Christian Leadership in Action

Matthew 9:1-7 shows the leadership skills of Jesus as he places a priority on the reason for His ministry. While He is in the process of gathering His disciples, Jesus takes advantage of a situation to place an emphasis on what He wanted His followers to prioritize. On the surface, it looks as though this is a story about healing but a deeper look reveals an emphasis on forgiveness. The inner textual approach to socio-rhetorical interpretation concerns itself with features like the repetition of words. Three times in these seven verses, Jesus refers to forgiveness of sins. They brought Jesus a man sick with the palsy in order to get him healed, yet Jesus looks beyond the temporal and prioritizes the eternal by forgiving his sins. This is real Christian leadership in action. Aubrey Malpurs, in his book Being Leaders: The Nature of Authentic Christian Leadership, states: “A Christian leader is a servant with the credibility and capabilities to influence people in a particular context to pursue their God-given direction.” Jesus establishes His credibility by healing the man, but the repetition indicates that He was most interested in the mans eternal soul as well as influencing His followers to pursue their “God given direction” which was to preach the forgiveness of sins through Christ.