Faithfully yours - A warning from ancient history

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Published on Sunday, September 4, 2016

By Neil Strohschein

The Neepawa Banner

In last week’s column, I shared some thoughts on the growing gap between those who govern and those who are governed. This week, I want to explore this concept a little further and offer a warning from ancient history which, in my view, could help us address and solve this problem.

In his final sermon to the people of ancient Israel, Moses left detailed instructions that were to be followed when the people decided to “separate church and state;” and to have a king who would look after secular matters and priests who would look after spiritual matters in the land.

Moses was wise enough to see that this separation of powers was inevitable. But he also saw the inherent dangers in such a move. For that reason, he set out specific guidelines to help the people choose their kings. They were to set over them “the king that God would choose.” (Deuteronomy 17:14-20) No king was to designate his successor unless he received clear indication from God to do so—which King David received when he designated Solomon as his heir.

Four things were required of every king who came to power.

Three things were prohibited—the king was not to acquire many horses, many wives or huge amounts of silver and gold. Moses knew if these rules were broken, the costs of governing the kingdom and supporting the army, the civil service and the king’s family would escalate to the point that they would be impossible to control (sort of like today), which is what happened.

One thing was required of the king—he was to spend time each day reading and meditating on the laws of God, using his personal copy of those laws. Moses knew that if this rule was broken, the king would soon exalt himself above the other members of the community and think that he could do whatever he wanted—raise taxes, force his people into slavery, worship whatever god he chose to worship and make new laws that suited his fancies and legalized his questionable actions or intentions. That also happened—many, many times.

Beginning with Solomon and continuing until the Babylonian conquest of ancient Israel, almost every king violated these rules. The historical books of the Old Testament document the results. Despite numerous rebellions, revolts and regime changes, very little changed. Kings were just as selfish and self-centered as their predecessors had been and the people were just as poor, misused and abused as they had always been. Any good kings that came along (and there were a few) could not undo the damage done by their predecessors.

Now I will be the first to argue that we cannot apply Moses’ rules for ancient Israel to today’s Canada. But there is one lesson we can learn from the history of ancient Israel.

When power and control is centralized in the hands of a few, the general population always suffers. Centralized governments with their multiple levels of bureaucracy have consistently proven to be one of the most ineffective and inefficient ways to run a country. There is only one way to cover the cost of government services and that is by taxing the profits, properties and purchases of people. The more we demand, the more we will have to pay—but we will never receive what we consider to be full value for the money we have paid.

Nothing will change until we, the people, start demanding less, doing more and asking for help only when we cannot help ourselves. More on that next week.