Bad Leadership Solicits Poor Follower-ship
1 When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. 3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
When leaders fail, followers don’t have a chance. Now, it is true that followers can mess up on their own. Just read the stories of Israel and how they rejected Moses’ and Joshua’s Godly leadership time and time again. They did a great job of failing to obey God when they had a great leader. But, in the above passage we see the results of what happens when the leader fails. It actually solicits followers to think of ideas that they would not normally think. The nation wanted to find a leader. Mankind is “leader-oriented.” Mankind wants to have leadership in their lives. We might think we all want autonomy, but every society in every age has been characterized by the leader and follower dynamic. We can’t escape it. We don’t seem to want to. God set that up even in the angels, as they seem to have rank and order. In the animal kingdom we can often and on many occasions see the leader-follower pattern. Samuel, in all his great teaching and leading, did not have his sons follow his pattern of living. A void in leadership causes a violation of decision making by followers. This is the patten and lesson that we see in the above passage. God will use it to accomplish His glory, however. God will use it to set up the Kingdom of His Son, Jesus. But, make no mistake, God used the failure of leadership to show the need for the Perfect King.
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