There’s been a horrible meme circulating about how God used David–so we should rejoice when God uses evil men.
I’ve seen it myself; it’s been shared and debated in our Patreon group; and so many of you have sent it to me.
While it does have immediate American political implications, I do like to steer clear of partisan politics here. But I think this idea–that we should rejoice that God can use an evil man–permeates not just politics but our church structures as well.
It’s used to defend sex abusers being allowed back in the pulpit. It’s used to silence victims. It’s used to diminish the gravity of abuse in the first place.
I don’t want to share the meme because I don’t want to give it more oxygen, but basically it was saying that God ordained an adulterous, filthy-minded man to lead, and then that man gave us the Psalms.
Mary Hudson, a reader of this blog and social media follower, wrote a great rebuttal that I’d like to share with you today.
From Mary Hudson
David is described to us as a man after God’s own heart.
This meme makes it look like God is okay with an evil heart and evil behavior.
God did not elevate David to King in spite of the evil in David’s heart. God does not overlook sin in order to accomplish His purposes.
God removed evil King Saul (who actually started off as a fairly decent guy that slowly descended into a murderous psychopath) and gave the kingdom to David because of David’s upright heart. His shepherd’s heart.
“And Samuel said to him, “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you.” 1 Sam 15:8
God can, and does use evil men.
I think of Joseph’s brothers.
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Genesis 50:20
But He does not condone their evil deeds. Pharoah, Saul, Nabal, Ahab, Jezebel, Herod all came to gruesome ends because of their persistence in evil.
David was truly a noble and honorable man, a man after God’s own heart, who over time became weak, lazy and entitled.
He committed the horrific sins of rape and murder. Even though he repented, he still faced the consequences of his sin through the loss of his infant son. And again, when he sinned by conducting a census of military aged males against his general’s advice and the explicit instructions of God, he faced the consequences of seeing the people he was responsible for taking care of hurting, sick and dying. That hurt his shepherd’s heart more than anything, because he truly cared about the people who were entrusted to his leadership and protection.
That is not the story that this meme promotes.
It is a distortion of God and His heart for justice, holiness and love.
It is a distortion of the truth of David’s life and the consequences he faced a a result of his sin.
It is a distortion of the standard that reasonable people should expect and hold their leaders accountable to.
God is so outraged at sin that He sent His Son to deliver us from the evil in our hearts so that we do not remain “filthy minded, adulterous… with evil in our hearts”.
He gives us a new heart, a new identity and a mission to go and be the light in a dark world.
There are fruits of Love, Joy, Peace, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and Self-Control that will be in evidence in our life. And we will still sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes we sin grievously and hurt others. We might have to experience the dreadful consequences of that sin, even while comforted in knowing that we are forgiven.
Heaven help us if we call good evil and evil good.
Heaven help us if we look the other way when people are oppressed and celebrate ungodliness under the guise of “look at how horrible King David was. This person is just like him and it’s okay. God put them in power so that is a stamp of divine approval. “
“God is not mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap.” Galatians 6:7
If anything, I think Nebuchadnezzar could be a better point of comparison for certain leaders. No one is beyond the reach of God’s amazing grace!
“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, will praise, honor, and give glory to the King of Heaven. Everything he does is true, his ways are right, and he can humiliate those who act arrogantly.”
Daniel 4:37
This sort of testimony, with corresponding actions of personal responsibility and repentance would be welcomed by me.
It just doesn’t fit into a pithy meme.
God cares about abuse.
And when we tell narratives about Bible characters that gloss over the abuse and make it sound like the abuse doesn’t matter, we malign God.
David was dedicated to God, but over time he fell. His morals fell. His family, and the nation, paid the price.
His morality once he became king is not something we should be emulating–except perhaps his repentance in Psalm 51.
But when we use his example to say, “God chose him, even though he did these horrible things, so the horrible things shouldn’t disqualify someone”, we miss the heart of God entirely.
Thank you, Mary for speaking up on social media, and may all of us reject this narrative about David!
Abuse matters. It has consequences. And abusers should not be permitted in leadership positions ever again.
We should rejoice in forgiveness, that an evil person can be cleansed and become good (although sometimes there are and should be consequences that last even if you are forgiven).
But no, that is NEVER an excuse to justify bad behavior ourselves.
Anyone who thinks that the Bible excuses or condones David’s actions has to win ‘Cherry Picker of the Year’ award.
Exactly!
I agree that anyone who has abused those under their leadership should never be allowed to be in that position again. I have a cosmetology license and if I purposely ruined someone’s hair or continued to give terrible service, I could permanently lose my cosmetology license from the state I live in. Same goes with doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and those in certain professions. Yes, we can repent and turn from our ways, but there are consequences to ill behavior.
King David may have been a man after God’s heart and repented of his wicked ways, but he reaped the consequences of his actions. I guess a lot of fallen leaders seem to forget that they reap what they sow.
Yes, exactly. That repentance and that reaping was a huge part of his story, but we seem to gloss over that.
Sheila, have you considered having Lundy Bancroft on your podcast? He has a great book called “Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men”. He says it comes down to two things: does a man feel entitled to have what he wants, and feel he has the right to enforce it? It really helped me to think about abusive men in those terms. (I know it’s not exactly pertinent to today’s post, but it didn’t fit in other ones and I’ve been meaning to ask).
Yes, I have! I’ll work on getting him.
I agree! That book is very useful and insightful, especially when it frankly discusses all the enablers and the way abusive people groom others into being their enablers.
I really appreciate Mary Hudson’s words.
I wonder how much of these come from people who have learned or been trained to proof text scriptures? I was taught that growing up, and it has been a struggle to relearn how to take in the Bible as a whole entity, to read stories instead of over-focusing on specific verses. There’s a time and place for that- I’m thinking right now of Marg Mowczho- but we need to grasp the story as a greater entity before exploring it in smaller batches.
I think David can be used to help those who have done bad things know that they can be forgiven, and that having done bad things doesn’t mean they are evil at heart. They can still have a heart after God. That doesn’t make them free from their choices though, so there is a balance between being treated as who they *want* to be and how they *have* behaved.
Yes, exactly. People often take one small verse and ignore the spirit of everything else–and especially ignore Jesus’ life and example.
I think that David’s story is one that does force us to wrestle with the fact that God’s justice does not always make sense to us with our human perspective. You cannot describe it as consistent or predictable from a human point of view. Some people in the Bible faced very serious divine consequences for what we might deem lesser infractions, such as greed, or even mistakes (such as the stories found in 1 Kings 13 or 2 Kings 5), while David’s sin did not result in his own death or illness. The prescribed consequences of the law of Moses were not applied to him- he should have faced the death penalty. Even the loss of his infant son seems like more of a punishment for Bathsheba than for him: she was young, this was apparently her first and only child, she was post partum and also likely traumatized by rape, the murder of her first husband, and her whirlwind change in circumstances, which were likely clouded by rumor and speculation. David already had many children. I don’t see the justice of punishing David by taking away a child that was as much Bathsheba’s as it was his.
Chapter 21 of Job is an eloquent expression of the dilemmas and unanswered questions I am left with.
I agree there are many stories that leave us with many questions! But there is a bit more to David’s story. The death of his and Bathsheba’s baby was not his only punishment. God told David ( after he immediately repented when he was confronted) He forgave him, that’s why he would not die, but he would pay for Urías’s life with 4 of his own sons ( baby, Amnon, Absolom, Adonias), the sword would never leave his household, and what he had done secretly with Bathsheba would be done publicly with his wives.
David’s kingdom after this was plagued with insurrection and treason, and his household with shame. His own son conspired to kill him with some of his most trusted advisers causing David to flee his own capital as a refugee. This son also raped 10 of David’s wives on a rooftop for all the kingdom to see. Another son conspired with his top general when David was on his deathbed.
Also, the Bible says that David was perfect and had Gods own heart EXCEPT in what he did with Urías and Bathsheba.
As for Bathsheba, God loved her son Solomon and picked him for successor even though he was not the oldest, making her part of Christs lineage. She is one of the few women mentioned by name in Christ genealogy in Matthew 1–where it also conspicuously adds that she was Urías’s wife.
Yes, that is a big part of Scripture (and of life)–that things definitely are not fair.
I used to think what happened to David’s family was ‘punishment’ for what he did, and used to wonder why the punishment fell on the family most severely, rather than on David himself. But then I started to think about free will, consequences of actions and the fact that God is outside of time and therefore knows the future before it happens. So it maybe makes more sense if, rather than seeing what happened to David’s family as God going “I’m going to make this happen to other people to punish you for your sin”, we view it as God saying “I forgive you for your actions, but they have triggered a chain of events which will ultimately result in these things happening.”
For the most part I think this is correct, that the tragedy and disorder in David’s house were more a logical consequence of his actions than a direct divine imposition of justice. The exception would seem to be the death of the infant son, which unfortunately probably hurt Bathsheba more than it hurt David, or at least as much.
However, this is in contrast with occasions where God did directly impose a personal judgment (such as I mentioned previously with Gehazi and the unnamed “man of God” in the book of Kings). David was not spared circumstantial consequences, but he was spared the legal consequences that he should have faced according to the law of Moses. This variety of outcomes is hard to come to terms with- and, quite frankly, is often exploited by those who want to retain their position and privileges after “repentance.” It seems like the designation of being a “man after God’s own heart” made him “special,” in that he did not suffer legal consequences or loss of position or privilege. He raped and murdered, and consequently his loved ones suffered both rape and murder, but he himself was not as directly victimized. On the other hand, in the culture of his day, such an offense against individuals would be more highly significant for the head of the family than it would be in our culture today, so I try to take that into account.
God is not a robot who follows an algorithm of law that always gives the same outcome. I understand that. I also try to think about what it means for God to operate within the constraints of human culture and understanding in a particular cultural moment (I have a really hard time with a “man after God’s own heart” also being a polygamist, and that being okay, but I realize that is my cultural perspective)
I am not in a position to offer a moral critique of God, because I am his creation, and how can the clay talk back to the potter? However, I cannot say that I understand his ways or his form of justice. I cannot comfort myself or others by saying what the course of God’s justice will look like, or if it will be what we hope for. God might help us immediately and stop the lions’ mouths, or he might let us be raped on a rooftop as a consequence of someone else’s sin. We trust that ultimately things will be put right, but in the meantime, we just don’t know.
Yes!
Many years ago I had a boss who was an extremely learned Orthodox Jew. He liked to challenge me in my work so one day I thought I had a challenge for him. I asked, “what do Jews think about King David and all the bad things he did?” He shook his head and said to me, “unlike Christians, we worship God, not the people in the Bible.” That was about 20 years ago and it has since changed how I read God’s story vs the humans (because that’s all they are… humans) included in it.
When God decided to use David, David was a complete nobody. The youngest of a large number of sons, he was tending sheep.
We know that he fought both a lion and a bear while he was doing this. The implication being that if he hadn’t been able to fight them off successfully he would likely have become fodder for them himself. He was almost a “disposable kid”.
When Samuel arrived to tell Jesse that one of his sons was going to be anointed as the next king of Israel we get the line up of the sons that were produced for Samuel’s inspection. No one even thought to call David in for the line up – Samuel has to ask if he’d seen everybody – “The Lord has not chosen these” … “Are all the young men here?”
David hadn’t even been given the day off from the sheep to attend the sacrifice, even though a celebrity (Samuel) was in town to superintend it.
This is the guy who God chose. A nobody. Diligently doing his work and pretty much overlooked.
To claim that this is an example of God using an evil man is ridiculous. It gets the story backwards.
The real story is about how David didn’t hold his authority well to the end. And trouble, death and horror came to many people because of that.
(As a side note on the political ramifications of the meme, I appreciated this post so much because it went beyond political discussion and was really about the church – https://myonlycomfort.com/2024/11/21/a-rough-ride-ahead/)
Many of the stories in the Bible show how power corrupts. Many people who started out well in the Bible ended up choosing the temptation of power’s corruption over the difficulties of living rightly.
The vignettes showing how people stood up against the corrupting temptation of power are therefore all the more powerful to me: Joseph & Potiphar’s wife; Daniel insisting on praying; Jesus and Satan on the mountaintop.
God continually calls us to the path of radical hospitality and communal care. Anything else is not the Way of Christ.
I don’t agree that once someone sins or is caught in sin they should never be put in a leadership position “ever again”–look at Saul/Paul. I also don’t agree that people should be automatically reinstated to leadership positions, sighting David. God best judges our hearts but we can look for the fruit of repentance. Abusers can be very difficult to spot though…
Paul sinned BEFORE he was a Christian, not after. That’s the big difference.
What always bugs me about this is the one sidedness of it. I can think of a couple of American female political figures who are getting away with some horrible stuff simply because they are standing in the shadow of a man whose actions are excused, but for the most part, God is apparently allowed to use evil men, but women are unforgivable. My ex-husband was allowed to be completely awful, because David, but when I finally worked up the means and the courage to leave him, nobody high-fived me and referenced Abigail. He could do whatever he wanted with impunity, but apparently the perceived evil of escaping him was not something God could work with. I’m out of that system now, but Jiminy cricket, it sure does make everything harder.
yes this. I feel your pain. I think there is a lot of one-sidedness and I think the church and Christian culture often gaslight women into staying in marriages that have had all kinds of abuse and disrespect. The emphasis tends to be on the amazing ability of God to redeem any marriage, and no attention is paid to the experience of the betrayed/abused spouse still in the marriage who gets the equivalent of a life sentence.
I think that meme was meant to be helpfu, giving hope to persons who feel they have gone too far and beyond God’s ability to use them.
The issue I have with that is that too many people in authority have done things that mean they should never see the outside of a prison cell again, let alone ever have a kind of “restoration” to the authority they once held. Yes, God can use anyone, or he wouldn’t be very powerful otherwise, but some people’s scope of serving God needs to be on the inside of an environment that is cut off from the outside world. We can still remember those people (Hebrews 13:3) without giving them a license or an ability to hurt others.
Ma’am, also notice who they tend to apply that comment to. Maybe that’s anecdotal but I very rarely see exceptions. “God can still use them,” they’ll say about someone who had done horrible deeds but didn’t violate their biological constraints on whether they think the person is divinely allowed to do XYZ, but I never hear them use that phrase for someone they think is forbidden via divine caste from even trying to do something (when’s the last time you heard “God can still use them,” in the context of a full role of authority, used for a Beth Moore as opposed to a pastor who was disgraced for his personal conduct?).
Excellent point!
I found this article a little difficult to read without knowing at all exactly what was said in the meme. I tried to look for it online to read it but couldn’t find it anywhere. I realise you are trying to be careful not to give things more spreadability, but at the same tme it’s hard to read something reacting to something without knowing exactly what was said.
I just wrote my first seminary paper on this topic! As many of you have mentioned, we get the story backwards if we just cherry pick and don’t read all of 1 & 2 Samuel together. It’s such a tough read! A huge part of the story is the giving of the Davidic covenant, which happened just before the Bathsheba & Uriah story. So what we are supposed to take from the story is that God is faithful to His promise no matter how awful human beings are. All of the good things David accomplished were before his sin with Bathsheba. Everything after is a disaster. We cannot possibly draw the conclusion that “God uses evil men.” No, God used a good man who was later corrupted by power and entitlement with tragic consequences. But nevertheless, God remained faithful and brought the Messiah through David’s line. The bottom line is that only God is good and faithful, so the whole story lays the groundwork for the expectation of a true, eternal Godly king that will be fulfilled in Jesus.
Absolutely! There’s such a difference after the Uriah and Bathsheba story!