“Now he waited seven days, according to the appointed time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattering from him. So Saul said, ‘Bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings.’ And he offered the burnt offering.’ As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him and to greet him” (1 Sam 13:8-10).
While Saul’s sin in this story may not appear to be as bad as David’s sin of adultery with Bathsheba (see 1 Samuel 11), the author clearly uses literary clues to highlight the severity of the moment. Given the unique shared vocabulary and shared sequences of events, it’s clear Saul’s failure to wait for Samuel is intentionally described as repetition of Aaron’s failure to wait for Moses in the story of the “Golden Calf” (see Exod 32:1-8). Implicit in this analogy, therefore, is a likening of Saul’s impatience and people pleasing to Israel’s idolatry at the foot of Mount Sinai. And for this reason, the consequences of this “tiny” compromise are severe—the kingdom will be taken from Saul and given to another person (1 Sam 13:13-14).
God takes the responsibility of leaders and leadership quite seriously. No matter how much a leader may try to excuse and/or justify the cutting of corners, God doesn’t just look away. For in contradiction to the monarchies of the Ancient Near East where kings were considered gods and could do as they pleased, leadership in Israel was always delegated and completely accountable to a higher authority. Every leader had to submit to a much higher authority.
And so it is till this very day. Leaders who are not first and foremost students of God’s word and who do not take God’s commandments with utmost seriousness are simply not fit to lead. Let us never allow ourselves to measure the success of our churches, congregations, and ministries by numbers and/or dollars, but by the commitment of our leaders to obeying God’s word even if this means suffering losses for the sake of God’s glory. The number one qualification for every aspiring leader must always be a whole-hearted commitment to following God’s word.
“Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel” (Deut 17:18-20).
