Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” 7 And they said to him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.”

“Neither a borrower, nor a lender be.” This is not in the Bible but Hamlet. It is a truism that has been lost on the past few generations as massive debt is crushing whole families. This passage from the history of the kings contains two lost secrets of effective church leadership. The new king asked the older experienced men how to go about ruling. They explained the concept of servant leadership to him. If you are their servant, they will follow. Something else can be learned in the subsequent verses. Rehoboam rejected the counsel in favor of his young friends who hadn’t a clue. 

The moral of this tale is to learn from others’ mistakes but society instead chooses to be ignorant of history so they can repeat the mistakes. We reject the wisdom of our elders, calling them racist and backward. Even our churches throw out the old and wise for the young and hip in order to have cool churches. Not surprisingly, many of these cool churches are making headlines for poor leadership decisions and poor judgement leading to sin. Famous young pastors are falling away because they were celebrities instead of servants. King Rehoboam has a lot to teach us about leadership and decision making. We must decide if we will learn from him or learn from God and his word and…

Seek wise old counsel.

Pastor Brad Boyer
Cape Community Church