I have written quite a lot about “self-differentiation” ever since my doctoral study [see here]. At that time, my research advisor was pressing me to focus on this psychological concept—also biblical—in my dissertation about toxic leadership.
The term basically means to remain free from the psychological control of other people. Christian writers like Herrington, Creech, and Taylor have taken the idea and brought Scripture to bear on it.1 They point to Jesus as the ultimate self-differentiated individual as he engaged with others in a deep, empathetic way while not being controlled by them.
Jesus is an example to us.
There is another man in Scripture who, though deeply broken, was a “type of Christ” in the Old Testament—Jesus’ forefather King David.
The story of David, a rapist (2 Sam. 11:4) and murderer (2 Sam. 11:15), gives hope to every man, woman, and child that in our wickedness we can be redeemed. In 1 Samuel 17 the story of David and Goliath is told. It provides for us a picture of self-differentiation.
David Shows Up
David, the youngest of his brothers, would go back and forth to the battle lines where his older brothers were engaged in a war with the Philistines. He would bring food and supplies from his family to them.
One day David showed up and heard the giant of a man, Goliath, taunting the Israelite army. As David spoke with various soldiers about it, his oldest brother said,
“Why have you come down? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your presumption and the evil of your heart, for you have come down to see the battle.”
1 Samuel 17:28
I don’t know what was in David’s heart but his response is certainly self-differentiated:
“What have I done now? Was it not but a word?” And he turned away from him toward another, and spoke in the same way, and the people answered him again as before.
1 Samuel 17:29-30
It is a bit defensive— “What have I done now?” — but he does not allow Eliab (brother) to deter him from gaining more information about Goliath.
What I want to get at is that victims of toxic leadership normally shut down. As they are critisized by their boss, ridiculed by a manager, or demoted because they don’t practice image-control as their bosses require of them, they turn inward, keep their head down, and sort of do their jobs.
Who wants to be criticized? Who wants to face ostracization?
We want to keep our jobs. We want to please our bosses and supervisors.
All normal and all understandable.
But not always self-differentiated.
David’s Self-Differentiation
Rather than sulk away as I did many times under a toxic boss, David went to the big boss—King Saul—when Saul called for him. David told Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of [Goliath]. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
So, David goes out to meet the giant and there meets further scorn:
“Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field.”
1 Samuel 17:43-44
I love David’s response. It could sound arrogant, except that it is a testimony to dependence on the LORD. And dependence on the LORD is fundamental to Christian self-differentiation.
Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, 47 and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’S, and he will give you into our hand.”
1 Samuel 17:45-47 (ESV)
Sunday School materials are full of applications culled from this passage that tell children to stand up to their greatest fears. Sometimes those applications are ridiculed, but that interpretation is not far off.
What can be missing is that it wasn’t in David mustering the strength from deep within, but in his dependence and belief that God had his back and he was doing the right thing in response to God’s calling.
So to trust God alone is self-differentiation for the Christian.
Jesus’ Self-Differentiation
I believe the most apropos passage for defining self-differentiation is when, after Jesus did many signs and wonders, many “believed” in him. John says,
But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.
John 2:24-25 (ESV)
Jesus knew what was in man. So too, David knew not to trust in man’s confident assertions (Goliath’s or his brothers’) but in God Himself.
Self-differentiation is just this: Not allowing the anxiety of others to control our own trust in Jesus. It frees us to stand up to toxic leaders where others cower. It frees us to leave the toxic workplace when others fear leaving. It allows us to reject the arrows of our antagonists whether they are a boss, fellow employee, or church leader.
Give your trust to Jesus, not to any other man.
NOTES
- Herrington, Jim. The Leader’s Journey: Accepting the Call to Personal and Congregational Transformation. 1st ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003. ↩︎