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There’s a crisis of leadership in churches because of the expectation forced on pastors that they not fight, that they be doormats; some expect them to be effeminate. After all, two requirements for an elder—including pastors—in 1 Timothy 3:3 are that they not be “strikers” or “contentious.” The first word literally means a “brawler,” prone to fist-fights, the hot-head with a hair-trigger to violence. The second term—contentious—refers to someone who can’t let an opinion he disagrees with go unrebuked, often in the most abusive ways, who continues an argument far past the chance of profitability. Certainly, those are disqualifying faults for a pastor. But think of the kind of person Paul was training for eldership if they had to be warned not to fight over everything, not to hit people they opposed. Does anyone today think your average evangelical pastor needs to be warned not to punch people during his pastoral care? What kind of men were Paul’s churches attracting as shepherds if they had to be warned against taking a swing at their interlocutors? They were fighters. They were men who went into the fray and so needed the wisdom about picking their battles and not to fight in the flesh. But they were definitely fighters.
Pastors are shepherds. Contrary to the stereotype of therapeutic culture which sees shepherds as masseuse of the sheep, shepherds have two main jobs: guide the sheep to where the food and water is, and fight off predators. What are they supposed to do when wolves attack? Fight! Fight! Fight! In Acts 13, Paul’s ministry was being attacked by a wolf, Elymas the magician. Paul, “filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” (Acts 13:9-10.) I wonder how many of our genteel pastors today would cluck at Paul for being contentious. Of course, he wasn’t. He was fighting the good fight.