Several dozen questions have come in over the months on the abuse of pastoral authority.

Matthias is one such listener who wrote in to ask us this, Pastor John.

How do I know if my pastor is a spiritual bully?

What does this look like?

This is an extremely delicate subject because just to talk about it can signify in some

settings on the one hand an oversensitivity to healthy pastoral authority that is not

bullying at all but someone might accuse a pastor wrongly of bullying just because they

don't like his tone of voice or he seems to be a little bit more firm than they grew

up experiencing by their dad.

On the other hand, there are bad shepherds.

The Bible makes it clear that there are.

Our experience today makes it clear that there are bad, abusive shepherds who don't love

the flaw.

We know this from profits in the Old Testament and we know it from abuses in the New Testament.

They abuse their position, use it for an ego trip or the need for control or even more

sinister and sick harm done to others.

The question is very, very important and we can fall off the horse of truth on either side

of minimizing it or maximizing it when it's not really there.

I think the best approach is to ask where does the Bible have an equivalent to bullying?

What's the biblical?

I mean the word bullying doesn't occur in the Bible but the reality is there.

The word is all over the place in the New Testament and it might be helpful just to point out

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