There is a kind of abuse that leaves no bruises.
He prays loud. He weeps at the altar. He quotes more scripture than any man you know.
And behind the office door, he keeps score.
The world has a word for him now. Narcissist. There are podcasts about it. Therapists who specialize in it. A whole vocabulary built for the man who ran your church like a kingdom and called it shepherding.
But your Bible named him first.
“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy… Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (2 Timothy 3:2,5)
Lovers of their own selves. Boasters. Proud. Trucebreakers. Fierce. Heady. Highminded.
Paul wrote the checklist 1,900 years before psychology gave it a clinical name.
And notice what Paul did not do. He did not end the list with a diagnosis.
He ended it with a command.
From such turn away.
You know him by what happens to your peace.
The whole room rises and falls on his mood. Sunday dinner is good or ruined depending on how the service went for him.
He is gifted in the pulpit and cruel in the hallway.
He demands loyalty he never returns. Twenty years of faithful service. One question. And you watched him erase a family like they never existed.
His apologies are accusations wearing a costume. “I’m sorry you took it that way.”
When you name what he did, you become the divisive one.
And leaving him feels like leaving God.
That last one is the chain.
Send this to the one who was told that naming it was gossip.
Every chain comes with a verse attached. Torn from its context. Hung around your neck.
“Touch not mine anointed.” (Psalm 105:15)
Go read the psalm. That verse is God warning kings not to harm His wandering people. It is not God warning you against asking your pastor a question.
David refused to kill Saul. He never refused to flee from him.
You can honor the office and still get out of the spear’s range.
“Don’t gossip.”
Gossip spreads secrets to wound. Warning the flock is not gossip. Paul did it in print: “Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil.” (2 Timothy 4:14)
Named him. By trade. In scripture. Forever.
“Forgive and forget.”
Forgiveness is commanded. Access is not.
You can forgive a man from across the street.
His name is Diotrephes.
“…Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not… prating against us with malicious words… and casteth them out of the church.” (3 John 9-10)
A church leader. Loved the chief seat. Slandered an apostle. Threw out anyone who crossed him.
John did not send him to counseling. John wrote: “I will remember his deeds.”
The man who loveth to have the preeminence has stood behind pulpits for two thousand years. The only thing that changed is the sound system.
“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” (Romans 16:17)
Mark them. Call it what it is. To yourself first. Then out loud. The fog only works while the thing has no name.
Avoid them. Your feet are allowed to move.
“A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject.” (Titus 3:10)
Admonish once. Admonish twice. Then reject.
Not bitterness. Not rebellion. Obedience.
Walking out of a man’s kingdom is not walking away from God’s.
A wife sits in the third pew and gets told her exhaustion is rebellion.
A husband asks where the building fund went and gets told his question is pride.
Children grow up certain that God has the pastor’s temper. They learn to flinch at the word Father.
Over a thousand readers have sent me their confessions. The same story keeps arriving with different names in it. Decades of faithfulness. One question. Then the cold shoulder, the pulpit jab, the quiet execution.
They did not lose faith in Christ. A man stood in front of Christ. And when the man fell, they thought the whole thing fell.
I wrote Give Me Something To Believe In for exactly that reader. The one who confused failed people with a failed Christ. If that is you, or someone at your table, it is here: Give Me Something To Believe In
He was always going to.
He was a lover of his own self with a form of godliness. And the form fooled everyone for years. That is what the form is for.
Christ never failed you.
The man behind the pulpit was never the Shepherd. His whole job was to point at the Shepherd. The moment he started pointing at himself, scripture already told you what to do.
Mark him.
Avoid him.
Turn away.
Then walk back to the Shepherd who calleth his own sheep by name.
What phrase did they use to keep you quiet? Put it in the comments. I read every one.
— Adam
WANT EVERYTHING?
THE BIBLICAL MAN VAULT
Every guide, manual, and protocol. One price. $285
ARM YOUR HOUSEHOLD →
