Bad leaders: punishment from God?

If God personally puts EVERY leader in their position of authority (rather than merely allowing leaders to come into positions of authority on their own) does that mean when the leader does a horrible job at leading it’s because God is using that individual to punish those under authority to that person? For instance, Hitler was a murderer on a mass scale of the Jewish people living in Germany. Well, unless you believe the Holocaust was a “hoax.” Was he placed in power by God to punish the Jews?

 

Then, what do you make of scriptures like these?...

…he removes kings, and sets up kings…
— Daniel 2:21

…the Most High has power over human kingdoms. He gives them to whomever he wishes.
— Daniel 4:17

 

So, you believe that God DOES put individuals in power...when He wants to. Just not EVERY person who ends up in power. Is that a correct understanding?

 

I think it's safe to interpret from scripture *THAT* God is sovereign about leaders, but not *WHY*.
Some real dangers when assuming why: back when I was a kid, my mom had these terrible debilitating cramps. What was clear to the entire church was that God was sovereign over our bodies. So the only LOGICAL assumption was that she had unconfessed / unaddressed sin in her life. I mean, "why else would a sovereign God allow her to suffer". Suffering = bad. Sin = bad. Therefore sin = suffering. Therefore ipso facto QED. Their (excuse me) STUPID pursuit of why caused my mom a ton of heart-ache, but her cramping problem was solved with a couple trips to the doctor.

Bottom line: you don't know why.

 

Yeah, I’ve never really appreciated individuals saying that Christians who suffer some physical ailment are doing so because they “are in sin,” or “don’t have enough faith to believe in the healing that God ALREADY provided.” I’m not sure if they say that out of ignorance or arrogance...or both. I’m of the mindset that God can, and does, provide physical healing at times. But, obviously, not for everybody. And, yes, it sounds cliche, but I believe He does it for reasons we may not understand. I don’t believe, however, that when He doesn’t provide a physical healing, that it’s necessarily due to sin in the person’s life or a lack of faith. Perhaps that applies to some individuals, but I doubt that it’s the case for all of them.

 

In this corner of the world, leaders are created after our own image.

 

Missing the forest through the trees. The point was: how do you propose to know God's WHY? Your first step is to assume bad leaders = punishment. To whom? For what? How could you possibly know?
Its the same sort of reasoning those "elders" had with my mom: "She's sick, so it must be punishment".

I have a different, even heretical view than most here. If I read anything in the Bible its how baffling and incomprehensible the bible's God is. Why does God <X> seem incurably impossible question.

 

John 9 - Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind
1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth.
2 And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
3 Jesus answered, It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

Next question please

 

Well, assuming God puts ALL leaders into their positions of power (and there’s actually a plausible case for why He may NOT be doing that), when bad ones get into their roles, it stands to reason that God, foreknowing everything about everybody, would know the person was going to be a bad leader. Knowing that about the person, for what other reason might He be putting them in their position? It’s a reasonable assumption (though not the ONLY one) that He’s doing it to collectively punish people for some reason. I hold out for the possibility that God places SOME people in power at times, for His own reasons, but not necessarily ALL people in power. What’s YOUR view on the matter?

 

But is being “instituted by God” indicating that God personally handpicks those leaders or is it merely that He “instituted” the authority they have, regardless of who (and how one) actually comes into power?

 

You seem hellbent to take the worst possible interpretation and defend it to the bitter end.

 

I found in my world travels that punitively minded people tend to "worship" a punitively minded "god" they've created from their imagination, and thus they see in the Bible what they want to see. "Grace" is a strange concept to those people, and they simply cannot get their heads around it. :/