Leader and Led Alike Both Bear the Load of Responsibility

Addressing some of the crucial lessons to be learned from Paul's passionate pen in 2 Corinthians 10–13, Professor Carson speaks to one of the more important lessons, in my estimation, for the contemporary church.

Here's his insight:

Individual Christians and local churches alike must take responsibility for the styles of leadership they follow. If it is true that Christian leaders are responsible before God for the teaching they provide, the models they display, and the directions they take, it is no less true that Christians and Christian assemblies are responsible for choosing what and whom they will emulate.  

The problems at Corinth depicted in 2 Corinthians 10–13 would never have arisen if the Corinthian church had handled the intruders in a mature and biblical fashion in the first place. That they failed to do so reflects their spiritual immaturity, their unsettling inability to perceive that the norms of their own society were deeply pagan and not to be nurtured in the church. 

—D. A. Carson, From Triumphalism to Maturity: An Exposition of 2 Corinthians 10–13 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 28.