Abstract:
God alone is the perfect ruler and his power is dependent upon none. Human beings
who possess power can rightly exercise it only if they acknowledge that their power is
delegated. God made it clear to the Israelites, even before they asked for a king, what
such a king should be and how he should lead his people. Deuteronomy 17:14-20 sets
forth a number of limitations placed upon the monarchy. The motive behind these
limitations was to ensure that the Israelite king will not behave like the kings of the
other nations, but that he will follow the will of God and maintain a society which is
right with itself and right with God. 1 Samuel 8 warns the people of Israel against the
potential danger of the establishment of kingship. More than a warning, 1 Samuel 8
can also be seen as another guideline which could hel\') the kings of Israel to realize the
temptations and dangers they were going to face in the exercise of their authority.
From the text of Jeremiah 22, we chose two kings of Judah: Josiah and Jehoiakim as
case studies of the use of power or authority in the Israelite monarchy. Josiah
understood his task as a king in terms of complying with the standard set in
Deuteronomy and 1 Samuel. As a result, it went well for him and for the nation. But
Jehoiakim was condemned for his failure to comply with God's standard. Because of
the failure of Jehoiakim and many other kings like him, Israel was destroyed and the
people ~re) of Judah were taken to exile. This means that the moral, social,
economic, and religious conditions of any nation or society depend, in large part, on the
kind of leadership of those in power. In the political sphere, the church in Africa has
two responsibilities: (1) to teach the nation and their rulers the proper use of power and
(2) to help the citizens to understand that they are responsible for the kind of
government in power because their destiny is linked to the kind of leadership they have
accepted to rule over them.
