Tell them what they want to hear!

When I first started work many decades ago, I remember working with a young engineer (who was older than me at the time) who was constantly being barracked by our MD. I remember the MD’s name as we soon became good friends as I climbed both the managerial and social ladder at the company where I worked, and Jim (I won’t share his surname) and I both practiced the same martial art. But early in my time at the company I asked one of the managers why it was that Jim would often come out of his office shout at this young engineer, then reassured by something they said, return to his office. The manager, ‘Dickie’ Bird (not the Yorkshire cricketer, but one with the same name and nickname as that famous gentleman), said “It’s because he always tells him what he wants to hear” and went on to explain that if something was going bad they would tell Jim that it wasn’t, or offer some bogus account just to get him off the hook, then Jim would find out, and things would escalate, and again the young engineer would do the same. It was a vicious circle that led to Jim being irate and the young engineer thoroughly depressed. 

This long forgotten but frequent event in my early working life came to mind when I was reading and then reflecting on Numbers 22, trying to work out what this could teach me. If you recall this is the story of the prophet Balaam, and the King of Moab, Balak, and at a point in the story it involves a talking donkey. In short, Balak insists that Balaam comes to his aid against the threat of the Israelites and wants Balaam to curse them so that he can defeat them and drive them from his land. Balaam really doesn’t want to but Balak is persistent so Balaam warns Balak that he can only relate or prophesy what God tells him, Balak insistence pays off and lo and Balaam joins him, talking donkey notwithstanding. Behold, every time he goes to prophesy over the Israelites from high places at the request of Balak it is a blessing not a curse from God. It would have been easy for Balaam to curse the Israelites, in effect telling Balak what he wanted to hear, and as a result being showered with wealth and privilege by the powerful King of Moab, but instead Balaam stays true to his calling, to his word, and to God.

This is such an important lesson for 21st century, Western Christians where we can often be tempted to take the easy option and benefit from short term riches, for me this has been most evident in the workplace, where unscrupulous bosses might want us to compromise our ethics and morals for financial gain. It is difficult when one could be faced with ridicule at best, or redundancy at worst, disastrous financially when one considers the increasingly high cost of living.

Jesus recognises the sacrifice that his disciples have made and comments on it in John 15:19, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” And Paul speaks of not conforming “to the to the pattern of this world” in Romans 12:2. Peter, in 1 Peter 2:9 declares that Christians are “chosen”, God’s “own possession”, and like Balaam, not telling people what they want to hear, but telling them God’s truth and facing the consequences, whatever they might be, aren’t you proclaiming “the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”? There are still many places in the world where the consequences for us and our families of speaking God’s truth are more than just financial but involve the ultimate sacrifice, and often we read that has not deterred people all the same.

On face value the story of Balaam may seem just something interesting, and at times amusing, in what is a terribly boring book of the Bible. But like much of the Bible, those words that were first written down some 3,500 years ago, are an important and very relevant lesson for us today.