Is leadership top down or bottom up? This question is frequently posed, especially by those who wish to either disparage any kind of order and structure or those who desire to justify tyrannical hierarchial models of authority. And truly both sides like to cherry pick and selectively quote sources to support their position. But we ought to faithfully consider that, so far as we are looking from a biblical model of leadership, that godly leadership is both top and down and bottom up, and how it is both is worthy of extensive comment.

This is a subject that could take an entire book, and at this present time I lack the resource of time to be so broad in my analysis, so I would like to present this as a preliminary investigation, not as a dogmatic conclusion, but as a line of potential future research. Today we will look at a very narrow range of the potential biblical evidence by looking at some parts of the much larger case study of Moses, as one of the leaders about whom the Bible says the most (aside from Jesus Christ, of course). Let us examine the case of Moses to see a little bit about what Moses reveals about godly leadership.

First, let us note that the Law of Moses reveals that all biblical leaders are subject to law. No godly leader is absolute, all are constitutional. We find this, of course, in Deuteronomy 17:14-20. Of particular interest, let us comment on the restrictions made on kings. Deuteronomy 17:14-20 forbids that foreigners be given the throne and that the leader not multiply horses, wives, silver, and gold for himself (see Solomon), lest his heart be turned from God and he trust in his riches or in his military power and not in God. Also, a king was to write a law, recognizing that he was subject to the law and that his heart not be lifted up in pride to think himself above his brethren.

This is a hard law. But unless a king could be held accountable to the law by someone, it would be a dead letter, a useless law. However, in the biblical practice it appears that any citizen of Israel could hold their leaders, even a king, accountable to the biblical law and by doing so would take upon themselves by so doing the mantle of a prophet. Doing so invites a much heavier degree of scrutiny for one’s own life and behavior, however, and is not to be taken lightly. But neither is leadership, which also invites a higher degree of scrutiny. Being a leader does not make one exempt from accountability here and now, but under more accountability to anyone led by that person.

This must be said at the outset because it is the framework of everyone being accountable to biblical law, whether ruler or ruled or critic/prophet that prevents the false dilemma of top-down tyrannical government or bottom-up anarchy. It is only within a just constitutional order that it is possible to avoid the equally unacceptable options of anarchy and tyranny. By destroying a constitutional order we make good government impossible, since all of the options left are evil. In this light, we must see that even a cursory glance at the Bible, even the example of Moses alone, shows elements of both top-down and bottom-up structure to avoid both extremes of tyranny and anarchy in a legitimate order.

It is not difficult to find evidence of top-down structure and organization in the Law concerning Moses. After all, Moses was the only Israelite allowed to talk face to face with God (see Exodus 20:21, among other examples). When God had a command to give Israel, he gave it to Moses first and then Moses told the whole congregation of Israel (see Exodus 31:1, 12, among many examples). Again, there was a clear order and structure in Israel–and clearly Moses was the person directly under God, even though Moses himself was subject to God and not an autonomous law giver.

However, the Law also includes very obvious bottom-up references to show that Moses had no interest in an authoritarian hierarchy with himself at the top. In Exodus 18 he accepted the wise advice of his father-in-law Jethro to set up a bottom-up appeals court where leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens would hear cases and appeal those that were too hard for them up until they reached Moses. By so doing Moses removed some of the burden of leadership on himself and trained other people to be leaders. This is what a good leader does. Bad leaders foster dependency on their expertise. Good people train others to become leaders themselves.

That this bottom-up aspect of Moses’ leadership was not an accident is clear from Numbers 11, where God gave His Holy Spirit to 70 elders so that they could help Moses with his burden of leadership. When Joshua showed a zeal for Moses’ reputation, Moses graciously answered (see Numbers 11:29) that he wished that all of Israel had God’s Holy Spirit so that they could rule and judge and discern wisely according to God’s laws. Since all Christians have been given God’s Holy Spirit (see Joel 2:28-32, Acts 2, among many other examples), all Christians are capable and responsible for learning how to judge matters of this life responsibly (see 1 Corinthians 6) without having to go to a minister over every little decision.

So, even from our very brief examination of Moses’ example of leadership we can tell three important aspects of godly leadership. For one, godly leadership requires that everyone be accountable to the same biblical standard of behavior, where others are free to hold a leader accountable and to make sure that they do not view themselves as above others or above the law. Additionally, we see that the biblical model of godly leadership allows for input and learning from the bottom-up as well as order and direction from the top-down, thus avoiding both extremes of anarchy and tyranny in a just and constitutional system of government. Now, if only we could implement it on earth.