The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb: Searching for Jesus’ Path of Power in a Church that Has Abandoned It

by Jamin Goggin

It is easy to see such a place as a vehicle to succeed. It is in these places that setting our eyes on the invisible country is so difficult. Leading here will mean that we will always be seen as suspicious. Leading here will entail pushing so hard against the stream that we’re seen as a nuisance at best, and incompetent or insubordinate at worst. Your own desire for wisdom, holiness, and love will be seen as destructive to the quest for power, and therefore, it will be recast as laziness, elitism, or aloofness. Or, with Jesus, you may be rebuked and called demonic by those who have set themselves up as the experts of the Bible. When Jesus tells his followers that the world will hate them because of him, we have to remember that he had no context of a “secular world.” The “world” that Jesus was talking about included the people of God. We too must realize that the most ardent opposition to the way from above—the way of Jesus—may come from within the church.