Today's Quick Word
Today’s Quick Word
2 Chronicles 10:8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. The enthusiasm and single-mindedness […]
2 Chronicles 10:8 But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him.
The enthusiasm and single-mindedness of youth can often be a good and necessary corrective to the easy-goingness and compromise-to-keep-the-peace approach of old age, but there are times when it is the other way around!
Had Rehoboam listened to the time-tested wisdom of the elders, who had served his father, Solomon, faithfully and well, he could have saved Israel much strife and grief throughout its subsequent history. (It remains true that God’s sovereign rule is clear; as the Chronicler will note seven verses later, “this turn of events was from God”.
So we are required lto learn from mistakes made – cf 1 Corinthians 10:6 – while at the same time resting securely in the fact that, in spite of the reality of our misuse of our ‘free’ will, God is working out his purposes for his glory and our ultimate good (cf Genesis 50:20). This can, at the same time, be both challenging and comforting, being a real and effective source of peace of mind and godly contentment in all circumstances, allowing us to be thankful in even the ‘curved ball’ situations we might be called on to face.
To return to Rehoboam: for the last 50 years or so our own society has embarked on a way of thinking that rejects anything that speaks of the past. The rapid changes in technology and fashion don’t help in addressing this and each new decade runs the risk of repeating Rehoboam’s error big-time. The Christian Gospel is the revelation of an unchanging God and is founded on his actions in history, his Salvation History. As those who embrace this Gospel we need to be careful not to be so influenced by modern and post-modern thinking that we fail to gain the benefit God intends us to gain from the wisdom of those who have come through the dangers and limitations of youthful zeal and are able to see things from a broader and more accommodating perspective. There was probably much more egotism and self-interest influencing the advice of Rehoboam’s peers than any of them were prepared to admit, or even realise! Let us not fall ionto the same error!
– Bruce Christian
