Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 11-13.

In his farewell address to the people of Israel, Samuel says that they sought a king when Nahash, king of the Ammonites, started to move against Israelite lands.  He points out that they sinned by doing so because God was already their king.  However, Samuel tells them that if they, and their king, obey the Lord going forward all will be well, but if they do not, it will not be well.  Then Samuel called on God to send them a sign to illustrate their sin in asking for a king.  The sign which they received was rain and thunder out of season.  What was the point of this sign?  The sign demonstrated that Israel had had a king in God who had power over even the weather.  Instead they chose a human king whom they could physically see, but who had no such power.  Instead of trusting God to protect them and obeying Him, they chose to establish a government to protect them and force them to act morally.  We often make the same mistake today.  Instead of obeying God and loving our neighbor and trusting God to protect us and transform those around us, we turn to the government for protection and to enforce morality: thinking that if we just get the right people in positions of authority, everything will turn out right.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 8-10.

The first thing we see in today’s passage is that when Samuel became old and appointed his sons to take over his duties, they turned out to be much like Eli’s sons had been.  This led the Israelites to request that Samuel appoint a king over them.  It really tells us a lot that the Israelites response to having two leaders in a row whose sons turned out to be evil and corrupt when their fathers turned leadership over to them decided that the solution was to appoint a leader with even greater authority whose son would, by default, inherit their father’s authority.  They would replace a leader whose authority came from the agreement of those who followed them with one to whom they had granted the authority to enforce his commands by force.  This new leader would be given hereditary authority which would pass on to his son.  They did this because the sons of their most two recent leaders were corrupt and exercised what limited authority their fathers passed on to them poorly.  Rather than recognize that the reason they had poor leaders was because they failed to choose to faithfully follow God, they blamed it on their leaders not having enough authority.  They thought that if only they had a stronger ruler who could have forced people to more stringently keep God’s laws, they would have been a better people.  Rather than turn to God and follow Him with all of their heart, they chose to try setting up a government which would force them to do so.  It doesn’t work that way, it never has, and it never will.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 4-7.

We generally think of Eli’s death being the result of God’s judgement because of the corruption of his sons.  However, we do not normally pay attention to the fact that he was 98 years old when he died.  I think that fact supports my claim from yesterday’s post that Eli had a faith in God worth noting.  Now let’s look at what I saw in today’s passage worth thinking about.  We often focus on the misbehavior of Eli’s sons as leading to the Israelite mistake of thinking that they could force God to support them in battle against the Philistines by bringing the Ark of the Covenant to the battle.  After the Ark was returned to Israel, with all that went along with that, the passage tells us that all of the people of Israel turned back to God.  It was only after they turned back to God that Samuel became the leader of Israel.  So, the people of Israel did not turn back to God because Samuel, a righteous man, was their leader.  Rather,  Samuel became Israel’s leader because the people turned back to God.  There is one more thing worth noting.  When the Philistines attacked the Israelites at the beginning of today’s passage, the Israelites tried to force God to help them by taking the Ark with them into battle.  At the end of today’s passage when the Philistines attacked the Israelites, the Israelites did not ask Samuel to lead them into battle and bring God with him.  Rather, they asked Samuel to cry out to God on their behalf asking Him to rescue them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Samuel 1-3.

Today’s passage gives us three separate people showing faith in God: Hannah, Samuel, and Eli.  We often overlook Eli’s faith because of his failure as a father.  Nevertheless, all three provide us examples of acting in faith.  Let us start with Hannah.  Hannah desperately wanted a child, in particular a son.  So, she cried out to God and promised that if He gave her a son she would give him back to God to serve Him for all of his days.  When God answered her prayers, Hannah did not say, either to others or herself, “Well, it was bound to happen eventually.”  No, she said, “God has demonstrated His power by answering my prayer.  I will keep my vow and give this boy to serve God all of his life.”  She then sings a song of praise, aspects of which are reflected in the actions of both Samuel and Eli.  She tells us that there is no one like God, that He alone brings death and brings life.  He send wealth, and He sends poverty.  She reminds us that we do not prevail by strength, but by the will of God.

Which brings me to Eli’s show of faith.  While Eli failed to rein in his sons from evil, he recognized that it was God’s voice calling Samuel in the night.  He correctly told Samuel how to answer God’s call.  Then, when he got Samuel to tell him what God had said to Samuel, Eli accepted God’s judgement.  Eli knew that he had failed to raise his sons to properly fear and respect God, but he did not fail to teach Samuel what he needed to know.  And he accepted God’s judgement for his failure.  Finally, we have Samuel, whose example here is mostly in following the lead given him by his elders.  Following Eli’s instruction, Samuel responded to God’s calling and submitted himself as a servant of the Lord.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.