Does David’s life teach us that God can restore an adulterer to
ministry? After all, David was a murderer and an adulterer, as well as a
liar and poor father.
Polygamy aside, his family life was a
catastrophic train crash matched only by the debacle in 2 Samuel 11.
Yet God did not remove him from the throne, and allowed his reign to
directly last 40 years, and indirectly forever. Why? What is the lesson
there?
The wrong lesson is this: God does not take sin seriously. I have
heard people who commit immorality point at David and say, “See! God let
him be king, so he can return me to ministry despite my unbiblical
divorce and/or adultery.”
Let me be clear about two things. First, God does use sinners (those
are the only kind of people there are!). At the same time, there are
some sins that in the church disqualify someone from being an elder or
church leader. Second, it is possible for people who have committed
certain disqualifying sins to eventually be restored to pastoral
ministry after an extended time away. An excellent book on that topic is
The Stain that Stays,
as it provides principles to apply in those situations. This post does
not want to go down the road of looking at those principles.
But I have heard Christian leaders who have committed disqualifying
sexual sins point to David as justification for their refusal to take
time away from ministry. The goal of this post is to explain why David’s
life does not function as an example of God blessing the ministry of a
disqualified leader. Keep Reading >>>
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