{"id":668,"date":"2021-04-23T10:01:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-23T14:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=668"},"modified":"2021-04-23T10:01:44","modified_gmt":"2021-04-23T14:01:44","slug":"leadership-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/23\/leadership-101\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership 101"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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What’s the most pathetic \/ head-scratching \/ cringe-worthy verse in the Bible?

There are numerous candidates.\u00a0 But one of the finalists has to be Exodus 32:24, where Aaron, Israel\u2019s first high priest, abandons all leadership responsibility and accountability before his brother Moses.

Moses has been up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days \u2013 receiving, among other things, the Ten Commandments.\u00a0 Aaron has remained with the rest of the people, who, having recently escaped slavery in Exodus, are apparently competing to see how fast they can break all ten.

The crowd approaches Aaron and begins to whine.\u00a0 They\u2019re tired of being stuck in the wilderness.\u00a0\u201cMake us gods who will go<\/u><\/em> before us\u2026\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s time to get somewhere.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to switch gods.\u00a0 The Israelites beg Aaron to invent a god that they can control.

Aaron caves.\u00a0 \u201cTake off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons, and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.\u201d\u00a0 Aaron promptly fashions an idol cast in the shape of a calf.

Why a calf?\u00a0 In all likelihood this idol represents a bull in rut \u2013 an ancient symbol of vitality, strength, and potency.\u00a0 As historian Thomas Cahill observes in his book The Gifts ofthe Jews<\/em>, this is something the people can relate to and understand.\u00a0 Exodus 32:6 reports: \u201cThe next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings.\u00a0 Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.\u201d

\u201cRevelry\u201d is a gentle translation.\u00a0 This is something several orders of magnitude beyond the average frat party.\u00a0 Even worse is what Aaron had said to the people the night before:\u00a0 \u201cTomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD!\u201d\u00a0

The Hebrew word for \u201cLORD\u201d in this verse is Yahweh.\u00a0 <\/em>That\u2019s God\u2019s special covenant name.\u00a0 Not only is Aaron complicit in idolatry, but it\u2019s all being done in God\u2019s name.

It\u2019s one thing to flat out disobey God by lying or stealing or cheating.\u00a0 But it is far worse to say that God endorses<\/em> my lying on my taxes, or that Jesus sympathizes with my emotional need to continue a secret relationship outside of marriage.

As a pastor, I know that it\u2019s not easy being Aaron.\u00a0Every spiritual leader is tempted to back away from the boundaries that God has clearly drawn in both Old and New Testaments.

I know how susceptible I am to this temptation.\u00a0 If you come to me for spiritual guidance, I genuinely want to tell you something that will make you happy.\u00a0 Then I want you to post something right away on social media: \u201cYou da pastor!\u00a0 <\/em>You lifted my burdens and solved every one of my problems.\u201d

The easiest way for me to accomplish this, by the way, is to ruin both your life and mine at the same time by lowering God\u2019s standards \u2013 and then by lying to you that that is what God wants us to do.

When Moses comes down Mt. Sinai, he cannot believe that his big brother, in just 40 days, has collapsed so completely.\u00a0 He says to Aaron, \u201cWhat did these people do to you, that you led them into such great sin?\u201d\u00a0 Did they threaten you?\u00a0 Did they torture you by forcing you to binge-watch all four seasons of Saved by the Bell?\u00a0<\/em>

Which brings us to Aaron\u2019s explanation for his behavior.\u00a0 \u201cDo not be angry,\u201d he says to Moses.\u00a0 \u201cYou know how prone these people are to evil.\u201d

Leadership lesson #1:\u00a0 No matter how needy, irrational, or cranky those we serve might be on a given day, it is always<\/u><\/em> our responsibility to do what is right.\u00a0 Blaming those we are called to love is a non-starter.

Aaron goes on:\u00a0 \u201cI told them, \u2018Whoever has any gold jewelry, take it off.\u2019\u00a0 Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!<\/em>\u201d (Exodus 32:24)

Leadership lesson #2:\u00a0 Own up.\u00a0 Take responsibility.\u00a0 Everybody, Aaron, knows that there\u2019s a golden calf in the middle of the camp because you,<\/em> and not somebody else, made it.

All of us are called to leadership in the things of God, even if we don\u2019t hold a special title.\u00a0 And leaders must choose to pursue the mission that God has set before us, even if the crowd is begging us to settle for something less.

We don’t want to end up as finalists in the competition for Most Pathetic Verse.
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What’s the most pathetic \/ head-scratching \/ cringe-worthy verse in the Bible? There are numerous candidates.\u00a0 But one of the finalists has to be Exodus 32:24, where Aaron, Israel\u2019s first high priest, abandons all leadership responsibility and accountability before his brother Moses. Moses has been up on Mt. Sinai for 40 days \u2013 receiving, among other things, the Ten Commandments.\u00a0… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[219,218],"class_list":["post-668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-golden-calf","tag-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":670,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668\/revisions\/670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}