"God told me to..."
Sanctified Manipulation, the Third Commandment, and Church Leadership
When I was in high school, a girl I liked at the time broke the terrible news: God had told her we should not date one another. It is difficult to put into words how it feels for a teenage crush to transform into a feeling of rejection from God himself, but it’s a feeling that is hard to forget. Even then, as an immature kid, I knew that this wasn’t right. I read my Bible. I prayed. God hadn’t told me we should be together, but he certainly had not revealed a divine mandate against us going to Applebee’s together. I thought to myself, If you want to dump me, go ahead. Don’t make Jesus dump me too.
As I continued growing up in Christian churches and among Christian friends, it became clear that this kind of attribution was the norm, rather than the exception.
“God isn’t calling me to serve.”
“God wants you to give to my mission trip.”
“God wants us to be together.”
“God told me that I should…”
At some point, I was tempted to doubt my own relationship with God because he did not seem to be interested in micro-managing my life, and giving detailed directives on the most minute decisions, as he did with my friends.
Then I began to work in churches. I watched a pastor overcome a personnel change controversy by saying in a contentious business meeting, “We let them go because God told me to. This is what God wants for our church.” The conversation was shut down immediately. Who can defy God? I watched building campaigns framed in terms of obedience to God. I watched people despair when they sought God’s will in similar ways only to be stymied and met with silence.
When I was called as pastor to my own church, the search committee asked me: “Is God leading you here?” Out of a desire not to manipulate them, and to be earnest about my prayers and impressions from God, I told them that we had been praying for God to fill our hearts with love for the church and its people, a passion to reach the community, and a willingness to live our lives with them. That’s what happened, and we believed we were at liberty in Christ to come as pastor and pastor’s family.
Why was I so careful answering this question? I’ve become convinced that this kind of behavior—slapping God’s name onto our pet causes or using God’s name as an excuse to avoid hard conversations—is not only unhelpful, it is sinful. It is a violation of the third commandment: (“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” [Ex. 20:7]). It trivializes the gravity of God’s words and introduces confusion into how we hear from God. Carl F.H. Henry says it best, talking about the attaching of God’s name to political positions that are not explicit in Scripture:
The clergy have neither a divine mandate nor authority nor special competence to articulate particular programs of politico-economic action and when they pronounce their fallible ideas with presumptive piety they encourage public doubt about the church’s possession of an authentic word of God in the theological and moral realm.”
In other words, when we attach the name of Jesus to our political platforms indiscriminately, what we do is encourage the world to come to a horrible conclusion: God has not spoken. It’s just us speaking, and saying it was God so we add extra oomph to our words.
In the course of my study through the book of Exodus, I came across this excellent section from Kevin DeYoung’s book The Ten Commandments on the necessity to keep the third commandment, how to break the commandment, and how to keep it.
I hope you will read it in full, and be encouraged to do what Jesus himself encourages us to do in the Lord’s Prayer: hallow God’s name.
Whenever we attach God's name to lies, half-truths, or ill-conceived purposes, we break the third commandment. This means perjury is serious sin because under oath we swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God" We also profane God's name by accusing him of things that are false. There is certainly a right, scriptural way to lament and cry out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But to be angry with God, or (as some will tell you) to forgive God, as if he had sins or crimes against you, is to call into question his works and character and so to profane his name.
Maybe this will hit closer to home: if we use the name of God to ascribe a false sense of authority to our ideas, plans, or opinions, we violate the third commandment. Take politics for example. We ought to be very sure that the Bible speaks clearly about our preferred political policy or our newest cultural hot take before we insist that every Christian must agree with us. Likewise, we must be careful not to throw around phrases like, "God told me to do this," or "God wants us to do that. " I understand that some Christian traditions use this sort of language casually, without trying to claim divine authority for every decision, but we shouldn't slap the name of God on the back of our plans just because we feel strongly about our proposed ideas.
I've always tried to keep this in mind when leading the church. When we were in the middle of a capital campaign and the elders found an existing church to buy and renovate, we were careful not to overstate our case. It would have been easy to say, "We've prayed about this and God has provided an open door. God wants us to have this building. But we need you to give generously. Will you be obedient to the Lord as we follow him?" Church leaders say that sort of thing all the time, and it's not fair. We can't claim divine authority for a capital campaign. What we can say is, "We've sought the Lord and spent a lot of time researching all the options. As your leaders, we all feel that this is the right move for the church, and we think God will be honored if we move forward together." The difference between the two speeches is subtle but significant. Phil Ryken puts it well:
A more serious way to break the third commandment is by using God's name to advance our own agenda. Some Christians say, "The Lord told me to do this." Or worse, they say, "The Lord told me to tell you to do this." This is false prophecy! God has already said whatever he needs to say to us in his Word. Of course, there is also an inward leading of the Holy Spirit. But this is only an inward leading, and it should not be misrepresented as an authoritative word from God. When we claim absolute divine authority for our human plans and decisions, we violate the third commandment. God's name is holy, and it must not be added willy-nilly to our prudential decisions, no matter how sincere or important the decision might be.
The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them (Foundational Tools for Our Faith), by Kevin DeYoung