Ep. 063 - The Dangers of Wealth - Part 3 - Sons of the Rich and Famous

Episode Transcript

Spencer
In the 80s and 90s, there was this television show; “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” and it profiled these rich and famous people and encouraged people to want that lifestyle. If we look at those lifestyles, though, of the rich and famous in the Old Testament, what we see is that it really negatively impacted their sons. And some surprising ways.
So we're going to dive into that today.

Austin
All right, Spencer, over the last couple of episodes, we've been looking at some of the biblical characters in the Old Testament to see what happens when they amass wealth, where they inherit wealth. And so we first looked at Gideon and how his heart was drawn from trusting the Lord to trusting in himself, taking on roles that were not his, and how it destroyed himself and then his heirs.
And then we looked at Solomon and how the wealth from the temple; it came into his family., he used the wisdom that God had given him in incredible ways at the beginning of his life. And then at the end of the life, the wealth destroyed. He looked to himself for wisdom, he did all of these things that were antithetical to what God had called him to do, and it destroyed himself and his family and the kingdom of Israel.
There was this massive split. So today we're going to look at the sons of Eli and Samuel and see: how does wealth and power influence children and grandchildren? But before we do that, let's take a look just at where culture goes today. So, you want to talk this through kind of generality, where does culture see wealth in terms of passing it on to the next generation and what that's going to do to them?

Spencer
Well, generally speaking, culturally, people in the US think that passing on wealth is a good thing, which it can be a good thing in some measure. But it's looked at as almost an unmitigated good that we're going to pass on these resources. Now, there is a recognition that some kids don't use wealth as well as others, and so there's vehicles like trusts and such to be able to, you know, help shepherd those
But generally speaking, there's an idea that we pass on wealth and we kind of look at our estate plan. And the typical American estate plan is: “How much wealth do you have? How many kids do you have? Take the amount of wealth divide by the number of kids.” That's what you're passing on, you're just, you know, divvying up equitably among those children that you have.
If you don't have children, then you might be passing that on to a nephew or a niece or a brother or sister or some charities. But generally speaking, it's fairly straightforward. We're passing it on to those who are closest in our families, and we're just making this really simple.

Austin
Yeah. Okay, so let's walk through the stories that we're going to look through today. First we've got Eli's sons, Hophni and Phineas. And if anyone should have heard about God, it would have been the sons of a temple priest. He would ideally think that they would be raising their children to honor the Lord, to walk in the ways of the Lord.
But we often see in the Old Testament that priests didn't necessarily always walk in the ways of the Lord themselves. We look at the book of Malachi and how strong that prophet was, saying, “No, the priests are not drawing people to the Lord. They're drawing people away.” So it's not always true, but you would hope that the son of a priest would raise their kids to know and serve God.
So walk us through the story. What do we need to know about Eli, his sons, and what happens here?

Spencer
Well, I think we also need to recognize that Eli is in a position of leadership. He's fairly wealthy in terms of the access to resources that he has and has a lot of influence. And so as we look at this 1 Samuel 1:3, we see that he had two sons: Hophni and Phineas, and they were priests of the Lord.
So there's the succession also, where we take Eli as kind of the head priest of this temple area. And then we have his sons, who he has installed as the supporting priests in this season. And of course, they grow and influence and, begin to take things over, there. But we see kind of a family that has both prestige and a level of influence there
and at the end of the day, they're, it's not as though they're living a lavish lifestyle, but they have more access to material resources than most.

Austin
Yeah. So let's dive in to 1 Samuel 2:12-17: “Now, the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. The custom of the priest with the people was that when any man offered sacrifice, the priest servant would come while the meat was boiling with a three pronged fork in his hand, and he would thrust it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot.
all that the fork brought up, the priest would take for himself. This is what they did at Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there. Moreover, before the fat was burned, the priest servant would come and say to the man who is sacrificing, ‘give me for the priest to roast, for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but only raw.’
And if the man said to him, ‘let them burn the fat first, and then take as much as you wish.’ he would say ‘no, you must give it now, and if not, I will take it by force.’ Thus the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord. For the men treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.
So, walk us through what's happening here, Spencer.

Spencer
Well, essentially, the priests were supposed to do things in a very orderly way. They were not supposed to take the meat prior to its being cooked. So they violated the directions of the Lord to be able to take better food, in essence. Now, the thing that's interesting as well is they're doing this in the sight of Eli and all of Israel.
So Eli could have discharged them. He could have put them through discipline. He could have done something, but he did nothing here. So there is this level of entitlement as well that we see growing here. But that's not all. So the second thing, not just lining their pockets materially in a sense, having more meat to eat than others, taking that in an improper order, not giving to the Lord what was due to the Lord;
but secondarily, they also committed adultery. You want to walk us through that?

Austin
Yeah. So, 1 Samuel 2:22: “Now Eli was very old, and he kept hearing all that his sons were doing to Israel and how they lay with women who were serving the entrance to the tent of meeting.” I mean, this is just debauchery, I mean, pure and simple. They were seeing women at the tender entrance to the tent of meeting that were probably coming to bring offerings to the Lord, and they're abusing these women,
they’re saying, “Well, now you need to lay with me.” And it's probably this posture of power that they have as the priest, as the people that are supposed to be influential over Israel. Well, now they're taking advantage of the ones that are wanting to come before the Lord to bring offerings before the Lord. They didn't heed the voice of their father,
1 Samuel 2:2: “But they would not listen to the voice of their father.” And God ultimately brought judgment upon them.

Spencer
So we see this whole progression, this whole line here where, Eli again, power, influence, some level of affluence, he's even speaking against them on some level, though, not holding their feet to the fire. And we see the outcome, which is, in this case, in particular, they deviate, they go from the Lord. They also lead the people from the Lord.
So, a really just heartbreaking situation. And at the back end of this, what we see is that Samuel, and the story is brought by Hannah, his mother, and he starts to serve the Lord, and he becomes a faithful priest to the Lord, listening to the Lord leading the people towards the Lord. But the thing that is really sobering here is that we see later on a lot of the same issues with his sons.
Do you want to start to walk us through that?

Austin
Yeah. So we'll take a look here at 1 Samuel 8:1-5: “When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The names of his firstborn son was Joel and the name of his second Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after grain.
They took bribes and perverted justice. Then all the elders of Israel gathered together, and came to Samuel Ramah, and said to him, ‘Behold, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.’” And I think here again, the people probably sense it, they’re ;like “We see that you are not, your sons are not leading us in the ways of justice and truth and goodness and beauty.
You’re leading your, you are, your sons are leading us away. Give us a King to lead us righteously.” And you know, we look at this and we say, “This is probably some of the, the, the start.” I think there's a lot of starts to the, the fragmentation of Israel, but it's leading to this culmination point where the people are like, “We need a king to lead us because you're not doing your job.”
And so we see in generations to come that there's a fragmentation of the kingdom even through this. So they've said, these sons are perverting justice. They're turning aside for their own game. They took bribes, all things that God opposes.

Spencer
So again, here we have people in a position of influence in Samuel and Eli. They appoint their sons, even though their sons do not have the character to lead. They are not walking with the Lord. They still make these decisions. And then their sons go in various directions. So Eli's seem to be even more egregious in their direction than Samuel.
But Samuel's sons, they’re taking bribes, you know, they're perverting justice. They're doing all kinds of bad things here and very similar; there's an echo here to what Eli's sons were. So we could think about what Eli's sons did and the loss to the Philistines that they had as they carried the Ark of the covenant into battle.
And they were killed. And, Eli's house essentially, you know, falls apart at that point we could think, “Oh, gosh, that's awful. Certainly no one would want to follow that path.” Well, then Samuel comes along. He is the successor, and it happens exactly like that to him. So we really, I think, we see these rhythms in the Old Testament oftentimes, and the Old Testament doesn't come out and say, “Oh, they had too much money or they had too much influence,” but we have to look at it and say, “How did they use the funds?
How did they use the influence that they had?” Because, it's not so much prescriptive of what we need to do, but it is part of God's story, and it's in there for a reason. We have to understand that this can be our path very easily because we look at Samuel's life and he really pursued the Lord.
He followed heart after the Lord, and yet his sons came to this end.

Austin
Yeah. Well, and I think it's challenging for me as I think about raising my own kids. They’re still young, they're still under our roof. But I have longings and hopes and desires for them. And I think I want to raise them in a faith that honors God, that cares about the poor and the marginalized and the oppressed, and that they know that God is with them.
But when they become adults, I don't have that same level of control. I can still try to shepherd them, but I think there's going to be that desire for me to want to continue to maybe bless them, honor them. But if they're not walking with the Lord, I don't know what it's going to be like in those times, because I can't see into the future.
But I can imagine that for someone like Eli or Samuel, there's probably this like tinge of “I want you to succeed.” But then they're not doing anything about it when there's character failure, when they’re obviously walking away from God, there's not a stepping in. And we see that similarly with David later and where David, one of his sons, he said he never told him no about anything.
And then that son tried to overthrow the kingdom! It's like, I want you to believe in some ways about the best of these people, but it's, I think we need to always be reflecting and looking back at ourselves and saying, “What am I willing to do to honor the Lord and not just honor my child?” And I think that's a tension that's really hard to wrestle with.

Spencer
Well, and this becomes all the more difficult, I think we see in these circumstances because we have a level of fame, wealth, power, in the mix. And so when we pass on some of those trappings to our kids and they are not ready for it.

Austin
Yeah.

Spencer
And I don't know that we're ever ready for it, but certainly if you pass along a level of wealth, you pass along a level of influence that they did not have to, you know, work for. It's perceived in a whole different light. And it's rarely used with a level of maturity. It's hard enough to use wealth that we've accumulated here and know what to do with it.
But then if we pass it on to someone that never had to see that wealth accumulated and doesn't necessarily even know in a visceral way that God is the one that provided that, then all the more difficult it seems..

Austin
So you want to walk us through, you've got some observations about just the kings and Israel and there were some good kings. But there were many more bad kings! And just walk us through kind of some of those things that you've seen.

Spencer
Well, and this is kind of a broader picture. We look at Eli and Samuel and their lives and it's easier to kind of drill in there. I think looking at the grand narrative of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, you see, there were 31 kings that were, you could label “bad kings.” You know, they did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
There's a typical summary, you know, there in 1 Kings., 2 Kings, in 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, that clue us in that big picture; this guy walked away from the Lord, or this guy actually tried to walk with the Lord. Obviously those that walked with the Lord, they weren't perfect by any stretch, but generally speaking, they did try to follow the Lord and implement a level of worship in and among the people that would push people towards God.
The opposite was true among the bad kings, among those kings that they didn't try to cultivate any relationship with God. They went their own way. Oftentimes they would worship other gods and many other gods and do terrible acts.

Austin
And then draw the nation to doing the same thing.

Spencer
Exactly. So as we divide, you know, there's 39 kings between Israel and Judah overall, and you've got eight kings all of them, all of them, all of the eight kings that were good kings, were kings of Judah. So the kingdom of Israel, sadly enough, no good kings. And, you know, very sad that as Jeroboam, became the king and pursued power in the split with Rehoboam,
Solomon son; he had an opportunity to allow the people to still go to Jerusalem and worship, but he was too concerned with a loss of power. So he sets up idols in his own kingdom. So that people would not have to leave, to go to Jerusalem again and maybe be drawn back to, you know, the kingdom of Judah.
So even in that. But when we look at this again, 31 bad kings, only four sons of bad kings ended up being good kings. Now, you might say, okay, well, of course, you know, it's even surprising that there's four good kings that come out of 31 bad kings. But we have to remind ourselves that even if you had a bad king as a father, you still had the temple.
You still had all these priests, you still had the prophets, you still had people that were speaking truth to you, by and large. Now, you might have had a lot of counselors that were also bad. So you had, you know, people that had the wrong approach. But these are not folks that have never heard of the Lord. By and large, these are folks that are hearing it day to day and they're choosing, “No I'm not going to go that path.”
So 4 for 31. Yeah. But the key here that we want to come back to is there's wealth and power here. It is inherently more difficult to follow the Lord when you have wealth and power., than when you have less. You have a whole lot more to lose, so to speak. You can tell yourself that you have enough provision that by your own acumen that you can figure out what to do and you can save your own skin.
And maybe God will not do that. All kinds of different challenges for these sons of the 31 bad kings. But even on the good side of things here, there's 8 good kings in Judah. Only four good sons come from that. So it's it was 50/50 coming out of that. So again, if you're a good king, you've got prophets, priests around you.
You've got an opportunity to go into the temple and worship, you've got all of these things that are probably pushing your sons in that right direction of really pursuing the Lord hard. You've got, you spared no expense. There's probably no resource that's, that you're not using. I mean, you're probably using the priests to teach your kids, you know, their lessons, you know, on a day to day basis.
And yet again, only four of eight were good kings, following, you know, their fathers as good kings. So I think what we really have to do is, is recognize that rather than wealth and fame and influence, being this positive thing and, potentially helping our kids, which, you know, there are certain elements that that can be an aid to them;
but generally speaking, there are a whole lot more dangers that we have to be so, so careful with. And we see this even in the lives of, you know, the billionaires here in the States. There are very, very few that get to a level of status, a level of wealth that still pursue the Lord. It's so easy to, to, to be drawn somewhere else.
And then you think about their kids and, you know, a lot of these folks, they have wealth and power and influence, and they also have jobs that are very, demanding. There's less time to be able to even invest in the kids. So we have to recognize, you know, “Am I using my wealth in a way that will increase my capacity to invest in my kids with time, with love, with teaching them about the way and then also investing in time in a way that I can grow personally.” Because there's no greater way, I think, than we, that we influence our kids than we grow personally.
If we are, shriveled up in our own soul, if we're not walking with the Lord, if, you know, you kind of wonder, like Eli and Samuel, if they just had so many responsibilities at some point in their lives, if they're neglecting, you know, raising their kids. Wealth can be used to be able to, secure more time, there. But it's rarely used in such a fashion.
So there's all kinds of different ways that wealth and fame, power, really can be detrimental to the lives of our kids. And I think the thing that we always come back to is, if you ask just about any person, “What is the most important thing in your life?” They’d say their kids. You know, they'd say that, you know, my kids, thrive as they go forward.
Even people that have fractured relationships with their kids, if you told them, “Okay, you know, you can have a healed relationship, and, they can be on a path that is redemptive and strong and healthy,” They’d give just about anything to make that happen. And yet, we don't, I think, grapple with our use of wealth and influence in such a way that we, kind of give our kids the best opportunity to grow oftentimes.

Austin
Yeah. You know, Spencer I think about this. I remember the quote from John Wesley that we surfaced in that episode about him and he said, suggested that leaving enough to heirs to allow them to live “...not in idleness and luxury, but by honest industry.” I think it's, when we come back to this, it's not bad to leave funds to heirs.
I have been blessed by parents and grandparents that have been really generous with me. But it's not lavish. It's not leading to a life of luxury, nor a life of idleness. But it's allowing me to step in and do the things that I believe that God has called me to do, leading a life of hospitality and generosity that I have received and therefore I can give.
But it's not pushing me to this life of “I don't have to work. I can be, just, luxurious lifestyle, vast amounts of wealth like that.” We don't want to push our kids into that direction.

Spencer
Well, we don't want to push them in a direction where they take a different kind of vacation because of the inheritance they've received. We don't want to push them in a direction where they, explore a whole new, line of work, probably. I mean, it's wonderful to be able to help equip with some educational funds; but, you know, if we give, them an opportunity to go into a whole different field, just because, they don't need to, you know, work as hard, they're not as industrious or what have you;
Then I think we set them up, maybe for some difficulties.

Austin
Yeah. Spencer, one thing that you have told me about is this presentation that you heard from business school about trying to control resources of a foundation past the grave. You want to tell us a little bit more about this?

Spencer
Well, and this is one of those stories that is just heartbreaking, but I think it reminds us that we have a limited amount of influence during our lifetimes with our kids, with our grandkids, with our heirs. But beyond the grave, it's very, very difficult to speak, especially on financial matters. So I was sitting in a presentation and, you heard this foundation and what they were up to, and they talked about the history of the foundation and it being set up by the patriarch and matriarch, their great great grandparents, you know, decades prior, I think it was 70, 80 years prior by this point.
And the thing that struck me was all of the different initiatives that they were talking about, they were antithetical to the original vision and mission of Grandfather and grandmother. So they had strayed so far. The grandfather and grandmother had been all about, investing in the church and serving the poor and doing some really tangible and practical things.
And the heirs had moved everything in a different direction with far different focus points there, that I looked at and just thought, “You know, the patriarch and matriarch would not at all probably have been pleased by the direction.” But there had been tens of millions of dollars that had been put into that foundation. And so I think it just again illustrates the difficulty of controlling things, controlling a level of wealth, even for a few years.
But certainly when we think about decades and without any kind of voice that you have to be able to really speak beyond the grave. Now, the caveat there is certainly that there are some wonderful foundations, and the Maclellan Foundation is fantastic there just south of us in Chattanooga and have had tremendous impact. But I think by and large, it's much more difficult than most people give credit for of being able to control those resources beyond the grave, far more, in most cases far more, healthy and, less risky to be able to just give those resources away during our lifetimes, be able to make those decisions, be able to care for
and love our heirs as well, and pass on what we need to during our lifetimes. And that way, we're able to see how those funds are used and be able to encourage and support in that time frame.

Austin
Yeah. Well, thanks for walking us through that, Spencer. We hope you enjoyed this episode and maybe even found it challenging. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below. We look forward to seeing you again next time! If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclaimer
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.