Apr. 9 – Thoughts on 1 Samuel 13-14 & Luke 10:1-24

The term Messiah means “God’s Anointed”, so it would have been used of the Old Testament kings as well as the prophecied redeemer of Israel.  However, as we see in Saul, even anointed kings can be foolish.  Throughout Saul’s story we see foolishness as well as valor.  Today, we read that his patience is lacking, an important character trait for a ruler.  And when he can’t wait for Samuel any longer, he takes on the role of priest himself, showing his arrogance and pride, important traits for a ruler NOT to have.  He is impulsive, giving reactive orders to his men (“don’t eat anything until I have avenged myself against my enemies”) which threatens his entire army (a starving army will not fight very well) and his own son (who wisely disobeys the order and gains his strength back) until the men rebel and refuse to allow Saul to kill his son for breaking his foolish vow.

Many have looked at our countries leadership throughout the years and declared them foolish, and some have legitimately been foolish leaders; impatient, arrogant, proud, impulsive.  Yet this doesn’t mean that God has not put them in office.  Some have disobeyed God once elected, and some have been put in their position for reasons known only to God Himself.  But to decide that because we don’t agree with or even respect a leader means that God is not involved in the process itself is to misread the scriptures.  God is in control today as He has been forever, and just because we can’t understand it doesn’t mean it is not so.

This is not to say that we should bow to the whims of our leadership, however.  Saul’s son was saved because his men disobeyed a direct order to kill him.  We are still called to use prayer, obedience, and Godly wisdom to know how to follow well, who to elect, and when to stand against bad leadership.

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Apr. 8 – Thoughts on 1 Samuel 10-12 & Luke 9:37-62

Saul is anointed king in Israel and we begin to see the dichotomy that will be his reign.  At his own coronation, he is so afraid that he hides among the supplies.  Not a great start to his monarchy.  Yet God is beyond such things as this and fills him with the Holy Spirit to inspire the men of Israel (330,000 of them) and then lead them in war against their enemies.  He shows mercy to those who questioned his kingship and gives Samuel credit where credit is due.  Hindsight tells us that Saul’s reign will be like this, a mixture of cowardice and bad decisions, and heroism and victory.

Things are never as clean as we’d like them to be in this world.  All of us have this odd mix of obedience and rebellion in our relationship with God.  The very worst people have glimmers of greatness, and the very best people have smudges of sinful selfishness.  But the point is never whether someone is sinful (spoiler: we all are) or righteous (spoiler: none of us is) but whether God can use us to further His Kingdom.  It is all in God’s hands, not ours, and the belief that our behaviors, missions, righteousness, and mistakes can change God’s will or God’s plans is one of the great errors of our race.

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Apr. 7 – Thoughts on 1 Samuel 7-9 & Luke 9:18-36

With the ark returned, the people were victorious again.  But once again, it didn’t take long for the people to turn from God and follow another path.  And this one is more parallel to our sinful path today and so easier for us to understand.  We don’t have false gods and idols that we turn to instead of God, but we quickly turn away from God’s leadership and to leaders of our own choosing or even creation.  And like the Israelites of long ago, it is God we reject when we do so.

The people, devoid of official judges for too long, ask to be like the cultures around them and have a king to lead them.  This is not God’s will – His plan is that He leads us – but He allows it to teach us a lesson.  In fact, too often God gives us just what we want so that we might learn to take what He offers instead.  Saul is handsome, tall, a leader to look at, but as we will see, he is not a leader in truth.  Samuel’s warnings of what a king will mean for his people will all come true in Saul’s leadership.  Saul will conscript their sons to fight his wars, using them as cannon fodder.  He will enslave their children not conscripted.  He will give his attendants the best of everything while taxing his people mercilessly.  And when they cry out to God for help, He will not listen.

When we turn away from God’s plan and God’s leadership, we pay a steep price.  No matter how attractive or acceptable the alternative, if it is not God’s plan, it will fail and lead to our ruin.

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Apr. 6 – Thoughts on 1 Samuel 4-6 & Luke 9:1-17

The story of the travels of the ark of the covenant is a great story.  It begins with tragedy, the military loss of the Israelites, the death of Eli’s sons (as foretold by God yesterday), Eli himself, and Eli’s daughter-in-law, and the capture of the ark.  It is convicting that while the death of Eli’s sons brings grief to the characters later on, it is the capture of the ark that brings the strongest reaction.  Would that we felt so strongly about God’s presence among us that losing it would be worse than losing our own children or spouses.

The episode with Dagon, the Philistine god, is also a great story.  That God would force the image of Dagon, who is not a god at all, to bow before Him not once but twice is a great lesson for the Philistines and for us.  If only our idols were such that we could physically see them bow before God.  But alas, our idols, the things we worship more than God Himself are less concrete these days.

The ark is send from town to town and everywhere it goes, it brings death to God’s enemies.  Tumors arise on the people near it – modern scholars have wondered about the possibility of the ark being a cancer-causing agent – to such an extent that their guilt offering includes golden models of the tumors themselves.  When finally no other town will hold the ark, it is sent back home.  Yet even there, death comes to those who desecrate the ark.

It is difficult for us to think in terms of God being limited to a place or object.  We believe that through God’s Holy Spirit, He is within us, with us, and everywhere present with or without a symbol like the ark.  Yet we still seem to believe that He is more strongly present in some places.  People always seem reluctant to swear in church, thought they have no compunction to do so outside it’s walls.  And we still hold the front of the church to be more sacred than the rest, telling kids not to run and treating it with a bit more reverence.  Maybe we aren’t so far away from our past beliefs that God resides in some places more than others after all.

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