Spiritual authority.

In our world today, it's a fraught topic that evokes strong reactions from many different sides.

What is it? Who has it? How is it supposed to work?

And how should we respond when that authority is abused?

I ask all these questions and more in my interview today with David Mathis.

David serves as a pastor at City's Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, as an adjunct professor at

Bethlehem College and Seminary, and as senior teacher and executive editor at Desiring God.org.

He's also the author of Workers for Your Joy, The Call of Christ on Christian Leaders from Crossway.

Let's get started.

Well, David, thank you so much for joining me again on the Crossway podcast.

Thank you, man.

Always great to talk to you.

So you open your book by noting something that I'm

sure many of our listeners have noticed themselves. Maybe they even feel it themselves. And it's that

we live in an age that is increasingly cynical and skeptical about the idea of leadership.

And you say that some of that cynicism is for good reasons,

and some of it has maybe more to do with just the mood of our times.

So I'd love for you to unpack both of those things for us,

maybe starting with the good reasons.

What are some of the good reasons for our ambivalence about leadership today.

Matt, you know, we got access to a lot of stories these days through social media,

through our various media. And there has been, the tide has changed on if there's a bad

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