2 Chronicles 10:6-11
Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” And they said to him, “If you will be good to this people and please them and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. And he said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us’; thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”
Tag: Bad Counsel Corrupts Great Leadership
King Rehoboam suffered from what we call “social buffering.”, He surrounded himself with people who agree with him. Rather than listening to the Council of his father‘s friends, he listen to those if his childhood. Social buffering is when you surround yourself with “yes” people. The irony of what the king did is seen in rejecting his own father’s wisdom. Note:
Proverbs 27:10
Do not forsake your own friend or your father’s friend,
the young King obviously did not listen to his father. All those years that Solomon taught others, he failed to teach his son. Or, he taught his son, and his son refused to listen. When we for sake good counsel, and we listen to bad counsel, we can be sure that our leader ship will be corrupted.
In this case, it was his father‘s friends. The point of the story, is that when people give us good counsel, we ought to listen. Often, however, we simply seek to get council from those who we know will agree with us. That type of social buffering always corrupts our leadership.
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