No one ever drifted into maturity - 12 May 2009 |
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In 1 Kings 12, Rehoboam rejects the counsel of the ‘old men’ (v. 6) in favour of the advice of ‘the young men [hayladiym, lit. 'the boys'] who had grown up with him’ (v. 12). Rehoboam is 41 years old when he becomes king (14:21), so the description of his contemporaries as ‘boys’ is ironic, and deliberately insulting.
They are boys … in their youthful folly and adolescent bravado … Rehoboam’s folly is a characteristic folly of a ‘boy,’ a young man who chooses advisors full of youthful pride, cockiness and crudity, the type of companion against whom Proverbs warns repeatedly (13:20; 28:7; cf. Ps. 119:63). (Leithart, 1 and 2 Kings, p. 92.)
Christian men must heed this warning, or we shall very likely repeat Rehoboam’s stupidity. Unless we pay careful attention to our godliness, it’s possible to still be boys in our early forties, being ‘men’ only in the sense that we’re now big enough to do damage. Boys will be boys; men must not be. But the example of Rehoboam and ‘the boys’ reminds us that this won’t happen automatically. No one ever drifted into maturity.
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Bible, Books, Godliness, Minister's Blog