The Shepherd’s Responsibility After the “Platform”

Dr. Gilbert

Tuesday, September 1

7:00 am

Dr Daniel & Mary Beth Gilbert

Article 2 in a Series on Restoring Biblical Order to the Prophetic

Leaders who publicly endorse a voice must publicly correct the record when that voice proves false.

In my last post, we looked at how an unbalanced “Culture of Honor” can create a vacuum where deception flourishes.

Today, I want to address a second, perhaps even more difficult issue: What is a leader’s responsibility after they have given someone their platform?

When a prophetic leader is exposed as a fraud—as we have seen in the recent controversy—the damage isn’t just in the deception itself. It is quite common when a leader realizes that a guest they have hosted was “off the rails,” they privately disconnect; stop calling them, removing any references to them in their online collateral. Then, they move on as if nothing ever happened. 

But we cannot privately disconnect from a public endorsement.

When a pastor or leader brings someone onto their platform, they are doing more than just giving them a microphone; they are giving them an endorsement. They are telling their sheep, “You can trust this person. You can open your heart to their words.”

There are people who made life-altering decisions—expensive business moves, marriages, or major relocations—based on “prophetic words” that we now know were the result of data mining and social media research.

If we, as leaders, were the ones who provided the platform for those words to be sown, we have a spiritual and moral obligation to help shepherd the people through the harvest of those words.

It takes immense courage for a leader to stand before their people and say: “We were wrong.

We didn’t vet this person well enough. We allowed a voice into this house that was not speaking for God, and for that, we ask for your forgiveness.”

True honor is not protecting our own image; it is honoring the people we shepherd by being honest with them. We must be more concerned with the spiritual health of our sheep than the public reputation of a minister.

If we have the “spiritual strength” to platform someone, we must have the spiritual maturity to correct the record if they go astray. Anything less is not leadership—it is self-preservation.

Selah,

Dr. Daniel & Mary Beth