Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Subtle Qualities of a Good Leader | Historical Books | Judges 9:1-21

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

What makes a good leader? What leadership qualities does God desire? Who has the ultimate authority? In today's episode, Keith shares how Judges 9:1-21 encourages us to be good leaders where God has placed us. We love hearing from you all! If you're listening on Spotify, drop a comment below to let us know where you're listening from. Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Judges 9:1-21

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. The Bible makes it clear that good leaders are gifts from God, and bad leaders are a sign of God's judgment. Think about that for a second. Bad leaders, foolish leaders, selfish leaders, unwise leaders are one way God judges his people. Leadership, whether it's in a family, a business, a nonprofit, a hospital, the military, the church, or government. has a tremendous impact on people's lives. Good leadership leads to wise decisions and human

flourishing, and bad leaders make foolish decisions that can do a lot of damage in people's lives. Today we're going to think about what makes a good leader and bad leader from Judges Chapter 9. At the end of Judges 8, Gideon has set up his hometown as a rival place for worship. It seems that Gideon did this to encourage people to come to him for spiritual guidance, and to see his hometown as the place to find God. Judges 827 says, Gideon made the gold into an ephod which he placed in Oprah, his hometown. All Israel prostituted themselves by worshipping it there,

and it became a snare to Gideon and his family. God's leader is supposed to point people to the true God, but Gideon points people to himself. Instead of serving God, Gideon uses God to serve himself. That's the first thing about a good leader. he or she puts God's interests above their own. A bad leader is one who has their own agenda. A good leader in a family asks, what does my family need tonight? What does my family need for me this weekend? A good leader in a business asks what their employees or customers need. They consider the best interests of others ahead of themselves. The bad leader, whether it's in a family or a business, is consumed with their own needs. In this story, Gideon acts more and more like a king, which, which is weird because Israel doesn't have a king. For example, we're told at the end of chapter 8 that Gideon had 70 sons by many wives and concubines. This is the act of an ungodly king.

What is Gideon thinking? Well, he shows what's in his mind and heart when he names his son Abimelech. That name is important because it means, my father is king. If you name your son, my father is king, it reveals something about how you see yourself. As my grandma used to say, Gideon is getting too big for his britches. He thinks too highly of himself. He's usurping God's authority. The second thing about a good leader is that he or she knows that they are under God's authority. A good pastor knows he isn't the leader of the church. That's Jesus. A good parent knows, a good boss knows that they don't have ultimate authority. Whatever authority they have is given to them by God and should be stewarded for God's purposes. The weird thing is that earlier in Chapter 8, Gideon had

turned down being made king because he said, the Lord will rule over you. So do you see the contradiction? How could Gideon refuse to become a king because he knows God is the king and yet then act like he's the king? It all just seems so inconsistent. But it's really pretty simple. Gideon knew something intellectually that hadn't really gripped his heart. The longest distance in the world is the distance between our head and our heart. We know a lot of things that we don't act on. My greatest need isn't to know more things, although I'd love to know more truth. My greatest need is to act on the truth I already know. I think we can say this is the third thing that good leaders do.

They embrace what they teach. They aim to live consistently with the way they talk. People don't trust a leader who says one thing but does another. A parent who doesn't at least try to practice what they preach won't be respected by their kids. Let's go further into judges chapter 9. Until this chapter, there had been a familiar sequence of events. The people would sin and rebel against God, and that leads their enemies to oppress them and make their life miserable.

Then the people would cry out for mercy and God would raise up a judge to deliver them from their enemies. For a while, they would live in peace and fellowship with God until they fell back into sin and the cycle repeated itself. But now in chapter 9, we have a complete departure from the sequence. It's a horrendous episode in Israel's history. Abimelech is Gideon's son by his concubine, who lived in Shuckham. This means that from Abimelech's birth, he's been an outsider in his own family. Unlike Gideon's other 70 sons, he was illegitimate. He did not stand to inherit part of Gideon's property.

Abimlech feels that whatever he will get out of life, he will have to get it for himself, and he is utterly determined to get whatever he can. All this is happening at a city called Shackham, and that's really important. If someone mentions Gettysburg, most Americans know that's a special place. Not only was there a decisive civil war fought there, but also Lincoln gave his famous speech, the Gettysburg addressed there. Or consider Montgomery, Alabama. That city is important because of the bus boycott that launched Dr. King into the national

conversation and eventually led to the civil rights movement. Just like there are places of great historical and national, significance for Americans. So Shechem was a place of huge importance in Israel. Shechem was the first place God appeared to Abraham to tell him that this was the land he had promised to give him. Shechem was the first place in the promised land to have an altar built to worship the Lord God. And Shechem was the first place where Abraham's descendants gathered to worship the Lord after they had crossed into the promised land. Historically then, Shechem is the spiritual center and thermometer of Israel. What happens in Shechem is the spiritual center and thermometer of Israel. What happens in

Shackham and Judges Nine would be similar to Americans deciding to reinstitute slavery at a meeting in Gettysburg or racial segregation in Montgomery. Abimelech devises a plan to grasp power for himself. He's not patient. He doesn't wait on God. He's not called by God. Instead, Abimelech asserts himself as the leader. Here's judges nine, one and two. Abimlech, son of Gideon, went to his mother's brothers in Shacham and said to them and to all his mother's clan, ask all the citizens of Shechem, which is better for you? To have all 70 of Gideon's sons rule over you or just one man. Remember, I'm your flesh and blood. So Abimelech's argument to them is, wouldn't it be better for you to just have one ruler, and wouldn't it be good to ensure that ruler

is one of us? Wouldn't it be good if I was your king? Well, the men of Shechem agree. Verse three, when the brothers repeated all this to the citizens of Shechem, they were inclined to follow Abimel. for they said he is related to us. They gave him 70 shuckles of silver from the temple, and Abimelech used it to hire reckless scoundrels who became his followers. See, Abimelech's rise to power isn't based on God's call, but on him buying people's support. He uses God's money for personal gain.

Once he has power, Abimelech murders his own family. Verse 5, he went to his father's house in Oprah, and on one stone murdered his 70 brothers, the sons of Gideon, but Jotham, the youngest son of Gideon, escaped by hiding. There's no sense of following God's commands. This is just a naked power grab. But remember, Abimelech is the leader the people chose because he was one of them. This is a good lesson in choosing leaders. We are often too easily impressed by qualities that are unimportant to God. We can far too easily be swayed by pragmatic arguments. God does not prize popularity or

or humor or academic intelligence or being an extrovert. And those are all fine qualities to have and they may even help a person lead. But the most important quality of a leader is a heart for God and a life that's consistent with following God. The people have chosen Abimelech for all the wrong reasons. And I wonder if sometimes we follow leaders with the wrong qualities. Unfortunately, Israel ends up with Abimelech acting like a king. And it all started because his father gave.

Gideon had sinfully taken a concubine in Shuckham. The leader's sins caused great pain in the nation. Be careful about the way you lead. Be careful about the leaders you follow.