Word for the Week: Without Fear or Favour
Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, ‘Is that you, you troubler of Israel?’ ‘I have not made trouble for Israel,’ Elijah replied, ‘but you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands.’
1 Kings 18:17-18
A country in trouble needs prophets – not foretellers of the future, though that may come into it, but prophets who speak the truth about today. So the UK government, with difficult decisions to make, sets up enquiries and commissions chaired by trusted servants of the state called to be prophets without fear or favour. However uncomfortable, give or take the odd whinge, their findings are to be accepted and acted on.
King David had his prophet who confronted him without fear or favour, and Nathan saw his king bowed in repentance before God (2 Samuel 12). Elijah knew from his conversation with Obadiah that he was facing great danger, but he was the prophet, and his duty was to confront the king and the people of Israel.
The prophet stands before the king. But not only in government; in management and work, home and school, there may well come a time when we are in one of these two positions – knowing we need to confront someone who has authority, or having to listen to someone telling us without fear or favour where we have gone wrong.
When power ceases to listen terrible things happen. There was no one left to check or advise Ahab. With tyrants of all kinds, the gradual erosion of the independence of advisers, generals and judges, so that no prophets remain, is well mapped. And when we have authority, we must make sure that ‘prophets’ have full permission to challenge us.
Behind both the king and the prophet stand the Lord’s commands, to be rejected – or accepted in repentance. Who, knowing God’s laws of love and justice, will challenge bullying, obstinacy, ignorance and the betrayal of leadership? We may well be blamed, like Elijah, for rocking the boat, but if the boat is going in the wrong direction, how much would we risk to save ourselves and others from the rocks?
Margaret Killingray
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