DISCLAIMER: While credit for the following could partly go to the usual suspects, Arthur Burk, Sandy Landry, and others, there is much to cover that actually flows from my own experience with the Exhorter gift, so, as much as possible I will attempt to express what follows in my own words, and in some ways I flatly disagree with those things that are stated.
Of all the gifts I have dealt with, the Exhorter is the one that I am capable of reacting to the strongest and widest toward and explaining the best.
I have posted a few times with respect to this tribe’s pitfalls, and now, while I may repeat some of those issues, I am really going to give the lion’s share of the attention to the glories of the Exhorter.
PEOPLE WHO WERE/ARE LIKELY EXHORTERS:
Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Franklin Roosevelt, Ed Silvoso of Harvest Evangelism, Jack Frost of Shiloh Place Ministries, Steve Jobs, The Woman at Jacob’s Well in Sychar, The Apostle Paul, Moses, Solomon son of David, And Yeshua.
Let me run into a bit of a diatribe of a man who was mistaken for an Exhorter and whose company is not what I would call a Sapphire Company despite the revolution of the music industry.
STEVE JOBS IN PARTICULAR
Steve Jobs was a very carnal Exhorter, not a Prophet. He was not a technology guy. His main contribution to the computing industry was to take a package and give it the best aesthetics he could. He also took credit for technological work that was not his. Let me leave some evidence from Wikipedia to that end.
Sources from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Brennan-Jobs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
Concerning his deception of Steve Wozinack:
In 1973, Jobs was working for arcade game company Atari, Inc. in Los Gatos, California.[27] He was assigned to create a circuit board for the arcade video game Breakout. According to Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari offered $100 (equivalent to $551 in 2017) for each chip that was eliminated in the machine. Jobs had little knowledge of circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the fee evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, by using RAM for the brick representation. Too complex to be fully comprehended at the time, the fact that this prototype also had no scoring or coin mechanisms meant Woz’s prototype could not be used. Jobs was paid the full bonus regardless. Jobs told Wozniak that Atari gave them only $700 and that Wozniak’s share was thus $350 (equivalent to $1,929 in 2017).[28] Wozniak did not learn about the actual $5,000 bonus (equivalent to $27,564 in 2017) untilten years later, but said that if Jobs had told him about it and had said he needed the money, Wozniak would have given it to him.[29]
Concerning his refusal of parterniy to his first-born daughter:
Jobs, however, publicly denied paternity after she was born, which led to a legal case. Even after a DNA paternity test established him as her father, he continued to deny it.[1][4][5] The resolution of the legal case required him to provide Brennan with $385 per month and to reimburse the state for the money she had received from welfare. After Apple went public and Jobs became a millionaire, he increased the payment to $500 a month.[2]Michael Moritz interviewed Jobs, Brennan, and a number of others for the 1982 Time Person of the Year special issue, released on January 3, 1983. In his interview, Jobs questioned the reliability of the paternity test, which had found that the “probability of paternity for Jobs, Steven… is 94.1%”.[6] Jobs responded by arguing that “28% of the male population of the United States could be the father.”[1][2][6] Rather than name him “Person of the Year”, as he and many others expected while giving the interviews, the issue was instead titled “Machine of the Year: The Computer Moves In.”[7] The thematic change occurred after Moritz heard about Brennan-Jobs as well as Jobs’ management style.[1][2]
Years later, after Jobs left Apple, he acknowledged Lisa and attempted to reconcile with her. Chrisann Brennan wrote that “he apologized many times over for his behavior” to her and Lisa and “said that he never took responsibility when he should have, and that he was sorry.”[2] After reconciling with her, nine-year-old Lisa wanted to change her last name and Jobs was happy to agree to it. Jobs legally altered her birth certificate, changing her name from Lisa Brennan to Lisa Brennan-Jobs.[8] Brennan credits the change in Jobs to the influence of Brennan-Jobs’ newly found biological aunt, author Mona Simpson, who worked to repair the relationship between Brennan-Jobs and her father.[2]
According to Fortune magazine, in his will, Jobs left Lisa a multimillion-dollar inheritance.[9]
Concerning his naming of the Apple Lisa:
In 1978, Brennan moved to the All One Farm commune to have the baby. Jobs was not present for the baby’s birth and only came up three days later after Robert Friedland, the farm’s owner and a friend of Jobs’ from Reed College, persuaded him to do so. Brennan and Jobs named the baby Lisa. Jobs named the computer project he was working on, the Apple Lisa, after her. Shortly after, Jobs publicly denied that he was the child’s father. He claimed that the Apple Lisa was not named for her, and had his team come up with the phrase “Local Integrated Systems Architecture” as an alternative explanation for the project’s name.[1][4] Decades later, Jobs admitted that “obviously, it was named for my daughter.”[1]
Concerning his place at Apple during the early years:
In 1976, Wozniak invented the Apple I computer and showed it to Jobs, who suggested that they sell it. Jobs, Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer (now called Apple Inc.) in the garage of Jobs’s Los Altos home on Crist Drive.[47] Wayne stayed only a short time, leaving Jobs and Wozniak as the active primary cofounders of the company.[48] The two decided on the name “Apple” after Jobs returned from the All One Farm commune in Oregon and told Wozniak about his time spent in the farm’s apple orchard.[49] A neighbor on Crist Drive recalled Jobs as an odd individual who would greet his clients “with his underwear hanging out, barefoot and hippie-like.”[24] Another neighbor, Larry Waterland, who had just earned his PhD in chemical engineering at Stanford, recalled dismissing Jobs’s budding business: ” ‘You punched cards, put them in a big deck,’ he said about the mainframe machines of that time. ‘Steve took me over to the garage. He had a circuit board with a chip on it, a DuMont TV set, a Panasonic cassette tape deck and a keyboard. He said, ‘This is an Apple computer.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ I dismissed the whole idea.'”[24] Jobs’s friend from Reed College and India, and an early Apple employee, Daniel Kottke, recalled that he “was the only person who worked in the garage … Woz would show up once a week with his latest code. Steve Jobs didn’t get his hands dirty in that sense.” Kottke also stated that much of the early work took place in Jobs’s kitchen, where he spent hours on the phone trying to find investors for the company.[24]
And in another place:
According to Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak “Steve didn’t ever code. He wasn’t an engineer and he didn’t do any original design…”[184][185]Daniel Kottke, one of Apple’s earliest employees and a college friend of Jobs’s, stated that “Between Woz and Jobs, Woz was the innovator, the inventor. Steve Jobs was the marketing person.”[186]
Denial is the major weakness of the Exhorter. Steve Jobs marketed; he found investors; he was concerned with appearance, right down to his Black Turtleneck, Levi 501’s, New Balance 991’s, and the look and feel of his tech, including the streamlining of the music industry, not its transformation; he was the face of the company; he denied that anything was wrong with his health; and he denied himself the treatment that could have saved his life from the only curable form of pancreatic cancer in existence.
And concerning the Reality Distortion Field:
The RDF was said by Andy Hertzfeld to be Steve Jobs’s ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything with a mix of charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing, appeasement and persistence. RDF was said to distort an audience’s sense of proportion and scales of difficulties and made them believe that the task at hand was possible. Jobs could also use the RDF to appropriate other’s ideas as his own, sometimes proposing an idea to its originator after dismissing it the week before.[3]
The term has extended in industry to other managers and leaders who try to convince their employees to become passionately committed to projects without regard to the overall product or to competitive forces in the market. It also has been used with regard to hype for products that are not necessarily connected with any one person.[7] Bill Clinton‘s charisma has been called a reality distortion field.[8] The chess champion Bobby Fischer was said to have a “Fischer aura” surrounding him that disoriented Boris Spassky and other opponents.[9] The term has been associated with Donald Trump‘s approach to running his 2016 campaign for United States President.[10]
Financial Times used the term when describing Elon Musk.[11]
In short, Steve was an Exhorter, Woz is a Teacher, and Apple is a Diamond Business.
PLACES THAT LIKELY HAVE THE REDEMPTIVE GIFT OF EXHORTER
Los Angeles, Detroit, Manhattan, Chicago, Italy, France, California, Cape Town (South Africa), Argentina, and the continent of South America.
COMPANIES AND INDUSTRIES IN THIS ARENA
Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.), Walt Disney, Google, Coca-Cola,
I still think that South America, of the seven continents, with its flamboyant, loud-mouthed, communicative, colorful, gloriously Spanish-speaking cultures, is Exhorter.
And this list reflects many sparkly and lovely traits of the Exhorter DNA, in addition to demonstrating various degrees of success and failure at negotiating the pitfalls of the Exhorter.
My first experience with the Redemptive Gifts, in college, led me to think I was an Exhorter, thanks to a sermon delivered at Madison Street Baptist Church of Starke, Florida, by Jeff W. Crook. However, I later recognized I walked in some strong exceptions to the rule.
So, after I provide a list of the Exhorter traits, I will propose a theory and I will be happy to consider alternatives.
BASIC TRAITS OF AN EXHORTER
NOTE: As with all other Redemptive Gifts, there are deep exceptions to the following traits, and these form a generalized, average picture of the Exhorter. The best way to address your particular gift is to talk with Father, address your own spirit, and consider which set flows most naturally. One of the seven will fit the most naturally.
1) Exhorters are generally friendly, sociable, relational, enjoy dealing with other people, and are, broadly speaking, the most horizontal of the gifts.
2) Exhorters hunt relentlessly for the key to a person’s heart in order to have an on-ramp to engage relationally at a deep level with people.
3) Exhorters, as well as Prophets, and I would argue Mercies, are the most verbal of the gifts. While Mercies need to ascertain the trustworth of the audience in question, and Prophets typically speak without reference to the opinions of their audience, Exhorters will take their daily unused quota of words, build a relationship with someone very quickly and engage in expanding their circle of influence. There is little more they enjoy more than a good conversation, and they will form communities with even the smallest of time allotments.
4) Their capacity to influence other people and marshal other people to their cause is often overwhelming. They typically enjoy a large personality that is hard to ignore and makes a strong impression.
5) Because of this, many Exhorters are outstanding at the resource of relationships. They have a built-in capacity to draw people into their sphere of influence. Therefore, as a result of their design, their lives, in the words of my ex-pastor, are “one big network”. Odds are, if they don’t know how to fix the problem you have, then they will know someone, or they will know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who will be an expert in your given problem. It is in this capacity to network, that we find a great strength and a a great weakness.
6) On the negative side, Exhorters, if they are not walking in a high level of character and integrity, can (please note I did not say WILL, as there is no guarantee any of us will or will not stumble) default to the pitfall of controlling others through that influence.
7) Many Exhorters that function in a low level can often move from a place where they are peers to a place where they are in charge. With the Aztecs, who were Exhorter as a group, “generally conquest followed commerce”.
8) They are often hardwired in such a way that they can easily move from a peer relationship to a place where they are the dominant partner in the relationship. And if they don’t learn how to walk in self-control, then they can leave others feeling used or overwhelmed. The Exhorter must be careful. One of the challenges of the Exhorter is to have peers in partnership.
9) A reason for this is that Exhorters don’t realize they are doing it, and they don’t do it with a bad intention. It often has to be pointed out, and if they are going to have healthy relationships, then they need to be able to have relationships with people from whom they can receive real and blunt correction.
10) Expanding on the reason for this, unless the Exhorter is willing to walk in their principle (which I will get to later), there is often a disconnect between reality, actions, and intentions, Bill Clinton’s behavior during the Lewinsky Scandal was vintage soulish or carnal Exhorter walking in non-reality, “It wasn’t adultery because I didn’t mean it as adultery”. Many times, a low-level Exhorter does not view their actions as wrong because there is no malice in their heart toward the person with whom they are interacting.
11) I think part of the reason Exhorters don’t understand or realize or have a difficulty walking in the threefold Exhorter Principle, is that their root iniquity is the opposite of Reality, which is Denial. There is a denial that kills the best of the Exhorter. Walt Disney had it, Steve Jobs had it, Hitler had it, FDR had it, and others.
12) Back on the positive side of things, the Exhorter usually puts a premium on the concept of presentation. They like to present a package that looks good, is appealing to the eye, is stylish, etc. There is a concern for not just THAT they are presenting themselves, but also the MANNER in which they are presenting themselves. Exhorters have a thing with appearance, and the initial visibility.
13) Related to this, the Exhorter loves a variety of color and sparkle. Many of your Exhorters are known for their clothing, jewelry, and ride, all of which is designed to present a certain image to those with whom they interact.
14) Many times, your Exhorters are found in arenas where they are going to engage with the public and LOTS of it. In ministry circles, Exhorters move naturally toward evangelism and communication with large groups.
15) City-reaching efforts are typically spearheaded by an Exhorter, Ruler, or Prophet.
16) The Principle for the Exhorter is threefold in its manifestation. First, the Principle of Pain and Suffering. Second, the Principle of Sowing and Reaping. Third, the Principle of Reality. If the Exhorter does not have a firm and strong willingness to walk in Reality, hunt for Reality, understand Sowing and Reaping, and then embrace the pain, then most of the negative manifestations will rear their ugly heads. There has to be a staunch hunting for a realistic vision and a realistic understanding of how long a particular vision is going to take to execute, or else the Exhorter is going to find a great deal of frustration.
17) They have an astounding ability to form community quickly. They are the social glue that helps build community easily in a group situation.
18) Exhorters, whether immature or mature, love to talk, and talk a lot. They have an minimum quota of words that they have to get out each day. They were designed to connect, talk, and socialize. They need to have a regular time where they are dealing with others in a way no other RG needs.
19) The big movement is that this is G-d’s choice for the world-changers. They can draw in and communicate to a large cross-section of diverse people, and they cross every kind of barrier, cultural, religious, social, economic, and make friends easily.
20) Exhorters are designed to understand and work in principles and make those cause-and-effect relationships known to others in the body. Moses, Solomon, and Paul were designed and expressed huge gluts of principles in the bodies of Scripture that they authored, precisely because principles are what make up reality.
21) When a peer relationship is upended because one of the parties pulls out in front and grabs for a superior position in what was once a thriving horizontal relationship, the upending of that relationship can feel like a betrayal. This is a place where the Exhorter has to be careful and demonstrate a huge amount of self-control.
22) If an Exhorter makes reality, principles, pain and suffering, sowing and reaping, and looking for what is really happening over a perception of what is happening, then they are on their way to maturity. The problem is, hunting for and demanding reality and refusing to walk in betrayal, is VERY painful, and it requires them to walk in and embrace a harder life than any of the other gifts.
23) Typically, Exhorters can crack open the Bible and grab the revelation that is missing from an embryonic body of truth. They are good at crafting the harsh and blunt message that the Prophet first conceives. This parallels their love of right presentation. I have two friends, one who lives in South Africa, and another who lives in Oklahoma, who are able to spend five minutes in the Bible and the revelation just flows to them. These are both Exhorters. It’s like they have a built-in anointing to just gravitate toward these massive storehouses of truth.
24) Exhorters enjoy enforcing a sense of fair play in a group situation, because it helps build communities, which can lead to a quicker achievement of a group goal. I have one friend in Texas who exemplifies this dynamic of the Exhorter.
25) If you are an Exhorter, your goal must be to embrace what might turn into a painful process. You need a real set of friends who can be authentic with you, call you out on your junk, and you still be able to reject the spirit of rejection that damages so many friendships between Exhorters and their friends. You need a Prophet who can be gentle but frank with you and cover your blindspots, and you need a Giver who can point out through their strong discernment the issues you might not see. You will thrive leading communities, but you will thrive most to the degree that you foster peer relationships with equals that can speak heartily and realistically into your life, and help you set realistic goals for the outworking of your vision. And you need to stand before G-d and renounce and fight this temptation to overwhelm and control relationships. There is a strong capacity you have innate to influence large groups, and you want to influence them toward the right vision, G-d’s vision, and not just something that is good but not the best.
26) The last point is the best. Your are designed by G-d to FLOW IN REVELATION OF THE NATURE OF G-D! Knowing who He is is the key to unlocking everything that is the best about you. Knowing intimately the names of G-d and the purposes of G-d and the heart of G-d and the affection of G-d will provide you with a large volcano that will be life-giving to others.
Exhorters, I am in awe of what G-d has put into y’all. It is deep, hearty, and lovely.
And, my brother is a certified, vintage, card-carrying Exhorter.
May your tribe, Sun, Moon, And Stars, increase.
