Spiritual Leadership: 1 Samuel 6:1-12
Genuinely spiritual people put themselves in position to care for others, not strip them of their resources. God made us to care for others and consider their needs. Our purpose is accomplished when we lead sacrificially.
On the surface, it feels like the Philistine priests finally wake up and do the responsible thing. It sounds like the priests give the common people solid advice. Unfortunately, that’s not the case at all. This is absolutely a power struggle between God and the self-serving Philistine priests.
To illustrate my claim, I’m going to temporarily skip over the golden tumors and mice. Those normally get the focus. Look at the plan the priests establish. They tell the common people to take two milk bearing cows and separate them from their calves. Then, they say to attach the milk cows to a cart, set it free, and watch where the cows go.
The priests know a mother is not easily separated from its calf. Two mother cows separated from their calves are more likely to go askew. The pries know the cows will want to return to their calves instead of heading to Beth-shemesh.
Furthermore, milk cows aren’t typically used for labor. You pull carts with oxen or bull, who don’t produce milk and therefore have extra energy in their bodies to divert to physical labor. Hooking up milk cows to a cart to which they are unaccustomed is certain to result in cows not heading to Beth-shemesh.
Finally, milk bearing cows produce milk at a healthy rate. Unmilked milk cows experience pain as the pressure of the milk builds up. The priests see this eventual pain as their safety net. These unmilked cows will come home when the pain builds up so their calves will drink and relieve the pressure as nature intended.
The Philistine priests set up these circumstances stacking the odds in their favor. They set the people up to observe a scenario demonstrating Dagon is more powerful. Yet, I think their purpose is still more nefarious. They set the people up to gain access to their wealth.
Remember the golden mice and tumors? If the cart doesn’t go straight back to Beth-shemesh, then Dagon is more powerful. When that happens, the ark – and the gold placed within it – naturally falls into the hands of the priests. The priests will claim the gold, setting it before Dagon. The gold becomes their possession.
Their plan isn’t a plan designed to make apology to God. This is a manipulative plan the religious leaders establish to claim monetary resources currently in the hands of the people they supposedly shepherd! This is another story of the elite trying to fleece the common people. For the record: God wins; the priests lose.
God doesn’t want us using one another for unreasonable personal gain. He certainly doesn’t want spiritual leaders using spirituality to fleece their flock! Genuinely spiritual people put themselves in position to care for others, not strip them of their resources.
