The Diotrephes List* keeps growing:

Mike Bickel, Steve Lawson, Frank Viola, Bill Gothard, Ravi Zacharias, Michael Brown, Paul Pressler, Robert Morris, and on and on …

And hardly a week goes by without new names being added.

Each of these fallen “leaders” appears to have shared two related characteristics:

Their “ministry” revolved around them and their own “gifts” and “vision” as they assumed the prerogatives of pinnacle “leadership” over everyone else; and

They had no true integration or submission to a Biblically functional local congregation where they lived and were known and there was diverse ministry and mutual accountability one to another, along with multi-gifted, balanced leadership.

So what did you expect?

Without getting into the specifics with each of their cases, here’s the general problem:

When you disobey the New Testament’s mandates for mutual submission and accountability in local assemblies, through ministry one to another as we mutually build up and strengthen each other …

This is what you get.

Is it any wonder, then, that narcissistic “leaders” assume pinnacle positions of power, privilege and control over God’s people …

Through top down, unilateral notions of authority, ministry and submission?

When this happens, it’s too easy for a “church” or “ministry” to become a den of deceit and thievery …

Under “leaders” who end up exploiting the goodwill, sexual innocence, and dignity of others.

God’s plumbline is already at their door in judgement.

The antidote to such exploitation and injustice is to start being the church – the simple, local, participatory, relational and multi-gifted Body of Christ – as commanded in the New Testament.

That’s because there’s no allowance in the New Testament for solo, pinnacle leaders who assume prominence among us in the Body of Christ.

This is why we’re all called – leaders included – to be accountable, transparent, and involved with each other, both in our personal lives and in the hometowns where we’re known and live, by preferring one another above ourselves.

As we do this, God can work through every one of us (rather than just the “one”) to build up one another (rather than primarily advancing the “one” and his “ministry”) …

Each according to the different gifts, functions and responsibilities He distributes among us, with Christ as the Head.

So let’s repent of “church” as we’ve come to know it and celebrity “ministries” – along with the abuse and corruption they’ve produced through conformity to self-serving human agendas and hierarchies.

Instead, let’s become the church as the New Testament actually commands it …

With mutual accountability (leaders included!) through ministry one to another for building up each under Christ, each according to the diverse gifts and callings God distributes among us.

No exceptions!

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* Diotrephes was a self-assuming, monopolizing leader who acted as though he was preeminent over others in the church. The New Testament describes him as an abusive leader “who likes to put himself first,” and he’s strongly condemned in 3 John 1:9-10.

More would do well to heed the warning!