a noble task

1 Timothy 3:1: “Here is a trustworthy saying: Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.”

I’ve always cringed when I read this, because it sounds like a way to pat ourselves on the back for something we would do for ourselves anyway. I mean, most people prefer leadership posts to following. They like the attention, the power to call the shots, the ability once in a while to make it easy on themselves. Or they think they’ll be able to make things easy for their own group, and hard for people they don’t like. Being the leader is the best way to get your own way.

I guess, as I think about it, that may never have occurred to Paul. Paul mean’t exactly what he said most of the time, and in this case I think that his motives were pure. Paul didn’t want anything for himself, so he understood leadership as a great service. 

Paul understood something: the church, and individual Christians, need leaders. This is a gift along with all the other gifts by which God equips his church. Just as some are called to preach and teach, others are called to see the vision and help everyone else see it. Some are called to humbly and gently rebuke and restore us when we sin. Some are gifted to take care of the hundreds of details that keep an institution afloat. 

Leadership is a noble task. It’s too bad we’ve learned to do it for ignoble purposes.