O.k., here’s a tough one for me to write… I’ve been wrestling with this because of how easily it could be construed as self-serving, but then realized that to not “get it out there” makes the damage all the more likely.

A close friend recently asked me how to handle someone whom he felt was criticizing the pastor of his church. As a pastor, I understand what it means to live “in the fishbowl”, and how difficult it can be for a pastor’s family to deal with the continual “Monday morning quarterbacking” that can go on, and the way people can pick apart every mistake that he, or his wife, or children makes. But the truth is that a critical spirit does the most damage to the one who’s tongue expresses it (Matt. 12:34). God can and does bless leaders and their houses whether people are following joyfully or reluctantly, but the enemy tries to destroy souls – especially new believers – by tearing down the esteem they have for their leaders. When new Christians lose their ability to see their leaders as men and women of God, Satan can separate them from the growth that God wants to bring into their lives through those leaders (Eph. 4:11-13). Beyond that, those who give license to a critical spirit are bringing curses into their own lives and homes. As I recently told another friend, “I’ve never led anyone into the desert for them to go for days without food and water, but even under those conditions the Lord didn’t allow grumbling!” (Ex. 16).

Think of it this way. Suppose you were going out of town for a couple of weeks, and you entrusted your children to my care. If you returned and found that your children had been rude, disobedient, and disrespectful towards me, you would not be angry with me for doing what you asked me to do for you – you’d be furious with your children, and would probably punish them severely. You wouldn’t allow your children to say “But he didn’t let me do what I wanted to do!” No, if I had cared for them according to the instructions you left, the blame, and the consequences, would fall on your children. It’s the same with God. God appoints leaders to do His will in the church, and to serve in His absence (Matt. 24:45,46), and gives them authority to do that work. If the children of God grumble and criticize, then God is not angry with the leader, He is angry with the one whom He entrusted to the leader’s care. It’s one thing if the leader is guilty of violating the standard of the Word, and that’s why God gave us the scriptures as that standard. But unless that sin can be clearly identified scripturally and with witnesses, the Word tells us not to even entertain an accusation, let alone make it public (1Tim. 5:19). It’s a biblical truth that is too often either misused as a means of control, or avoided out of fear that it will be perceived in that way. Sadly, the enemy capitalizes on this, and the Body of Christ is often wounded because the principal goes undeclared and unimplemented.

Here’s something else (no extra charge!). Be careful about placing periods where God places commas. Momentary “snapshots” don’t always tell how the rest of the story will play out. I once knew a preacher’s kid who grew up on the mission field, in a Christian home, with praying, godly parents. His father is one of the greatest and most anointed pastors I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, but this young man – as you might expect he would – didn’t come to Christ as a small child, or even as a teenager. No, he didn’t give His life to the Lord until he was in his 20’s. When I met his young man, he was smoking, drinking, sleeping with his girlfriend, and playing guitar in a heavy metal band. I’m sure there had to have been people in the church who would have whispered that something must be wrong in his home for him not to have accepted the Lord, or those who gossiped in the name of “concern”. As a young, unsaved man myself, I paid no attention to such matters, and probably would not have cared at all about the “church politics” that affected his parents. But as a pastor and a father of five, I can only imagine how that father and mother must have wrestled in prayer for their child to surrender his life to Jesus, and how difficult it must have been to minister to other families while watching their own son live a life of rejection of everything that was precious to them. So what happened? Well, eventually this young man did come to Christ, and repent of his sins, and actually led others to the Lord – including the pastor who’s writing this! Both of us are still serving the Lord to this day.

I wonder what ever happened to those grumblers?


Dave