God’s Kind of Leadership
For Meditation (Elisabeth Hayes)
This week we’ll continue our study of “Jesus’s favorite Old Testament book” in Deuteronomy 17:14-20.
We live in a world that’s fascinated by power and authority—how to get it, how to keep it, how to use it. In this selection from Deuteronomy, God paints a very different picture of what authority and leadership is for. He gives Israel guidelines for kings that aren’t about status or control but about humility and dependence—leaders who live under God’s Word, not above it. Israel’s story shows how easily power can go wrong, yet it also points us forward to the King who would finally get it right.
Jesus fulfills God’s vision of leadership perfectly: He rules by serving, listens before speaking, and leads by laying down His life. As we come to worship this week, we’re invited to consider how His kind of authority reshapes our own hearts—whether we lead in homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, or the church itself. True leadership in God’s kingdom always begins with listening to His voice and following His way.
As you prepare for worship, read all of Deuteronomy chapters 17-18, which addresses all four offices of leadership in Israel, and consider the following reflection questions:
If an alien from outer space were to observe the human population in 2025, what would they notice about how we assign authority and leadership? What qualities are “prerequisites” for authority? And what type of qualities and behavior do we expect from our leaders?
Have you ever known a leader who reminds you of the king described in Deut 17:14-20? Talk about them.
How does Jesus redefine what it means to lead well? What type of leadership did he model and teach?
In what ways has God called you into leadership and authority?
Deuteronomy 17:14–20
When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
Read along with us this fall! Download our Deuteronomy Reading Guide here.