St. Paul on Leadership

 St. Paul has a lot to say about leadership—good and bad leadership—and how it influences the Church today, just as it did 2,200 years ago. Revelation is the “revealing” of God’s plan to us. It “clues us in” to what He is doing with us and how we can live our lives for His purpose—not our own. Revelation is transmitted in a variety of ways. In St. Paul’s case, he originally had virulent anti-Christian beliefs which gave him the experience of conversion and God came to work through this experience as a way to reveal Himself to us.

God has worked to “write straight with crooked lines” with St. Paul and He has done with many of us. In St. Paul’s case, because he’s not so much recounting Jesus’ life and ministry like the Gospels are, but he’s commenting on, and explaining, how the Gospels say we should live the Christian life—how we should be leaders.

Here are some of the things that I’ve come away with learning about leadership from Saint Paul:

• St. Paul often employs the “we” more often than not and is often addressing an entire community of believers. Thus, we too are called to work as a team—as a Church, one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

·         St. Paul begins most of his letters with a formal thanksgiving; we should always keep gratitude at the forefront of our mind, even when dealing with people we dislike or disagree with. We are grateful that God has seen fit to put these people and situations in our lives as a way to bring Christ to them (and to us).

·         Finally, St. Paul gives us some wonderful tenants to live by in the real world as leaders. His letters to St. Timothy, for example. While they often discuss how clergy or bishops should behave, or things to avoid, their universal nature is impressive and impresses upon us—as the Christian faithful—that we too have these obligations.

One of my favorite quotes from St. Paul is about modeling his example in our lives as leaders: “[follow] my teaching, way of life, purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, and suffering…” (2 Tim 3:10-11a).  

We must model the way of Jesus, the Disciples, and St. Paul the Apostle in a way that truly brings Christ to everyone—including ourselves—everyday.

 

Photo: Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) Saint Paul ca. 1520. Yale University Art Gallery.

https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/14863