TEC. Workbook #2. David, Saul & Jonathan Surviving Leadership Abuse Without Losing Your Calling

You can honor the office without staying in range of the spear.

You loved the work. You loved the community. You may have even loved the leader—until the spear came. And the hardest part wasn’t the spear itself. It was that everyone around you kept worshipping the man throwing it. That you were expected to keep showing up, keep serving, keep calling him anointed while he was making your life smaller.

David never raised his hand against Saul. He also never stayed in the same room long enough for the spear to land.

Week Two of the Healing Through Biblical Relationship Case Studies series takes one of Scripture’s most psychologically complex triangles: a gifted young leader, a deteriorating authority figure, and a loyal friend caught between them. It is a case study in narcissistic leadership injury, loyalty binds, and what it costs to maintain dignity while someone with power is trying to diminish yours.

WHAT’S INCLUDED✔

Everything in this workbook:

Teaching reference notes on 1 Samuel 18–24

Hebraic word study: Mashiach and Ruach Ra’ah

Narcissistic Leadership Injury self-assessment

Loyalty Bind inventory: what you’ve stayed for, what it has cost, what you still believe about the work

Grey Rock Strategy practical guide

Differentiation worksheet: Who am I when the institution defines me vs. who I am regardless

Jonathan friendship analysis: healthy loyalty in a toxic system

Calling Preservation exercise: separating the spear from the anointing

Declaration and closing prayer

4 structured journaling pages

WHO THIS IS FOR

This workbook is for you if you have served under a leader who was gifted and dangerous. If you stayed too long because you loved what the ministry was supposed to be. If you left and you’re not sure whether it was faithfulness or failure. If you have a Jonathan in your life—someone who loved you inside a system that didn’t—and you’ve never had language for what that friendship carried.



WHO SHOULD KNOW

If you are currently in an abusive leadership situation, please also access safety resources. This workbook provides frameworks for processing and clarity—it is not a substitute for real-time safety planning or professional support.