Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Your leaders must give an account for how they led you
It is right there in Hebrews 13?17. Obey your leaders for they have to give an account to God for how they led you.
I have sometimes heard it expressed as if God is going to call the role of members in front of elders and ask if they watched over their souls. I get it. Even the "you are responsible for their souls" is a sentiment I understand.
But no leader is responsible for your salvation. That is up to you. Between you and Jesus.
No leader will be accountable for your decision about Jesus.
But I do think spiritual leaders are responsible for how they led you.
That would include being aware of what your spiritual diet is. Are you being fed a healthy dose of Scripture? Is it a healthy view of God's word?
Are you encouraged/led to serve others?
Are you encouraged/led to tell others the good news?
And what did your leaders do when you strayed for the Jesus way? Did they talk with you, pray over you, show up for you? Did they speak truth into your life? Did they plead and/or beg you to return to the light?
Those are the kind of things I believe we leaders are going to be asked. Did we try to keep you in the light until you got home.
We are not responsible for your salvation. We are responsible for doing all we can to enable your salvation in Christ.
So elders/leaders/parents... give yourself some slack. You are not responsible for saving anyone. That is between them and Jesus.
You are responsible for teaching, pleading, praying, helping all your people get home.
Do what you can and should do.
That really is all you can do.
WEB Eph 4:1 He gave some to be ... shepherds ... for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ....
The gift of being a shepherd is not given to make sure we honor God properly in our decent and orderly "worship services" or to make sure the church business is properly administered. It's given for the growth of the sheep. That's the emphasis given to our assembling; to encourage / build up / console one-another and to spur one-another to love and good works. That seems to me a much harder (and more Grad-Level Professional) job than picking the men to serve on the table every week.
Your post does good to point out that shepherds will be held accountable for the condition of the sheep.
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