Daily EncouragementSample

The reference is to King David and his son Adonijah. As David lay dying, this handsome young man “put himself forward and said, ‘I will be king’” (1 Kings 1:5). The story of how his plans were thwarted and Solomon was proclaimed king makes exciting reading. His continued intrigue inevitably led to his execution.

The inspired writer looks over the shoulder of this flamboyant, rebellious boy and makes the significant comment. “His father had never interfered with him by asking, ‘Why do you behave as you do?’” He points at David’s sad failure to discipline his son. “We have all had human fathers who disciplined us,” says the writer to the Heb. (1 Kings 12:9). Those who are disciplined by their fathers are fortunate. Sadly, Adonijah was not among them.

It is surely significant that the biblical qualifications for a leader in the church contain such words as these: “He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect” (1 Tim. 3:4) A. W. Tozer, in his biography of A. B. Simpson, writes, “The difficulties he later experienced in bringing his children to Christ may be attributed in part to the fact that they had been sacrificed altogether too far in the interest of their father’s public ministry.”