What leads to women leading? Men. Men failing to lead. Men conceding the weight and responsibility of leading leads to it. Why? Because men always lead. Even in their failure to lead, that failure leads. It is the way God made the world.
Wherever women are leading, men are conceding.
Weak men lead to women leading. I emphasize the point of weak men "leading" rather than make a comment about their failure to lead in order to stress the greater point which is: God made men to lead. So much so, that men cannot not lead. They are always leading. When they fail to lead, they are still leading; they are just doing it poorly. If women are leading, men are conceding. Men are letting it happen. Their passivity is still the dominant decision and driving the predicament.
Judges 4:4-5
Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment
The theme of the book of Judges is that in those days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. In other words, during these days, people did whatever they wanted which included not having a king. So the fact that we find a woman in the place of ultimate authority is not a shocking outcome in a world where every man is already seeking to undermine the way God made the world.
Deborah leading is product of men conceding.
Judges 4:6-8
She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun. And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand’?” Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go.”
Barak, one of the manliest men in that world, the leader of armed forces, won't go to battle without her. His weak sauce, lack of initiative, cowardly passivity led him to concede authority to Deborah. Additionally, he forces a woman into the fray of war in order to assuage his fears. He refuses to fight unless she comes for moral support. So not only is he not man enough to fight in the first place, but he is also perfectly fine with putting Deborah into the line of fire in order to make him feel better about fighting. This is an epic failure of manhood if ever there was one.
But still, this was the way the men of those days were leading. They were leading by conceding and letting women rule. And Deborah here agrees that this concession is shameful.
Judges 4:9
And she said, “I will surely go with you. Nevertheless, the road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.”
Deborah rightfully chastises Barak for his cowardice and concession. To punctuate her point, she confirms that Sisera, the opposing army's commanding officer will be slain by a woman. Later, Jael would slay Sisera and get the glory.
God bless Deborah and Jael, but they should never have been placed into their respective situations. They were lead to them by weak men.
Wherever women are leading, men are conceding.
No comments:
Post a Comment