King David and the King of Pop: What 1-2 Kings can teach us about God's favor and the flawed people upon whom it rests (Part 3)

Last month, I led a breakout session at our denomination's annual national conference. Below is my presentation that was inspired by the 1-2 Kings commentary I co-authored. I am breaking the entire presentation up into three parts, to give emphasis to each kind of flaw and flawed leader. This is the third and final section.

Solomon and Hezekiah were both faithful at times but had their failures exposed and received judgment in undeniable ways. The later King Manasseh represents a third category of flawed leaders.

Manasseh is different in that he does not even pretend to follow the Lord. Despite that fact, by many metrics, he was a very successful ruler. The son of Hezekiah, Manasseh’s reign stands out because reigned as king for fifty-five years. That’s the longest reign recorded in the OT – he was king for a record amount of time, even though 2 Kings depicts him as wicked and unfaithful. 1-2 Kings lists numerous other wicked kings whose time was cut short because they failed to follow God. So what gives with Manasseh? 

Part of the answer is that Manasseh stands as an example of how bad spiritual leaders can sometimes thrive by all appearances. His legacy can teach us that God won’t always eliminate wicked leaders swiftly. 

The one truth we can count on though is that it is devotion to the Lord that is the only measuring stick for success that matters. Short-term prosperity is appealing, and worldly measurements may attract praise. But God is using a different rubric. And anyone serving in leadership of God’s people does well to follow it. Mark Driscoll is currently leading the second megachurch of his career. But there are enough red flags from both ministries to warn us against following, platforming, or supporting him as a spiritual leader.

One additional postscript on King Manasseh. While 2 Kings 21 paints a stark and clear picture of his wickedness, 2 Chronicles 33 offers a parallel account that notes how Manasseh repented of his evil ways after being deposed the Assyrians. It also states that he was actually restored to his throne late in life. The history of 2 Kings points to Manasseh greasing the skids for God’s national judgment on his people, while Chronicles offers the Manasseh as an example of true repentance.

So which is correct, Kings or Chronicles? The narratives compel us to answer “both”. Thanks to having a fuller picture of his life in Chronicles, Manasseh offers us a bonus lesson about how we often must live with the complexity of evil and good that can be found in one’s legacy.

And that complexity can remind us of our first lesson from Solomon. That because leaders can be brazenly immoral but ultimately humbled and repentant – we shouldn’t idolize any one leader or movement or harshly condemn them in judgment, as if we have divine knowledge of their hearts or divine insight into their whole story.

Conclusion

 As a child of the eighties and sports enthusiast growing up, one of my first personal heroes was the great NBA legend, Larry Bird. He was an all-time player: 3 straight MVPS, 3 NBA championships, and he was from Indiana just like me.

Imagine my excitement as an eight-year-old visiting the library and picking up a sports encyclopedia that included a short biographical feature on my favorite player. I ate up every detail about his background, college career, work ethic, accomplishments on the court.

Now also imagine my shock, when me - the baptized, church-going naïve young Christian - is reading this book and I come across this paragraph praising Bird for being such a down to earth regular guy, ‘Who loves nothing more than to have a beer while having a good time with this buddies.’

My poor innocent conscience was fractured. “What? He likes to drink alcohol? You mean Larry Bird might not be a good church-going Christian like me?”

Let’s put aside the fact that I had this assumption that Christians didn’t drink. All of a sudden this pure view of the world had changed. In my own sort of way, I had to think through how I viewed my heroes and the world at large.

Looking back, I realize that’s a simplified version of a more complicated process I want to offer us as we continue to wrestle with the tension of looking up to spiritual heroes who might get unmasked as wretched sinners. What are we to do when it happens to our favorite author, musician, preacher? What happens when it is our mothers or fathers?

Do we dismiss offenses as no big deal? Automatically condemn and angrily pile on with the mobs? And how are we to reconcile God’s apparent favor blessing these ministers and ministries that have such significant problems?

God’s temporary blessing is not an unqualified and eternal stamp of approval.

If God’s favor rested only on perfect and upstanding people, he never would have gotten anything done in history – except with Jesus. God’s grace - common and specific - is by definition undeserved and his divine ways often bless and use people whose sins make our stomachs churn. God’s overall eternal assessment starts with the heart and one’s devotion to God and his revealed will.

Additionally, we must carefully discern between what is flagrant sin and what is foolishness when we are assessing our fallen heroes.

Our heroes will fail, fall, and disappoint us in one sense or another. Flagrant sin must be seriously confronted and the ripple effects must be seriously dealt with. Sexual abuse must be reported to authorities not secretly addressed as an “internal matter”. Unrepentant misbehavior that takes the form of emotional abuse, harshness, or arrogance must be confronted and penalized if it continues.

Flagrant sin will have serious consequences. And to the extent that we can enact those consequences, we should do so with conviction. Our actions will vary depending on how close we are to the situation of course but we should seek serious penalties for serious infractions, that is biblical justice.

Actions we take may be as basic as unfollowing on social media, unsubscribing to podcasts or discarding their books. It may be more significant of course. We may see fit to personally warn others of the truth or personally enact the biblical restoration and confrontation process. When flagrant sin is revealed by those in our own churches or ministries, removal and restitution should be part of the process in the aftermath. Personal restoration and repentance should be high priorities, but professional reinstatement is generally unwise. As Tim Keller said, “To forgive someone who wronged you does not mean you have to immediately trust him or her. Trust has to be re-earned.” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/tim-keller-forgive/

Foolishness must also be directly addressed, and its victims likewise cared for. Better accountability and guardrails will be needed. If humility and repentance are evident in the offending party, we can move forward optimistically that the foolish errors have led to learning opportunities.  But it is a fine line. On one hand, Christians and Christian organizations are often overeager to identify sorrow for repentance and rush restoration in cases that do not warrant it (See Carl Lentz). We should remember that sorrow for being caught is not the same as godly repentance. Let’s also remember that restoration of fellowship doesn’t necessarily mean restoration to leadership.

On the other hand, foolish actions should not permanently disqualify a leader from ever leading again. Caution and discernment should guide any decision making. Patience and time should be important factors in these situations.

In all cases we would do well to pray for restoration and repentance and any actions we might take should have keep those goals in mind. And in all cases we need to remember that only our wonderful, merciful Savior is worthy of our total allegiance. Only Jesus embodied the perfect King, coming as a servant to seek and save the lost.

Whether we are talking about King Solomon or the King of Pop or some other fallen hero, we can help resolve the confusion of these situations if we do the important work to discern whether they are guilty of flagrant sin or foolishness.

-        Don’t ever make an idol out of anybody.

-        Realize foolishness can tarnish a legacy but won’t always ruin it.

-        Remember that devotion to the Lord is the only measurement of success that really matters.