"Then Gedaliah assured the officers and their men, giving them his word, 'Don't be afraid of the Babylonian officials. Go back to your farms and families and respect the king of Babylon. Trust me, everything is going to be all right.'" ~2 Kings 25:24, MSG
The context for this verse is a little more complicated than all of the verses to date. You can read 2 Kings 25 to get a basic understanding of what was going on in Israel (Babylonians had taken over Israel) but in order to understand who Gedaliah is - and whether or not he was lying when he proclaimed his reassurances - we need to go to Jeremiah 39 and 40.
After the Babylonians had crushed military resistance in Israel, they left the poorest of the poor in Judah and let them tend to the crops. Babylonian Army General Nebuzaradan had left Gedaliah and a Babylonian representative as governor of Israel. Jeremiah was placed in Gedaliah's care, and some people think Jeremiah may have even recommended him as a governor to the Babylonians. In any case, this is the clever guy who's telling Israelite military that they can relax. The war's over. Israel has lost for now.
All of the prophets of that time - Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc, were telling the Israelites to accept the Babylonian rule. For a time of course, because God's plan was to rescue his people again. God proclaimed that the Israelites would be in Babylonian captivity for 70 years. Thus, "respecting the king" would mean for the officers that they would be obeying God's orders. (See Jeremiah 25:11.)
Now that's all nice and dandy, but we're not in Babylonian captivity. And Gedaliah isn't God. But if we compare the "Babylonian officials" to someone else in our times - anyone or anything else, we can see that God has not called us to live in fear of those things. We can respect them, especially if they're people (God made them in His image too!) but the only Master of our lives should simply be God. And He is good. And with Him, we need never fear again. And we don't trust in Gedaliah's words that all will be well, because sometimes it won't. But we can and should trust that God will be with us through it all, and that He is our strength and even if we lose it all, He's still worthy to be praised.
Now that's all nice and dandy, but we're not in Babylonian captivity. And Gedaliah isn't God. But if we compare the "Babylonian officials" to someone else in our times - anyone or anything else, we can see that God has not called us to live in fear of those things. We can respect them, especially if they're people (God made them in His image too!) but the only Master of our lives should simply be God. And He is good. And with Him, we need never fear again. And we don't trust in Gedaliah's words that all will be well, because sometimes it won't. But we can and should trust that God will be with us through it all, and that He is our strength and even if we lose it all, He's still worthy to be praised.
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