2. Second, a leader is only ever a sub- leader, under Jesus. All people and every thing that we lead belong to him, and not to us. That means that you’ll never be a better leader than you were a follower. It also means that you can never lord it over people, since they belong to the Lord.

3. Third, true leadership is done from fullness – the fullness of the Lord – and not from emptiness in order to be filled. Leadership often brings rewards – being at the center of a community, being seen and appreciated etc. If a leader doesn’t have a soul that is filled with the grace and love of God, then those things will be used as substitutes. That is a recipe for disaster!

4. The best gift a leader can bring to a community is a non-anxious presence. A non-anxious presence is neither defensive, withdrawn, aggressive, domineering or demanding. It is being able to acknowledge one’s own values, stand for them, without demanding that others be the same as you. A non-anxious leader doesn’t require that everyone is the same in order to get on with people.

5. At the practical level, what a leader does is indicate a pathway from here to there. That is, the is a present reality, which needs to be understood accurately. And there is a vision, a picture of a preferred future that inspires commitment and action. And the practical task of the leader is to articulate the facts about the present, the vision of the future, and the pathway between the one and the other.

Andrew Katay is the senior minister of Christ Church Inner West Anglican Community (CCIW). He is currently doing a Doctor of Ministry program through Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, with a concentration in Leadership.

1. They are a good read.  As history, they tell the compelling story of a church gone wild, riven with factions, envy and arrogant boasting.  As literature, they have plenty to keep you reading and then re-reading, including impassioned appeals, elaborate metaphors, surprising rhetorical twists, biting sarcasm and puzzling explanations of the most profound mysteries.  As theology, they teach us much about the grace of God, the death of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.  What more do you want?

2. There was no Christ party.  1 Corinthians 1:12 is often thought to indicate that there were four parties in the church in Corinth, with factions gathered around Paul, Apollos, Cephas and Christ.  I am convinced that no onewas saying, ‘I belong to Christ,’ and that was the problem.  Belonging to Christ is Paul’s solution to inappropriate allegiances to church leaders, as the end of chapter 3 indicates.

3. One of the big problems with preferring one minister over another is that it impoverishes us all.  We don’t belong to our leaders.  In fact, they belong to us, and we all belong to God.

4. Paul’s use of the OT is key to the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 1-4.  There are six quotations from the OT in chapters 1-3 and all four chapters are littered with OT allusions and echoes.  When you notice these it’s like watching television in colour rather than black and white.  A deeper and richer picture takes shape.

5. The cross means the end of the world as we know it.  Its not just the way we get saved, but also the way we are supposed to live.  In the death of Jesus the weakness of God overpowers the world’s strength and the foolishness of God outsmarts the world’s wisdom.  This has implications for all of life.

Brian Rosner

1) Writing is hard work. Be thankful for writers that have helped you know God better–their labour was hard and costly.

2) I don’t really understand what I’m thinking until I write it down or talk to someone about it. It turns out I’m not quite the self-sufficient individual I though I was. Most of my ideas come from other people, and even the ideas I’m trying to think up myself don’t really take shape until I share them!

3) Cultures are different, yet we are all human. We do similar things, like earn a living, or reject God, but in very different ways. This includes responding to the gospel. By definition, responding to the gospel means confessing Jesus as Lord, but what discipleship looks like for a villager from another religious background in Indonesia struggling with poverty or persecution and a middle-class Sydney-sider struggling with affluence will be very different.

4) One thing we all do is try to make sense of the world. We do so in a way that combines head and heart, such that our fundamental beliefs about the world and the way we are in the world–the way we feel and act–mutually reinforce each other. That’s why an unloving culture in a church damages not just feelings and relationships but people’s faith; the gospel of love seems unreal when those who espouse it seem to hate each other. For those living in fear of spirits, the gospel will also seem unreal if Christ’s victory over all forces of evil is not made clear–missionaries have been known to dismiss such fears as superstition, rather than preaching Christ’s power over them. For others, emphasising that Jesus’ resurrection is a fact may have less impact than explaining how in the resurrection God gives the ignominiously crucified Jesus the highest honour–the latter being as challenging for someone in an honour-shame culture to accept as the former is for a modern skeptic. The gospel is true, and glorious, and powerful. It has the resources to connect with and enrich and challenge all kinds of cultures–provided we don’t get in the way and require people to see the gospel from our point of view, as if our way of making sense of the world is the only way that makes sense.

5) In conclusion, the Bible is rich. People from different cultures will draw different implications from the Bible, not because they are confused, even less because the Bible is confused, but rather because the Bible contains more than any one culture can grasp.

Thanks

Andrew Buchanan

We asked the Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen to list five things that he had come to understand about the Holy Spirit, this is what he said:

I have been asked to write on this subject and I really like the heading I have been given. It reminds us that in the things of God we usually ‘come to understand’, we grow in     our knowledge. And that has certainly been my experience of understanding the Spirit. Furthermore, I am certain that there is still much more growing to do!

Now what would I say are my ‘five things’?

1. The Holy Spirit is a great go-between. I know that I have the Holy Spirit in my life because I call Jesus my Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3) and God my Father (Galatians 4:6). He glorifies the Father and the Son by relating me properly to them. I don’t have to look for lesser ‘miracles’ as a sign of his presence. The great miracle of my relationship with God is his work and the evidence of his daily fellowship.

2.The Holy Spirit is a great persuader. He gives us assurance of salvation. He takes the word of God, especially the word of the cross, and persuades me that in spite of my sin, the Lord had died for me and there is forgiveness (Romans 5:1-10).

3. The Holy Spirit is a great leader. He has inspired the Scriptures and he opens my heart to what God is saying to me in the Bible. As I hear what God says and obey it, I am being led by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:6-13).

4. The Holy Spirit is a great sanctifier. He convicts me of sin, empowers me in my daily struggle against it, and gives me the fruit of his presence in my life. This is called ‘walking by the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:16-26).

5. The Holy Spirit is a great unifier. He unites us to Christ and so to all who belong to Jesus. He enables us to serve the Lord in his strength and through his gifts. He is the Spirit of wisdom and of power. The love he works in us is set to work in serving others, especially my brothers and sisters in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 12).

6. The Holy Spirit is a great intercessor. (I know I was only asked for five things, but I keep thinking of extra ones). When we do not know how to pray as we ought, the Spirit is praying for us the sort of prayer that will please God. He is a great Advocate! (Romans 8:26-27).

One last caution: there is a human tendency to confuse the Holy Spirit with the human spirit. You are not a Christian unless you have first hand experience of the Holy Spirit. But the fundamental experience of the Spirit is our capacity to call Jesus Lord and God our Father. When we start trying to listen in the depths of our hearts for his voice, we are in danger of confusing our own sinful desires with the leading of the Lord. We may look super-spiritual but in fact be disobedient.

The Most Rev Peter Jensen, is the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Australia, and Metropolitan of the Province of New South Wales. You can visit his page here.