'We who regularly speak in the name of God to the people around us easily slip into speaking in godlike tones and assuming a godlike posture. The moment we do that, even slightly, any deference to us or any defiance of us can lead us into taking on a god-identity. We are, after all, speaking God's word. When people praise us, there is something God-honoring in what they say. When people reject us, there is something God-defying in the way they act. In either case our vocational identification with God's cause and God's word make us vulnerable to mistaken god-identities. No pastor, of course, is explicit in a claim to self-divinity, but year after year or adulation (or lack of it) make their mark. The condition works its way underground and requires strenuous vigilance to detect.'
Eugene H Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant, p.84.
