Copyright © 2005-2007 Collin Park
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.Notes for reading of May 23
Before David became king over all the tribes of Israel, he had only a small part of the nation under his control. Saul's son ruled the rest of it, assisted by Abner, the general of his father's army. But after a falling out, Abner defected to David's side. David met with him and Abner departed in peace. There was bad blood between Abner and Joab (David's general).
So Joab went to the king and said, "What have you done? Look, Abner came to you. Why did you let him go? Now he is gone!" 2 Samuel 3.24
I have often wondered why David didn't do something about this. Why didn't he say, "Don't mess with him - he's helping me unify the kingdom!" Or something. And after Joab killed Abner, shedding his blood "in peacetime as if in battle" (1 Kings 2.1), why didn't David do anything about it? Why did he wait nearly forty years to punish Joab? (As he was dying, David left instructions for his son Solomon to take care of business.)
I cannot figure it out. Although he says Joab and his brother are too strong for him, that just doesn't seem credible today, over 2500 years after the fact. Did he have a blind spot? Was he stuck with an outdated mental image of Joab and his brothers, an image formed in his mind years before?
It must be very difficult for heads of state (or corporations, or even large teams) to see beyond impressions from the past, to tell when their advisors aren't being objective (or honest), and so on. I can't even blithely say "Oh, he should have prayed more." This is David, writer of the psalms, the man after God's own heart!
Now that I think of it, parents are often blind to what's going on with their children. My kids have sometimes surprised me, and sometimes I've taken a position I wasn't sure I could. Sometimes I have more influence than I thought I had, if I just take the step of exercising it.
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"...for they loved praise from men more than praise from God."
Last night, one of my teen-agers asked me if it's wrong to like praise from other people. I didn't think so, because Jesus tells a parable where he tells people to do thus and such. "Then," he says, "you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests." (Luke 14.10)
That is, Jesus seems to assume that we all want to be honored and praised by others, and he doesn't rebuke that desire. He is realistic about who we are and what we want, and he'll work with that.
My teen-ager's next question was this: "How can you tell if you love praise from men more than praise from God?"
One sign, I thought, was if we hid our faith from others. Do our friends and neighbors and co-workers and fellow-students know that we are christians? Because it's not really all that cool to be known as a christian these days.
There was another question, about how to tell if you're seeking the praise of others, versus whether it just comes to you.
I just thought of this answer now, but it's based on something we heard in a sermon. Here it is: if you're afraid that the praise of others is an idol in your life (or if I'm afraid of it), then we should deliberately hide some good deed that we did. Leave a tip in the jar when nobody's looking. That sort of thing. Jesus said something about this too, come to think of it:
Sowhen you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.Matthew 6.2
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