The Biblical Leadership Show
Inspiration. Wisdom. Leadership from a Higher Perspective.
Welcome to The Biblical Leadership Show, your go-to resource for discovering timeless truths from Scripture that empower leaders to inspire, influence, and impact their world. Hosted by Tim Lansford and Dr. Dean Posey, this podcast takes a deep dive into the Bible’s profound lessons on leadership, bringing fresh perspectives to timeless principles that resonate in today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world.
Each episode is packed with:
- Powerful Biblical Insights: We explore the leadership styles of biblical figures like Moses, Esther, David, and Jesus, extracting practical strategies for overcoming challenges, building trust, and creating lasting impact.
- Real-World Applications: Learn how to integrate biblical leadership principles into your workplace, team, or organization while navigating the complexities of modern leadership.
- Inspiration for Growth: Whether you’re a seasoned leader or just stepping into a leadership role, our content is designed to motivate and equip you to lead with integrity, compassion, and vision.
- Stories and Wisdom: Hear personal stories and guest interviews that highlight how biblical leadership transforms lives and businesses.
Leadership isn’t just about titles or power—it’s about serving others, making wise decisions, and leaving a legacy of faith and purpose. Through relatable discussions, actionable takeaways, and encouragement rooted in Scripture, The Biblical Leadership Show provides the tools and insights you need to lead boldly and faithfully in every sphere of life.
Whether you’re leading in the boardroom, the church, your community, or your home, this podcast is for you. Together, we’ll navigate the intersection of faith and leadership, bridging ancient wisdom with modern relevance.
New episodes drop every Tuesday. Subscribe now and lead with purpose, faith, and courage!
The Biblical Leadership Show
The Jesus Legacy: Servant Leadership in Matthew 1-4
Welcome to a pivotal moment in our Biblical Leadership journey as we cross the threshold from the Old Testament into the New Testament. This transition marks not merely a new section of Scripture, but a profound shift in how God's love for humanity is demonstrated through the person of Jesus Christ.
The Gospel of Matthew opens with a remarkable genealogy that does far more than establish Jesus' credentials as the promised Messiah. Hidden within this detailed family tree are powerful leadership lessons about legacy, inclusion, and the value of every person within an organization. Notably, Matthew includes four women in Jesus' lineage—an extraordinary acknowledgment of their significance in a patriarchal society. This teaches modern leaders that everyone matters, regardless of their position or background.
When we examine the account of the Wise Men from the East, we discover principles about risk-taking and following divine direction. These scholars embarked on a dangerous journey based on their study of prophecies and astronomical signs, then made the courageous decision to disobey King Herod when warned in a dream. Their story challenges today's leaders to consider: Are you willing to follow your convictions even when the path forward seems uncertain or risky?
John the Baptist emerges as a case study in focused messaging and understanding one's role within a larger mission. His clear, concise call to repentance attracted thousands, demonstrating the power of a well-defined message. For contemporary leaders, this raises important questions about organizational clarity: Can your team members articulate your mission in a few simple words? Does everyone understand their contribution to the larger purpose?
Finally, Jesus' temptation in the wilderness offers insights into maintaining integrity when faced with ethical challenges. Every leader encounters situations that test their principles—whether to compromise quality for profit or bend rules for convenience. Jesus' example of countering each temptation with established truth provides a template for developing ethical resilience before facing such challenges.
As we journey through Matthew's Gospel in the coming weeks, we'll explore Jesus' revolutionary concept of servant leadership—an approach that continues to transform organizations and leaders who embrace it. Subscribe now and join us as we uncover timeless leadership principles from the life and teachings of history's most influential leader.
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 2:Hey Tim.
Speaker 1:Dr Posey, how are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic today.
Speaker 2:How are you doing?
Speaker 1:Well, you know we're hanging in here. This is a fun day. This is like a milestone, this is like a turning point for our year.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:How exciting is that.
Speaker 2:That is so exciting. We finished the Old Testament last week.
Speaker 1:If we would have been good, we would have took our hiatus, our little break at the end of the Old Testament. It would have smoothed out right there. But you know, we've been back in the studio a couple weeks now, so we're excited to be back. We're getting back in the swing of things over here.
Speaker 1:Yes, and we're starting the New Testament and, yeah, it's pretty exciting, A little bit different tone. You know, in the New Testament, you know, and we're going to get the dad jokes I see him over there, Jones, and for some dad jokes.
Speaker 1:But let's let's give people. Tell us a little bit about the feel I mean cause you know people always talk to. They have problems with some of the Old Testament writings and stuff and compared to the New Testament. Do you have any comments on any of that? I know you give advice how to sort of navigate the Bible, sometimes as far as if they wanted to read it in 90 days or a year or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so, first of all, it's one book, a bunch of different authors right, sixty-six books, but a bunch of different authors over thousands of years of time. But there's one theme throughout the entire book, and that is God loves us, period. Okay, and if there was, as someone said, hey, if God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And God's number one item every day is humankind. I mean, that's the number one agenda. You know, taking care of the world, you know making flowers bloom and all this stuff. Yes, that's all important, but that is nothing compared to how much he loves you and me. And so that's from the very beginning, from the first page to the end. It's a consistent message, and the thing that we see beginning in the New Testament more than the Old Testament, is that God loved us so much that he actually came down as a person and His Son, jesus Christ, was fully God, fully human, and showed. He didn't just tell us, he showed us that he loved us through His teaching, through His death on the cross, his resurrection. And so let's just start there with a leadership principle. You know this goes back to almost from the very beginning. Our very first podcast goes back to almost from the very beginning, our very first podcast when we're talking about do you walk your talk? And so that is so true as we begin the New Testament.
Speaker 2:Now, some people might not realize when they're reading the Bible. After the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi, to the New Testament, there's about a 400-year break. Okay, we don't necessarily get that if we're just reading the Bible. But if we look at the history and when most scholars think that the last books of the New Testament were written, there's about a 400-year break between the Malachi and or the last of the prophets and the New Testament. And so you know, a lot of things can happen in 400 years.
Speaker 2:But there was still an expectation of the Messiah coming. And if we read Jewish history, between those 400 years there was a lot of things going on. You had Alexander the Great and then you had the Romans take over, then you had the Maccabean Revolt. There's just a lot of things going on over that part of the world. And in the Old Testament, with the rules, leviticus, deuteronomy, those kind of things. But if you read it from the filter of, okay, what does this story tell me about God's love for me? And then if you read that, you might not see it on every chapter, every page, but the overarching theme, that is the theme and it becomes real, dominant in beginning in the New Testament.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of where we are and, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1:No, I was going to ask you because I mean, we'll probably have a lot of people that are starting at the New Testament you know, They'll probably start listening to the show and I know that you've mentioned minor versus major prophets and maybe how does that tie into this? A lot of people don't know, haven't listened to some of our Old Testament show. How does that transition into New Testament? Sort of a similar thing.
Speaker 2:Well, yes and no, but the difference between the major and minor prophets is the length of their work, it's not the importance of their message. And so you have Isaiah Jeremiah, isaiah Jeremiah, you know, those are the Ezekiel. Those are long books, you know. And then you have the book of, you know, malachi four chapters. And so it's not that Malachi's message was less important, it's just that the length of his work was smaller. So they're called the minor prophets. So there's four major prophets, 12 minor prophets.
Speaker 2:But if you look at the message specifically of the book of Isaiah, there's a lot of prophecy there about the coming of the Messiah and that God is going to redeem his people. But you've got to know it's there and you've got to know where to look for it. And so here is Isaiah prophesying hundreds of years before Christ. And then we look at the life of Christ, which we're going to start getting into here in just a few minutes, and we see that every one of the prophecies of the Old Testament about him became true. And it's just if you actually look at all the prophecies about where he was born, in Bethlehem, and he was from the line of David, and all these things, if you start looking at all those, then it's just phenomenal. There's not a way it could all be coincidence that he fulfilled all those prophecies, and those are written hundreds of years, and so that is one of the ways to tie the Old Testament with the New Testament.
Speaker 2:Now, if you just read the Bible, if you've never read the Bible before, I encourage you to start with the New Testament. You might read maybe one chapter of the Old Testament. We encourage you to listen to our podcast during the Old Testament. You might read maybe one chapter of the Old Testament.
Speaker 1:We encourage you to listen to our podcast during the. Old Testament. Read the New Testament, then go back and read the Old Testament.
Speaker 2:Yes and then because the Old Testament you know it's a lot longer than the New Testament, obviously and you can get bogged down Now. Genesis and Exodus just phenomenal history. And the creation story, you know, the people of Israel going down to Egypt becoming slaves, coming out of Egypt, you know, with Moses, they're just phenomenal history. And then you read Leviticus, you know Deuteronomy and Numbers, and then you get into the book of Joshua, which is more history and just some phenomenal leadership principles there. But they're all leading to what we're beginning today and that is the New Testament and God's redemptive plan for all humankind. And so I'm excited that we're not just finished, but I'm excited about what we're getting ready to start. And so, as we get into the New Testament, it's important to understand one word that or a phrase that's often used when describing the first four books of the New Testament. So you have Matthew, mark, luke and John. Those are called the Gospels, and the word gospel means good news, and so many times you will hear people talk about the Gospels. Well, they're talking about those first four books. Like the Jewish people would talk about the Pentateuch that was the first five books of the Old Testament or the Torah. So there's certain words that's important to understand. What does that actually mean? So if you look at the Gospels, that's the first four books. Now, in those first four books, you have what you call the Synoptic Gospels synoptic meaning similar and so you have Matthew, mark and Luke. Now, many of the stories are similar and it depends on what biblical scholar you talk to. It's like okay, most scholars believe that Mark was the first one written and then Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source to write their own version or add to it. What's incredible about Matthew? He was one of the disciples. Mark Most scholars believe that Mark was written, and we'll get to Mark here in a couple of weeks. Mark was written by a man by the name of John Mark, who we read about in the book of Acts, but it was really the preaching of Peter, and Mark was like a scribe and he wrote it down Peter's preaching, and that became the book of Mark. Interesting thing about Luke was that Luke was a Gentile physician who became a Christian under the teaching of Paul. We read about that in the New Testament book of Acts, and so he was not a first generation, you know, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, and so his story has so much power in it? Because he was not. He didn't grow up a Christian, he didn't grow up in Israel, he didn't grow up Jewish, and yet he became a Christian and his writing is.
Speaker 2:It is my favorite book in the whole Bible.
Speaker 2:But we have the birth story of Jesus from the book of Luke, we have the story of the wise men from the book of Matthew.
Speaker 2:So when you're reading the Bible, many times you can't just look at one chapter, one book. You have to look at all of it and put it all together like pieces of a puzzle. And when you do that you get the big picture of what God is doing, that he prioritizes humankind, that he loves us, right where we are, just the way we are, and he sent His Son to redeem us from our sin because he wants us to live with Him in heaven forever. So we see that. And when we start reading the Bible with that filter, then we begin to see things that we maybe hadn't seen before. And if we read the Old Testament from the filter of oh, what does this tell me about Jesus? What is the prophecy? Sometimes there isn't a prophecy, but many times there are, if you know where to look, and so it's exciting to begin this new chapter in our podcast journey, you know we've been doing this now, oh gosh, a year and a half.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a little bit yeah and so now we're here and it's exciting a new chapter.
Speaker 1:That's awesome exciting. Yeah, very exciting. Yeah, and I noticed that when we go through and you read these, I think what you said you have to sort of pull from each of the stories Because if you read them a lot of them they seem like they overlap. They're restating some of the same information, but there's little details that come out through everybody's eyes. Looking at a situation just a little bit different, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's like if you went to a birthday party and then you asked five people to write their experience. They'd all be talking about the same thing, but they would put their own slant on it because of their background, their point of view in the room, whatever. And so that's what we see in the first four books. Okay, the other thing about it talking about Luke and we'll get into Luke here in a couple weeks is that Luke didn't just write the book of Luke, he also wrote the book of Acts, and so we read about Paul finding Luke on one of his missionary's journeys. He became a follower of Paul, a disciple of Paul, followed him around, and if it hadn't been for that experience and we'll get to that when we get to the book of Acts then we wouldn't have the book of Luke and we wouldn't have the book of Acts. And the book of Acts basically is the story of the early church, the first couple of decades after Jesus' death, and so such an amazing compilation of what God did to bring the story of redemptive history into print, and then, over time, that story has just impacted billions of people's lives. Still, the number one selling book in the world is the Bible. There's all these New York Times bestseller whatever. The Bible is still the number one selling book in the world and has been for years and years and years. And so if you want to read the bestselling book, it might not be on the New York Times bestselling list, but the bestselling book of all time is the Bible.
Speaker 2:And I was just talking to a young man 33 years old. He just became a Christian here just a few weeks ago. I had the privilege of baptizing him about a month ago and I said, okay, he wanted to buy a Bible. I said, okay, you go to the store. If you have any questions, give me a call.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing you go to the store where they sell a bunch of Bibles and you just take this just like five or six different versions. You have the NIV version, you have NSRV, you have the King James version, new King's, there's the New American Standard. There's so many different versions. They use different language. I mean, they use different, maybe, words, but they're still trying to translate it from the original Greek and Hebrew. Okay. So I said just sit down, take about 30 minutes to an hour, sit down with five or six different ones, read the exact same passage from all these different ones, like turn to Matthew 1, turn to John 1, whatever. Just read the exact same story from all these different versions and then whatever one you feel like is your speaks to you the most, it's easier to read.
Speaker 1:Yeah which one resonates by that one.
Speaker 2:Okay, I said because, like the King James Version of the Bible, which is still the number one seller, is written in like a 12th grade reading level. Niv is like in a 9th grade reading level. So it depends on what fits your personality, what fits your desire. That's the Bible you should read and you might read. I read the NIV. I've read the NIV for years and years and years. I preached from that for years. I've used the NRSV, the New Revised Standard Version, for a while. But that's just me. I just I'm comfortable with that.
Speaker 1:Other people are. I'm old school King James here. King James, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm old school, yeah, new King James. King James, they did a great job of that and I should say find a Bible. It could be the living Bible, it could be the message. I mean, whatever works for you, just find something that works for you and begin to read it.
Speaker 1:Right, that's great. Well, you know, just to let you know, I think we might get a few new listeners here because you know it's one of those things when people search for different things, they're looking at that and they're going to see that we're getting into the New Testament. There's a lot, a bit more popularity with New Testament. We might get some new listeners. So, if you're a first-time listener to our show, what our show is is basically we take the Bible we go through this year. We're going through a series this year maybe a little over a year, depending on how we break it up where we talk about the Bible. We sort of do a recap on a high-level overview of each of the chapters of the Bible and then we tie in some leadership principles and how you can use them in everyday life. And then we throw in some dad jokes and people always ask us love the show, what's up with the dad jokes?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly right.
Speaker 1:Well, when Dr Posey and I sit down, when we were constructing this, we both figured out that we liked dad jokes and we had a lot of fun with it and we decided if we're going to sit down and do podcasts for years, we're going to make this fun. We don't want to be too serious. Dr Posey's been a minister for 40-plus years. He's done the serious. He's got a very light-hearted side to him. I'm sort of a jokester. I get that from my son. He's one. No, I'm just kidding. We like to have fun, so we throw dad jokes in there and so you're going to hear dad jokes randomly through there. You're going to get a lot of leadership principles that you can walk out and use in everyday life and then you're going to get a recap of some of the highlights of the Bible, sort of maybe get you interested. You know, going down a path of wherever that may take you.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly right. So, considering you just talked about dad jokes, and just a few weeks ago when he had the Indianapolis 500, which is just an incredible race, you know. So what do parents feed their infant child if they want them to grow up and be a race car driver? Cheery goes, that'd be good, nah Tried. How about Formula One?
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, I like that one Formula One. I would actually give that one some applause. Yeah, yeah, I like that one Formula One.
Speaker 2:I would actually give that one some applause there, yeah yeah, okay, before we move on, just tell me a joke about a flat tire, no pressure.
Speaker 1:Let's see, I don't know about that one. I'll give you one more.
Speaker 2:Some of these jokes are groaners and some of them are sleepers.
Speaker 1:Just don't turn about that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so some of these jokes are groaners and some of them are sleepers. And just don't turn off the podcast, okay.
Speaker 1:You got to have a combination of knock it out of the park and then the groaners, because that's the groaners what makes some of the dad jokes fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, so who do you call?
Speaker 1:Ghostbusters yeah, here we go.
Speaker 2:So you know we're in Texas. It's the beginning of the summer, it's hot Mosquito season.
Speaker 1:If you want to get rid of your mosquito infestation.
Speaker 2:who do you call Ghostbusters?
Speaker 1:Mosquito busters, the SWAT team. There you go, the SWAT team. All right. Yeah, so we do have people that listen in a lot of different countries.
Speaker 1:But I want to say that we are based out of here, out of Dallas, texas, in that surrounding area down here. So if you always wonder where the show is, we're all that and you can get on our website. You can check out these and all the spots that you listen to, some of the podcasts. That's probably where you're finding us. You can text us, you can text us, you can email us, so there's a lot of ways to get hold of us. Just so you know. And other than that, you got one more dad joke you ready.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, the old-fashioned carousel, the old-fashioned carousel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love it. There's one up in Massachusetts we ride all the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's great. I had a friend that fainted on one of those, yeah, but he's okay.
Speaker 1:He's coming back around.
Speaker 2:And around, and around and around.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. Okay, let's get after it. So I thought of something, but that's all right, I'm going to leave it until later, leave it until later.
Speaker 1:We've tortured him enough. Leave it till later. Leave it till later. We've tortured him enough, you know. So, as we talked about this, we're going to do we talked about it last week, I do believe where we're going to break down some of the longer chapters, some of the messages. So, as we go through this New Testament, you might see us pick up some you know, a half of a chapter and then finish another half chapter next week, and that's sort of what we're looking for here in the next couple of weeks, right? So, matthew, we're going to start with this week, right?
Speaker 2:Right, we're starting with Matthew. Matthew is 28 chapters long, so we're going to do chapter 1 through 14 today. Next week, we'll do chapter 15 through 28. The following week, the book of Mark is only 16 chapters and so—I said only 16 chapters, but it's 16 chapters, so we'll do all of that. Luke is 24 chapters, so we'll do 12 chapters one week and 12 the next. The book of John 21, 22 chapters, and so we'll break that down. So the book of Acts is 28 chapters.
Speaker 2:So specifically in the first beginning of the New Testament, there's so much material. Now there's some common themes in the synoptic gospels and then the four gospels together, and that is on servant leadership, because that's what Jesus was all about, and so that is such a powerful leadership concept that too few leaders practice today, but it has so many implications for excellent leadership loyalty of your people, role modeling of your next generation, your succession plan. There's so many things that we can talk about with servant leadership. So we're going to be using that phrase a lot. We're going to talk about what that means, why it's important and where that's found in the Scripture, and so if you've never heard of that term, just stick with us and we will get after it.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah. So where is the book of Matthew? It's sort of to overview. This talks about Jesus showing up right, right. Is that sort of the?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so what's interesting? At the very beginning of the book of Matthew you read about the genealogy of Jesus. Okay, now what's interesting is the very first chapter is the genealogy of Jesus, and in that particular genealogy we find some people that if we read the Old Testament we would read all about them, some people that if we read the Old Testament we would read all about them. But there's also four women mentioned, three by name, but also David's. Mistress Bathsheba is mentioned as the wife of Uriah. Her name is not mentioned, which is interesting, but women, unfortunately back then were not thought of very highly. Okay, which is tragic, but that's the way it was. And but yet you see these four women in the genealogy of Jesus. And then there's some. You have some really good kings, some very bad kings. It starts out with Abraham, goes all the way down to Joseph and it goes down. Genealogy was very important. So let's just talk about the chapter one before we get to the visit of the wise men. Let's just talk about chapter one Record-keeping and administration. Okay, Right.
Speaker 2:The Jewish people are phenomenal record-keepers. I mean phenomenal record-keepers.
Speaker 1:They have to be. I mean, it was, yes, you read some of the genealogies and I mean there's yes, they keep going and going and going and going and going.
Speaker 2:And back then, by the time you were 12, you had memorized so much of the Old Testament. So they still are exceptionally well doing that. But here, in the first chapter of Matthew, we read the genealogy. And so here's the question as far as leadership, how good a record keeper are you?
Speaker 1:Are you keeping track of your?
Speaker 2:expenses. Are you struggling every time you have to turn in your tax returns? Do you have somebody doing that? If you're not good at keeping records, okay, you're not the detail person. You need to find someone who is the detail person to keep your records, because that's just good leadership. Now you might have started out as a single like you, a single contractor. You're doing everything. You know you might be a plumber, you might be an electrician, you might hang wallboard, whatever it may be, lay tile, you know you might cut grass, whatever you do. But if you're not a good record keeper, then you're going to get in trouble. And so the question is how are you handling your records Right? And then here's the other thing the women in chapter 1, they were not thought of very highly.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And yet there's four of them in the genealogy of Jesus that are listed. Now, obviously, there had to be a woman involved in every generation, but there's four listed and so think about this they were seen as such an important part of the genealogy of Jesus. They're listed in the genealogy in Matthew, chapter one, which tells me, as far as leadership principle, that every person is important. Every person is important. And so the question I'd have as far as leadership do you treat everybody in your organization as important, as an important piece of the puzzle, or do you treat other people less important than others? And that is such a valuable leadership tool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's sort of what I got out of my show prep is I had the similar thing God uses imperfect people to you know. So, as you as a leader, your leaders don't have to be perfect. Your people working for you don't have to be perfect. We all bring something to the table. And then the second thing that I got out of Jesus' genealogy that tied into leadership was that legacy matters. You're only building for the next generation, whether it be whatever your company does, whether it be you as a father, it's a constant build on every year. So that legacy's there, that genealogy. You've got to think in the past, not what you're going to accomplish here, but what's going to accomplish four generations from now and keeping that leadership going in some of your genealogies and some of your downlines right.
Speaker 2:Correct, and so here's just a personal story. When I was growing up, my dad was a phenomenal baseball coach. My older brother really good first baseman. My younger brother incredible catcher. Me not so good at baseball at all. I wanted to be but, I played baseball until I got hit in the face with the ball and broke my nose.
Speaker 1:I've been there, done that. Yeah, then I quit.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing I played on the team but I didn't have a coach who taught me how to play ball. Okay, they would send me out there and I made so many mistakes, okay, but I never had a person that really said this is how you field a ground ball. This is how you throw the ground ball. This is how you throw it more accurately. This is how you do this, this is how you bat. You were just supposed to get up there and do it and I had no training on how to do it and I was horrible at doing it and so, because I wasn't that good, I didn't. I wanted to be good, but I just didn't have any training.
Speaker 2:So my question is for you who are leaders how much time are you spending training your people to do what you ask them to do? Do you just give them a task and then just assume they know how to do it? Not that you have to micromanage. Jesus was not a micromanager. Okay, he trained his people and then he sent them out, but he sure he was encouraging, but he trained his people and so he trained them by them watching how he did it, and so he would go and pray for somebody. He'd heal somebody, then he would send them out to heal, but they had watched him do it. And so the question for leaders is how much time do we spend training our people? How much time do we say you know what? That's not exactly how I want that done. Let me show you how I want that done.
Speaker 2:Now, let's be blunt. Sometimes people just don't want to learn, they just can't do it or they don't want to do it. You teach them certain ways and they still do it because they just feel like it's not important. Well, you know, sometimes I've had to let people go because, you know, you say no, I want this done this way, I want it this way, this is why I want it done this way. And they just refuse to do it over time. And it's like you know what I need somebody who will actually do it, which is good for the organization, not just because that's the way you want to do it, but that's to me a perfect leadership principle from here, from the very beginning of Matthew chapter. You know one and two.
Speaker 1:Right, I got it, that's good.
Speaker 2:And then we go on to the wise men. Okay, so we have the genealogy of Jesus, then we have the birth of Jesus and then we have the visitation of the wise men. Now you might not know I mean you might have seen a manger scene at Christmas time or something like that and you see the three wise men and they came from the east and they brought, you know, they saw a star, and they came to Jesus there in Bethlehem. They presented Him the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. But they first went to Jerusalem and then they talked to the king, said hey, you know, we've been looking for this baby. He was born king of the Jews.
Speaker 2:And Herod says well, go find him and then come back and tell me. Well, then we read that in a dream. They said no, don't go back the way you came, go back a different way. And so the I have a plaque on the wall in my home office, right above my desk, that I look at at least once or twice a day. It says never confuse the will of the majority with the will of God.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Right. And so here is the wise men, and the king wanted them to come back, and they thought, no, that's not good.
Speaker 2:And so the question is as a leader, we have to make tough decisions sometimes really tough decisions, and it could be a matter of quality over quantity, it could be a matter of bottom line, it could be this, could be that. But the question is who are we listening to in order to make those decisions? Are we trying to make them by ourselves? Are we praying about it? Order to make those decisions, are we trying to make them by ourselves? Are we praying about it? Are we getting our top leaders together and helping them think through? The answer before a decision is reached and that's just good leadership is to get some input before a major decision is reached.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my show, matthew too. I sort of looked at the wise leaders and sort of my principle I got out of that is, you know they were listening to divine direction, right. But I mean, when you have a gut feeling, when you have whatever you want to call it, a lot of times that is divine direction, right, it's internal, it's that gut feeling, it's leading you down a path. You have some kind of calling down there and sometimes it's risky. I mean, this was pretty tough for some wise leaders to step up and avoid. They did a whole bunch of stuff like protecting Christ and the legacy and all that. And I think there's a lot of times that leaders and all that. And I think there's a lot of times that leaders they go down a path even though it's risky, they challenge. I know people mortgage their house to start a business. They're called Think of Noah. You wrote a book a long time ago. It started out this podcast where he had to build this ark, right.
Speaker 2:And that was the whole thing. Well, just think about this we don't know exactly where these wise men came from. Okay, many people think it was Babylon. Okay, it's somewhere in the east. Okay, they see a star They've been thinking about. They had to be reading the prophecies of the Old Testament, which we had talked about. They knew there was going to be a star. They see the star and then they head out on a journey. They didn't know if that was going to be true or not. They risk everything for that dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, I just applaud those entrepreneurs that are willing to risk so much to fulfill a dream. Yeah, sometimes they fall flat on their face you know, but at least they try to do something that their whole heart, their whole life.
Speaker 1:And a lot of times they regroup and do it again yes, exactly right. And they rebuild.
Speaker 2:They rebuild, and so you know. So the question is, as a leader, how much risk are we willing to take? You know, whether that's a new product line, whether that's changing buildings, locations, reformatting our image on social media, whatever it is, are we comfortable with what is, or are we willing to step out and take a little risk? And that's a really good question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just so you know, we're not going to make it to chapter 14, right, we're on chapter two Because it's our show. We do whatever we want, but we can catch it. Next week We'll do a couple more because I know we're running on time. I don't want to make this like 12 hours long on a podcast. So we'll go through maybe chapter four, have that sound a little bit better and see what we can do, and then is that a good stopping point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because in chapter five we start with a sermon on the mount right, so let's just go through chapter four, and then we'll just keep going.
Speaker 1:Because I mean I want to cut you short, where you don't have any dad jokes going on at the end of this and we have to cut you off immediately because that would make Dr Posey, I've got so many dad jokes.
Speaker 1:And if you're a first time listener of our show and stuff, you got to understand Dr Posey has like 300 dad jokes. He's got dad jokes emergency dad jokes in a box. He's got some calendar dad jokes. He's got printout dad jokes. He's got book dad jokes. He's got all kinds of dad jokes. So when we say we're set up for dad jokes we are good that we are good.
Speaker 2:That's part of show prep that is part of show prep and that's great, so let's go into Matthew 3 while we're talking okay, and here we have, coming on the scene a man by the name of John the Baptist.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So John the Baptist's role, if we read the book of Luke, which we will get to here, in a couple of weeks, maybe months.
Speaker 1:I don't know where we're going.
Speaker 2:Right, it's a year and a half of leadership, and so we see that John the Baptist and Jesus were related and John the Baptist's mother became pregnant in her old age. Jesus' mother, mary, was pregnant in her young age and John the Baptist was born like six months before Jesus. But then John the Baptist grew up, he had incredible parents and then he felt called by God and his job was to prepare the way for Jesus. Okay, so he baptized, called people to repent, but here's the thing boldness was just in his DNA. Okay, he was so bold about sharing his message. And so you know, as far as leadership, I don't know if we would put John the Baptist as one of the great leaders of the Bible, but I think he was one of the most bold people in that time, just because he was doing something that no one else had done. His job from God was to prepare the way for Jesus and he was bold about it. He was not obnoxious unless you were a religious leader and they were trying to cut him down and eventually he got beheaded, you know, gave his life for his cause. But his boldness, his message, was very focused and he did his job. And so the question of is, as far as leaders, we can be bold without being obnoxious, okay, but is our message concise and to the point? So people understood John the Baptist's message repent. I mean, it was basically one word, and the people came to him by the hundreds, if not by the thousands, because they were longing. Some people thought he was the Messiah. He said no, I'm not the person. You know, I don't even have the ability to untie the sandals of the person that's coming after me. So he was humble, he was bold, but his message was so on point, and so let's just talk about that.
Speaker 2:As a leader, how precise is your message, whatever that message is, if you're advertising on social media, is it confusing? Is it right on point? And do people understand within literally five seconds what you're about? And do people understand within literally five seconds what you're about? Or is it confusing, you know? Is it something like oh well, you know, your mission statement is like two paragraphs long. Your employees don't even know how to recite it. Or is it? You know your mission statement? Eight words and everybody understands it. Everybody knows what it is, and that is such an important leadership principle. I mean, you deal with that in your leadership conferences?
Speaker 1:all the time we talk about it. Everybody knows what it is and that is such an important leadership principle. I mean, you deal with that in your leadership conferences all the time we talk about it and we've mentioned many times here is we'll go into a class or a conference and I'll have 50, 100 people in a room. I ask them if they even know their mission statement? No-transcript, what's that?
Speaker 2:you know.
Speaker 1:So how do you know, when you wake up and you go to work, that you're working for the same direction, that the ceo, that the management, that this company needs to go? I don't know. I don't know, I go well yeah, I'm there for a paycheck, yeah because, yeah, it's exactly right, and that's one of the things that leaders need to figure out is how to express where the ship's going, how to get everybody and to define that message where everybody's on the same page.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So that's chapter three, and then we get into chapter four. So at the end of chapter 3, jesus is baptized by John the Baptist, immediately goes out into the wilderness where he's tempted for 40 days, right, but he never loses focus on his mission.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question, because I mean we had Moses was 40 years and then we got Jesus is 40 days. Do we have symbolism in the 40? Oh yeah, there's 40.
Speaker 2:It means almost like complete. There's a lot If you go and actually look at. I mean it rained 40 days and 40 nights like a symbolic thing.
Speaker 1:No, everything's 40. It's 40,. You know, I just didn't know if they looked at that like the word complete or if that was like there was some special meaning into that. You know, I just that had my thought process and I was like I'm going to ask Posey.
Speaker 2:Well, we don't have time in this podcast to go into that, because there is a special meaning, but, like when you know people before, like Jesus was crucified and they slashed him and beat him with a whip, there would be normally 40 lashes less one. Okay, so it was 39 lashes. Symbolism of 40 goes throughout the entire Bible, meaning complete or sometime. I mean it's very specific 40 days, 40 years, this 40, this 40, very important number, and so is number seven. It's a divine number, complete number, and so, anyway, so Jesus lives in the world, the wilderness, 40 days. And here's the thing he was tempted to turn over his authority to Satan and he stayed fast on his focus. He countered the temptations with the Word of God. And here's the thing All leaders face temptation, whether that is to cheat on your taxes, whether that is to make your product less quality so you can make more profit, whether it is to get personally involved with someone in your office, you're going to be tempted.
Speaker 2:And the question is not are you going to be tempted? Everybody's going to be tempted. The question is how do you handle that? Do you rely upon your own power to do that? Do you rely upon your wisdom? Jesus relied upon the Word of God, and so the question is when those temptations come, how are you going to respond to them? What is your armor, what is your arsenal to counter those temptations? And I'm saying if, you're not a prayer person.
Speaker 2:That would be a great way to use that Other people support group, those kind of things would be. But it's going to happen and you've got to know before it happens how are you going to counter them when it happens. And I'm sure as a contractor you've dealt with, you know not just your subs but yourself was like, well, I could cut this short, but no, I'm not tempted. A contractor you've dealt with you know not just your subs but yourself. It's like, well, I could cut this short, but no, I'm not tempted to do that because they're counting on a good product you know when building a house Right, Exactly right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So temptation is part of it and you know that's all the time we have today. But here we go.
Speaker 1:Where did we get through Three.
Speaker 2:I think we got through four chapters.
Speaker 1:Did we technically get through the fourth one? Yeah, we did. We touched on it. Yeah, we touched a little bit on the temptation of Jesus. We'll overlap it the next way, fair enough.
Speaker 2:So the son was talking to his dad. His son was hungry, you know, as most sons are, and he says, dad, can I eat the cake in the fridge? And? And his dad said, sure, but the dining room would probably be a better place to eat it that bad huh, wow. I was reaching for the button the entire time. Yeah, yeah, you should have stopped me. You should have stopped me.
Speaker 1:You should have stopped me. I was like all right, there we go All right, one more, and we'll get these people out of here. You got one more on you, right?
Speaker 2:Okay, I've got, I don't have, just one more.
Speaker 1:I've got like 400 more. We'll let these people go after one more.
Speaker 2:So we normally have our podcasts come out on Tuesdays. Yes, so Saturday and Sunday are the strongest days, because the other ones are weekdays.
Speaker 1:All right. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Did I win the lottery or what I'm?
Speaker 1:just doing it because.
Speaker 2:It's the end of the show and everybody's excited Like, oh my gosh, I didn't think this would ever end.
Speaker 1:All good. Hopefully we didn't blow your drums out with the air horn. Alright, guys, thank you for listening to us today. Thank you for being on this journey with us, especially as we tackle into the new Testament next week. We got yeah four or five to four or five coming up to you know maybe five through eight.
Speaker 1:We'll see where we make it by. Guys Depends on how talking to talking we are next week. So other than that guys check us out biblical leadership showcom, and other than that Dr P take us out and make it a great day, thank you.
