When Jacob heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, his sons were in the fields with his livestock; so he did nothing about it until they came home. – Genesis 34:5

Today's Scripture Reading (September 1, 2021): Genesis 34

Motivational writer William Arthur Ward (1921-1994, argued that "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." Most of us who consider ourselves to be teachers aspire to be in that last category, to be the one who inspires. But what we sometimes forget is that it is not just teachers who teach. We all are involved in teaching someone. Sometimes it is a parent teaching a child; in other circumstances, it is a friend influencing a colleague, but in the end, we are all teachers. And it should be the goal of all of us not merely to tell, explain or even demonstrate; we should all be trying to inspire those around us.

But we also tend to fall short. To tell or explain is simply an easier way to share information. And the reality is that many of us abdicate our leadership responsibilities to someone else. The most obvious example of this abdication is the politician who leads with an eye on opinion polls about what the people want to be done. As a population, we should choose our leaders based on permitting them to lead, because more often than not, the right thing is not the popular thing. Real leaders inspire us to go where we would never have gone if they were not leading us. And often, if leaders refuse to inspire, others will make the decision, and that decision will likely be wrong.

Jacob was the leader of his family. But in a moment of crisis, it appears that Jacob had decided to abdicate his responsibility to lead. Or at least, he rose to only the lowest level of leadership. Jacob chose to tell his sons what had happened instead of leading them in a response. His daughter, Dinah, had been violated, but rather than devising a godly reaction to the situation, he decided just to tell his sons what had happened, essentially letting them decide what the family response should be. Jacob's indecision was responsible for turning a great wrong into an even greater evil. Rather than focusing the family's response on the individual or even the family of the one who had defiled Dinah, two of Jacob's sons decided that the whole village would pay the price for the sin committed by one man. They would kill every man in the town. A lie enabled the response, and the result was that Jacob and his family's future was put into question.  As a result of their actions, the reputation of Jacob's family among the people of the area was put at risk because Jacob refused to lead and inspire, deciding instead to do nothing and simply tell his sons what had happened.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Genesis 35