Paul wrote by the Holy Spirit, that he “no longer recognized any man after the flesh”. He wasn’t speaking of having bad eyes. To the contrary, he was speaking of a very acute sight, just not the physical kind. He had matured in Christ to the point where he understood that a man’s earthly credentials accounted for very, very little, if anything at all, in the Body of Christ. He now knew that it was what God revealed about an individual that was the determinant factor in knowing who the person truly was and just where they were at in life.
In my Christian life, I’ve seen great, great harm done to the Body of Christ by the failure of leadership to exercise this principle. I’ve seen people with a calling from God, placed in positions of authority, way before their time. Way before their “stuff” had been dealt with and their learning to walk in love. In certain cases, I’ve witnessed what could only be described as “self-validation” by ministries in jumping at the opportunity to have someone with “credentials” associated with them. I know of one case in point, where an individual is very learned, but has very little revelatory understanding of the grace of God, mainly having an intellectual one.
The Lord is calling His Body to get back to its roots in the selection of leadership and ordination. This life in Christ that we subscribe to, is first and foremost a spiritual journey. Not an intellectual one. For that, spiritually mature leaders are needed. They can only be recognized through the eyes of the Spirit. May we have the sight needed to see them.