Leadership and Lifestyle

This book offers a clear, thoughtful portrait of early Christian understandings of leadership and compares Luke's presentation of Jesus' model of leadership and Paul's self-portrait in 1 Thessalonians. It identifies parallel ideas and shows how close Luke and Paul are in their understanding of how Christian leaders are to lead. This study contributes to debate about the portraits of Paul in Acts and his epistles by considering Paul's Miletus speech (Acts 20.18b-35) and identifies and compares major themes in Luke and Paul's views of Christian leadership. Comparisons with Jesus' speeches in Luke show how Lukan the speech is and, with 1 Thessalonians, how Pauline it is. The speech calls the Ephesian elders to service after Paul's departure to Jerusalem, focusing on: faithful fulfilment of leadership responsibility; suffering; attitudes to wealth and work; and the death of Jesus. Paul models Christian leadership for the elders. Parallels in Luke highlight his view of Christian leadership - modelled by Jesus and taught to his disciples, and modelled by Paul and taught to the elders. Study of 1 Thessalonians identifies a remarkably similar portrait of Christian leadership. The Miletus speech is close in thought, presentation and vocabulary to an early, indubitably Pauline letter.