Passage Read: Numbers 12-15
Meditation Verse: 12:8
Thought
Is it only someone like Moses who should not be spoken against, or does this apply to all in authority? Moses had a unique relationship with God, in that God spoke with him face to face. Yet even God honored Pharaoh's authority, even though God legitimately "outranked" him. God didn't just take His people out of Egypt and fight the Egyptians who might have tried to recapture them. He sent Moses to ask and then demand Pharaoh release His people, but until Pharaoh released them, He didn't allow His people to depart. Nor did God try at any time to delegitimize Pharaoh's authority by criticizing some aspect of his life or behavior so as to justify ignoring him. That's what Aaron and Miriam were doing, pointing to Moses' foreign wife, as though that disqualified him from leadership, or authorized them to step up and step in as equals or perhaps even superior leaders. But God had chosen and appointed Moses as leader, and God spoke directly with Moses. It wasn't anything about Moses that qualified him or disqualified him from leadership, but it was God who appointed him and sustained him as leader.
Application
There is really no biblical excuse to criticize anyone, whether leader or not. Trying to tear someone down by criticizing some choice or action or behavior, especially when doing so behind their back, this is an unbiblical and unchristian behavior. God hates that. If there is a real problem, it should be taken to the person directly. Any speaking behind another's back, whether the thing is truly wrong or not, is evil in God's eyes--even more so when done to attack an authority. That is rebellion, plain and simple. God established the concept of authority and set up everyone who stands in authority. So anyone who speaks against an authority, especially to justify resisting that authority is setting themselves up as an enemy of God. This kind of thing is happening all around me, and I'm continually under temptation to join in. I must not. Whatever I think about the legitimacy of an authority, I'm still obligated by God and before God to honor that authority, both in my actions and in my words about them, if for no other reason than to uphold the concept of authority. The one in authority is legitimate, even if I don't like them, because they have been established by God. I must not take part in debating their legitimacy, especially in order to encourage rebellion. If one authority can be spoken against, then all authority can be spoken against, including God, and that justifies every man doing what is right in his own eyes, then banding together in like-minded clans for defense, and eventually every clan warring against the others, which is exactly what the Second Seal promises.