Wise, Understanding, & Knowledgeable

And I spoke to you at that time, saying: "I alone am not able to bear you. The LORD your God has multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude... How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you." ... So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes. (Deuteronomy 1:9-15)

A 3,400-year-old text reveals how God orders a society—and exposes the lie behind a worldview that says all hierarchy is oppression.

An Experiment in Academic Corruption

A few years ago, three academics ventured together on a research project to prove a theory. To understand it, remember that every industry—construction, information technology, hospitality, electronics, music, fashion, even academia—has certain outputs it must produce to function, survive, and thrive. For some of you the output is computer code; for others it's architectural designs or good outcomes for clients and patients. If you don't produce, you don't get paid, you don't get promoted, or you go out of business.

In the academic world, the required output is peer-reviewed and published research in journals associated with your field. For a PhD at a research university, teaching is not the main focus; the greater focus is producing study and research that advances your field. That research gets published in respected journals, peer-reviewed, and often brings in grant money to fund further work. The target is to be published in the most prestigious journals.

These three academics had a growing concern. A couple were university professors; one had stepped away. They had a theory that some fields—especially the social sciences—had been tainted by ideological corruption. So they set out to write research papers under pseudonyms, filled with fake and absurd research, and submit them to prominent journals in gender studies, race studies, and sexuality studies. If these papers got published, they could expose the corruption.

Absurd Papers, Real Consequences

Most academics can work for years and never get published, but over the course of just a few months, these three got seven fake papers accepted by very prominent journals. What were they about? One, a rewrite of a chapter from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, was submitted on intersectional feminism to the Journal of Women and Social Work and accepted. Another, on "canine rape culture in dog parks," was approved by a top feminist gender studies journal called Gender. A third, accepted by the journal Fat Studies, argued that accumulating cellulite should be considered a form of competitive bodybuilding.

If this sounds absurd, that was entirely the point. They submitted fallacious, absurd things to see if they would be published for peer review—and they were. I'm not making this up; you can read about it online.

Why does this matter on a Sunday morning? Because respected social science journals direct public policy. This research shapes the bills that move through Congress and onto the President's desk. It directs public funding and educational curriculum—not just at universities but in elementary and secondary schools. It even shapes the policies of corporate HR departments. When you hear that second and third graders are being taught gender theory and sexuality, it is precisely because of peer-reviewed research in respected social science journals. This kind of ideologically corrupt research is causing a growing number of people, especially the young, to believe that the most dangerous people in our culture are white, Christian, heterosexual men.

A 3,400-Year-Old Document on Governing Society

What does any of this have to do with Deuteronomy 1? This passage has important things to teach us about the governing of society. This 3,400-year-old document—written more than 2,000 years before sociology came on the scene—gives us information about how a society is to function.

When we come to the Scriptures, we hope to connect with God and with Christ Jesus, but we also hope to discover what God's Word teaches about how we ought to live. That is the study of ethics. This text is relevant and applicable because it presents a worldview—a way of seeing the world and society—and it is a worldview our culture is in collision with.

Modern sociological theory, as taught in research journals and university classrooms in our postmodern, post-Christian, Western society, sees our inherited social structure—the norms and culture by which we govern ourselves—as oppressive, regressive, and in need of deconstruction and radical reformation. Listen critically to political rhetoric or cable news and you will hear this. The modern worldview sees hierarchical structures as socially constructed, created over time to favor people in power. We are told the powerful are where they are because of their immorality, wickedness, and malevolence, constantly working to maintain power at everyone else's expense.

The Worldview of Oppression

If that formulation is accurate, it sounds acceptable. In that story you are Katniss Everdeen, the Capitol is holding you down, and we are in a death struggle for the entertainment of those in power. We see it in our entertainment, our news, and our politics, whether you're on the right or the left. You'll hear that three men—Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos—hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of the country, and people say, "That's not fair." Maybe you feel the inequity too. The assumption is that the people at the top did something malevolent and immoral to get there—you can't reach that position without having stolen your stuff—or that we live in a wicked, oppressive economic system guided by some invisible hand keeping the haves at the top.

Since the West lives under a European, Judeo-Christian construct, the people at the top are said to be white Christian males of European descent—what the social sciences call "the patriarchy," a seemingly invisible, malevolent group holding everyone down. And how could we forget that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that we are all equal—so there should be equity.

Even if these things sound unfamiliar to you, I guarantee you have received them through media, entertainment, news, politics, and advertising. And if you have children in elementary school, middle school, high school, or university, they have absolutely heard these things.

The Genesis of the Idea

Where did such a worldview come from? You might think of Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Stuart Mill, John Dewey, Friedrich Hayek, John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, or Noam Chomsky. But fascinatingly, it goes back to the very first book of the Bible.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" ... Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. (Genesis 3:1-6)

The serpent tells Eve that God is holding her back from something good, and she sees the tree as desirable to make one wise. That is the seed: the idea that an unjust, invisible hand at the top of the hierarchy is holding us down. This is not new.

That brings us to point number one: the genesis of an idea is often as important as the idea itself. Just as Jesus said in Matthew 11 and Luke 7, "Wisdom is justified by her children," it is also true that the origin of an idea—the presupposition, the worldview, the bias from which it comes—gives clarity about the idea itself. Both the outcomes of an idea and its genesis help us clarify and weigh its wisdom.

A Democratic Republican Theocracy

In Deuteronomy 1:9-15 we examine the importance of a hierarchy of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom for ordering and governing a society. Last week we traced this text back to Exodus 18, the historical context Moses is revisiting. He takes Israel back to the beginning of their journey—now forty years past—to prepare a new generation to enter the Promised Land without him. Moses will die; he will not go with them. They must learn to govern themselves according to the principles of the law, the covenant they are in with God.

So how will they govern themselves? Is it every man for himself, a flat organizational structure where everyone does their own thing? We'll see how that goes later in Judges. But here, Moses says, "Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you."

When you study the first five books of the Bible—the Torah, the Pentateuch—you find that God's expectation for his covenant people was that they be a Democratic Republican theocracy. That phrase sounds fine until you hit the word theocracy, which tends to scare people, even Christians. But the image it produces in your mind is probably not what God is promoting. Israel was a theocracy in that their governing law was divinely given by God. Israel was a Democratic Republic in that the people were to choose, democratically, leaders to represent and judge them.

Living in 21st-century America, we can relate to this somewhat. The 16th-century reformer John Calvin believed a society ought to have, in his words, "a well-ordered government by the common consent of all." In his commentary on Micah, Calvin pointed to Deuteronomy 1 and Exodus 18 as showing this was God's order—not only for Israel but for our own societies. That was effectively Moses's endorsement as well.

Choosing Leaders Wisely

Observe that the people were to choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable individuals to serve as chiefs—the word for "heads" can also mean captains or chiefs. Israel was responsible for walking in accordance with God's covenant, just as every married couple is joined in a covenant with stipulations and vows. To ensure they kept those stipulations, they had to select leaders and judges who would direct their obedience and call them back to the Lord when they strayed.

If you want good, wise, knowledgeable, understanding leaders, you had better choose them wisely. Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived, observed in Proverbs 14:34, "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Sin—missing the mark of God's standard, disobeying his law—leads to the destruction of society.

These three words are not mere synonyms. Knowledge is the acquisition of facts and data; we are bombarded with information constantly through news, television, advertising, movies, and people. Google and Siri know many facts and figures. Understanding goes further—it deals with comprehension, with what the data means and why things are the way they are; it's an interpretive step. Wisdom, point number two, is knowing what to do with what you know—how to apply the data.

A corny illustration makes the point: knowledge is recognizing an object as a tomato; understanding is deducing that the tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put it in the fruit salad. Now, some of you put tomatoes in your fruit salad—you're the same people who put salt on watermelon and cheddar cheese with apple pie, so you're already a little suspect to us. But for the most part, knowing the tomato doesn't go in the fruit salad is wisdom.

How to Identify Wise Leaders

The people of God, both 3,400 years ago and today, are responsible to walk out God's covenant according to his law, which results in abundance and fullness of blessing. This brings us to point number three: to survive and thrive as God's people, we need wise, understanding, and knowledgeable leaders.

Is there anyone who would honestly disagree that such leaders benefit a society? I don't think so. The harder question is, how do we identify them? Part of the answer is in verse 15: "So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men." Israel was already subdivided into twelve tribes from the twelve sons of Jacob. At that smaller, subdivided community level, there were already identifiable individuals who stood out as leaders.

Why did they stand out? Not because they were old or had many children, but because their daily lives were observable by those living in the tents around them. They lived in a way that was wise, exercising knowledge and understanding. Believe it or not, wise leaders are not all that difficult to identify. Point number four: wise leaders stand out by applying knowledge to the everyday issues of life.

What kind of issues? How well do they do their job, provide for their families, lead their children, and interact with others in business and community? Can they be counted on and trusted with your stuff and your kids? Do they have self-control and integrity? Moses assumes that if individuals do well at the smaller community level, they will do well with greater responsibility at higher levels. Paul says the same thing about elders in 1 Timothy 3: how do they govern their home, raise their children, handle their finances; are they trustworthy?

Ascending the Competence Hierarchy

When a leader stands out as wise—applying knowledge and understanding among families and friends—he moves higher up the hierarchy into greater responsibility and authority, growing in wisdom as he goes. This is how God intended things to work in culture and in the world.

Some argue that Jesus promoted a flat organizational structure, but those who say so are ignorant of the whole counsel of God, Old and New Testament, and are misreading Jesus. I have much more to say about hierarchy in society and in nature, but that must wait for future studies.

Point number five: those who rightly understand and apply knowledge become wise and respected leaders. They ascend what we might call a competence hierarchy. Because they know how to lead, they receive greater responsibility and authority. This is what we would expect in a well-constructed society.

When Hierarchies Break Down

But what if a hierarchy breaks down and no longer functions like that? What if people rise through nepotism, money, strength, or good looks rather than wisdom, knowledge, and understanding? History proves this happens. When a society grows corrupt, it cannot stand under the weight of what is needed, and it collapses. Then comes a kind of reboot—sometimes from within, sometimes from without.

We will see this in Israel's history: sometimes the nation fell apart from within because it lacked wise, understanding, and knowledgeable leaders; sometimes it was punished from outside by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Greeks because the people had walked away from God and their leaders had failed them. A revolution, a reformation, would come.

This is why it is essential to order our societies correctly at the granular community level—within the church, within connect groups, within families, in cities, counties, states, and nations. We need to be looking for opportunities to apply wisdom, knowledge, and understanding in smaller areas, then stepping out by faith to fill higher levels of responsibility as God enables us.

Take Responsibility Where You See Breakdown

Our tribe, Cross Connection Church, needs knowledgeable, understanding, and wise individuals. You may not feel like one, but as you grow in your understanding of the Scriptures and apply their principles at home, with your spouse and kids, and in your workplace, people will begin to see it. They will invite you into greater responsibility, just as these leaders were invited, and you will grow in wisdom as you step into those roles.

If you look out at our community, city, county, state, and nation and conclude everything is being led perfectly—great. But if you see areas breaking down and falling apart, what are you doing to take responsibility for them? I want to suggest that God may be allowing you to see those breakdowns—even something small in the church not being taken care of—because he is calling you to step out by faith and exercise knowledge and understanding in a wise way. Don't resist that. If you see a breakdown, God wants you involved. How are you exercising responsibility in a wise and understanding way to see society thrive and survive? That's a challenging question to carry into this week.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I thank you for the challenge of your Word. I pray that even though this comes through a screen, a little different than we normally do things, you would cause your Word—which is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword—to affect us at a deep level, that you would continue to transform us, and that you would quicken our ears and our hearts to hear the word of your Spirit calling us to take responsibility for the areas in our lives, whether in our home, our workplace, our community, or the church—to step out and apply wisdom, knowledge, and understanding so that society moves in a direction that is for your glory and for the thriving of the culture we live in. God, we need that, and I think my brothers and sisters here this morning agree. So would you do a work, we pray. We ask this in Jesus' name, and all those who agreed said, Amen.