Yesterday we looked at the unnecessary death of Josiah, Israel’s last great king. Today, I’d like to look briefly at four complementary passages concerned with the period of time during which Josiah reigned over Judah. I’m hoping these may help to refine our thoughts about the relationship between leaders and the led.
We often bemoan a lack of godly leadership in our day. That is not always our real problem.
The following quote purports to come from a 2020 Facebook post written by a woman who holds herself out to be the Handbell Choir Director at First Congregational Church of Houston, Artistic Director at Houston Chamber Ringers and a former music teacher.
Honestly, my first instinct is that it’s got to be the product of internet trolling.
Queen Elizabeth’s death last year set me to thinking about the lifespans of monarchs as I have been reading my way through Samuel, Kings and Chronicles. Let’s just say none of the kings in our Old Testament ever came remotely close to her longevity, let alone the number of years she ruled.
It’s hard to miss the fact that for most of the kings of Israel and Judah, the privilege of leadership went hand-in-hand with a relatively short lifespan.
Now that raises some interesting questions.
I love scripture. Obviously I love it from a spiritual standpoint: what it tells me has saved me for all eternity. There is simply no way to top that.
But as a reader, writer, and lover of language, I find the scriptures endlessly fascinating in the way that they were constructed and the purposes they were intended to serve, both by the Holy Spirit and their human writers, to the extent we are able to discern these intentions by careful observation.
I love the scriptures in this way too, as many others do. For me, a deep dive into the Word is as refreshing as a dip in a mountain stream and more enlightening than the most profound secular literature.
Not all college friendships last a lifetime, but one guy I went to school with has kept in touch for over 30 years. He maintained an attitude of genial bemusement about my Christian faith right up until his own daughter became a teenager, when he abruptly decided that a purely secular worldview was not what he wanted for her after all.
So I can relate to the plight of the writer of A Skeptic’s Journey Through the Bible, an anonymous blogger who says this about himself:
“Growing up a believer, I left my faith in my teens. Now that I’m at the age of starting a family of my own, I need to know in which direction to guide them.”
Fair point. Let’s help if we can.
