Romans 12.8c-The Permanent Spiritual Gift Of Leadership
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday October 25, 2009
Romans: Romans 12:8c-The Permanent Spiritual Gift Of Leadership
Lesson # 412
Please turn in your Bibles to Romans 12:1.
This morning we will continue with our study of Romans 12:8 by noting the permanent spiritual gift of leadership.
Romans 12:1, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
Romans 12:4-5, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
Romans 12:6, “Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith.”
Romans 12:7, “If service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching.”
Romans 12:8, “Or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
“He who leads” is the articular nominative masculine singular present middle participle form of the verb proistemi (proi+sthmi) (pro-is-tay-mee), which is a compound word composed of the preposition pro, “before” and the verb histemi, “to stand,” thus the word literally means “to stand before.”
In classical Greek, this verb was used of those who “stood before” an army in order to lead or of those who “stood over” the affairs of government.
It also indicated the support, help and care offered by those in permanent positions.
This verb appears only seven times in the Septuagint where in most cases it is used substantively as a participle to indicate the head of a house (2 Samuel 13:17 [LXX 2 Kings 13:17]; Proverbs 23;5; Amos 6:10 [Septuagint only] or the priests of a temple (Bel and the Dragon 8).
In Titus 3:8 and 14, it means “to shown concern for” or be “engaged in” good works on behalf of the body of Christ.
It appears in 1 Thessalonians 5:12 and in this passage Paul commands the Thessalonian church to appreciate those who diligently labor among them and have authority over them in the Lord and give them instruction.
This indicates that he is referring to the pastor-teacher since his gift is instructing the body of Christ in the Word of God.
Proistemi appears twice in 1 Timothy 3:4-5 and this passage Paul is identifying the qualifications for the man with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher, one of which is that he must do a good job of exercising his authority in his own home before he is given responsibility over the flock of God.
It is found in 1 Timothy 3:12 where Paul is listing the qualifications of a deacon, and like the pastor, a deacon must be someone who does a good job of exercising authority over his children and own household before they are given the responsibility to exercise authority over the flock of God.
In 1 Timothy 5:17, Paul teaches Timothy that elders who lead well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.
1 Timothy 5:17, “The elders who rule well are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.”
This would indicate that pastor-teachers are to be considered worthy of double honor if they work hard at preaching and teaching since their gift involves these two functions, which are directly related to each other since they both deal with communicating the Word of God.
This passage also makes a distinction between elders who communicate the Word of God and those who don’t since Paul singles out those elders, i.e. the pastor-teachers who work hard at communicating the Word of God.
This indicates that elders are those who are pastor-teachers or those who exercise the gift of teaching and those who exercise the gift of leadership, which Paul mentions with the verb proistemi in Romans 12:8.
Therefore, in Romans 12:8, the verb proistemi in the middle voice means “to devote oneself to the exercise or function of leadership” and refers to the function of the permanent spiritual gift of leadership.
It is permanent in that it was not discontinued with the completion of the canon of Scripture as was the case with the gift of prophecy.
This gift is identified by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:28 as “administrations” which translates the noun kubernesis (kubevrnhsi$) (koo-ber-nay-sis).
1 Corinthians 12:28, “And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.”
The noun kubernesis is related to the verb kubernao, which means “to steer a ship.”
It is used figuratively in classical Greek of statesmen meaning “the government of states” and of deity meaning “divine governance.”
It is used three times in the Septuagint of wise counsel or direction and appears only once in the Greek New Testament and means “administration.”
In 1 Corinthians 12:28, this word refers to the spiritual gift of leadership and those men who help the pastor-teacher lead and administrate the affairs of the church.
Those individuals who possess this gift of leadership, along with the pastor-teachers, help compose the leadership of the local church.
These individuals often hold the office of deacon, which remember is not a spiritual gift since it was established by the apostles and those who were deacons were elected by the Jerusalem congregation according to Acts 6:1-6.
The spiritual gift of leadership does not signify an ecclesiastical office but rather is a gift that manifests itself in leading the local assembly in various ways.
Those individuals with this gift are often found in the board of directors of local churches.
Like the gift of teaching, only men have been given the gift of leadership by the Holy Spirit since Paul teaches in 1 Timothy 2:12-14 that a woman is prohibited from exercising authority over men because of the divine order and because Eve was deceived and Adam was not.
Now, like the pastor-teacher, those believers with the gift of leadership are to adhere to the principles of leadership taught by the Lord Jesus Christ, namely, humility (Matthew 20:24-28).
The pastor-teacher’s humility and the humility of those who possess the gift of leadership are expressed through their dedicated, self-sacrifice and service to the congregation (John 13:1-17).
Like the man with the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher, the man with the spiritual gift of leadership must govern the church according to principles found in the Word of God.
Romans 12:8, “Or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.”
“With diligence” is composed of the preposition en (e)n), “with” and the articular dative feminine singular form of the noun spoude (spoudhv) (spoo-day), “diligence.”
In Romans 12:8, the noun spoude means “diligence,” which denotes constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken.
Therefore, the man with the spiritual gift of leadership is to exercise his gift with diligence in the sense that he is to be constantly and earnestly devoted to working hard on behalf of the body of Christ to lead them.
In Romans 12:8, the preposition en functions as a marker of manner and the noun spoude as a dative instrumental of manner indicating the manner by which the action of the verb proistemi, “the one who devotes himself to exercising leadership” is accomplished.
This indicates that the man with the spiritual gift of leadership is to exercise this gift “with diligence.”