But the Thing David Had Done Was Displeasing in Yahweh's Eyes

But the Thing David Had Done Was Displeasing in Yahweh’s Eyes
2 Samuel 11: 1- 27

There is a news item today about a state governor who had to resign because of a sex scandal a couple of years ago but is now trying to rehabilitate himself in the eye of the public. As governor, one of his strengths was that he had regarded all things as possible. He ignored the conventional wisdom that says, “You can’t do that.” In connection with his involvement in the sex scandal, a reporter asked whether there hadn’t been a voice inside him that said, “You can’t do that,” and he agreed that apparently there wasn’t. In other words, he also seemed to ignore that conventional wisdom in his private life, thinking he could get away with it. I know of no statistics suggesting that leaders are more prone to sexual wrongdoing than other people or that pastors are more prone than laypeople, but they don’t seem to be less prone, and there are one or two ways in which this seems troublesome. We would like to think of our leaders as people of integrity, partly because we want them to lead with integrity, and it’s not clear that they can lack integrity in their private lives and keep it in their public roles. Further, the risks our leaders take in their sexual lives seem stupid, and if they are stupid there, can we assume they will behave with wisdom in their public roles? It can seem as if they believe they can get away with things just because of their position, when (if anything) the opposite is the case...