How should Christians lead?
Text: Matthew 20:17-28
Hosts:
J. Kent Edwards
Vicki Hitzges
Nathan Norman
Narrator: Brian French
The CrossTalk Podcast is a production of CrossTalk Global, equipping biblical communicators, so every culture hears God’s voice. To find out more, or to support the work of this ministry please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org
Produced by Nathan James Norman/Untold Podcast Production
© 2025 CrossTalk Global
Brian: Harvard Business Review had a recent article entitled Four Strategies to Secure a Corporate Board Seat. The author's four step recipe was straightforward. 1. Demonstrate your ability to add value. Showcase your ability to have high level strategic conversations at an executive level. Elevate your conversation in a way that a board member will be thinking, wow, this person gets it. They're a real strategic thinker. 2. Gain board exposure. How? Build connections by identifying board members in your existing network and asking them about their experiences and observations. Join professional organizations dedicated to board effectiveness. 3. Be your own best advocate. Develop a board readiness story and let your friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances know that you're interested in serving on corporate boards and which type of boards you'd be a great fit for. 4. Build and nurture your network. Ultimately, filling a board seat comes down to who the recruiter and existing board members know, who else knows those candidates and what those other people say about the candidates. It's not who you know, but who knows you. That's good advice for getting a seat on a corporate board, but should it be a model for Christian leaders? Join Vicki Hitskiss, Kent Edwards and Nathan Norman as they wrestle with the issue of self promotion by looking through the lens of Matthew, chapter 20, verses 27 and 28. Welcome to Crosstalk, a Christian podcast whose goal is for us to encourage each other to not only increase our knowledge of the Bible, but to take the next step beyond information into transformation. Our goal is to bring the Bible to life, into all our lives. I'm Brian French. Today Dr. Kent Edwards, Vicki Hitzges and Nathan Norman continue their discussion through the Gospel of Matthew. If you have a Bible handy, turn to Matthew, chapter 20, verses 27 to 28 as we join their discussion.
Kent: Vicki Nathan, does this Harvard Business Review article ring true? With your experience, have you seen people utilize similar strategies to advance their careers?
Vicki: Oh absolutely. Have an elevator speech. Be able to say what you do in a captivating way so that you could go from one floor to the next in an elevator and tell somebody what you do. In a way they'd go wait, wait, tell me more.
Nathan: Yep, I recall a church planter one time came into our network and my goodness, the guy networked with the community in two months. More so than anyone I had ever seen in do so in a decade. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. It was unbelievable.
Kent: Yeah, it was interesting. When my wife was earning her MBA degree, she was in a class discussions at a Christian university and she asked the question when does networking become using? And what was fascinating, leave it to.
Nathan: Her to Ask the hard questions.
Kent: But what surprised her the most was was that people looked at her like she was crazy. So you use people. So what? That's what you do. Like, wow. Very common in the secular world, but not absent in the Christian world either. In fact, it has a long history in the Christian world and doesn't begin. But it's certainly evident in Matthew, chapter 20.
Vicki: It says, the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Jesus with her sons and kneeling down, asked a favor of him. What is it you want? He asked. She said, grant that one of these two sons of mine sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.
Nathan: The future belongs to the bold.
Vicki: Yeah, no kidding. I like this woman. When I first read it, I thought, well, good. You know, one thing, she's lobbying for one of the spots, but then, nope. One at the right, one at the left.
Kent: But what do you think about that kind of request?
Vicki: Well, we had this last week with the disciples. You know, they were like, hey, I wanna sit here. I wanna sit here. And here's this woman, and she's like, no, no, no, no, no. I've got two boys. You've got two sides. Put one here, put one there.
Kent: I think it's astonishing. I mean, what symbolism is there between Jesus, These boys sitting on either side of Jesus? What is it she's really asking for?
Vicki: Oh, power.
Nathan: Oh, yeah.
Kent: Ah, power.
Nathan: Elevate them up to almost his level. You're my right hand, which is, you know, more power, and then the left, which, you know. Okay, not as much, but look, you know, some power is better than none.
Kent: No, it's an astonishingly arrogant request. But even more astonishing is the response of the other disciples.
Vicki: It says, when the 10 heard about this, where are the other two guys? When the 10 heard about this.
Nathan: So James and John, where were they? Well, obviously, this happened amongst at least the 12 were present. James and John are like, hey, Mom.
Vicki: Oh, James and John are the two disciples.
Nathan: Can you ask Jesus a favor?
Vicki: Ah. Oh. And she did this in front of the other 10 disciples. Oh, I'm liking this lady more.
Kent: I don't know about you. Your choices here, Vicki, always. But anyway, she's got chutzpah, I'll grant her that.
Vicki: Oh, man, if people think I got it, I'd at least pull him aside. Okay, here we go. Okay. So when the 10 heard about this, they were indignant with the two brothers. Not with her, but with the two brothers.
Kent: Because they know.
Nathan: They asked their mom. Hey, mom, of course. Can you. Of course I got you, my boys.
Kent: Let's go. There's all kinds of maneuvering and leveraging of relationships.
Nathan: I love this scene. They don't ask. They don't ask of their own accord. They get their mommy to do it. It's fantastic.
Kent: Mommy to do it. What I find fascinating is that the other 10 were angry, not because they had a different attitude. They had greater respect for who Jesus was than they were. I think they were upset just because they didn't ask first.
Vicki: Yeah, they didn't think about it.
Kent: Maybe I get to go to the end of the line now. This section of Matthew really takes me by surprise, because they were all fighting for greatness. All of them wanted the most prestigious position in the kingdom of God. Isn't that part of human nature? We all want to be first. That's true in school, right?
Vicki: It's true in everything. It's true in school. It's true in sports, it's true in business. If you're going to go, go to win.
Nathan: I can remember in elementary school and I heard somebody talking about this on a YouTube video, and it brought the memory up for me. And they said, you know, when you're in third grade, what mattered the most is who was the fastest in your class. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And they're like, in fact, you can ask a lot of people and they'll remember who was the fastest in third grade. I can remember it was AJ Spotovecchia. Right? Man, that kid was fast. That's all that mattered in school. Who was the fastest.
Kent: Now you get on in school, and who has the highest gpa, who can get into the best school, Right? And in business, it's who sits in the best office and gets the most paycheck. No, the desire to win is universal. But to see such a naked display of selfishness among these disciples, I find it stunning, especially considering what Matthew showed us in last week's podcast. Do you remember back in verse 14, what Jesus said?
Vicki: He said, he told his disciples, let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.
Nathan: Yeah.
Kent: Unlike the rich young ruler who, because he valued money more than a relationship with Christ, lost the opportunity to enter the kingdom of heaven. And unlike Peter, who said that since he left everything to follow Jesus, what will it be for us in the kingdom of heaven? How large will our reward be? Now, Jesus responded that with the parable of the Talents. You remember that, right?
Nathan: In the parable of the talents, with the day workers, and the day laborers. Jesus is saying that your reward's not necessarily bigger than anybody else's.
Kent: Hmm. So instead Jesus was saying, we, like little children, are to come to Jesus with no personal agenda but him. We're to come only wanting, like a child to enjoy his embrace. Only then, with pure motives, can we enter the kingdom of God. Jesus was very clear. And now these same disciples come asking to sit on thrones on the right and the left hand of Jesus. Stunning. But do we see this kind of selfishness, this desire to come to Jesus for what we can get? Do we see it in the church today?
Nathan: Yeah. I mean, if you want to be global about this, there is a whole health and wealth movement, or as I've heard others call it, the blabbit and grab it movement, where the idea is, you're coming to God because he can give you stuff, he can give you things. And if you have enough faith, whatever that means. I mean, Jesus said, faith of a mustard seed. But if you have enough mustard seeds, apparently you will get these things, which is a cop out, because then if you don't get the things, you can say, well, I didn't have enough faith. However you measure that, I didn't trust God enough. So you see it kind of on a large scale in that area. I'm going to trust God because of what I can get out of the situation. But you see it in the local church. There are people who politic for positions, regardless of what the hierarchy is in the church. But they want a position in the denomination. They want a position as an elder or a deacon or trustee, or they want to control the music ministry, or they want to control the soundboard. Control, control, control, control, control. And they will use very smooth talk in order to get what they want.
Kent: They want the position. They want the influence.
Nathan: They want the position. And they want the power over others, and they want the prestige that comes with.
Kent: And I know that there are some people, certainly not all, but certain people, but some people want to become a pastor, a reverend, sometimes for the same reason. Because in that culture, that means influence. That means power. Now, what we see in the disciples is not uncommon even today. But how did Jesus respond?
Vicki: It says, you don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup? I am going to drink. We can, they answered, and we know they couldn't even stay awake while he was praying, for they did not understand what he was about to do.
Nathan: It's almost like Jesus followed up. Like, do you even know what I'm talking about? I'm pretty sure you don't.
Vicki: Uh.
Kent: Oh, I mean, when he says, can you drink the cup I'm going to drink, Just to be clear, what is he referring to?
Nathan: The cup symbolizes, often in the Old and New Testament, a person's future, their destiny, what's going to happen to them. And this evokes the image of the Last Supper, where Jesus is taking the cup of the Passover, and he's given it new meaning. This is the cup of the New Covenant spilt for you. And he is saying, I'm going to die to redeem humanity. Can you drink that cup? Yeah. Can you follow me in that footstep not to only just die, but to redeem humanity? We can. What are you talking about? You don't even know what I'm talking about.
Kent: Yeah. Jesus is saying to them, if you want to sit next to me, you need to be like me. The disciples should have known what it was like to follow Jesus, because he was clear back in verse 17 following, wasn't he?
Vicki: He said Jesus was going to Jerusalem, and on the way, he took the 12 aside and said to them, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day, he will be raised to life.
Kent: So that scene came right at the beginning of this whole passage. Jesus up front said, this is where I am going. Do you really want a drink of this cup? Jesus was not walking to Jerusalem in pursuit of glamour and glory, but suffering and death. He wasn't trying to exalt himself by heading to Jerusalem, but to save others. So Jesus, talking to his disciples, takes advantage of this teachable moment, and he has some very straight talk to them about how this applies to them, doesn't he?
Nathan: Jesus called them together and said, you know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave. Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Kent: Hmm. This is a lesson on leadership, isn't it? He's talking to his disciples, the future leaders of his church, and he is saying to them, everyone must come to Christ like a child, wanting his presence, not his gifts. But this is especially important for those of us who are leaders of the church because we set the tone, we set the example for others. Jesus says we're not to eat the sheep, but feed and care for them. To change the metaphor, we cannot abuse the bride of Christ. That is evil. That is wrong. Have you seen leaders of God's people ever rule like the Gentiles?
Nathan: Far, far, far too often and far, far, far too many. It is. Well, it's spiritual abuse. But we're so used to it because it's culture. The culture is like, oh, you're the boss. This is the boss. And. And we've got to do what the boss says. Whereas Jesus says, no, the greatest among you must be your servant. And I know I've often mused maybe we should change the title of role of pastor because it's only kind of sort of in the Bible, you know, maybe we should change the title role of pastor to chief servant. But I know the result of that would be we would ruin the word servant. So we'd be using it ironically instead. But something like, I think for those with any kind of spiritual authority, and not even spiritual authority, if you're a boss at a Fortune 500 company, this saying is still for you. If you're going to be great in the kingdom of God, if you're going to run your business the way Jesus wants you to, you need to be a servant to the people that you are leading. Not to lord it over them the way others do, and not to use your power to lift you up, but to use your power to lift others up. And I think those of us with any kind of leadership positions, we need to think of ourselves as, I am the chief servant of this organization. Years ago, we were going through this text at my previous church, and we were simultaneously going through our bylaws and constitution. Hooray. Fun. And we had an org chart in the back about how we did the org chart. And in our church, we had Jesus was on top, right? And then under that, it was like the elders and the deacons and trustees and all the stuff that we had kind of followed the org chart. And while we were talking about that, I was like, yeah, everyone like this. They're like, sure. And I said, but we read this, and it says, the greatest among you should be the servant. So we inverted the picture upside down, okay? And at first I inverted it, and Jesus wasn't on there. It's just a senior pastor at the bottom. And everyone was like, are you comfort with this? Everyone's like, yeah. And Then I put Jesus on and I was like, everyone comfortable with this? All the way on the bottom. Everyone was like, no, but that's what he's saying, right? He served us more than we can ever serve him and we should do the same.
Kent: And he says that we are to serve just as he did. And he gave his life as a ransom for many. What is a ransom?
Nathan: A costly, costly amount of money paid to gain the freedom of those who are in captivity, those who are in bondage, those who are enslaved.
Kent: So the one who pays the ransom doesn't benefit at all.
Vicki: Right.
Kent: It is all cost and it is the ransomed who benefit from that. That's what he says. Welcome to leadership in the church. Welcome to leadership in general, but leadership in the church especially. We are to give ourselves for others like you, Nathan. I have seen so many people in the leadership take advantage of the position to fleece the sheep rather than to feed them to benefit themselves at others expense. But have you seen good examples of people in leadership who have served as Jesus served the church?
Vicki: The answer is yes. I've been very, very fortunate to be around very bright, very capable and very kind leaders.
Kent: In high school, my now wife and I and her family attended the same local church and was in our neighborhood. And the pastor was no one that is famous, you'll know. I'll say his name was Mel Shereski. He wasn't the world's greatest communicator, faithful to the text, but you know, didn't go down in history as one of the world's greatest preachers of all time. Wasn't the greatest administrator necessarily, but he knew how to love people and to build that church. He cared for people like I'd never seen. He visited with people who were in need. That church grew from 50 to 500 people in five years. I had never seen anything like that. Just an ordinary person pouring out their love for others and everyone responded. One day he got in the pulpit and said, I'm quitting. And everyone said, what are you doing? Everything's wonderful, there's no reason. And he said, well, because God called me to be a church planter. And I've grown this church and it's a size that I can't take it any further. You need to find someone who can take it the next leg. I love you, I care about you, but God's calling me to go plant a church. So he moved to the other end of the country and you know what he did? He planted a church. And it grew like crazy. And then he left that one and planted another church. And it was getting older in age, so finally it was time for him to retire. But, you know, golf wasn't his thing. So guess what he did in retirement.
Vicki: He planted a church.
Kent: He planted another church. He poured out his life to build churches, to bring people in relationship to Christ. He's not well known, he was not famous, but he was faithful. I'll tell you, if I one of the people that I know that has so faithfully lived out this text, I.
Vicki: Was fortunate to grow up around people who had tremendous minds and tremendous ability. And I imagine that had they gone into politics because they were articulate, they could have wiped the other candidate out. Or had they gone into entertainment? I mean, they just had so many. My father's best friend growing up got his degree, one of his degrees from his doctorate from Harvard in archaeology. And he was so talented that when he was doing his orals, they interrupted him and said, you don't have to do anymore. And they offered him a spot on the faculty. Just these amazing. I know, amazing, amazing people with ability. And yet their first love was Jesus Christ, and they loved the Lord. The guy was so tempted to. He was teaching at a seminary, and he was so tempted to leave and get the salary and the prestige at Harvard, but he didn't. And because I was my father's daughter, Haddon Robinson's daughter, I could just call them up and say, hey, I'm struggling with this, some little inane deal. I was reading the Bible and they take my call and they cared about students. So when I have friends that go, well, Christians are all hypocrites. And I think, no, they're not. I know some precious people and they gave when they hardly had any money themselves, and they loved people and they loved others, and it made a huge impact on me growing up.
Kent: So how do you know if you are a servant leader? I mean, what's the fruit of a servant leader?
Vicki: I think generally, having given this no thought whatsoever, I think that people want to follow you. They feel cared about and loyal and in a way, they love you.
Nathan: Yeah, I think when you have built good, respectful, loving relationships, that is a good sign that you have become a servant leader. Rather than people being fearful and scared and they follow you because they're concerned about how you're going to respond to something. I think when you see people find their talents and their gifts, they're growing and flourishing in those gifts. That's when you realize you have served them well.
Kent: As a leader, I have always been cautious about people who have had a ministry career plan. First I'm going to accomplish this and then I want to go there and then I'm going to climb to here. I'm more interested in people who have an impact plan. Where God has placed me, how can I bloom where he's planted me, how can I thrive in the position he's given me? Where that leads, who knows? But I'm not looking at the future. I respect those people who say I want to make the maximum effort to build the people around me. Jesus contrasts greatness in the eyes of the world with the greatness of the kingdom of God. Greatness in the world, that's usually determined by status. But in God's kingdom, it's determined by function. In the world, greatness is shown by ruling in God's kingdom, by serving in the world's eyes, great leaders order others about. In God's kingdom, the great endure hard times and injustice without complaining and look for opportunities to advance others. In God's kingdom, greatness is measured by service.
Brian: How should Jesus example of selfless servanthood shape our interactions with others like Jesus? Our goal in life is to help people, not use people. The crosstalk podcast is a production of crosstalk Global equipping biblical communicators so every culture hears God's voice. To find out more about this educational nonprofit organization, please visit www.crosstalkglobal.org. this month we're training biblical communicators in Panama and Kenya. And next month we're launching a new cohort in Southern California. Help us empower the next generation of biblical communicators. All you have to do is click donate in the show notes and make a donation of any size. You can also help support this show by rating it on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find it. Be sure to listen next Friday as we continue our discussion of the Gospel of Matthew. You won't want to miss it.
Nathan: We're just going to cut from my thing to your ending.
Kent: Good. No, I mean. I mean that when. When. You know that story I told of Mel Shresky? Nolan and I were in high school and Mel Shreski said we could be the leaders, the start start of the youth group and the leaders of it. We would start one from scratch and lead it. And people like, why would you give such a responsibility to these kids? And that thing exploded in growth and the trust he put in us, the freedom to explore gifts we didn't know we had, but he saw in us that was a good leader. That was a servant leader. He didn't have to have the glory. He just wanted the work done. And he saw what people's gifts were, and he released them to ministry.
Nathan: Amen.
Kent: That's developing others. That's not. Can you do my program for me?