What distinguishes great leadership from poor? Great leadership brings light. Poor leadership brings thorns.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the twenty-third chapter of Second Samuel (2 Samuel 23:1-7), which opens by saying that these are the last words of David.
The short poem makes 2 points. The first: that those who rule in the fear of God are like the light of the morning. Second: that the godless are like thorns that are cast away.
The later writers who assembled these words (and many other histories and documents and stories) into that great series of books from Joshua and Judges all the way to First and Second Kings: they made this difference between light and thorns into a great evaluative theme. They considered each of the leaders and rulers and asked, “Did they bring light or did they bring thorns?”
The Deuteronomic History is not a dispassionate and even-handed kind of review of history. It is, instead, a theological work, looking for the signs of those who ruled in the fear of God — and frequently finding the signs of those who did not.
To be honest, I can’t be certain in advance what any ruler will do, and I find it difficult often to discern just from someone’s words whether they fear God or not, whether they respect God or not, whether they endeavor to bring the righteousness of God to their lives and to their leadership. It’s hard to tell.
It’s easier to tell from what they’ve done. Thorns, you see: they harm. They scratch. They bite. Thorns, remember, were placed upon the head of Jesus Christ.
And light? Light enables us to see. Where there… where there are things that are hidden, where there are lies, where there is something that is not mystery but menace, well: that is not light, now is it? Light reveals. Light defines. Light warms and comforts.
Centuries after this poem was written, Jesus stood before Pilate. Pilate asked him if he was a king. Jesus said, my realm is of truth, and Pilate asked, “What is truth?” Well, truth is what happens when we bring light. Light reveals truth. And one of the things that revealed Pilate for who he was, was his inability to (or refusal to) go into not just the nature of truth, but the reality of truth, and discover there what it means to honor God.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
