I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

     Today’s passage starts with Samuel telling Saul that God has commanded him to destroy the Amalekites completely, killing all of the people and their livestock. Saul killed everyone except for the king of the Amalekites and kept the choice livestock. When Samuel confronts him with keeping the choice livestock, Saul tells him that they kept them to sacrifice them to God. Here Saul says something interesting, he says that they kept the livestock to sacrifice them to “the Lord your God.” He says this twice more while pleading with Samuel. Saul does not say, “the Lord my God” or “the Lord our God.” He says, “the Lord your God.” I think this is very telling, especially when we see that he blamed the people for his failure to kill all of the livestock. King Saul appears to have come to view God as a prop for maintaining his political power. He no longer worships God out of the depth of his own heart but instead sees the various worship ceremonies as a means to cement his power over the people. I believe this is why Samuel was so grieved by Saul’s actions, not because God was going to take the throne of Israel from King Saul, but because Saul had ceased worshiping God.
     Next the passage tells us of Samuel anointing David. God sends Samuel to Jesse, to anoint one of Jesse’s sons. When Samuel sees Jesse’s eldest son, he thinks that he must surely be the one. But God tells him not to judge by outward appearances, that He sees what is in the heart. Jesse presents his sons to Samuel, but none of them are the one God is looking for. Samuel asks Jesse if he has any other sons and Jesse responds, “There is still the youngest. But he’s out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.” Even David’s father dismissed him as not that important. We must not make the same mistake. We do not know whom God will call, because unlike God, we cannot see into the hearts of our fellow man. All too often, we judge people by their outward appearance and dismiss someone because they do not measure up to our idea of what someone in that role should look like.

     The first of the two stories today is not in the oldest manuscripts of the Gospel of John, so it may never have happened. However, even if it never happened, we can learn from it. The basis for the trap in this story is selective enforcement of the Law. The story tells us that the teachers of the law presented this woman caught in the act of adultery and confronted him with the fact that the law called for her to be stoned. Now first off, if she was caught in the act, where is the man involved? But Jesus does not bring that up, instead He begins writing in the dust on the ground. The story does not tell us what He wrote, but from the context we can guess because when they continue to push Him to answer He says, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned cast the first stone.” He then resumes writing in the dust and one by one the accusers slip away until they are all gone. What we can learn from this is that none of us is in a position to cast judgement on others. This does not mean that we cannot point out that someone’s behavior is sin, just that we need to remember that we, also, sin. There is no hierarchy of sins, whatever sin we have committed, we stand before God condemned…unless we accept the covering of Jesus’ death. And that covering applies to everyone, either we stand condemned or we acknowledge that anyone can receive the covering of Jesus’ death and be forgiven through no act of their own.
     The second part is in the oldest manuscripts and therefore reflects Jesus teachings (as opposed to the first part, which may not). Jesus tells us that He is the light of the world. If we follow Him, we will be able to see where we are going and the light will lead us to life. The second part I think is interesting. Jesus says that if you don’t know Him, you won’t be able to know the Father. From time to time, someone will say that Muslims or Jews worship the same God as we do. While this may be nominally true, they do not know or understand God because they do not know Jesus and understand His teachings. This is more of an issue with Muslims because their “scripture” (the Quran) is not built of stories, as both the Old and New Testament are. Both Jews and Christians understand that God has revealed His will through the stories of the people who have chosen to follow and obey Him. The Muslim view of God is very different from that of Jews and Christians. Jews and Christians believe that we can come to know God (although only imperfectly) because God has revealed Himself to us. For both Jews and Christians this is derived from the Creation account where it tells us that man was made in the image of God. For Christians this, also, derives from the fact that Jesus was God and dwelt among us. Muslims teach that we cannot ever know God, only His commands. They teach that God is unknowable, which of course is consistent with what Jesus teaches in this passage. Since Jesus teaches that to know the Father we must know Him and Muslims do not know Him, they cannot know God. Therefore, since Muslims claim to be unable to know the God which they worship, while Christians claim to know the God which they worship, Muslims cannot legitimately claim to worship the same God as Christians.

     The psalmist tells us that those who oppose the Anointed One of God will be broken and humbled before Him. The psalmist, also, tells us that His people will serve in His army willingly. There are no conscripts in God’s army.

     This set of proverbs goes along with what I saw in today’s passage about Saul. Following the forms of righteousness for selfish reasons will not find favor with God. There is only one way to enjoy God’s favor and that is to follow His will and allow Him to correct your mistakes and failings. I pray that I may strive always to do God’s will and accept His correction when I fall short.