The cost of prosperity: lessons from Rehoboam's leadership mistake
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Second Chronicles 9 and 10 provide an interesting account of a leadership transition as it discusses Rehoboam becoming king of Israel after his father Solomon passed away.
During Solomon's reign there were levels of prosperity that had never been seen before and have never been seen since. The passage states that silver had become so common that it had no value.
However, as the Israelites approach Rehoboam, we see that prosperity had come at a heavy cost as the people state "Your father put a heavy yoke on us but now lighten the harsh labor and heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you" (10:4).
As the people approached Rehoboam with their request, the passage relays the story of how Rehoboam consulted but rejected his father's advisors who counseled him to lighten the load. He instead sought the advice of his friends who encouraged him to be even more harsh and demanding in his role.
An immediate lesson is that when seeking counsel, not all advice is good advice. We need to pray for discernment in understanding what advice is good.
As we navigate a world in which we know the algorithms of social media tend to create echo chambers that only magnify the thoughts and ideas that the highest bidder advertisers want us to have, this truth that not all advice is good advice is one we must remind ourselves of often.
Lest we think the pitfalls are all external, this passage offers a second and perhaps more important lesson. What we value and prioritize can blind us and harden our hearts to the wisdom and counsel that would serve us best. In other words, the desires of our heart can make it harder to discern good advice from bad advice.
While Solomon's rule had seen great prosperity, that prosperity shouldn't be equated to the well-being of the people of Israel. Solomon had placed a heavy burden on the Israelites even though a king's chief responsibility is the well-being of his people.
Though God had already promised Solomon peace and prosperity, we know in his later years that Solomon's heart had been prone to wander and he took fulfillment of those promises into his own hands. Rather than fully depending upon God for fulfillment of His promises, Solomon had leaned upon some of his own wisdom to ensure peace through political marriages and had ensured his prosperity through the heavy burdens of labor placed on those he was called to lead.
Solomon's son, Rehoboam, had been witness to his father's prosperity as well as some of the means by which he achieved and maintained it. Unfortunately, rather than valuing the lesson from early in Solomon's reign in which Solomon recognized his own insufficiency to lead God's people and asked God for wisdom (2 Chron. 7), Rehoboam valued prosperity and the power he felt was necessary to maintain it more than he valued the wellbeing of the people he was called to lead.
This desire for power ultimately hardened his heart and dulled his ability to learn from the wisdom of his father's advisors. Rather, it led him to seek the counsel that only validated the ways in which his heart was already leaning.
The consequences of Rehoboam's response were significant. Rehoboam's response results in the Israelites not only rejecting Rehoboam's rule but even rejecting their inheritance as children of Israel. What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse's son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David (10:16).
In a world in which we have unending information and advice at our fingertips, we need to recognize that information is best utilized when it is coupled with wisdom. As we seek advice, we need to ensure that we are equally diligent in praying God would illuminate those things in our heart that may harden our hearts to the advice we most need to hear. Let's pray that God would allow us to have the wisdom to see how our values and priorities may impact how we receive the counsel and advice we're being offered.
 | Ryan Brown serves Open Doors US as Chief Executive Officer. Learn More » |
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