Today’s Thought “Following Charisma” G. Ward Acts 17 11 Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. A sycophant is synonymous with a flunkey who flatters a subjective leader, generally with a personal agenda soon to be fortified (cf. Matt.16:24). Generations ago, parents would ask (rhetorically) their children a periodic question, so seemingly condescending, along with what we perceived was the worse analogy ever. It happened upon our desire to be a part of something everyone was doing that needed permission and what we didn’t know then, is that every parent attended a parenting class that supplied them with such a horrid, nonsensical euphemistic expression that asked, “if Lil Johnny jumped from the cliff, would you jump also?” Every time one is with follow-ship of a presumed spiritual leader and exercises in an implicit trust of his words (even when it’s perceivably “straight from the Word”), it’s with equivalency to discounting a “personal relationship” with Holy God as attainable. HE builds us (individually – Phil.1:6), so we may help establish others towards a walk that reproduces (*Eph.4:4-7, 11-13).