It seems there’s no corner of the Christian household that is not reeling from leadership scandals. For almost 20 years, the Roman Catholic church has been under microscopic investigation because of the acts of predatory priests the world over. Some of the stories are contemporary to the times, others tell of events that happened 40 to 50 years ago, or more. The Southern Baptist Convention is exploding with stories of abuse, cover-ups, and a kind of “boy’s club” mentality as more and more people garner the courage to share their experiences. People were heartbroken to hear that men like John Howard Yoder and Jean Vernier, supposed champions of holistic and healthy Christianity, one that appealed to the more left-leaning among us, were themselves abusers who victimized dozens of people.
The charismatic church has been under scrutiny for quite some time. My first memory of church scandal and struggle happened early on in my life when I was around ten or so. It came out that many different leaders of the church were having affairs with one another, and things finally fell apart when the pastor hit his wife. Financial and sexual scandals have come out periodically over the years, more recently those like the Hillsong scandals. The most recent scandal to hit the charismatic world is, for me, much closer to home.
On October 28, accusations of sexual clergy abuse were publicly made against Mike Bickle, founder of the International House of Prayer, a ministry with which I was involved for a few years. Those who know the story or have been following know what a debacle it’s been from the beginning. I have been remiss to say much publicly for several reasons, but with similar yet darker scenarios coming out, confusion and despair setting in, I wanted to offer some biblical and pastoral insight into moving forward from here.
NOTE
I am writing this post in light of the IHOPKC scandal, but it’s not really about this particular circumstance. Rather, I’m looking more broadly at questions of whether or not we can continue to go to church or even how we can keep going to church in light of all that is being exposed. What has been exposed about Mike Bickle is one of several all too similar stories across denominational lines. As my readers are mostly outside the IHOPKC world, I’m speaking more generally to the looming despair many people have of continuing in the faith or at least in going to church.
A Man After God’s Own Heart
It seems whenever a prominent Christian leader has a moral failing that calls their ability to lead into question or makes their inability to lead very clear, the leader or the led start invoking the name of King David. The temptation to do so is obvious. Didn’t God call David “a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14)? It’s not like God didn’t know—so the argument goes—that David wasn’t going to sin like he did, or that God would be taken surprise by David’s sin, and still God chose him to be king of Israel, didn’t he? And when David sinned with Bathsheba and subsequently had her husband Uriah (along with hundreds of other men) killed, did God remove David from his throne as he did Saul? We all know the answers to those questions.
A thoughtful reading of David’s story should make us take a step back and ask questions. I would go so far as to say that it should make us step back and question David. Dare I go so far as to say a careful and thoughtful reading of Holy Scripture (in all its inspiration and authority) should make us take a step back and question God’s choice of David, or at least ask why God chose David? David’s story has been a comfort for countless people across the centuries because we see just how forgiving God can be, how compassionate and merciful. This is good, and we should see God’s mercy toward David and take confidence in it. We should learn about God’s mercy and patience toward us from David and see that David, and we ourselves, are often undeserving of the mercy and patience God shows us. Yet, there are good and bad ways of “applying” David’s story to our lives or to those of our leaders.
Understanding David
Broadly speaking, the way Evangelicals and Charismatics learn to read the Bible has had, in my opinion, as many deleterious effects on Christian culture as it has beneficial. More often than not, we’ve been taught to read the Bible almost exclusively as a devotional text and that in a hyper-individualistic manner. We read our daily portion and ask, “How does this apply to me and my life?” Yet, the Bible, Old and New Testament alike, was meant to be read in community, and it shapes the identity of the people of God as a whole. If we were to say the Bible is about any one person (it’s not), we’d have to say it’s more about the one true God than anyone else. Even then, it’s about how the Creator covenanted himself to the people of Israel so that he could work with and within them to effect the salvation of all humanity and all creation.
It’s an amazing blessing that we live in a time and place where we each can have our own copy of Holy Scripture and can each read it in our own languages (something not true of every people to this day), but this blessing has been mixed with the ills of the Enlightenment and the modern era. In the United States, this is exacerbated by the extreme individualism of our culture. More can be said, but for now suffice it to say that individualistic and hyper-individualistic readings of Scripture are poor readings. This isn’t to say that individuals cannot have unique understanding of specific passages or that the Holy Spirit won’t speak to someone individually through Scripture. Rather, it’s to say there isn’t a single verse in the Bible about you and your life, and that has bearing on interpretation.
We cannot map David’s story onto our lives or the lives of our leaders in such a way as to think that God’s actions with David are formulaic for how he acts with us. Do we learn about God’s compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and commitment through David’s story? Absolutely. We also learn about God’s judgment. But David’s story is meant to tell us about David, and if we’re not walking away from our readings having learned primarily about David, we’re doing something wrong. The story of David tells us how God chose a man to be king as a concession to Israel’s desire for a king. Even the Temple may be more David’s idea than God’s (cf. 2 Sam. 7:1-17, esp. v.7). God is undoubtedly working in all of this, and David’s lineage and the Temple become part of God’s plan, but there is a cost.
Now, to address the phrase, “David was a man after God’s own heart.” People bring this verse up when they are talking about God’s mercy on David despite David’s sins. God did not reject David, so the story goes, because David was a man after God’s own heart even though David’s sins were terrible and worse than Saul’s (whom God did reject as king). It has been assumed that “after God’s own heart” is a description of David’s character, that David’s heart is oriented towards God’s. That may or may not be true of David, but that is not what the phrase means. In 1 Samuel 13, where this is said of David, we read how Saul refused to obey God’s word to slaughter all animals and instead kept some aside to offer to God. Because of Saul’s consistent refusal to heed God’s word, God rejects him as king over Israel. Saul was the people’s choice. He was, to use the language of the text, a man after the people’s heart. When God calls David a man after his own heart, he is not saying anything about David’s character, rather, he is contrasting the people’s choice with his own. They chose Saul, and he chose David. We’re left to question and ponder why that is because David is as problematic a king as Saul. It does seem that David, unlike Saul, does desire to be faithful to God, but David is unwilling or unable, or some combination of both, to obey God’s law.
David and Bathsheba
Fast forward several years, and we find David walking on the roof of his palace in spring, “the time when kings go out to battle” (2 Sam. 11:1). The author put that little note on the timing of these events to clue us in that something about this story is amiss. David is already not doing what he is supposed to be doing. From his rooftop, David sees Bathsheba bathing on her roof. The text tells us Bathsheba was doing a ritual cleansing after her period as prescribed by Torah (v. 4; cf. Lev. 15:19-30). Bathsheba, in contrast to David, was doing what she was supposed to be doing. David sent his men to take her. A better translation would be to seize her (Heb. lakakh - לקח). This is the same verb used to describe Eve’s action when she took/seized the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This verb is often used in the Old Testament to describe someone taking or seizing something they are not supposed to possess. The literary connection here is notable, and David’s seizing of Bathsheba will mar his kingdom in a way that resonates with Eve’s consequences. People will suffer because of David’s actions, some immediately, some later, and still others after David dies.
David rapes Bathsheba and sends her home. She gets pregnant and sends word to David, who, instead of owning up to his sins, calls her husband Uriah from the battles David is supposed to be fighting to get him to sleep with his wife. Uriah, a foreigner, is more honorable than David and does not have sex with Bathsheba while his men are dying on the battlefield. David gets Uriah drunk, but he still will not have sex with Bathsheba. So David devises a plan to have Uriah placed on the frontlines of a battle wherein he knows Uriah will die. David was a monarch in the ancient world, in a time and place where kings did what they wanted, but David had an image to keep. David could have “taken” Bathsheba publicly and had Uriah exiled. He was, after all, a foreigner. David could have simply done what he wanted without caring, but David was not only a rapist and murderer, he was also conniving and secretive.
This is the image Holy Scripture paints of David. This is the tarnished image of the anointed king the inspired word of God presents to us. Are there other images of David in Scripture? Absolutely, but as I’ve said in so many other contexts—and will continue to say—Scripture never asks us to romanticize anything or anybody, including King David. David is a man of many passions, both holy and unholy, and part of what we’re supposed to wrestle with in David’s story is how God not only could but did work through David’s life. After reading David's story, we’re supposed to walk away with an understanding of how God is faithful to God’s people and promises in spite of David’s sinfulness.
The last image of David Scripture gives us is of an ill, old man who is so frail he cannot warm himself no matter how many blankets are wrapped around him. In an effort to keep him warm, his servants find a “young virgin” who can sleep in the bed with him. “So they searched for a beautiful girl,” and they “found Abishag the Shunammite,” who “became the king’s attendant and served him.” The text notes, like so many leaders caught in sexual scandals have in recent years, that “the king did not have sexual relations with her” (1 Kings 1:1-4).1
King David, Like Him or Leave Him?
That King David had a sex problem seems like an understatement. To say he was an abuser would be accurate. David, the son of Jesse, was a man with a sex problem who, when he came to power, used that power to exploit and abuse many women around him. What can we say about him? Scripture’s dealing with David is as complex as David was himself. David was a man who, it seems, truly desired to please God, who started his “ministry” with a heart to seek God and do well. Yet, as has been the testimony over and over and over again throughout history, the well-meaning very often fall to the temptations and opportunities of power. It would be too simplistic to say that David was an evil man. It would also be too simplistic to say that David was a righteous man. David did both evil and righteous things in his life, and if we are going to believe the testimony of Scripture, God promised David some amazing things in his life, including that one of David’s descendants would be called the son of God and that his kingdom would extend into eternity.
All these things are true about David. The temptation is to look at the righteous things David did and the promises God made him and overlook the clear picture of David’s wickedness Scripture paints. This isn’t an outlook of cultural Marxism or being woke. This is the outlook of the Bible. No one is trying to cancel David, but perhaps someone should have. If David had, in fact, been canceled, what we would have today in our Bibles would be a story of how God continued to be faithful to his promises and people despite the canceling. God’s will and plans are not thwarted by human sinfulness, which is apparent when we see that God’s plan in creating Adam and Eve was not thwarted by their sin. Whether eating the forbidden fruit was the plan from the beginning or a felix culpa,2 we can confidently say that God’s desire to dwell with humanity has not changed and that God is at work to make sure that goal happens.
There are many things to learn from David’s story, many things we learn about God, and many questions we are left asking of God. Because of a desire to learn from Scripture, to hear what God might be saying to us through its pages—good things in their own right—we’ve often focused on the righteousness of its main characters while ignoring or making light of their wickedness. We should not do that, rather we should take their stories for what they are, namely a collection of stories of how God has been at work within a people and within humanity to bring about our redemption. That will not be an easy transition for many people, but it is necessary. It took me a few years to relearn how to read the Bible as a book of (true) stories, a communal book of wisdom, rather than as a devotional puzzle that must be sifted through in order to understand how “this applies to me and my life.”3
It’s interesting to note that the New Testament has no special awe or attention for David. Jesus is called the son of David because of the belief he was Israel’s Messiah (cf. Mark 10:47; Luke 18:38), but it’s rare that Jesus is associated directly with David. While there is reference to Jesus’ kingship in relation to David (cf. Heb. 1:5; Psalm 2), it rests more on the testimony of Psalm 110 in reference to Melchizedek and the divine Son of Man from Daniel 7. The New Testament focuses on Moses and Abraham, both problematic in their own right but who, by and large, lived faithful lives.
When David Reigns
Whether or not we can learn anything about our situations from David is still in question, and while one might expect me to say, based on the above, that we cannot learn anything from David’s story, I actually do. Again, though the point is clear by now, I want to reiterate that we cannot “apply” David’s life to our own or to the lives of our leaders. David’s story does not map onto anyone else’s. In other words, we will not be looking at David’s life to see if or how leaders can, should, or should not be restored to ministry after sexual or financial scandals have been uncovered. Those are worthy questions, but we cannot gain that wisdom from David’s story.
What we’re looking for is what David’s story might teach us as a community of believers. Not what it teaches me. Not you. Us. I have hinted at this already, but I think what David’s story shows us as a whole, not just highlighting his sins, is that God can and very often is at work in all our messiness and sinfulness. Having a king was the people’s idea, not God’s (1 Sam. 8:7). The building of the Temple in Jerusalem was David’s idea, not God’s (2 Sam. 7:6). Yet, both of those things are appropriated by the Lord and made part of his plan. When scandal breaks out in a church or ministry, especially the kinds we’ve seen with Ravi Zacharias, Carl Lentz, and now Mike Bickle, questions of whether or not God was ever at work in the ministries of these men rightfully come up.
Lines are drawn quickly and starkly. I want to venture into those questions by looking at how God worked in David’s time and personal experience. When David asks the prophet Nathan about building the Temple, God tells him no, that one of his sons will build it, and that in turn, God would build David’s “house,” meaning his royal lineage. He promises David that his house and kingdom will “be made sure forever before” the Lord, and that his throne “will be established forever” (2 Sam. 7:12-16). This promised son is partially fulfilled in Solomon, who builds the Temple, but looking back, Christians confess that this prophecy blooms out beyond Solomon and comes to fruition fully in Jesus Christ. Did God place the idea for a Temple in David’s heart? I don’t know. Yet, God fully adopts the idea and works within it, but unto something greater. The Temple becomes a problematic signpost for God’s true desire—to tabernacle with humanity in the incarnate form of his Son, Jesus, and to tabernacle by the Holy Spirit within his people, who as a community have become the Temple. As part of the climax of the book of Revelation, and Scripture as a whole, John says, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev. 21:22). Indeed, the whole earth was fashioned as a cosmic garden-temple where God means to live with humanity.
When we look at the ministries of fallen church leaders, it can be hard to disentangle what was right and good from what was wrong and evil. Sometimes, it’s impossible to disentangle. I bring up the Temple to say that in a similar way to how God was at work in the Temple, the idea of a man who raped, murdered, and abused, God can and is at work in the ministries of these fallen men. Were these ministries God’s idea? It’s likely impossible to say, especially after the exposed scandal, but what we can say are the ways we met God in these ministries. When I look at something like the “prayer movement,” something of which IHOP was a part, I think of all the other ways 24/7 prayer has been a Christian expression. From the deserts of Egypt in the late third and early fourth centuries to the beginning of Pete Greig’s ministry in 1999, aptly named 24-7 Prayer with its “boiler rooms,” day and night prayer has long been a Christian impulse. Did Lentz’s church give a space for celebrities to search for Jesus? Yes. Did Zacharias’ ministry give Christians confidence in knowing Jesus was different from other gods of the world and real? Absolutely. This in no way excuses their sin. This, in no way, is meant to give these men a pass. They should absolutely be held accountable, but their sins do not discount how God is at work quite literally everywhere.
In an effort to cope with the immense pain and sense of betrayal when a leader is exposed for heinous offenses, we Westerners are good at compartmentalizing and making things black and white. Sometimes, it is appropriate to draw stark lines. Clergy sexual abuse, affairs, and financial dishonesty are sinful things, period. I’m talking about the myriad ways people have encountered God in ministries that explode. It’s impossible to say how any of these ministries will be remembered in fifty or a hundred years if they will be remembered at all. It may be they are remembered as something God incorporated into his plan to redeem humanity to himself in a way resonant with the Temple, or they may be remembered as the failed Temple system of the northern kingdom of Israel.
This leads to my second point, that of personal experience. Some of my best years and experiences happened during my time at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. I came back to a vibrant faith after struggling with doubt there. I learned how to pray there. I learned about the love and mercy of God there. I met my wife there. I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit over and over again while I was there. I experienced times of profound transformation in the prayer room. I fell in love with the Sermon on the Mount because of Mike Bickle’s teachings. I feel no need to discount any of that. This isn’t an apologia for IHOP or Bickle, but it is a claim that God was present. This also isn’t a rebuff of the testimony of many people who were hurt during their time there, and especially not of the courageous women who have come forward, anonymous or otherwise, and shared their stories with the world. Personal experience is important, but it isn’t everything. The dysfunction or abuse people experience in these ministries do not discount the experience of God that others had or that they themselves had. Nor does people’s experience of God nullify the experience of abuse or dysfunction. All those things are real and important to the individuals who make up a community. All those experiences come together to define what a ministry and its leaders are.
Church Leaders Are Not King David
As a last word, I think it’s important to reiterate this point. Your church leaders are not King David. If you’re a pastor or church leader, you need to remember you are not King David. That David stayed on the throne after raping Bathsheba, after murdering Uriah, after Amnon, after trafficking girls (his harem), and after Abishag does not mean we owe any church leader a return or restoration to authority. David was a king in the ancient world, and the power of ancient kings was largely unchallenged except by internal intrigue or military coups. At least part of the reason David could get away with what he did was because he was an ancient king. Our pastors and leaders are not ancient Near Eastern kings. We live in a wildly different cultural context.
It is good and righteous to depose or unseat a leader who is exposed for sexual sin or who is unjustly gaining financially off the back of those who are a part of the ministry. As Christians in the 21st century, there is no reason for us to tolerate abusive leaders. We have an entire Bible filled with stories of how God and his people challenge injustice, challenge cultural norms, and hold powerful people to account. We have Jesus, the Son of God, who traveled alongside women and did not take advantage of them. If there was anyone with imbalanced power dynamics, it was the Son of God, yet he did not count his divinity as something to use for his own leverage. As a human, as a man, Jesus would have had any and all the normal sexual urges and bouts of loneliness and desire that any of us experience. As a man in power, Jesus would have had every opportunity to exploit his charisma and influence over the women who traveled with him to exploit their trust and devotion to him, to abuse and silence them. Instead, Jesus honored them, made them feel safe, and served them. He always watched out for their good instead of his own.
Finally, it is appropriate to expect, at the very least, an apology from our leaders who sin against us, both to the individuals who were abused and sinned against and to the community thrown into turmoil as the truth comes out. These apologies, when they’re sincere, can be healing and cathartic. Repentance is better. By repentance, I mean a change of direction in a person’s life. Neither an apology nor repentance means a fallen leader should be restored to their former position. When a church leader has broken the trust of their community, to put them back into a position of authority compromises the safety of that community for several reasons, among them the probability of that leader falling back into old patterns and because there will always be a sense of distrust and suspicion within the community.
This is not an eternal condemnation of the leaders in question. Part of the scandalizing good news of Jesus Christ is that no person is out of the reach of his forgiveness and love, no matter how sinful. Jesus can and will continue to work in that person’s life until the day they die and beyond, but restoration to a relationship does not equal a restoration to leadership. Even then, this restoration of relationship with Jesus requires true repentance, and again, the community can and should expect that repentance. When David was confronted about his sin of raping Bathsheba, David actually did the next right thing. He simply confessed what he did and repented. There was no hedging, no excuses, no making light of what he did, and we can and should expect the same from our leaders.
I will have more to say about moving through church hurt and leadership betrayal, but I thought it was important to first look at Scripture and deal with the questions of David and leadership. Until then, may the Father’s grace and peace rest on your heart and life by the power of the Holy Spirit in the grace of Jesus Christ.
It is true, and it must be noted, that the end of David’s story in 1 Chronicles 29 presents a different image of David, who, in his strength, used the last of his days to gather money and resources for the building of the Temple, which Solomon would build. The reasons for these differences are too nuanced to get into in a footnote. Put briefly, Chronicles is trying to justify the consolidation of worship in and around the politically sanctioned Temple in the capital, Jerusalem.
A Latin phrase meaning “happy fall/fault.” The idea that though Adam’s sin was immensely grievous, it won for humanity the far greater blessing of the Incarnate Savior, Jesus Christ, coming to our aid and making our blessing as his redeemed greater than our original blessing in creation.
This isn’t a simple change from reading Scripture as devotional material to reading it as stories. There are many different genres within the Bible, and it’s essential to learn how to read each as their respective genre. Something like the Sermon on the Mount should be taken as instruction from Jesus himself on how to live as a disciple. It is telling me how to live my life, and it would be appropriate to discern by the Holy Spirit how to apply the sermon “to me and my life,” but the stories of the Old Testament are doing something drastically different than the Sermon on the Mount or even books like Job, the Psalms, or Proverbs.
This is the absolute best commentary I've read about this entire mess, and I've read it all. Thanks so much for taking the time to right and publish at the appropriate time. I'm sharing broadly.