Daily Encouragement: Year 1, Day 36
Adapted from Handbook to Leadership
Personal Development: Leader Qualifications
Peter provided a standard for Christians that we can apply to leadership qualification in this passage. In verse 1 he listed things to weed out of our lives. That’s an essential list. When evaluating a leader, we need to be aware of what things should scare us—what we don’t want. But we also need to identify what we do want. What are the qualifications we examine when we hire or educate or evaluate leaders?
Peter didn’t give us that list. Instead, he provided a standard and a process. Peter said to get rid of the negative things (v. 1). Stop practicing malice, deceit, and the like. On the other hand, like a baby craves his or her mother’s milk, so you must crave pure spiritual milk. More than following a laundry list of good deeds or qualities, the leader must be passionate about his or her spiritual health. The leader qualifies on the positive side of the equation by showing a passion for spiritual goodness. He or she isn’t identified so much by a checklist of good deeds as by a quality of goodness.
Peter also emphasized the need for growth (v. 2). Leaders aren’t qualified merely because they practice good deeds (although they must do that). They’re qualified by possessing a passion and a craving for high spiritual qualities and exhibiting a consistent pattern of growth in those qualities.