Page 144 - The Bible On Leadership
P. 144

CHAPTER S EVEN



                 Team Development





               ‘‘The body is a unit . . . and though its parts are many, they form one
               body.’’
                                                             —1 C. 12:12


               ‘‘As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.’’
                                                              —P. 27:17




                       uick, can you identify who coined the phrase, ‘‘People are
                       our most important asset’’? By now, it’s irrelevant. Which-
                       ever company you work for, you’ve seen or heard that
                       phrase before. Regardless of who originated it, the quote has
             become so common that it has become a cliche ´, as have references to
             ‘‘the team.’’ The extent to which different companies honor these con-
             cepts in practice varies, but they all pay devout ‘‘lip service’’ to them.
               But the leaders of the Bible, who rarely used the word team, were
             masters of team practice. They had to be. Their technological infra-
             structure was rudimentary at best and sometimes nonexistent. There
             were no computer networks, and for the most part no ‘‘bricks and mor-
             tar.’’ The people of the Bible lived in tents for much of their history,
             without permanent dwellings. The only thing as permanent as ‘‘the
             people’’ were the flocks of sheep, goats, and cattle, and the land itself,
             which they did not always occupy.

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