The Letter and the Intent: Obeying the Law

It was Peter Drucker who cited the difference between management and leadership as doing things right as a manager and doing right things as a leader; many of us share a value system that includes both. Let us consider doing things right from a Biblical perspective.

In the Book of Leviticus, Israelites are told people with open sores are like lepers, unclean and must live separately from the general population (Lev 13:1-2, 44-46). With our modern knowledge of medicine, it makes sense that the Israelites wanted to segregate clean and unclean to prevent the spread of disease. In this sense, doing things right was the right thing to do. Even a clean person touching an unclean person became unclean.

Generations later came Jesus into a Jewish society that lived the religious law versus living the Jewish faith. They were at a point in their society that process was more important than result. Throughout the Gospels we read of Jesus sought out by the religious leaders attempting to entrap Him. Jesus was threatening their status as religious law givers and religious law enforcers. They felt the status quo and their power being undermined.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus heals a leper by stretching out his hand and touching the unclean person (Mark 1:40-45). Jesus told the leper to obey the law, present yourself to the priests, be declared clean, and make the offering prescribed in the law. Jesus admonished him to tell no one how he became clean. Of course, overcome with joy of being clean, the leper could not be silent.

As this passage continues, Jesus is no longer able to enter towns and villages quietly, he is forced to seek rest in the countryside, away from the people. Did the general population see Jesus as unclean or did they see Jesus as something else? The answer comes in the same passages; the people flocked to him.

Jesus was selfless in healing the leper acting out of love and compassion toward another person that polite Jewish society would avoid in obedience to one law. Jesus, conversely, obeyed a higher law given to Moses that tells polite Jewish society to love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Did Jesus do things right or did He do right things?

Contemporary organizations in the 21st Century may not employ lepers but they do employ managers and leaders who must balance doing things right with doing right things. For this argument consider the law prescribing miles per gallon of gas a vehicle must achieve. Auto makers obey the law to the letter, doing things right. It is unusual in our contemporary society to read the law and ascribe its intent to our daily practices, building the most efficient vehicles possible thus doing right things.

Like in the time of Jesus, many contemporary organizations find obeying the process of the law is more important than obeying the intent. Is the letter of the law your organizational leper?