4 And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6 And he had bronze armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. 7 The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. And his shield-bearer went before him.
At first reading, the panoply of Goliath is a awesome-sounding list made to strike fear in the hearts of both the ancient Israelites and modern Bible readers alike. I mean, even if we have no idea how much one bronze shekel weighs (I don't) we still just aren't going mess with the dude who shows up wearing a coat of mail weighing five thousand of them.
But as fearsome as Goliath sounds with his giant's retinue, we do have to wonder who in their right mind would want to walk around with all that junk?
A couple of years ago Malcolm Gladwell wrote a popular book titled "David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants". In the book, Gladwell basically says that all that Goliath has that makes him appear so strong and fierce actually in the end leads to his downfall in his fight with David. Goliath is heavy, David is light; Goliath is bulky, David is free. Goliath is overly-armored and weaponized while David is free to "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee." One of the essential points of Gladwell's book is that what appear on surface to be strengths are in fact actually quite often weaknesses, and that "giants" -- whether they be corporations, or militaries, or police forces -- are often overly-outfitted with suites of armor worthy of going into battle with hundreds of giants, but incapable of defeating even one David.
So here's the questions: In what ways are our perceived-strengths in fact weaknesses and in what ways are our weaknesses in fact strengths? Are we wearing too much armor? Are we well-suited for some battle other than the one we have to fight? Are we Goliaths in a David world? Or are we Davids in what we only thought was a Goliath world?
Again and again in the Bible, God chooses the small to humble the mighty, the weak to put to shame the strong. And it's a good reminder that in the end it's better to be a big-hearted underdog with just one tiny, smooth stone divinely inspired, than it is to be a giant with five thousand shekels worth of bronze armor on the outside and just a big lug within.
No comments:
Post a Comment