OF RULERS AND LEADERS  (Part 3 of 5)

Jesus and the apostles spoke elaborately about “rulers of the synagogue” (Mark 5:22; Acts 13:15).  So, even in the synagogue, in the house of God, there are rulers.  Rulers are not restricted to the palace or other political spaces.

Often, the Church points a holy finger at politicians, complaining about how ‘terribly’ they manage people and resources.  But some religious rulers are worse than their political and business counterparts.  There are rulers also in the house of God.  In John 12:42, for example, they threatened members with expulsion from the church if they dared to associate with the growing ministry of ‘that’ young man Jesus whose ‘Bible school’ certificate they could not authenticate.  They ruled with threat.  They controlled their congregations with fear.  They often manipulated followers.  Members were never free to say what they thought or go where they would.

When a man who had been blind from birth was healed by Jesus, the parents were interviewed to confirm the authenticity of the miracle claim.  Those parents, knowing the kind of church they were in, from which they feared sanctions, tactfully would not deny or confirm the miracle, but simply referred the interviewers back to the healed man, saying, “he is of age; ask him: he shall speak for himself” (John 9:21), as if to say, “Let nobody quote us.  We don’t want trouble with the rulers.”  The Bible records that they “feared” their rulers.  Should that be the right attitude or connection between true shepherds and their flock?  Fear?

Such rulers in the synagogue are fearfully territorial and manipulative with the instruments of terror and threats.  They fear the light outside, so they oppress their territory with the darkness of fear.  They exert a kind of protectionism with spurious scriptures about ‘false doctrines’ and ‘false prophets’ everywhere out there, except in their supposed paradise.  With such creeds, they hedge in their prisoners and strengthen their absolute control over the jailhouse of a synagogue.

Usually, these rulers make it seem like they do so because they care for the flock, whereas the truth is their insecurity, the fear that their captives would see the light outside and then there could be a prison break.  Much more, they also fear for their gains from their sad trade in “slaves, and the souls of men” like the apocalyptic mistress of Babylon of whom Revelation 18:13 speaks.  As in Acts 16:19 and Matthew 21:12, when they see that “their gains” are “gone” and their trade tables in the temple overturned, they get brutally ugly, threatening Golgotha and enlisting into the fray their fellow “rulers” in “the marketplace” of souls.

Back to the story of the synagogue ‘kingdom’ of the ex-blind man and his parents, where rulers were feared and none was free to go where they would or say what those bosses might consider anti-synagogue, anti-ruler.  The Bible was careful to state that the parents had answered as they did because it had been “agreed already, that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue” (v.22).  It was “agreed”?  By whom?  At what synod or national convention that did not also consider the sheep?  And members were not free to “confess” or say what was good and true, about the Christ, merely because the rulers would be displeased?  Who had become Lord there?  Jehovah or the rulers?

I envisage that in such a community of fear and distrust, everyone suspected everyone else, and some stooges actually snooped on others’ privacy to find something to report to the rulers to procure their unclean favour.  In such a synagogue controlled with fear, people grumbled secretly but dared not “confess” openly.  They flattered the rulers with lies and fake solidarity that those rulers loved to hear.  Their hearts of members were in a different place than where their bodies were.  It was chains of a different kind on the souls of the people.  They feared the rulers who themselves feared the leaders.  It is an ancient tale, of rulers and leaders.

Saul “was king” of Israel, but whom the people followed “out” and “in” was not the one on the throne.  It was the simple shepherd boy with God on his side.  The distinction between the two had little to do with age.  Saul was the elder, David was the younger, but he was the leader.  The signs spoke.  The distinctions also had little to do with affluence.  Affluence in not influence.  Saul had affluence; David had influence.

Affluence is imposing, influence inspires and commands. One is about materials, the other about men.  Apparently confused by a wicked media and blinded by ethnic and other trivial sentiments, when elections come, people often seem unsure of whom they should vote, between rulers and leaders, between taker and givers.  Misled by a lying press or blinded by bribes and inducements, they would usually choose bloated rulers to their doom.  As true leaders would not usually force themselves on the people, they just walk away when they are shortchanged at such times.  They would rather not shed the blood of the same people they seek to lead.

Sometimes the people are not entirely to blame for the rulers they get, because those were not their choice, but were forced upon them by a dubious legal process and manipulated elections.  Still, the people suffer when the wicked rule (Proverbs 29:2).

Rulers are generally receivers from the people; leaders are givers.  O no, did I say “receivers”?  I should rather have said “takers,” because “receiver” would mean that they were willingly given.  Takers do not wait to be given; they simply use the powers at their disposal to dispossess others and appropriate to themselves the objects of their greed.  Rulers are takers.  They take by force, by crookery, by manipulation, by twisting the law, by fraud.  Leaders are givers. They give their time, their wisdom, their funds, and sometimes even their life.  They are shepherds, like David; not hirelings who are there for the pay.  They are out in the fields with the people; out where the people are, sharing in their pleasures and their pains.

Jezebel and Ahab are prime examples of takers in the Bible.  They set up a man, killed him, and took his estate since he was not prepared to give it (1 Kings 21:1-29).  You either give it to them or they take it by force.  You have no choice with them.  They care about themselves, not you.  They give all kinds of fine names to their greed: “subsidy,” “development levy,” “seed faith,” “miracle soap,” “rapture water,” “NGO,” “education tax,” “Moon and Stars Inspection Mission,” “Federal Directorate of Good Meals and Happy Wives,” just any good name for the bad deed.

In some countries, they have taken most federal institutions to themselves under all guises; they have ‘bought’ themselves private cars and jets in everybody’s name when nobody sent them; they have ‘taken’ industries for their wives, contracts for their servants, employments for their tribal croons, scarce university admissions for their unqualified mistresses and pimps; they have stolen human organs under the guise of certain conflicts or the provision of strange services; they have stolen even the future of the unborn by pawning choice fields and vineyards to foreign ‘lenders’ and thieving conspirators.  They have taken until there is nothing more to take, and the people have cried until there is no more strength to cry, and God seems to have sworn, “You wanted it. Serves you right. Enjoy your tribal and religious tea. This is just early morning.”

Prophet Samuel warned his nation about installing taking-rulers, yet they insisted that they wanted it all the same.  He warned that their rulers would “take” and “take” and “take” and “take” and “take” and “take” (1 Samuel 8:11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17); an endless taking that nobody can say what they do with all the takings, except to share the booties with their “servants” and family members and other stooges in their narrow circle of corruption. They take “sons,” they take “daughters”; they take human beings and they take materials; they take “fields” and “vineyards” and “oliveyards” and even “seeds” that could have been sown for future harvests and future generations.  They take “even the best” of everything, and keep taking until “ye shall cry.”  Sadly, that is one national cry that God warned He “will not hear,” because it was after all their political choice through questionable and selfish sentiments that would respect neither the word of God nor the warnings of prophets (1 Samuel 8:18-22).  Is your nation or someone you know in that place?