Modern workplaces, politics, and international relations can be complex: impossible tasks, conflict, unreasonable demands, temperamental leaders, and moral dilemmas.
A Middle Eastern nation controls a vital shipping channel and blocks major international commerce. It relents, then reneges, creating international turmoil.
You work hard to advance your employers’ mission: sacrificing, caring, succeeding. Then you observe some leaders acting unethically. You approach them personally, but they disregard you. So, you blow the whistle and report their activity to superiors, who retaliate and fire you. How do you respond?
What lessons do these political and personal episodes bring? Doing the right thing sometimes brings personal suffering.
An ancient Israeli found himself highly placed in a foreign government with some political and personal minefields to navigate. Should he and his colleagues cave to government pressure and do something unethical? Or should they stand for what they believed was right and suffer?
Daniel and the Fiery Furnace movie tells this classic story that has a modern application. Stars include Mena Massoud (Aladdin) and Elijah Alexander (The Chosen).
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ruled much of the ancient Near East. In 605 B.C., he conquered Jerusalem, taking Jews captive. He ordered his chief of staff to select especially strong, learned, wise young Jewish men to train for royal service. Among those trained in Babylonian language and culture were Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, whom the king found more capable than his own advisers.
Nebuchadnezzar was temperamental. Troubled by disturbing dreams hindering his sleep, he demanded his “magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers” tell him both what he had dreamt and its meaning. When they could not, he ordered their execution. Daniel urged his three friends to pray for divine wisdom and lobbied for the wise men’s safety. He then both told and interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
Nebuchadnezzar appointed Daniel ruler over the Babylon province and chief over the wise men and appointed his three friends to top regional administrative positions.
For a quick summary of this famous story, watch legendary ’60s R&B crooner Brook Benton sing “Shadrack” on The Ed Sullivan Show. For more detail, read the first four chapters of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament.
Ever the egotistical controller, Nebuchadnezzar built a huge gold statue, ordering everyone to worship it. Death in a flaming furnace was the penalty for refusing to worship the statue. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused: “We will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”
Furious, Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace heat increased sevenfold — “seven times hotter than it ought to be,” Benton sang. The flames killed the soldiers who threw the three bound prisoners into the furnace.
But then, spoiler alert, astounded, the king shouted, “I see four men, unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed! And the fourth looks like a god!”
They emerged unscathed: no singed hair, no scorched clothing, no smoke odor.
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Nebuchadnezzar recognized divine involvement: “There is no other god who can rescue like this!” He promoted the three, essentially honoring them for whistleblowing on him. After subsequent personal testing and humiliation, Nebuchadnezzar himself praised and worshipped the biblical God.
This entertaining film has many wise reminders for today’s leaders and followers. Choose God’s ways, and he will take care of you, in time and eternity. In international relations, don’t renege on honorable commitments. If your employer’s leaders act unethically, try talking to them. If they ignore you, consider whether whistleblowing, with attendant consequences, might be the best choice.
Rusty Wright is an author and lecturer who has spoken on six continents. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in theology from Duke University and the University of Oxford, respectively.