The story of Judges in the Bible is a dark one, telling how the Israelites turned from following the Lord to doing whatever they pleased. Judges 2:19 sets the scene for the rest of the book.

But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their ancestors, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways.

Judges 2:19 (NIV)

What stands out here is that the people “waited” until the judge died to not only go back to idolatry but to be more despicable than their ancestors. I wonder why the Israelites would get worse instead of better after each judge, and what occurred to me was something Paul said to the Corinthians.

What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

1 Corinthians 1:12 (NIV)

A big problem in the Corinthian church was that they were enamored with people and followed personalities instead of Jesus. Because of this, there were divisions in the church. When I think about why the Israelites got worse after a judge died, I think it was because they followed the person instead of God.

Many pastors will tell you to follow them as they follow Christ, but the issue is that these are imperfect people trying to follow a perfect God. Therefore, when they try to follow God, they will not follow him perfectly.

Consider the game of telephone.

In this game, a group of people gather together. One person in the group thinks of a word or phrase and whispers it to the next, and they whisper it to the next person, and so on until everyone in the group has a turn. Then, the last person says what they heard out loud. Often, whatever was originally said is distorted along the way, and the end result is an amusing twist from the original expression.

In telephone, everyone tries their best to recite what they heard (hopefully) to the next person. Yet, despite their best effort, the words changed. Similarly, pastors may try their best to follow the Lord, but they will make mistakes because people make mistakes.

Since people make mistakes and we should follow no one but Christ to God, we shouldn’t follow people as if they are the ones leading us to salvation. Consider the Berean Jews from Acts.

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Acts 17:11 (NIV)

They listened to what Paul had to say but confirmed what he said through Scripture.

As Christians, we should listen to our leaders but confirm what they say in Scripture because we follow Christ and not these leaders.