Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Year 7, Day 353: 1 Kings 12


Theological Commentary: Click Here



Ah!  The period of the kings starts with a bang.  In some respects, this is one of my favorite areas of the Bible to study because it is a great example of how society declines when we focus simply on what pleases the individual.  In other respects, this is a hard place to study because the story spirals deeper and darker throughout the next few hundred years of history with only the occasional bright spot of relationship with God.  Ultimately, to study the book of Kings we must be prepared to see the downward spiral while knowing that God never abandons the faithful.  In that truth can we keep our sanity while studying human society.



Start with Rehoboam today.  Here is a man who inherits his father’s – Solomon’s – throne.  The people come before him with a simple request.  Solomon’s building campaigns have been hard.  They just want a reprieve.  The tell Rehoboam that if he will lighten the load they will serve him.  It seems like a simple request.



I have two points about this respect.  First, I am skeptical of the people.  They say that they will follow Rehoboam, but I doubt that they will.  In the end, people always feel the need to rebel and be the master of their own life.  I do think that if Rehoboam would have lightened the load that he could have kept the country together.  But to think that the country would have been an idyllic state of cooperation would go too far.  The people might have complied and followed Rehoboam, but it would not have been perfect.  Things weren’t perfect under Solomon or David, either.



The second thought is that my prior conjecture really doesn’t matter because the impudence of youth wins out in Rehoboam anyways.  Rehoboam promises to make things worse!  This is the follow of some leadership.  There is a theory out there that the best way to rule is fear.  In some circumstances, that model does work.  You can motivate people quite far through fear.  However, all people have a breaking point.  There is a point where the motivation of fear is weaker than the motivation for overthrowing the regime.  Rehoboam finds that out here.  He presses the people hard and they revolt against him.  Leadership must seek to find the balance of how hard the people need to be pressed to sustain the society but not press too hard so that revolt happens.



Before ending, I do want to talk a little about the consequences of Rehoboam’s leadership.  The country splits, which is going to have lasting implications for hundreds of years.  However, I think there are greater consequences than the geopolitical ones.  The people in the north establish new places of worship because they no longer have access to Jerusalem.  However, this is not what annoys God.  If you read through the chapter carefully, what annoys God is that Jeroboam establishes new gods to worship.  It isn’t the place that annoys God, it is wat is happening at the place!



I think that it is sad that the poor leadership choice leads directly to a whole nation finding new gods to worship.  I doubt that Rehoboam sought that outcome when he made his decision.  Yet, it is still a consequence of the act.  Our  sinfulness often has both intended and unintended consequences.



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