God wanted to give wisdom to Adam and Eve so they could be His representatives. He started with the admonition to stay away from one tree. They decided to take things into their own hands rather than receive them from God.
The design pattern of taking or receiving runs through the Bible.
Will God’s People Take or Recieve?
1. Cain took matters into his own hands. Not good.
2. Noah was quietly obedient for 100 years until he surprisingly saved humanity—the ultimate training program for the ultimate leadership responsibility.
3. Abraham started well as he followed God into the wilderness, but then he took matters into his own hands. He left God’s chosen wilderness, took Sarah to Egypt, and offered her to the Egyptians to save his own life. When they were expelled from Egypt to return to where God wanted them, the Egyptian king gave them a bunch of stuff and people to get rid of them. Abraham and Sarah continued to vacillate between taking their blessing into their own hands and waiting to receive it from God. Hagar was an Egyptian maid. Thankfully God kept patiently working with them until they eventually received God’s full blessing and became the “father of us all” (Rom. 4:16b).
Stories of Poorly Prepared Leaders
- Saul had every opportunity to be a great king, but he behaved like a child having temper tantrums.
- Solomon had every opportunity, too, as the wisest person in the Old Testament, but without the proper wilderness experiences and training, he could not follow his own wisdom. Do what I say, not what I do. Who wants a leader like that?
Promotions For Those Who Pass
- Joseph did not take Potiphar’s wife. This cost him years in jail, in the short term, but qualified him to receive the top stewardship in God’s timing.
- Mordecai actively waited on God to ultimately receive leadership and save all the Israelites.
- Ruth kept doing the right thing, the right way, and eventually received a place in the lineage of Jesus.
- Daniel was sentenced to slavery through no fault of his own, yet by keeping God’s ethical code, he received honor after honor.
Notice how each of these servant leaders refused to take leadership. They quietly endured suffering until they received leadership from God. But God does keep working with the willing.
- Moses tried to take the lead when he courageously killed the Egyptian to start setting God’s people free. What a disaster. That failure cost Moses years on the backside of the desert, but he recovered his values and eventually received leadership from God.
- David was a servant leader. An example of David’s voluntary submission as a servant leader was when he chose to avoid King Saul. Even when grave injustice filled the land, rather than creating an army and leading a revolution or fighting guerilla warfare, David made a safe place in the Cave of Adullam for his brothers and family and for many others who did not fit into the current regime (1 Sam. 22:1-2). One time when David was fleeing from the irrational and unjust king, he hid in a cave. In a twist of fate Saul decided to use the same cave for a bathroom. David’s men thought God had delivered Saul to David and that David should take Saul’s life. David would have nothing to do with failing his test. David quietly cut off a piece of Saul’s robe to prove how easily he could have killed the man trying to kill him. Then his conscience convinced him that maybe even cutting off the corner of Saul’s robe was disrespectful (1 Sam. 24: 5). Evans (2004) argued that David was not conscience-stricken because he damaged Saul’s clothes, but because he had exercised power over the ruling king of Israel (p. 133). David did not want to take what God did not give him. Cooper et al. (2016) explained that David’s years of voluntary submission under highly adverse conditions were a leadership training of sorts so that David would realize “his subjects were not made to minister to his lusts” (p. 105).
Ultimately, of course, godliness is not about keeping a new set of ethical rules or taking matters into our hands but about learning to hear and obey the Holy Spirit to receive from God.
The Real Challenge
But is it really a test? What if, hypothetically speaking, one unethical act leads to newly gained power to be a godly leader? Isn’t God interested in results? And I know that Joseph’s dream eventually worked out, but dreams don’t come with guarantees… Can you hear the lisp?
Your Thoughts?
I would love to hear from you.
ReferencesCooper, D., Lohrmann, M. J., George, T., & Manetsch, S. M. (2016). 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles: Old Testament (Vol. V). IVP Academic.
Evans, M. J. (2004). The message of Samuel: Personalities, potential, politics, and power. Inter-Varsity Press.
Green, M. (2001). The message of Matthew: The kingdom of heaven. InterVarsity Press.
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