Posted November 17, 2025
Late last night, President Trump wrote on social media that House Republicans should vote to release all files in the Jeffrey Epstein case. His statement comes ahead of an expected House vote this week, after the House Oversight Committee released more than twenty thousand pages of documents related to Epstein last week. They include communications between the convicted sex offender and numerous high-profile people in politics, media, Hollywood, and foreign affairs.
The issue has come to dominate headlines and popular culture in recent days. Saturday Night Live, for example, made numerous jokes about it too vulgar for me to repeat or reference. My purpose today is not to sort through the entire story, but to speak to an issue it illustrates that directly affects you and me every day.
Ours is largely a two-party political system. Since the creation of the modern-day Republican and Democratic parties in the nineteenth century, no third-party candidate has been elected to the presidency.
As a result, voters are typically obligated to choose the candidate they believe will best lead the country, whether they have significant issues with that candidate’s personal character or not. In this scenario, some choose not to vote, or they vote for a third party or write-in candidate. Others respond that this approach renders the person’s vote null and takes a vote from the major party candidate they would have otherwise supported, essentially helping elect the other candidate. This is a debate for another time.
Here’s my point: Whatever our partisan political views, we must not divorce character from leadership.
Some believe that so long as a person does the job they’re elected to do, their personal character issues are less relevant. Many will therefore view whatever comes of the Epstein files through the same partisan lens they view all other news.
I recognize that we elect a president, governor, mayor, and so on, not a pastor or Sunday school teacher. We don’t typically care much about the personal morality of a CEO whose company’s products we buy.
But we should.
And we should not view elected leaders merely as corporate CEOs and ourselves as the consumers of their “products.”
Let me explain why.
One: Personal character matters to the person.
According to Heraclitus, “A man’s character is his fate.” This is more true than the ancient philosopher knew.
The Bible states, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). This is true for believers as well: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). It is therefore vital that we pray for the spiritual health of our leaders, for their sake (1 Timothy 2:1–2).
Two: Personal character matters to the public.
King Manasseh “did what was evil in the sight of the Lᴏʀᴅ” and “led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations whom the Lᴏʀᴅ destroyed before the people of Israel” (2 Chronicles 33:2, 9). As a result, God judged the nation and it fell into captivity (v. 11).
It is often said that we get the government we deserve, but we need leaders who appeal to the “better angels of our nature” and inspire us to the consensual morality upon which our democracy depends.
Three: Personal character matters to God.
Personal sin keeps Christians from experiencing the abundant life of Christ. We manifest the horrific “works of the flesh” rather than the life-giving “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:19–23). And our so-called “private” sin keeps the Holy Spirit from using us fully.
As Oswald Chambers noted in today’s My Utmost for His Highest reading, “God’s revelation of himself to me is determined by my character, not by God’s character.”
We can confess our sins and be forgiven (1 John 1:9), but their consequences persist. We remain spiritually stunted and miss the joy of the Lord that is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10) and our most compelling witness to a joyless world.
I’ll close today with a word to those of us who are privileged to be in spiritual leadership.
Satan wants us to believe (though we would never put this into words) that because of our calling, we are above the normal temptations of life. Of course this is tragically untrue, as the ongoing clergy abuse scandals show. The devil also wants us to think that we are somehow less susceptible to his wiles than others, hoping to draw us into a conversation over an issue that soon turns into a temptation and then into sin (cf. Genesis 3:1–7; James 1:14–15).
Our enemy does this because he knows that character failures by Christian leaders are especially devastating to the cause of Christ. Our sins can cause greater harm to more people. And our secularized culture will quickly seize on our faults as proof that our message is irrelevant or even dangerous, and that joining the Christian movement is dangerous as well.
So, Christians urgently need to reject the bifurcation of character and leadership so prevalent today. To this end, if you’re a Christian leader, let me urge you to take a moment for a spiritual inventory. Ask the Spirit to identify any area of your life that displeases God, then confess all that comes to your thoughts. Do this regularly. Make it your ambition to honor your Lord in “spirit and soul and body” (1 Thessalonians 5:23) today.
If you’re not in Christian leadership, let me urge you to pray daily for those who are. Intercede for your pastor, Bible teachers, and other leaders by name. Ask God to protect them from the enemy and empower their faithfulness to his glory.
And whatever your role in the body of Christ, I invite you to submit to the Spirit right now (Ephesians 5:18), asking him to empower you against temptation and produce his holiness in your heart. You and I cannot sanctify ourselves, but the Spirit of Jesus will make anyone more like our Lord, if only we are willing.
Andrew Murray assured us,
“God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to him.”
Are you “wholly yielded to him” today?
“The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. God’s one aim is the production of saints.” —Oswald Chambers
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