“I was going to tell you I’ve been encouraged by your preaching, but I didn’t want to puff you up.”
A dear friend and fellow elder said these words to me at the end of a member meeting one year into the life of our church. At the meeting, we had opened the floor for members to speak to the question “How has God encouraged you through one year of our life together at King’s Cross?” Responses varied. People were encouraged by the thickness of community the Spirit had built in such a short time. Others were excited about some new faces coming around. Some spoke to the depth of Bible study in their discipleship groups. All good, encouraging words.
But afterward, this dear brother pulled me aside. He wanted me to know the Lord had used my preaching in his life, but he was afraid that expressing it in front of the group would give me a big head.
And frankly, I got it.
Beneath my friend’s comment was a fear aptly expressed by another pastor friend of mine: “Every pastor I know,” he told me, “is afraid their church thinks they’re the next Mark Driscoll. And every young churchgoer I know is afraid their pastor secretly is Mark Driscoll.”
These two comments summarize the crisis of pastoral authority in our day. Christians are suspicious of their pastors. And pastors are terrified to speak with confidence or boldness because they don’t want to feed the suspicion. While the problem may feel new to us—or at least more prevalent than in previous generations—I want to suggest it’s a problem as old as the church, rooted in a heart posture as old as humanity. We are tempted to both venerate and vilify Christian leaders. Why? Because in our hearts, we want them to be for us something they could never be: gods.
Paul and Barnabas Venerated and Vilified
In his classic work Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid told the story of a poor, old couple named Baucis and Philemon who received a surprise visit from the gods. Zeus and Hermes were roaming the region, looking for hospitality. After being rebuffed by a thousand households, they alighted on the humble abode of this unassuming couple, wherein they found their long-awaited welcome. The gods rewarded Baucis and Philemon by transforming their small home into an ornate temple and retaliated against all the other households in the region by destroying them in a flood.
Many scholars believe this story provides the background for Acts 14:8–20. Because of its place in the regional lore, the citizens of Lystra would have been ready to imitate the example of Baucis and Philemon and avoid the catastrophe of their less-welcoming neighbors. So when Paul (with Barnabas at his side) gave strength to a man unable to walk from birth with a simple command (“Stand up on your feet!”), the crowds were ready.
They shouted. . ., “The gods have come down to us in human form!” Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to them (vv. 12–13).
At the sight of one miracle, the worship-ready crowd sprang into action. Paul and Barnabas were devastated. How could they receive the kind of veneration due only to God?
When the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd, shouting: “Friends, why are you doing this? We too are only human, like you. We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and everything in them.” . . . Even with these words, they had difficulty keeping the crowd from sacrificing to them. (vv. 14–18)
The apostles were horrified at the response of the people and rushed to stamp it out. In his commentary on this passage, John Calvin notes:
By rending their garments and leaping into midst of the crowd Paul and Barnabas show how great was their burning zeal for the glory of God. Not being content with words they do all they can to throw the preparations for the sacrifice into confusion. . . . Both by words and their whole physical attitude they show openly, that, far from being pleased with the act of worship, which the men of Lystra were offering, they find it quite abominable. This is holy anger, by which the servants of God ought to be inflamed, whenever they see His glory outraged and discredited by the sacrilege of men.
Paul and Barnabas roundly rejected the people’s worship. They were not gods, only messengers of the one true God.
How did the people respond? Did they repent of their madness and receive the word of the apostles? Sadly, no. With the assistance of some Jews in hot pursuit of Paul and his company, they pulled a complete 180: “Some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over. They stoned Paul and dragged him outside the city, thinking he was dead” (v. 19).
Paul and Barnabas were venerated one moment and vilified the next. One moment, the crowds worshiped them as gods; the next, they cast them out as devils.
The story is as memorable as it is shocking. Who in their right minds would worship men as gods? And how fickle must the people have been to stone Paul and drive the apostles out of town? But on a closer examination, the story is not only shocking and memorable; it’s also relevant and relatable. We, it turns out, do the very same things to our leaders.
Leading in an Age of Institutional Distrust
Make no mistake, we are in a cultural moment of leader vilification. Confidence in Christian leaders and institutions is at an all-time low. This is true not just of churches and religious institutions—it’s a reality across all kinds of authority figures and institutions.
Gallup, the Washington, DC–based analytics company, has been polling Americans on their trust in institutions for more than 50 years. Their 2024 Confidence in Institutions study revealed near-record lows across several categories: 26 percent of Americans place “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the presidency (that number was twice as high—52 percent—in 2004); only 21 percent have the same measure of trust in the criminal justice system (34 percent trusted the justice system in 2004); and slightly more than a third of Americans (36 percent) have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in higher education (that number was 57 percent in 2015, the first year higher education was included in the polling).
The numbers tell a clear story: Americans are less confident in institutions and authorities than ever.
And not without reason. We see corruption at the lowest and highest levels of government, on the left and the right. Stories of police brutality against racial minorities call into question those who purport to protect us, while too many of the loudest voices decrying that very injustice prove to be swindlers in their own right. The author of the Old Testament wisdom book Ecclesiastes puts clearer words to the reality and pervasiveness of injustice than the most pointed postmodern prophet:
I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgment—wickedness was there,
in the place of justice—wickedness was there. . . .
Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:
I saw the tears of the oppressed—
and they have no comforter;
power was on the side of their oppressors—
and they have no comforter. (3:16; 4:1)
What about the church? Are religious institutions just as guilty in the public eye?
Americans are divided. Nearly a third of responders indicated they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in “the church or organized religion” (32 percent); another third (32 percent) indicated “very little” or “none”; the rest (35 percent) indicated “some” trust in the church or organized religion.
In 2014, some 45 percent of respondents trusted the church. In 2004, that number was 53 percent. In 1973—the first year Gallup collected the data—65 percent of Americans trusted the church. This means that, while the current numbers for the church aren’t as bad as some other institutions, they have been in steep decline. Over the past half century, the share of Americans with a positive view of religious institutions was cut in half. And all it takes is a listening ear at your neighborhood coffee shop or dive bar to gather anecdotal evidence: People don’t trust the church.
Again, this is not without cause. Sex abuse scandals have ravaged the church—from the most hierarchal of church polity structures (the Roman Catholic Church) to the most democratic (the Southern Baptist Convention). Stalwarts of egalitarianism and strict complementarians alike have committed atrocities. Conservatives and liberals, mainline and evangelical, youth pastors and parachurch workers—the stories abound.
Some of these stories will remain hidden until Judgment Day, while others have been told in detail, to no small effect. To be clear, these stories need to be told. The church can’t cover up its misdeeds. They will one day be shouted from the mountaintops, and frankly, no one has harsher or more damning words for corrupt religious institutions and their leaders than God himself in Scripture. But although the telling of these stories is good and necessary, it can add fuel to an already-raging fire of skepticism and cynicism. While Driscoll’s story and others like it are helpful cautionary tales, they have the unintended consequence of planting in people’s minds questions such as the one my friend saw lurking in the minds of his congregants: “Is my pastor a closet Mark Driscoll?”
Of course, even the structure of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill (the podcast detailing Driscoll’s story) has pedagogical force. In its narrative, Driscoll started out not as a villain but as a hero. He was a best-selling author. His church was growing a hundredfold. People were being saved. Fruit abounded. Driscoll was platformed, praised, and applauded as one of the best models of the marriage of sound doctrine and missional ingenuity.
And what does that reveal? That even while we think of our culture as one of leader vilification, there is still much veneration going on. And it often directly precedes the vilification.
Brand Pastor
In The Great Awakening, historian Thomas Kidd notes, “Although publicity alone cannot account for Whitefield’s unprecedented success, the media no doubt helped create his widespread attraction. Works by or about Whitefield caused the number of printed texts produced in America to almost double between 1738 and 1741.”
Whitefield was innovative in his efforts to preach the gospel to as many people as possible. He helped engineer the concept of “field preaching,” a controversial approach to gospel proclamation that “would allow him to reach many thousands more than he otherwise could.”
In addition, Whitefield’s relationships with publishers—not least the eminent Benjamin Franklin—played a significant role in his efforts. “His dramatic flair,” Kidd remarks, “made him an instant sensation, and the press quickly caught on, reporting widely on his fervent preaching. He also began publishing a number of his sermons, which sold quickly.” So quickly, in fact, that his preaching tour had a market impact more significant than Taylor Swift’s Eras tour.
When I read Kidd’s work for a doctoral seminar on modern church history, I was struck by how many “contemporary” problems in the church aren’t so contemporary after all. Of course, we do have a present-day problem with celebrity culture among pastors and church leaders. Paul Tripp, in his book Dangerous Calling, warns those considering a call to ministry, “Your ministry will be shaped by worship of God or worship of you or, for most of us, a troubling mix of both.” Ironically, of the six endorsements on the back of my 2012 copy of Tripp’s book, at least three are by men who destroyed their ministries and reputations by not heeding the warnings in the very book they endorsed.
But this problem is not new. The temptation for a person’s ministry to be shaped by self-worship and self-glory is at least as old as the beginnings of the evangelical movement during the Great Awakening. Whitefield was a nearly unrivaled celebrity in his day. He was venerated by the tens of thousands who came to hear him preach, the hundreds of thousands who read his sermons.
And whom did Whitefield follow but the most famous Protestant Christian in history: Martin Luther? Andrew Pettegree argues that Luther pioneered a new model of religious leadership. Pettegree’s noteworthy book Brand Luther demonstrates the significance of Luther’s marketing savvy and business ingenuity in his ministry success: “Luther did not invent the printing press, but he was the first to grasp that it could be the engine of a movement. He understood that the success of his ideas depended not only on their theological force but on their dissemination, repetition, and accessibility.”
For that reason, Luther utilized books, pamphlets, and woodcuts, contextualizing his message to the language and the likings of the masses, with the result that he became a massively influential religious celebrity.
But of course, we can’t stop at calling this an evangelical problem or a Protestant problem. For what most motivated Luther in his reforms? Was it not papal abuses of power? Was it not the veneration of human leaders and a corrupt, money-grabbing system that oppressed the poor and illiterate masses of his people? Was it not the Johann Tetzels of his world offering fast passes out of purgatory to fund the building of St. Peter’s Basilica?
No stream of contemporary Christianity is exempt from leader veneration, and no tradition in Christian history is unstained. The problem is as old as it is new. Whether medieval Rome offering theological justifications for distinctions between clergy and laity, or contemporary evangelical conferences selling thousand-dollar backstage passes to meet a favorite Christian cultural commentator, leader veneration abounds.
And almost always, it leads to frustration, disappointment, or abuse—and then, to leader vilification. Most pastors who now hear their names cursed at one time heard them praised.
Why We Venerate and Vilify Our Leaders
Why do we all participate in this merry-go-round of leader veneration and vilification? I would argue that these two seeming opposites are two sides of the same coin and spring from the same root. We—like the citizens of Lystra 2,000 years ago—don’t want leaders; we want gods. Like the ancient Israelites, we aren’t content with God as our King; we want a king like the nations.
This desire for our leaders to be gods is nothing short of idolatry. The human heart abhors a vacuum; we will have someone or something on the thrones of our hearts. We will boast in something. And for as long as the church has existed, Christians have made the tragic mistake of boasting in—that is, taking pride in, finding worth in, and justifying themselves by—their leaders.
Paul had to address this problem head-on in 1 Corinthians:
I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? (1:10–13)
Paul is addressing disunity in Corinth. But what is its source? In this case, the factions of the church are divided over their favorite leaders: Some claim Paul, others Peter, others Apollos, and still others, feigning spiritual superiority, simply claim Christ. But what is the deeper root of this association with leaders? Is it a mere style preference or some secondary theological distinctions? No, these people are making saviors out of their leaders. They are looking to men to do what only Christ can do and has done.
This is why Paul asks, Was I crucified for you? Were you baptized in my name? What is he saying? Your identity is not in me! Your boast is not in Peter! You are not justified by your association with Apollos! Christ was crucified for you. You were baptized into his name. That alone—not your leader of choice—is what justifies you. Stop treating your leaders like they can save you!
This problem doesn’t just lead to the veneration we’ve noted; it also leads to the vilification. Why? Because when you look to something (or someone) to give you what it by nature cannot, you will eventually come to resent it.
Tim Keller, in his 2009 book Counterfeit Gods, recounted the story of Jacob the patriarch and his two wives, the sisters Rachel and Leah. Jacob loved Rachel—she was a drop-dead beauty (in comparison with her unfortunate-looking sister, Leah), and he was so enthralled by her that he was willing to work for her father for seven years as a bride price. But Laban deceived Jacob. When the wedding day came, Jacob went to bed with the woman he thought was Rachel, but in the morning—surprise! It was Leah.
Keller uses this as an allegory for our idols. “No person,” he says, “not even the best one, can give your soul all it needs. You are going to think you have gone to bed with Rachel, and you will get up and it will always be Leah.”
The same thing happens with spiritual leaders. If you expect them to be perfect—to be gods—you’ll be devastated to wake up and realize they are Leahs. When you get up close and personal and see their flaws; when they make bad decisions; when they do unintentionally hurtful things; when they sin against the sheep, their spouses, and their friends; when they take a different stance on some cultural or political issue—you’ll be crushed. If you place your entire trust in leaders rather than God, their failures (or simply differences of opinion) won’t just disappoint you; they’ll devastate you. That’s when you know you’ve made idols out of them.
When this happens, Keller says, there are different ways you can respond. One is what he calls “continued idolatry and spiritual addiction”: “You can blame the things that are disappointing you and try to move on to better ones.” So, your pastor upsets you; you fire him by going to a new church. Your tribe starts getting on your nerves, so you change theological streams entirely. If you’re constantly moving on to the next influencer, the next author, the next preacher, you’ll perpetually find yourself in Leah’s arms.
Another option is, basically, cynicism. “You can blame the world. You can say, ‘Curses on the entire opposite sex,’”—or, in this case, on the church, organized religion, and all Christian leaders! If you do this, “you make yourself hard, cynical, and empty.” This is what we see in so many who have deconstructed their faith and deconverted because of a bad experience with a pastor. We have no desire to minimize the hurt of an abused sheep, but we must say this clearly: If you deconstructed your faith because of the failures of a Christian leader or institution, your faith was not in Jesus; it was in that leader or institution.
Keller offers another—better—option in response to leader-oriented idolatry. You can “reorient the entire focus of your life toward God.” Rather than demanding that pastors and other leaders meet the God-sized need in your soul, you can just ask God to meet that need in Jesus Christ.
The One to Whom Paul Points
Paul and Barnabas could not save the people of Lystra. Your favorite pastor or leader cannot save you. But leaders from Paul to the present do have a job: to point you to the One who can.
Mere sentences after Paul was praised as a god, he was run out of town. Isn’t it interesting that Jesus, the only Savior, the only One who can fill your heart, was greeted with loud cheers of “Hosanna” on Sunday and crucified on Friday? Paul was stoned and left for dead for failing to meet the desires of the people of Lystra; Jesus was crucified and died because he did not meet the desires of the people of Jerusalem. Paul—left for dead—got up again and moved on to the next town. Jesus—truly dead—got up again on the third day and announced his victory over death, sin, hell, and the devil.
Jesus didn’t meet the people’s desires, so they crucified him. But he did meet the underlying desires of every human heart. He met the desires we long for and ask our pastors to meet. Yet they are only undershepherds who will give an account to the Chief Shepherd—the One who truly fulfills the heart’s longings—for how well they pointed the sheep to him.
Application for Shepherds and Sheep
What can we do with all this? As Paul asks, what should we say about all these things? A few brief words of application are in order, first for shepherds and then for the sheep.
First, remember that you are undershepherds; you are not the Chief Shepherd. Don’t glory in your own ministry. Don’t boast in your fruit or despair of the lack of it. You are not the point; focus on the One who is. And remember, you will give an account to him.
Second, do not encourage your own veneration. Calvin’s words, quoted earlier, bear repeating: Paul and Barnabas declared “both by words and their whole physical attitude” that they found being worshiped “quite abominable.” This was “holy anger, by which the servants of God ought to be inflamed, whenever they see His glory outraged and discredited.” Are you motivated by holy anger when you see yourself being venerated by those you lead, or do you secretly enjoy it? Do you prepare your people for how you will likely disappoint them, or do you set yourself up as their messiah? Do you regularly admit to your shortcomings and failures or cover them in favor of your successes? We should create an atmosphere in our ministries that clearly puts Jesus on the pedestal he deserves and keeps us in the place we ought to be—pointing to him.
Third, speak with authority from God, for his glory and honor. In a context of distrust and disdain for leaders, it can be scary to speak with boldness. I feel this. I am constantly adding too much nuance to my claims, both in person and in the pulpit, for fear of how my words might land. But fear of man is kryptonite for ministry faithfulness. We are not speaking from humans or for humans; we are speaking from God and for God. He is the One who has commissioned us. We are, as Paul says, “servants of Christ and . . . those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful” (1 Cor. 4:1–2). Faithful to whom? To God. Speak with boldness—with humble confidence—because faithfulness to God demands it.
Leaders need to respond faithfully to the crisis of pastoral authority in our time. But it is the sheep who have more power to change this moment. Here are three encouragements for how lay Christians can do that.
First, pray for your leaders. Church leadership is hard. Ministry taxes our time, relationships, and emotions. There’s always more to be done, and we are familiar with Paul’s experience of “anxiety for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28, ESV). We desperately need you to pray for us. But also, you need you to pray for us. The best cure for cynicism is prayer. It’s hard to be distrustful of people when you’re praying for them. It’s hard to be overly critical or unfair when you’re asking God to bless them. It’s also hard to hype them up and worship them when you are bringing their weaknesses to the Lord! Pray for your leaders.
Second, submit to your leaders. God instructs you to do this. “Obey your leaders and submit to them, since they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account, so that they can do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you” (Heb. 13:17, CSB). The author of Hebrews is saying that your posture of submission to your leaders will put wind in their sails, will make their jobs joyful and not grievous, and will as a result work to your own benefit.
Finally, encourage your leaders. I love my brother who didn’t want to puff me up in public. But I wish he would’ve complimented my preaching in front of the church. Why? Not because I needed it. Not because I want to ignore the second instruction I gave to leaders a few paragraphs ago. But because it should be a normal and good part of church life for leaders to be encouraged both privately and publicly. Paul says to honor the elders who lead well—especially those who labor in preaching and teaching (1 Tim. 5:17). One practical way to give honor is to call out, publicly, where you see the grace of the Lord at work in the life of another person. Pastors shouldn’t be exempt from receiving that kind of honor. We’re not gods; we’re people, just like you.
Taylor Combs, PhD, is the lead pastor of King’s Cross Church in Nashville, Tennessee. He is the author of The One We’re Waiting For (B&H, 2025), an Advent devotional for families.
