The Bible clearly shows the repercussion of the failure of spiritual leadership within the home, whether Adam’s failure to lead Eve (Gen. 3) or Ananias failing to lead Saphira (Acts 5). In both cases, sin breaks into the home and, with it, the unwanted feelings of fear, guilt, and shame, along with the unbearable consequences of broken relationship with the Father and physical death.

When spiritual leadership is lacking, someone or something else fills the void. We see this in Genesis 34 when Shechem rapes Jacob’s only daughter Dinah. Jacob hears the savage report and, tragically, does nothing. He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t even speak. It’s not that he’s not an emotional man. Later, when his favorite son, Joseph, is thought to be dead, Jacob tears his clothes, mourns for days, refuses to be comforted, and weeps for his son. With the rape of his daughter, however, he doesn’t shed a tear. There is no emotion, no action, and no leadership.

He doesn’t say a word and, in the absence of spiritual leadership, someone else will fill the void.

In this case, it is Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, who fill the void by deceiving their sister’s offender so that they will be able to easily walk through the city and murder every man. Their genocide goes far beyond an eye-for-an-eye and puts their entire family in danger from the surrounding peoples. Jacob chastises his sons, and yet still refuses to address Dinah’s rape. The story ends with Simeon and Levi asking their father, the would-be, should-be spiritual leader of the home, “Should he treat our sister like a prostitute?”

Jacob failed to lead. The sons filled the void, and Jacob rebuked their response. The problem is that he never told them how to respond. He didn’t lead them. He didn’t guide them through a season of grieving or a plea for justice. He offered no alternative reaction. There was no prayer, no mention of God, and no one to shepherd the family.

The need for spiritual leaders is great. The danger of not having them is disastrous.

Husbands, fathers, can you imagine the transformation that would come to your home if this year found you growing in your spiritual leadership of your wife and children, enjoying the responsibility of pointing them to Christ? 

(Click here to download a free chapter on "Shepherds in the Home")