Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the daily challenges. This week’s topic is part of our series called EPIC where we’ve been exploring how Jesus is found throughout the Old Testament part of the Bible. We’re reading some epic old stories from the Old Testament, some of which you might have heard before, some of which might be new to you. But our hope is that in each of them we’ll see how they’re part of one big epic story: the story of the Bible, the story of the world, God’s story.
Our daily challenges are meant to help you explore what it means to follow Jesus, even if you don’t have a lot of time. That’s why we have a rhythm that keeps us in sync, even if we’re not a community that meets together in person regularly. This means every Monday we introduce the week’s idea. Every Tuesday we study it in the Bible. Every Wednesday we see how that challenges and transforms our thinking on the topic. Thursdays we try to apply and live it out. Friday is a day for prayer and reflection before we take a rest on Saturday, and Sundays we meet together with other Christians in community.
I recently watched an episode of 60 Minutes profiling Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Over the last fourteen years, his work has led to the development of a massive online encyclopedia almost every Internet user has visited.
Most other web sites of this scale are presided over by billionaires, made rich by advertising revenues, buyouts, user fees or some other way of turning a massive profit.
Instead, Wales made Wikipedia a non-profit. He makes a good living speaking, and moves in influential circles, but he is relatively unassuming and not spectacularly wealthy. He’s, in some ways, the antithesis of an Internet mogul. He doesn’t look or act like a high roller at all.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wikipedia-jimmy-wales-morley-safer-60-minutes/
Often our ideas about what makes a strong leader are wrong. It doesn’t hurt if a strong leader is good looking, socially confident and wealthy, but it also doesn’t make them a leader in the first place.
This week we’ll study a story where God chose a leader no one expected.
Question: What qualities do you identify with a strong leader?