GEORGE FOX UNIVERSITY

THE THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE OF SHALOM LEADERSHIP: CASTING A VISION

FOR, AND LEADING OTHERS TO, THE LIFE OF HEAVEN

SUBMITTED TO DR. CHRISTOPHER MEADE

IN FULFILLMENT OF: ACADEMIC RESEARCH ESSAY

DMIN 521 LEADERSHIP IN BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

BY

THOMAS J RUNDEL

2

FENWICK, MICHIGAN

05/02/2013

"…the joys of Heaven are for most of us, in our present condition, ‘an acquired

taste’—and certain ways of life may render the taste impossible of acquisition.”1-

C.S.Lewis

“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in

him.”2

THESIS

An effective Christian leader is one who has understood and

experienced the theology of Shalom in their life (Leadership

Theology), has a vision of Shalom in the lives of those he/she

leads (Leadership Philosophy), and has some guiding principles

for bringing about Shalom in the lives under his/her care.

(Leadership Strategy)

INTRODUCTION

I recently went on a date with my wife to a coffee cupping

seminar. We are both avid lovers of coffee, so we wanted to learn1 C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 55.2 Ps. 34:8 (New Revised Standard Version)

2

3

more about the nuances in the different types of coffees in order

to better enjoy the experience. We smelled and tasted three

different coffee roasts from three different parts of the world.

Our teacher taught us to smell and taste the differences between

each type of coffee. Our capacity for loving coffee increased

through this experience.

There was a time as a child when I did not enjoy coffee at

all. My pallet was not developed enough to enjoy something so

bitter and complex. Even as an adult I would “doctor” the coffee

with sugars, creamers, and flavorings to the point in which it is

no longer recognizable as coffee. Now, after “tuning” my pallet

to the nuances in good, freshly roasted coffee, I am now mixing

less cream in, and I totally leave out the sweeteners. These

additions to coffee mask the natural flavors that I now enjoy.

And may I add that I cannot enjoy a cheap substitute for coffee

any longer, like Folgers.

Coffee is much like heaven, it is an acquired taste that

only a mature pallet can enjoy the beauty of, find the nuances

within, and not need lots of additions to make it more palatable,

nor accept any cheap substitutes. The life of love that extends

3

4

as far as loving an enemy is not natural. The life of peace that

willingly walks through suffering is not a skill we are born

with. A Good Christian leader is one who is tuning his or her

life to taste and see that the LORD is good, and then teaching

others to do the same.

THE PROBLEM

I fell into a trap early on in my ministry. I was taught to

pretend to have the spiritual life all together. As long as your

persona from the front was done well, and your behind-the-scenes

life was free of any obvious sin, you could live with the same

values and practices as the rest of society and have ministry

“success.”

The resulting incongruence in my persona contrasted to my

real life was devastating. I preached a faith stronger than I

had, I told of love that I was not experiencing, and I expected

morality from others that I was not able to keep. My preaching

was inauthentic, and it was void of any power of the Holy Spirit

to transform lives. Its only usefulness was to entertain the

crowd long enough to inform them of facts about the Bible. But

the resulting fruit in the lives of those I led was mere

4

5

encouragement to build the same persona in their personal lives

as I had in mine.

As Christian author, theologian and philosopher C.S. Lewis

states above, living with the values of this world actually make

our lives desensitized to taste the life of heaven in the

present, leaving us with no other option than to pretend. Thus,

the age old principle that states that we may “teach what we know

but we will always reproduce who we are” rings true. In my case,

I was able to reproduce followers who were knowledgeable in

doctrine, yet ill equipped to become more like Jesus in their

inner being.

LEADERSHIP THEOLOGY

To successfully construct a theology of Christian

leadership, we need to first catch a vision of where we are

leading people, which I believe is found in the Hebraic

Scripture’s concept of “Shalom.” Shalom is translated “peace” in

many places in the Hebrew Scriptures, but the English word peace,

meaning absence of conflict does not capture the nuance found in

this beautiful word.

5

6

Of the two-hundred and thirty seven3 times Shalom is used in

the Hebrew Scriptures, it is translated into the English words:

peace, well-being, wholeness, welfare, health, and harmony.

Examples from scripture include: Genesis 43:27 in which Joseph

asks of his father’s Shalom, or welfare. In Genesis 26:29

Abimelech pleads with Isaac to not do him harm but to leave him

Shalom, or whole. Shalom means so much more than absence of

conflict.

Perry Yoder, an Old Testament scholar, wrote extensively on

the subject of Shalom and makes a strong argument that Shalom is

the primary Hebrew word for salvation, justice and peace. Shalom,

he says, is how things; physical well-being, relationships, and

morality, should be. Any presence of violence and oppression is

an absence of Shalom. God’s justice is aimed at any person,

structures, or actions which withhold Shalom from becoming

reality. Therefore Shalom is God’s justice in action bringing

about the world that God envisions.4

3 William E. Vine, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words (New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Limited, 2003), Entry for Shalom.

4 In this paragraph I have summed up Yoder’s view of Shalom and salvation from his book, Shalom the Bible’s Word for Salvation, Justice & Peace. Particularly Chapter’s 1, 2, 4.

6

7

Yoder argues that for Shalom to be realized in this world

there needs to be a change on two different fronts. First, we

need liberation from the slavery we have to sin, which Christ

provides for us on the cross. Second, we also need liberation

from the slavery mindset that we have lived with that creates the

systems of violence and oppression that hinders God’s Shalom.

Thus we need an act of God’s justice on our part to liberate us

from a power we cannot overcome, and we need the transforming

power of the Spirit to change the way we see the world so that we

can become Shalom makers with God.

Yoder concludes that it is God’s plan for His creation to

exist in a state of Shalom. How does this translate into the New

Testament and its Gospel of salvation? We shall track the

evolution of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language, the

Septuagint, to see what Greek words are used for Shalom, and how

they transfer into the New Testament.

When the Hebrew culture was taken into foreign captivity,

they lost their language, and with it, their ability to read the

scriptures. The scribes translated the Hebrew Scriptures into the

7

8

Greek language.5 A problem they faced was which Greek word to use

for the large concept of Shalom. They resolved this issue by

using multiple Greek words. “[Shalom]…is translated in the Greek

translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, by three Greek

words: soteria, “salvation”; eirene, “peace”; and telos, “end,

goal.”6

In the New Testament, the noun soteria meaning salvation and

its verb form sozo meaning to save, is used in three different

contexts. It is used of deliverance from temporal or material

danger, suffering, or sickness.7 This is best seen in the Mark 5

account of the woman healed of a bleeding disorder. Jesus says,

“Your faith has sozo-ed you.” Then Jesus commands her to go in

eirene, meaning peace, or in our context: Shalom.8

5 Alan T. Levenson, The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), 131.

6Roger E. Van. Harn, The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis forSunday’s Texts : The Second Readings, Acts And the Epistles (Grand Rapids: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005), 345.

7 William E. Vine, Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old Testament and New Testament Words, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1940), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "Save".

8 Mk. 5:34 (New Revised Standard Version)

8

9

Paul uses the term salvation in a past tense form to

describe a spiritual salvation from sin,9 a present tense

deliverance from the slavery of sin, and a future completion of

this salvation when Christ returns.10 Paul goes on in other

passages to speak of his own personal hand in bringing about

salvation in the lives of those he leads.11 So here we see that we

can trace the concept of Hebrew Shalom into the New Testament

concept of salvation which expands the theology of salvation from

merely an eschatological expectation to include within that

concept a practical present reality; a quality of life with God

so powerful that it transcends death. This is salvation, this is

Shalom. How does this affect our philosophy of leadership?

LEADERSHIP PHILOSOPHY

According to the words of Christ,12 Christian Leadership is

more about serving others than it is about building personal

ministry empires. I love how Max DePree captures this when he

said, “to be a Christian leader means… having the opportunity to

9 Eph. 2:510 Rom. 5:9-1011 1 Tim. 4:16, Rom. 11:14, 1 Cor. 9:2212 Jn. 13:12-17 (New Revised Standard Version)

9

10

make a meaningful difference in the lives of those who permit

leaders to lead.13” This “others-first” mindset must be the

foundation of Christian Leadership.

Thomas Merton captures my leadership mantra perfectly when

he says of Spiritual Directors, “His first duty is to see to his

own interior life…he will never be able to give away to others

what he does not possess himself.”14 My leadership mantra comes

from this: you cannot give away what you do not possess. This

begs the question, “possess what?” The answer is found in the

biblical concept of Shalom

What does Shalom look like in a leader’s life? Merton says

in his personal biography that he once met a Protestant pastor

who was, “all holy: that is, he possessed a certain profound

interior peace…”15 The

church fathers and

mothers would call this

interior peace “union”

13 Max DePree, Leadership Is an Art (Reprint. New York: Double Day, 2004), 22.14 Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction & Meditation (Collegeville: The Liturgical

Press. 1960), 28.

15 ---------, The Seven Storey Mountain: Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition (London: HoughtonMifflin Harcourt, 1998), 92.

10

Figure 1: A Soul in Dis-integration, lacking Shalom, or Union with God.

11

with God.16 I developed two illustrations of the human trichotomy

of body, soul, and spirit during a meditative study on St. John

of the Cross’ writings. One illustrates John’s concept of Union

with God, or in our case, Shalom, and one illustrates John’s

concept of a soul not in union with God, or not experiencing

Shalom.

First we will look at the Dis-integrated illustration in

Figure 1. The body does not need much definition. It is our

physical body operating in the physical world. As a Christian we

know that we are more than the physical body. It is the other two

words, soul and spirit that get a bit harder to nail down.

The word for soul in the New Testament is psyche, and is

translated into the English word life, soul, and heart. In

Matthew 16:26, Jesus uses this word as one’s unique personal

identity when he teams the Greek word psyche with autou which

denotes self. Christ teaches that the costs of the comforts of

this world would be one’s uniqueness in God.

We get our word Psychology from this Greek word. The

function of the soul can denote our personality, our perspective

16 Saint John of the Cross. St. John of the Cross: Selected Writings. (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987). 92

11

12

of the world, and what we believe to be important.17 All of these

factors guide our decisions in life. Proverbs admonishes us to

guard our soul, or heart, because it is the spring of life.18

Biblical scholar Ernest W. Burton tells us that spirit is

the Greek word pneuma which means wind/breath, life, and spirit.

It is the seat of our religious capacity and experience and the

place where the Spirit of God indwells us.19 It is the intrinsic

value we have as human beings without all of our roles, titles,

accomplishments and failures; who we are when we are just

breathing.

Orthodox theologian Paul Evdokimov sums these parts up

saying, the soul animates and drives the body and God’s Spirit

through our spirit, gives life and meaning to this animation.20

Figure 1 illustrates a human person in our default state of dis-

integration. Body, soul, and spirit are not in harmony, or

Shalom, as we live in the world.

17 Vine, Under: "Soul".18 Prov. 4:23 (New Revised Standard Version)19 Ernest DeWitt Burton, Spirit, Soul, and Flesh: The Usage of [pneuma], [psyche], and

[sarx] in Greek Writings and Translated Works from the Earliest Period to 225 A.D., and of Their Equivalents ... in the Hebrew Old Testament (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918),188.

20 Paul Evdokimov, Orthodoxy (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2011), 73.

12

13

St. John of the Cross in his classic Dark Night of the Soul tells

us that the seven capital sins are the weaponry the world uses to

bribe us to trade our souls for comforts. Yet these physical

vices can become much more subtle and have spiritual facades upon

them. Greed for money can become greed for a bigger budget in

your church. Lust for the sensual pleasures can become a lust for

spiritual experiences. Sloth can manifest itself as prayer

without action. Anger can manifest itself as self-righteousness.

Envy can manifest itself in comparison games. Gluttony for food

can manifest itself as taking in spiritually but never serving.

Pride in wanting to be the best can manifest itself as pride in

being more doctrinally correct than someone else. This battle for

our identity can keep us disconnected from our true identity as a

child of God.21 Yet this battle is essential for Shalom.

Then at our core there are the four passions that John says,

“The less strongly the will is fixed on God, and the more

dependent it is on creatures, the more these four passions combat

the soul and reign in it.”22 Like a hook in the nose of a bull we

21 Saint John of the Cross. Chapters 1-7 describe the seven capital vices and the seven spiritual vices and their effects on our will for God.

22 Ibid, 152.

13

14

are led around by these “inordinate passions”23 instead of the

Spirit of God. Fear may drive us to run from something that God

is inviting us into. A desire for deliverance from a situation

may drive us, in hope, to pursue something that God is not

inviting us into. John asks the believer to have “calmed

passions.”24

The final inner circle illustrates the indwelling Holy

Spirit of God that is given to all who believe. He desires to

transform us from the inside out, to reshape our soul, which

reforms our bodily actions, and redeems the world. To wake up to

the inner life of the Spirit in our spirit requires one to “let

the resurrected Christ within burst from his tomb.”25 That is to

let the power of the resurrection wake us from our anesthetized

sleep which keeps us dependent upon the faculties and passions,

and to become more aware of God in the world, in other people,

and in our self. Living resurrection asks us to let the love of

Christ seep into the deepest parts of our being, healing where we

23 Ibid, 54.24 Ibid, 196.25 I am indebted to Father Bernard Owens SJ of the Manresa Jesuit

Retreat House for this phrase which he used during an Ignatian retreat exercise and lecture.

14

15

feel unlovable, where we feel pain, reframing our history in such

a way that gives us confidence, freedom, and power in the lives

of people. We become co-laborers26 and ambassadors27 with Christ

bringing about Shalom.

Figure 2 illustrates

an integrated soul whose

spirit has been touched

by God, whose soul has

been reshaped by God,

whose actions are

reformed by God. God’s

Holy Spirit has access to

the world,

incarnationally, through

the avenues of the fruit of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit,

all practiced as the collective body of Christ. The integrated

soul practices incarnation for the redemption of the world back

to God.

26 2 Cor. 6:1 (New Revised Standard Version)27 2 Cor. 5:20 (New Revised Standard Version)

15

Figure 2: A Soul in integration, Shalom, or Union with God.

16

This Shalom practiced, or what James D. Hunter describes as

“faithful presence,”28 is everything working in harmony as God

intended it to be for His glory and pleasure. Shalom practiced is

also for our glory in Him and our pleasure as we acquire the

taste of heaven in the present life. Our spirit, soul, and body

are all aligned in the purpose of bringing the life of heaven

into the present. Shalom leadership then, is one who has acquired

the tastes of heaven in the present, casts vision of what it

looks like in other’s lives, and accompanies others on the

journey toward that life for themselves.

CONCLUSION

There are a few guiding principles that I would like to

conclude with that give concrete shape to this leadership

theology and philosophy.

Guiding Principle 1: Re-define Success

Success within this leadership model is hard to measure, but

easy to see. You see it in the relational health of your group.

The Apostle John said that if you say you love God, yet have no

ability to love your neighbor, you only love some abstract idea 28 James Davison Hunter, To Change the World:The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of

Christianity in the Late Modern World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 197.

16

17

of God constructed in your own mind.29 Christ said the evidence

of faith is our Love for one another.30 The Apostle Paul stated

that what is essential to Christianity is faith expressing itself

in love.31 It could be argued then, from these scriptures, that

success is measured in our capacity of genuine love for one

another.

Guiding principle 2: The Leader is the Lid

A leader must be experiencing the life with God that they

read about in the scriptures. As John Maxwell said, “your

leadership ability… always determines your effectiveness and the

potential impact of your organization.”32 This first law of

leadership says that the leader is the lid of the organization.

If we look at this from a spiritual standpoint, a leader cannot

take the congregation to places that he/she has not gone. Those

who place themselves under their leadership will only go as far

in the spiritual life as the leader has. Those who wish to go

further will have to look outside the church.

29 1 Jn. 4.2 (New Revised Standard Version) 30 Jn. 13.35 (New Revised Standard Version)31 Gal. 5.6 (New Living Translation)32 John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow

You. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1998) 1.

17

18

Guiding Principle 3: Holistic Growth

If we look at the human being holistically, Body, Soul, and

Spirit, we must have resources available to help those in each

area. A church must reflect its ministries to match the needs and

gifts of the congregation holistically. For the body: health and

fitness, food and supplies, serving opportunities, fellowship

opportunities, finance classes, etc. A church is concerned with a

person’s physical Shalom. A church must also have resources for

the soul: counseling, worship experiences, healing prayer,

biblical education, mentoring, etc. These resources will help

with the Shalom of the soul. And of course the church must have

resources for the spirit: meditation, solitude, reflection,

prayer, etc. These resources will help with the Shalom of the

spirit.

A good Christian leader has a solid theology of what Shalom

is, how it functions in the human being holistically, and will

use guiding principles to steer their congregation toward a

Shalom that changes the world.

18

19

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Burton, Ernest DeWitt. Spirit, Soul, and Flesh: The Usage of [pneuma], [psyche], and [sarx] in Greek Writings and Translated Works from the Earliest Period to 225 A.D., and of Their Equivalents ... in the Hebrew Old Testament. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918.

Cowley. Illustrated Encyclopedia of Western Art. New York: Exeter, 1980.

Cross, Saint John of the. St. John of the Cross: Selected Writings. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987.

Depree, Max. Leadership Is an Art. Reprint. New York: Double Day, 2004.

Evdokimov, Paul. Orthodoxy. Hyde Park: New City Press, 2011.

Hammond, Constance. Shalom/Salaam/Peace: A Liberation Theology of Hope in Israel/Palestine. London: Equinox Publishing, 2008.

Harn, Roger E. Van. The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts : The Second Readings, Acts And the Epistles. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2005.

Heltzel, Peter. Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2012.

Hunter, James Davison. To Change the World:The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

LaHurd, Carol Schersten. “Working Toward the Telos of Shalom.” Dialog 31, no. 2 (Spr 1992): 85–86.

19

20

Levenson, Alan T. The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

Lewis, C. S. The Problem of Pain. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.

Linss, Wilhelm C. “Exegesis of Telos in Romans 10:4.” Biblical Research 33 (1988): 5–12.

Mauser, Ulrich. The Gospel of Peace: A Scriptural Message for Today’s World. 1st ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992.

Maxwell, John. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People WillFollow You. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1998.

Merton, Thomas. The Seven Storey Mountain: Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition. London: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998.

———. Spiritual Direction & Meditation. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press.1960.

Nouwen, Henri J. M. Gracias: A Latin American Journal. 1ST ed. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1987.

Publishers, Tyndale House. Holy Bible: New Living Translation, Birdsong Teal, Slimline Reference Edition, Leatherlike. Wheaton: Tyndale House Pub, 2011.

Stokes, Allison. Shalom, Salaam, Peace. Cleveland: Global Ministries, 2006.

Swartley, Willard M. Covenant of Peace: The Missing Piece in New Testament Theology and Ethics. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2006.

Yoder, Perry B. Shalom: The Bible’s Word for Salvation, Justice, and Peace. Nappanee: Evangel Publishing House, 1998.

———. “Toward a Shalom Biblical Theology.” Conrad Grebel Review 1, no. 3 (Fall 1983): 39–49.

20