses on how to organize the people. Jethro,
a visiting Midiante, instructed Moses on how to organize the people (Exodus 18). While
Moses did put the Jethro's counsel in action with God's approval, the simple point is God did
not bother to mandate a specific structure to Moses. A visiting foreigner advised Moses on
this matter.

Why would God have let a foreigner instruct His prophet on how to organize His nation? Is
God not concerned about the structure of government for His own people? I am sure He is,
but His habit seems to be to let the people organize themselves as they see fit. God knows
people. He also knows that human structures are transitory things. Effective structures are
task focused. Ineffective structures are focused on self preservation and status. If God had
mandated a particular structure, it would not be long before we would become so wrapped in
that structure that we would cease to do the mission for which He has commissioned us. Even
without God explicitly mandating a specific structure, we still get caught up in preserving and
demanding institutional authority and loyalty at the expense of His work. Only the Lord,
knows, how bad it would be had He divinely instituted a specific structure for His church. We
do not need His help in messing things up.

In stead of structure, we find that God is very concerned about other matters such as the
character of leadership, the qualifications of leaders, and the fulfillment of the divine mission.
As long as we have qualified and able leaders who manage the mission of God with wisdom
and godliness, we will have God's blessing. The moment we take our eyes off the tasks that
God has given us and make absolute these transitory these, such as earthly structures; we will
begin to lose our spiritual vitality. In other words, various structures help us accomplish
various tasks, but we always need capable, wise, and godly leaders. Leadership is more
important than structure.