Welcome to Equip Night
Humility in Ministry & Leadership
PREFACE
•
This is the accompanying PowerPoint of Donna Boisvert
and Emily Buck’s New Testament online class group
project.
• Please see our paper and use it as you go through this
presentation.
• An expanded preface is written in the paper.
• Teaching material and bibliographic information is also in
the paper.
(Our paper plus the PowerPoint is our presentation)
Watch This!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JnkGyw2sFY
Luke 18:9-14
The Parable of the Pharisee
&
the Tax Collector
Humility in Ministry & Leadership
Jesus gives us the ultimate example of how to
live and serve.
We will use Jesus’ Parable of the Pharisee
and Tax Collector to look at humility in our
lives and ministries.
Begin with prayer and scripture reading.
(Luke 18:9-14)
Luke 18:9-14
9 “To
some who were confident of their own righteousness
and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:
10Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee
and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood by
himself and prayed: “God, I thank you that I am not like
other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--even like this
tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I
get.”
13But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even
look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have
mercy on me, a sinner.”
14I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home
justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves
will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be
exalted.”
Commentary/Discussion Points
Let’s break into the three ministry groups and
examine the scripture.
 Who is involved?
 Where is it taking place?
 What were the dynamics, relationships issues?
 Identify other scriptures that might relate to this
situation.
 What is Jesus expecting us to learn?

In light of the scripture reading, discuss
the following questions with your group.
When I fast, pray, or do my “religious” acts, who is my
audience?
 Do I do such acts to earn my own righteousness?
 Do I compare myself to others in my service?
 When I pray, am I like the tax collector, who knew his
unworthiness and that only God’s mercy could justify him?
 Do I sometimes, maybe without saying, assume that my
works put me in better position with God?
 Am I looking at other people as I pray,
or are I looking only at Jesus?
•
Parables, Pharisees & Publicans
• Jesus used parables throughout his life and ministry, as
a way to teach and illustrate to His followers how they
were to live out their faith.
• Parabole is the Greek term for parable.
• A story from daily life illustrating a moral or spiritual
lesson.
Parables, Pharisees & Publicans
Jesus used the
contrasting attitude
and demeanor of
certain characters,
related to their
position in society, to
demonstrate the
“right” and “wrong”
way to demonstrate
their faith
Parables, Pharisees & Publicans
What preconceived notions do you
experience, when you encounter
Pharisees or Tax Collectors in Scripture?
Parables, Pharisees & Publicans
• The title Pharisee coming from the Hebrew
word perushim.
• Linked to a meaning depicting “separated
ones” or “separatists.”
• They were strict protectors of both the
written law, The Torah, and the
oral tradition.
• First-century Israel respected the
Pharisees for their piety and devotion to
the law.
Parables, Pharisees & Publicans
• The Tax Collector was one of the most
despised individuals in Jewish society,
seen as a thief, an agent of the Roman Empire and a
sinner.
• The term comes from the Greek word telones
meaning publican or tax collector.
• Publicans were seen as traitors who collected, and
benefitted from the crippling taxes that the Jews were
obligated to pay to Caesar, included tariffs, customs,
sales taxes and an annual tax to Rome.
Humility: Application in
Ministry & Leadership
• When Jesus chose to use these two characters,
so very opposite in the eyes of the residents of
Palestine, he created what Thomas
Boomershine calls a “reverse expectation”.
• It is actually the religious Pharisee who is
criticized against the backdrop of a corrupt tax
collector, deemed as “justified before God.”
• Jesus wanted us to think about our claims of
righteousness and humble ourselves before
God, recognizing that we must depend
completely upon His grace, like the Publican.
Humility: Application in
Ministry & Leadership
25 Jesus
called them together and said, “You
know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their high officials exercise authority
over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever
wants to become great among you must be your
servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be
your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not
come to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life as a ransom for many.”
--Matthew 20:25-28
“Not so with you”
Leadership Mandate
Ken Blanchard & Phil Hodges
Humility: Application in Ministry &
Leadership
• Considering the Parable of the Pharisee and Publican,
what lessons can we learn about desiring to live out a
servant leadership model?
• What are the do’s and don’ts that make for a leadership
style that resembles Jesus’ mandate to us?
Humility: Application in Ministry & Leadership
• Rather than self-promotion and superiority,
Jesus calls us to be humble, to reverse that
expectation that we are somehow righteous in
our own sight by our status, our title or by the
deeds we do.
• He calls us to a life & leadership of humility
and to a ministry that shares His love for the
poor, the outcast and the sinner.
Emphasis in Ministry
Jesus Friend of
Sinners
Emphasis in Ministry: Jesus Friend of Sinners
• Jesus broke religious & social rules of his time by associating
with the outcasts of Jewish society.
• Jesus dined with tax collectors & sinners,
associated with & taught women, ministered
to the ritually unclean, & dared to declare a tax
collector “justified.”
• He was condemned & shunned by the religious leaders,
responding to their hypocrisy with warnings & reproach.
• Again, Jesus’ models this “theme of reversal: where humble
“outsiders” receive blessings or commendation, while prideful
“insiders” suffer rebuke or loss”.
Mark Straus
Major Theme in Gospel of Luke
• Good Samaritan (10:29-37)
• The Persistent Widow (18:1-8)
• The Great Banquet (14:16-24)
• Philip Yancey explores another reversal as it relates to ministry
in the church today.
• He talks about how church has become a place for the
respectable, where “the down-and-out, who flocked to Jesus
when he lived on earth, no longer feel welcome…”
• Jesus was the friend of sinners.
They liked being around him & longed for his company.
• Legalists found him shocking, even revolting.
“What was Jesus’ secret that we have lost?”
• Can it simply be that those who live on the outskirts of society
can somehow recognize more easily their need for a saviour?
Philip Yancey, From the book: The Jesus I Never Knew
“Therefore I say to you, her sins, which
are many, are forgiven, for she loved
much. But to whom little is forgiven,
the same loves little.”
Luke 8: 47
“He has shown you, O Man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk
humbly with your God?”
Micah 6:8
The Spiritual Discipline
of Humility
The first test of a truly great man is his humility.
By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or
hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an
understanding of the relationship of what he can
say and what he can do.
John Ruskin
The only humility that is really ours is not that
which we try to show before God in prayer,
but that which we carry with us in our daily
conduct.
We had long known the Lord without realizing
that meekness and lowliness of heart should
be the distinguishing feature of the disciple.
Andrew Murray
The greatest test of whether the holiness we
profess to seek or to attain is truth and life will
be whether it produces an increasing humility
in us. In man, humility is the one thing needed
to allow God's holiness to dwell in him and
shine through him. The chief mark of
counterfeit holiness is lack of humility. The
holiest will be the humblest.
Andrew Murray
The sufficiency of my merit is to know that
my merit is not sufficient.
St. Augustine
Humility is not thinking less of yourself but
thinking of yourself less. Humble people let
go of image management and self-promotion.
They honor others by making the other’s
needs as real and important as their own.
Adele Ahlberg Calhoun
Guided prayer time
Use this time to think about what we’ve
discussed and pray through the
scriptures on the screen.
Father, help us to be confident in your
righteousness, and to look only to you.
“All of us have become like something
unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a
polluted garment; all of us wither like a
leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the
wind.”
 Isaiah
64:6 HCSB
“All have turned aside, they have together
become corrupt, there is no one who does
good, not even one.”
 Psalm
14:3 NIV
Jesus, I thank you that you are the
Friend of Sinners.
“Later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as
the guest of honor. Many of Levi’s fellow tax
collectors and other guests also ate with them. But
the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law
complained bitterly to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do
you eat and drink with such scum?”
Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a
doctor--sick people do. I have come to call not
those who think they are righteous, but those
who know they are sinners and need to repent.”

Luke 5:29-32 NLT
Jesus, I thank you that even though we are
sinners, we are saved by your grace!
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is
rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even
when we were dead in transgressions--it is be
grace you have been saved.”

Ephesians 2:4-5
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.”

Romans 5:8 NIV
Lord, help us to serve in humility.
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the
humble….Humble yourselves before the Lord, and
he will lift you up.” James 4:6, 10 NIV
“He guides the humble in what is right and
teaches them his way.” Psalm 25:9 NIV
“But those who exalt themselves will be humbled,
and those who humble themselves will be
exalted.” Matthew 23:12 NLT
(click below link to play song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJXIug
wiN7Q&feature=relmfu