Counting numbers
This week's study is on 1 Chronicles 21:1-7:
These verses describe a time when King David was tempted by Satan to count his troops. His general knew it was a bad idea and tried to talk him out of it, but David pulled rank on him and forced him to do it. God was angry with him and all of Israel suffered for it. (The problem with following a man rather than following God directly, is that you share in his punishment when he chooses to do evil.)
Why would taking a census be evil though? You'd think that would count as being a good steward over the people God gave to King David. Maybe you'd want to know how much food you'll need, or where to build roads, or to make other improvements. It all depends on your motives, though, and David's motivations were evil.
Nobody really knows what was going on in David's head, not even theologians. The best guess is that he wanted to be sure his country was well-defended, or to compare himself against other kings. But for a man whose purpose is to lean on God and serve God's people, it seems backwards for the king to count the people to figure out what they can do to glorify him and his rule. And that's sort of what Joab was getting at. "Wouldn't there always be enough people to do what you need them to do, because of God?" What David was doing was not just pointless, it was dangerous and motivated by evil.
But we see this in our modern day with churches. Pastors are always asking each other "how big is your church?" While in some cases it's an innocent question to gain understanding of what each other are dealing with, in many cases it's an attempt to gain silent bragging rights. There's even a whole "church growth" industry that uses psychology and marketing techniques to try to grow the size of a congregation, as if Jesus was just trying to start some kind of God-related multi-level marketing scheme. There's a sense in the religion industry that our worth is somehow related to our headcount.
In the software industry, people often brag about the number of downloads. Companies will put their "2.4 million downloads" badge right on their front page as a talisman of legitimacy. But it's a deceptive metric. How many of those people downloaded the app but couldn't get it to install, or ran it once or twice and decided it was garbage? Out of 2.4 million downloads you might have maybe a few hundred actual customers who use it on a daily basis. And headcounts are the same thing when it comes to the kingdom of God.
People look at a guy who pastors a church of 2000 people and compare him to a guy who pastors a church of 40 people and decide the guy with 2000 is successful and the guy with 40 is a failure. But out of those weekly "downloads", how many are actual users? You can't know! Maybe those 40 come because they love God and maybe most of the 2000 simply come to be entertained by some nice music and then go home unchanged. You can't tell with surveys and you can't tell by a headcount. What's in a man's heart is known only to God.
And yet people set goals for headcounts as their primary metric. "By 2020, we want to have 400 people in our morning service, and 20 cell groups meeting in the following locations." At best it's meaningless, and at worse it's the work of Satan, puffing up the leaders with pride and wasting money on marketing and studies and consultants.
As individuals, we do similar things though. A lot of people, mostly women, weigh themselves compulsively. On the surface it's a good thing, as weight can often say something about our state of health, and which direction we're trending in as far as fitting within our clothes. But some people use it as a measure of their worth. "I weigh 300 lbs, therefore I'm a fat whale, and nobody will like me." A number, much like David's census or a church headcount, now becomes the indicator of whether they're a good or bad person! Or maybe it's not weight. Maybe it's how full our calendar is, how "busy" we are, how much money is in our bank account, how many people liked our latest social media posting, etc.
The devil tries to introduce his own system of salvation into our lives, which he can then use to manipulate us. For David, it was the size of his army and what that was made to mean. For a successful pastor, it may be his salary or the size of his congregation. But the only salvation that matters is what Christ died to bring us. Our worth comes from God's love for us. While we should still be good stewards of our congregations, bank accounts, and bodies, real success has ultimately come from the Lord. If you lose sight of that, it's easy for the devil to have an inroad to your life, even someone as righteous as King David.
Joab's words are wisdom: “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects?” Be happy that the numbers don't matter. God loves us beyond that fleshly framework we are often told to base our joy upon. Be happy that we have something useful to do in God's kingdom, and that if we need a million people or a million dollars to do it, God will provide it. We don't have to earn our salvation with quarterly reports on whatever. We already have it.
Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”
But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?”
The king’s word, however, overruled Joab; so Joab left and went throughout Israel and then came back to Jerusalem. Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah.
But Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, because the king’s command was repulsive to him. This command was also evil in the sight of God; so he punished Israel.
These verses describe a time when King David was tempted by Satan to count his troops. His general knew it was a bad idea and tried to talk him out of it, but David pulled rank on him and forced him to do it. God was angry with him and all of Israel suffered for it. (The problem with following a man rather than following God directly, is that you share in his punishment when he chooses to do evil.)
Why would taking a census be evil though? You'd think that would count as being a good steward over the people God gave to King David. Maybe you'd want to know how much food you'll need, or where to build roads, or to make other improvements. It all depends on your motives, though, and David's motivations were evil.
Nobody really knows what was going on in David's head, not even theologians. The best guess is that he wanted to be sure his country was well-defended, or to compare himself against other kings. But for a man whose purpose is to lean on God and serve God's people, it seems backwards for the king to count the people to figure out what they can do to glorify him and his rule. And that's sort of what Joab was getting at. "Wouldn't there always be enough people to do what you need them to do, because of God?" What David was doing was not just pointless, it was dangerous and motivated by evil.
But we see this in our modern day with churches. Pastors are always asking each other "how big is your church?" While in some cases it's an innocent question to gain understanding of what each other are dealing with, in many cases it's an attempt to gain silent bragging rights. There's even a whole "church growth" industry that uses psychology and marketing techniques to try to grow the size of a congregation, as if Jesus was just trying to start some kind of God-related multi-level marketing scheme. There's a sense in the religion industry that our worth is somehow related to our headcount.
In the software industry, people often brag about the number of downloads. Companies will put their "2.4 million downloads" badge right on their front page as a talisman of legitimacy. But it's a deceptive metric. How many of those people downloaded the app but couldn't get it to install, or ran it once or twice and decided it was garbage? Out of 2.4 million downloads you might have maybe a few hundred actual customers who use it on a daily basis. And headcounts are the same thing when it comes to the kingdom of God.
People look at a guy who pastors a church of 2000 people and compare him to a guy who pastors a church of 40 people and decide the guy with 2000 is successful and the guy with 40 is a failure. But out of those weekly "downloads", how many are actual users? You can't know! Maybe those 40 come because they love God and maybe most of the 2000 simply come to be entertained by some nice music and then go home unchanged. You can't tell with surveys and you can't tell by a headcount. What's in a man's heart is known only to God.
And yet people set goals for headcounts as their primary metric. "By 2020, we want to have 400 people in our morning service, and 20 cell groups meeting in the following locations." At best it's meaningless, and at worse it's the work of Satan, puffing up the leaders with pride and wasting money on marketing and studies and consultants.
As individuals, we do similar things though. A lot of people, mostly women, weigh themselves compulsively. On the surface it's a good thing, as weight can often say something about our state of health, and which direction we're trending in as far as fitting within our clothes. But some people use it as a measure of their worth. "I weigh 300 lbs, therefore I'm a fat whale, and nobody will like me." A number, much like David's census or a church headcount, now becomes the indicator of whether they're a good or bad person! Or maybe it's not weight. Maybe it's how full our calendar is, how "busy" we are, how much money is in our bank account, how many people liked our latest social media posting, etc.
The devil tries to introduce his own system of salvation into our lives, which he can then use to manipulate us. For David, it was the size of his army and what that was made to mean. For a successful pastor, it may be his salary or the size of his congregation. But the only salvation that matters is what Christ died to bring us. Our worth comes from God's love for us. While we should still be good stewards of our congregations, bank accounts, and bodies, real success has ultimately come from the Lord. If you lose sight of that, it's easy for the devil to have an inroad to your life, even someone as righteous as King David.
Joab's words are wisdom: “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects?” Be happy that the numbers don't matter. God loves us beyond that fleshly framework we are often told to base our joy upon. Be happy that we have something useful to do in God's kingdom, and that if we need a million people or a million dollars to do it, God will provide it. We don't have to earn our salvation with quarterly reports on whatever. We already have it.
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