Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Samuel 28-31.

I always find the account of Saul going to the medium of Endor difficult.  My understanding of Scripture has always been that those who claim to speak with the dead are either frauds or mistaking other spirits for the spirit of the dead.  Yet, this passage is quite clear that the woman summoned Samuel’s spirit and that Saul spoke with him.  This story contains an important lesson for us, one which is easy to miss.  At several points we are told that Saul had implemented God’s law in the land, at least to some degree.  In the introduction to this account we are told that Saul had expelled all of the mediums and spiritists from the land.  That was in accordance with God’s law as given to Moses.  Yet, despite implementing God’s law as the law of Israel, God departed from Saul because of his disobedience.   I don’t want to go into what Saul did, both good and bad, because it would be too easy to draw the wrong lesson.  The lesson is that God desires that we obey Him more than He desires that we offer sacrifices, or sing His praises.  King Saul thought that he could pick and choose which of God’s commands to obey.  It does not work that way, God calls us to obey all of His commands.  While He will forgive us when we fall short of His expectations, we cannot act against His commands just because we have good intentions.

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