OF RULERS AND LEADERS  (Part 2 of 5)

Usually, force, inheritance, or a political process produces the ruler.  On the contrary, a relational process produces the leader, and the people follow that person “out” and “in.”  The ruler has an ‘official’ connection to the people, the leader has a heart-connection with them.  One relationship starts and ends in or around the office, the other lovingly and mutually transcends that regimented space into the private recesses of the players.  One relationship is formal, the other is much more: respectfully and cheerfully cordial, unrestricted by the legalities of office.  One leadership style is self-centred, the other is people-oriented.  One is about power and control, the other is about service.  One is about rules, the other is flavoured with grace.  One is founded on fear, the other on love.

Once upon a time when David was thirsty and merely expressed a longing for water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem at that time under the dangerous occupation of the Philistine oppressors, three of his generals broke through the enemy lines to fetch him that water to drink, careful not to spill it all through the operation.  David was too emotional to drink that water.  He said it was sacrifice as good as the blood of the men who had risked their lives to get it.  He poured it out as offering to the Lord.  Those men did not do that for a ruler.  They did it for a leader who had made beautiful meaning out of their wrecked lives, having picked them up as discarded men “in distress … in debt, and … discontented”: their 3D’s of infamy out of which the leader had guided them (1 Samuel 22:2).  David was not even king then.

Leaders are not necessarily defined by a throne.  Rulers are.  Leaders are known by their voluntary cheerful followers, rulers by their paid praise singers. It can be a crowd in either case, but the difference would be in their souls.  When David killed Goliath, the women composed a spontaneous song in his praise, hailing him as having slain “his ten thousands” whereas the king had slain only “his thousands.”  Of course, that composition vexed the ruler much, to the point of his seeking to eliminate David his perceived threat (1 Samuel 18:6-11).  Saul received the people’s due honour, but whom they naturally gravitated towards was the untitled David.  It told who the leader was, even though there was a king.

In terms of their people-relations, the ruler forces the people out, the other leads them out.  One connection with the people has the element of coercion, force, threat, blackmail, inducements, but the other is marked with love and free choice.  They both could have their crowds, but the difference would be in the souls of the people.

A pastor had a great party but only a few church members attended.  Two weeks later, another church member had a similar party, and nearly the entire church was there, with outsiders, too.  The pastor was jealous and angry at the people, but he learnt a hard lesson.  He had been merely their pastor but not also their friend.  His had been a pulpit-pew ‘official’ connection and nothing more.  Now he knew.

Jesus said to His disciples, “Henceforth I call you not servants … but I have called you friends” (John 15:15).  Even Jesus practised that principle.  He was much more than Master to His disciples.  He was friend.  Even Judas He called a “friend,” but one friend that broke his own end of the cord of relationship (Mattew 26:50).  Jesus knew Peter’s house, Peter’s wife, Peter’s mother-in-law. His disciples knew His mom and siblings.  His disciples and He all ate at the same table, sailed in the same boat, often prayed together.  What a Friend!  What loving connections beyond the walls of an office!

Rulers are armed and powerful, but they often feel threatened by the simple and unarmed leader.  One has the power of the state, the other has the power of the people.  Of King Saul the ruler, it was reported, “And Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with him” (1 Samuel 18:12).  How could a man with all the armies of his kingdom fear a boy with just a sling and a stone?  What was the mystery?  We find an answer in Romans 8:31: “If God be for us, WHO can be against us?”  Of David it was said that the ruler feared him “because the LORD was with him.”

That is true. God is with the man who is truly on the side of the people, and any ruler would fear that man who has God and the people on his side.  God supports the man whom the people sincerely support without bias to tribal or relational sentiments and material inducements. The people were with David the leader, and God was also with him.  Or we could say that the people followed him because God was with him.  The equation was very unbalanced: one had the powers of the state; the other had God and the people on his side.  In the course of the tensions between the two, jealous palace politics eventually forced David out of town into the wild caves of Adullam.  The rulers were not satisfied that David had been exiled.  They still pursued him into those caves, seeking to kill him even in exile, but God was still with him.  Alas, how much rulers fear leaders.

Mark it when rulers hunt leaders inside with javelins that should have been aimed at enemies outside, forcing them out of town into caves of exile and silence, threatening even priests to not give them bread.  Rulers dread those they chase.  Such restless rulers don’t stay around for long, or don’t end well.  Often, they are outlived by those they meant to cut short.

Rehoboam the ruler feared Jeroboam the leader, because God was with that man, at least in his early days, when God promised him, “I will be with thee” (1 Kings 11:38; 12:21).  Rehoboam’s father, the backslidden Solomon, also feared the same man (1 Kings 11:40).  Rulers often fear leaders.  We can also say that sometimes leaders are known by how much they are feared by rulers; by how desperately rulers try to harm them and get them out of the way.  Does that sound like something you know in the politics in your land or somewhere?  Does that seem to call a name?

Jesus was a leader whom the multitudes followed everywhere, to the discomfort and terror of the “rulers of the synagogue” and their partners in the palace ….  “for God was with him” as He went about touching lives (Luke 23:35; Acts 4:26; 10:38).  The rulers gave Him many bad names just to nail Him, as true leaders are often falsely accused of many things merely to silence them.  You need not look too far to see this, in history as well as in contemporary politics, in your country and across the ocean.  Does that also seem to call a name you know?

In the Bible, Peter and Paul, with the multitudes that followed them, were considered such threats to the established order of the rulers that those apostles were often imprisoned or beaten or made to face other forms of harsh treatments intended to limit their reach with the people.  They also were given many bad names by their haters, the rulers (Acts 4:1-14; 17:6-8).

Jeremiah the prophet of God had a bad time with Pashur the “chief governor in the house of the LORD.”   When this ruler of the house of God “heard that Jeremiah prophesied” (not that he stole or blasphemed), the ruler “arrested Jeremiah and had him whipped and put in stocks at the Benjamin Gate of the LORD’s Temple” (Jeremiah 20:1-2, KJV, NLT).  Wow!  A prison in the temple of the Lord?  Alas, how far some rulers would go, even in the house of the Lord!

We may say that every true leader is in a battle of his life against “RULERS of the darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12).  Wow, “rulers” and “darkness” – that says much!  Rulers connected with “this world,” that says much more.   We see such battles with dark rulers in offices, in national elections, and even in churches, between insecure episcopal rulers and rising young leaders.  We see it in top Christian organisations, between sincere disciples intending to bring revival to the Church, and aspirants who see the position as a means to political prominence in the land, and ultimately their personal enrichment.  Some have gone to very shameful bloody and unethical extremes to ‘win’ those ‘elections,’ in the name of the Lord; indeed, a battle between leaders and the rulers of the darkness of this world.

Responses to insecure and manipulative rulers have differed according to respective maturities.  In some cases, the godly leader has declined public conflict with the raving hireling, rather than bring shame to the name of the Lord.  In other cases, the young leader, like the pious David, has ignored strong inducements into ‘legitimate’ confrontation with his threatened Boss, rather trusting his battles to the Lord and His time.  Others less wise, tragically fooled by their strength of youth, have headed into the fight and ended like Absalom, hanged in the public gallows of their own pride.  Leaders still get feared, because the Lord is with them.