I used to feel that the only one to blame for false teaching was the teacher himself or herself. After all, it says in James 3:1 that teachers will be judged more strictly. I always hoped that God would let those who follow false teachers off the hook because they probably didn't know any better. Now I'm not sure that is really true. Here are two interesting passages in the Old Testament historical accounts. In the first story, David wants to build a temple for God, and the prophet Nathan says without consulting God on the matter, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the LORD is with you.” In the rest of the chapter, God reveals to Nathan and David what God's true will in the situation is. And surprisingly, God doesn't chastise Nathan at all for his bad advice and taking God's name in vain. Instead, He gently chides David for listening to Nathan.
In the second story, someone only identified as a “man of God” has been told by God to leave Bethel after condemning King Jeroboam and the cult there. And he is not to even stop to eat or drink. However, he is followed by an “old prophet” who tells the man of God that an angel has appeared to him with a different message. According to this supposed new revelation, the man of God is to stop and have supper with him first. The man of God believes him and stops to eat. At that point, God uses the old prophet to deliver a divine message of condemnation and sentencing to the man of God for listening to the false prophecy while He doesn't chastise the old prophet at all for his lie. In both cases, the lesson seems to be that those who follow false teachings have at least some culpability in the matter. They should know better.
David and Nathan (II Samuel 7; I Chronicles 17)
The overwhelming theological importance of these parallel accounts has often overshadowed any analysis of the actions of the two human protagonists in it:
“This is one of the milestones of the OT revelation. The successive stages in the unfolding of God's redemptive purpose are marked by covenants, divine disclosures of God's sovereign forbearance and grace to man.” (Porter)
“2 Samuel 7 is rightly regarded as an 'ideological summit', not only in the Deuteronomistic History but also in the Old Testament as a whole.” (Baldwin)
“Any reader could drown in the ink that has been spilled over 2 Samuel 7. And the chapter richly deserves all that in k since it records Yahweh's promise of a dynasty to David.” (D.R. Davis)
“No text in the Historical Books is as important for understanding the place of David and his descendants in Yahweh's plan as 2 Samuel 7 (1 Chronicles).” (Block)
But rather than rehash all that has been written on this subject, here are a few attempts to explain first of all why Nathan was not chastised by God for invoking His name in an unauthorized manner:
“He is portrayed as a courageous figure who, having supported the king's proposal, is willing to change his view when he is convinced that it is contrary to Yahweh's will. Initially Nathan spoke, as S. Japhet suggests, in is role as 'a counselor who expresses his own thoughts,' but having received a vision from God, he speaks as a prophet of Yahweh with a divinely revealed message.” (Keown)
“Nathan the prophet, first mentioned in this connect, is the king's advisor and confidant; his immediate reaction is to encourage the king to go ahead and build. There was no obvious reason against the plan, and the king's intention was good, though there was the subtle inference that David was asserting himself by changing the long-established tradition of a tent shrine.” (Baldwin)
“Evidently we are to think of v. 3 as Nathan's spontaneous and initially enthusiastic response to what seemed like a good idea to him and to understand vv. 5ff. as the more circumspect opinion he reached after realizing, under the impact of divine revelation, that the time was not right.” (McCarter)
“Nathan here is offering his personal opinion, which is corrected by God in the prophecy that follows.” (Knoppers)
Tsumura says that “it would not be contradictory for Nathan to give the advice 'whatsoever' as David's counselor, but on the next day to convey the Lord's oracle as a prophet.”
The other person in the story to consider is David himself. First, note that David comes up with his idea to build the temple without even first consulting God. Next, there is a hint that David may have been just as enthusiastic about this project for the glory it would give him as for God's glory. But the ultimate arbitrator of David's motives is God Himself, and He has some rather sharp comments to address David with:
“Are you the right person to build me a house?” (II Sam. 7:5)
“Did I ever speak a word... saying, 'Why have you not built me a house of cedar?'” (v. 7)
Therefore God pokes holes in David's rash plan in two ways, questioning both David's suitability as the intended builder of the temple as well as asking why it even needed to be built in the first place, or at least the timing of such building.
Incident at Bethel (I Kings 13)
The main problem here is easy to identify. G.H. Jones asks, “How could a prophet [i.e. the man of God], claiming to have a divine message to proclaim disobey the divine word? The second is raised by the old prophet's lie, who had deliberately lied, then proceed to speak the word of God? The narrative does not raise these issues nor does it offer any solution of them.”
Cogan says in a similar vein: “Readers concerned with theology and moral teaching have had a difficult time with I Kgs 13. A man of God who strays from his mission and a lying old prophet, the former punished summarily, the later going scot-free...this is a perplexing concoction indeed!”
As for the old prophet's lie, Cogan states, “What the old prophet sought to gain by his prevarication is not elucidated in the text and has been the subject of continuing speculation.” Two suggestions are that (1) the old prophet was trying to preserve his position with King Jereboam and the Bethel cult or (2) the old prophet was being used by God to test the man of God.”
And a third possibility has been mentioned by D.G. Martin, namely, that “he wished to test the alarming word of the LORD against his local shrine.” Moller appears to agree with this explanation in saying that the “old prophet sets out to establish whether the man of God can recognize a false oracle that goes against his original divine instructions...The point of the story is that prophets ought to obey their divine instructions even when faced with contradictory oracles.”
Note that either of the last two possibilities would serve to explain why the old prophet was not condemned by God for lying. But he did not get off totally scot-free since he gathered up the dead remains of the man of God, buried them in his own tomb, and gave instructions for himself to be later buried with the man. He apparently did this out of a feeling of guilt for his own part in the man's death and to demonstrate his own close identification with that flawed man.
As for the man of God, “Sadly, like Jereboam (cf. I Kings 12:28) the man of God has listened to bad counsel rather than heeding a direct word of God...The man of God believed that an angel's message contradicted God's earlier word.” (House)
I am reminded of Paul's warning in Galatians 1:8, which he repeats in the following verse: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should proclaim to you a gospel contrary to what we proclaimed to you, let that one be accursed!” I think of the angel Moroni who is supposed by the Mormons to have been instrumental in helping Joseph Smith to locate and translate the golden tablets that became The Book of Mormon, believed as a new gospel by his followers.
Moral
Provan summarizes the moral of this last sad story: “The point of the story is that complete and radical obedience is required by God to what he has commanded. The 'man of God' ought to have followed through the word of the LORD he had received rather than being led off his path by another's claim that God had spoken to him (v. 18). Even the prophets who deliver God's word must themselves obey it.”
As a final word, here is the lesson that D.R. Davis draws from II Samuel 7 which is equally applicable to the episode found in I Kings 13: “Our text testifies that the kingdom of God is never safe in human hands, no matter how godly those hands may be. Yahweh's finest servants are often deficient in properly discerning his will.”
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