Man Looks at the Outward Appearance

The making of a king—what are the parameters, evaluation points, and guidelines that we use for developing and recognizing leadership?  Is leadership really about character, experience, policy-making, and poise under fire?  Or does leadership really just come down to money, beauty, and stature?

Journalist Kayla Webley posits a thought on the subject in her article coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the first televised presidential debate.  “On the morning of September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts.  He was young and Catholic—neither of which helped his image—and facing off against an incumbent.  But by the end of the evening, he was a star.  […]  Nixon, pale and underweight from a recent hospitalization, appeared sickly and sweaty, while Kennedy appeared calm and confident.  As the story goes, those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon had won.  But those listeners were in the minority….  Those that watched the debate on TV thought that Kennedy was the clear winner.  Many say Kennedy won the election that night” (“How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World,” Time, September 23, 2010).

“It’s one of those unusual points on the timeline of history where you can say things changed very dramatically—in this case, in a single night” says Alan Schroeder, media historian and associate professor at Northwestern University, Presidential Debates: Forty Years of High Risk TV.

I agree with what Webley wrote in her Time magazine article, except her title … on a subtle level.  I don’t think the Nixon-Kennedy debate changed the world, really.  The world has always operated on the premise that the choicest, most handsome, and tallest specimens are the natural leaders.  True, television gave us a wider audience—exponentially wider with the Internet—but the truth is that humanity has always tended to pick its leaders this way; with its eyes, not with its brain, and certainly not with its soul.

As we step into the arena of the inner world, however, we can see that this is not the way God operates.  God does not select as man selects.  God does not evaluate as man evaluates.  God does not see as man sees.

Whether we are making a king, selecting a president, deciding upon a spouse, hiring a CEO, or valuing a friend how much “stock” do we place in the outside at the expense of the inside of a person?  “Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).  God gives primacy to the heart—Hebrew: lavav, the heart, the mind, the inner person—every time!  Do we?

Do we know this subcutaneous region?  Are we cultivating life in this internal acre of soil?  Are we connecting at this level with the people we meet, work with, marry, parent, and minister?  Do we know the anatomy of this far more important sphere of our personhood?

We don’t get a glimpse very often at the inner gears of someone’s heart—not to mention our own heart.  But nestled inside the narratives of Saul and David we are given a rare view of the anatomy of the inner person, especially in the process of selecting, recognizing, and following a leader.  It is telling that the only qualifications for leadership given to Saul at his anointing were that he was “choice,” “handsome,” and “head and shoulders taller than the rest” (1 Samuel 9:2).  The Nixon-Kennedy Debate didn’t change the world.  The Nixon-Kennedy Debate demonstrated that there is nothing new under the sun.