4 The Problem of Youth: How to Be a Leader When Comparatively Young
The Problem of Youth How to Be a Leader When Comparatively Young It's hard to be a leader when comparatively young. I do not regard myself as young, but youth is a period of great joy and privilege.
When we are young we are strong and energetic.
We have confidence and enthusiasm. It's great to be young. At the same time, it can be extremely frustrating. The older generation does not always trust young people. They often treat them as if they were still kids. They don't easily accept them as adults in their own right, and they find it difficult to accept them as leaders.
Thus young people often get irritated and frustrated. What can they do?
Problems of Christian Leadership Let's study a passage of Scripture and learn some lessons from Timothy. Paul writes in 1
Timothy 4:11–5:5:
Command and teach these things. Don't let anyone look down on you becuase you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.
Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.
Let's look again at verses 11 and 12. "Command and teach these things. Don't let anyone look
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down on you because you are young." I think the tension is clearly seen in both verses. On the one hand, Timothy has been put in the position of authority. He was the apostle Paul's delegate or representative in Corinth, and therefore it was his job to command and teach these things. In other words, he was to pass on to the church at Ephesus the doctrines and duties of the apostle
Paul, so there was his authority.
On the other hand, he was still a relatively young man. The Greek word for youth was used to describe people at least until the age of forty.
Probably Timothy was still in his thirties, and compared with some of the elders in the church he may have seemed very young. There was a real danger that some would despise his youth and reject his ministry. Perhaps some of the elders were resentful that he had been promoted over their heads. They may have rejected his authority because of his youth and rejected his ministry because he was inexperienced.
Perhaps you can see yourself in his position.
How should young leaders react if their ministry is being rejected or resented? Not by anger or resentment. Not by becoming aggressive or oppressing themselves. But, and this is a strong
Problems of Christian Leadership adversative in the Greek, Paul spells out an alternative way. J. B. Phillips put it quite well:
"Don't let people look down on you because you are young; see that they look up to you because you are an example to them in your speech and behavior, in your love and faith and sincerity."
Watch Your Example Paul gives Timothy six words of advice. First, watch your example. Verse 12, set an example. If Timothy wanted his leadership to be accepted, he must set a good example. They would not despise his youth if they could admire his life.
Setting an example is the new style of leadership that Jesus introduced into the world. It is leader ship by example instead of by autocracy. When our authority is questioned, threatened or resisted, the great temptation is to insist more strongly, but we have to resist that temptation.
Notice how comprehensive his example and model is to be: in speech and life, in love and faith and purity. Perhaps that is the hardest: faith in God and self-control. It would be hard to exaggerate the disastrous consequences of a bad example or the beneficial influences of a good one. So the first advice to a young leader is: watch your example.
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Identify Your Authority Second, identify your authority. In verse 13 Paul says, "Until I come." Those words express his self-conscious, apostolic authority. When he was personally present in Ephesus, he would exercise authority. He would be the teacher of doctrine and ethics. He would settle disputes and administer discipline. So the question was what was to happen when he was absent.
Timothy, however, was not an apostle, so how should he behave?
Paul says, "Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture.'' Some versions simply say, "Devote yourself to reading," but the Greek verb for reading is anagnosis, which is always used as public reading either of a petition, of a will, or from the pulpit. What document was
Timothy to read publicly? Well, certainly the Old Testament Scriptures. Anagnosis is used of Ezra's reading of the law, and also in Nehemiah 8:8, and it is used of Jesus' reading of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue. In the synagogue services, the law and the prophets were always read.
But surely Paul is not only referring to the Old Testament Scriptures. He must have been referring to his own letters and the letters of the
Problems of Christian Leadership other apostles, for in other places he directly says his message should be read publicly. See these references: 1 Thessalonians 5:27, "I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers." Colossians 4:16, "After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans." Revelation 1:3,
"Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy." In the Christian assemblies there would be two public readings: not the Law and the Prophets as in the synagogues, but the Old
Testament on the one hand and the apostles' letters and memoirs on the other. Of course that is the origin of our having an Old and a New
Testament lesson in church today. Each local church began to make its own collection of these authoritative Christian writings.
But there was something else that Timothy was to do. He was not only to read the Scriptures but to preach and teach out of them. Preaching and teaching is literally exhortation and instruction. Now it was already a custom in the synagogue. First there was the reading and then the instruction or exhortation of it, and the practice was taken over into the Christian assembly. This is what Timothy was to do in the
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absence of the apostle, and in the absence of the apostle, we must do the same when we read that from the Scriptures. We are identifying our authority. The careful exegesis of Scripture is essential for the young leader, so first watch your example and second identify your authority.
Exercise Your Gifts Thirdly, exercise your gifts. Verse 14, "Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you." The reference seems to be to what we would call Timothy's ordination, at which the elders laid their hands on him, the prophetic office was given, and at the same time a spiritual gift was bestowed on Timothy. The Greek word there is charisma. We're not told what that charisma was, but clearly it was some kind of ordination gift, perhaps the authority to preach together with the power of the Spirit equipping him to do so. This gift for ministry
Timothy must not neglect but rather he must kindle it, as Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:6.
So Timothy had to remember that God had called him to his ministry and gifted him for it, and that the church had recognized his call and
Problems of Christian Leadership gifts by the laying on of hands. If he would exercise his gifts and ministry, people would not despise his youth. All spiritual gifts are gifts for ministry, and people are not likely to reject our ministry if they can see our gifts, because then they have to concede that God has gifted us for the ministry.
Share Your Progress The fourth piece of advice: share your progress.
Verse 15, "Be diligent in these matters, give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress." So far Paul has referred to Timothy's example, authority, commission and gifts. Now he says, "Be diligent in these matters and devote yourself, hold yourself wholly to them, because if you do that people will see your progress."
Timothy was not only to be conscientious, he was also to show improvement in his ministry.
He was to grow in spiritual maturity and ministry. People were to see not only what he was but what he was becoming. I think that's very important for young leaders, because sometimes leaders are put on a pedestal and then they are supposed to be perfect. But this is dishonest in
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itself, and it's very discouraging for other people.
Instead we are to echo what Paul says, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect" (Philippians 3:12 nasb). So let it be seen that we are making progress.
Mind Your Consistency Now the fifth bit of advice: mind your consistency.
Verse 16, "Watch your life and doctrine closely.
Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." It is important to see how Paul links his life and his teaching. Literally he must pay close attention both to himself and to his doctrine. That combination is significant. He was neither to neglect himself in teaching others nor was he to neglect others in being concerned with himself. He was to practice what he preached and to apply his teaching to himself and others equally. Balanced Christian leadership demands that we persevere in both.
Then we will save both ourselves and others.
Paul has not lost his reason and begun to preach self-salvation. He is simply warning that faith without works is dead, and it's no good our teaching other people if we don't practice what we preach.
Problems of Christian Leadership Adjust Your Relationships That leads me to the sixth piece of advice: adjust your relationships. From the evidence of 1 Timothy
5:1-2 it is clear that the congregation that Timothy was responsible for was mixed. It was mixed in sex, both male and female, and it was mixed in age, both old and young. So the age and sex of people should determine Timothy's attitude toward them. Take the older people first.
Timothy might have to admonish people much older than himself. If so, he must do it as an exhortation and not as a rebuke. "Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father." The senior members were to be given respect due to age and the affection due to parents. In other words, he was to treat older men as fathers and older women as mothers.
I am often called "Uncle John," and there is a good theological reason for this. This is my
Scriptural warrant. I genuinely believe that we should recognize the generation gap in the Christian community. Sometimes students in London come up to me and call me "John" even when I do not know who they are, and even if I am older than their father or in some cases their grandfather! I think that is unnatural. Of
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course I recognize that there is a cultural element here, but in the cultures of Africa and Asia, a young person would never dream of calling an older one by his first name, and the young people always call the older ones "uncle."
Let us take Timothy's own generation. He was to treat the younger men as brothers, that is loving them and not talking down to them, and he was to treat the younger women as sisters, loving them too but with absolute purity, taking sensible precautions to avoid immorality.
So the local church is a family. In the local church there are fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. Young Christian leaders must be sensitive to these differences, not treating everybody alike but treating the elders with respect, their own generation with equality, the opposite sex with restraint and charity, and all of the ages of both sexes with the love that binds the Christian family together.
Let me recapitulate these six pieces of advice, for there is much practical wisdom here for the young leader. One, watch your example, setting the believers a good one. Two, identify your authority, reading and expounding the Scriptures.
Three, exercise your gifts, so people see evidence
Problems of Christian Leadership of God's call and equipment. Four, show your progress, so that your spiritual growth is obvious to everybody. Five, mind your consistency, committing no dichotomies between your teaching and your behavior. Six, adjust your relationships, treating members of the church family according to their age and sex.
If young leaders follow these apostolic instructions, they will be able to command and teach out of the Scripture, as verse 11 says, without finding that their youth is despised or that their ministry is rejected.
The Christian leader has been commissioned by God for a task of responsibility and service.
Every leader faces pressures and conflicts that arise from the spiritual battle that Satan is waging against the gospel and those who proclaim it. But Christian leaders know that the Lord is the one who trains, nourishes and accompanies them. If we learn to heed the teachings of our Master, if we obey his commandments, if we follow in his footsteps, then our yoke will be light and we can fulfill our mission effectively and with joy.