Dear Ray,
Your experiences brought something to mind that may help explain what happens through successive generations in the church. A leader may possess a genuine measure of Christ, yet what others most readily imitate is often his weakness. His inward dependence on the Lord is difficult to see. His manner, preferences, and methods are much easier to copy.
A younger brother encounters an elder who is firm, exacting, and accustomed to being obeyed. There is a correct order for everything, a boundary around every expression, an expected response to every instruction. The younger brother may naturally conclude: “This is what spiritual maturity looks like. This is how Christians should function and how others should be shepherded.”
The elder may sincerely believe he is helping. He wants to nurture someone into a responsible Christian life. Yet without realizing it, he can direct that person’s attention away from the life within and toward an outward standard. Gradually, the question becomes, “Am I doing this correctly?” The quieter question—“What is Christ bringing forth in me?”—may scarcely be heard.
That standard may not even fit the younger person’s temperament. A tender brother learns to sound severe. Someone naturally patient learns to interrupt. Someone who would have listened begins to believe that leadership means supplying the answer and closing the discussion. Something precious becomes suppressed because another man’s limitations have been mistaken for spiritual maturity.
Witness Lee comes to mind with genuine appreciation. There was much that was wonderful in his ministry, and many received a substantial supply of Christ through him. Yet he, too, was a man with weaknesses. Perhaps the difficulty comes when succeeding generations preserve the recognizable features of the man more carefully than they attend to the life he sought to minister.
The second generation can turn personal ways into established standards. The third may receive those standards as the unquestionable shape of church life. Through repetition, a weakness acquires authority. What began as one man’s limitation becomes an obligation for others. The language of life remains, while the freedom to follow that life gradually narrows.
This can happen within a single locality. A brother may find emotions difficult to understand, feel most secure within clear rules, and believe that maintaining order is the same as caring for people. His love for the Lord may be sincere. Still, if another person’s bewilderment is met only with correction, those watching may learn to reproduce the correction without ever learning to hear the person.
Perhaps this is why the inward source matters so deeply. Spiritual life cannot simply be transferred through imitation of someone’s conduct. The outward pattern is readily reproduced; the living dependence behind it must be personally entered into.
Surely shepherding should help another person recognize and follow Christ within, allowing room for an expression that does not resemble the shepherd’s own personality.
Where Zoe, the divine life, is neglected, human weaknesses can become magnified across generations. Where Christ is given room, inherited patterns can be questioned, tenderness can return, and the brothers and sisters can grow in His life together.
With affection,
Brent
