PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

David continues to enjoy his success and decides that it is time that the ark of the covenant, which is considered the presence of God, should be brought into Jerusalem for its permanent home.  Remember, Jerusalem is also David’s permanent home.  As they are transporting the ark someone touches it to prevent it from falling over after the oxen have stumbled, and that person is killed by God.   Well, David is furious and decides that the ark is staying right where it is.  No way am I going to have this thing in my city when it is fickle enough to kill the very people who are helping it along in its journey.

Some months pass and the person’s home where it is being stored is blessed extravagantly.  David changes his mind and realizes that maybe he should bring it to Jerusalem, just in case that blessing might bleed over onto him.  David then experiences one military victory after another.  He is settled in his city and has everything that he needs.  He wonders if there are any other of Saul’s family around and finds out that there is a lame son.  He brings Mephibosheth, the lame son of Saul, into his house and gives him land and allows him to eat at this table.  We come full circle and this serves as a way to ensure that the anointed one of the Lord does not have his family forgotten.  He would love that the same thing would happen to him.

We then transition to the psalms and we find psalms of praise emanating from David which have a kingly tone to them.  We find the statement: God save the king!  in 20:9 which is used to this day.

King Saul has died but the path before David as king is not as easy as it would seem.  In fact, as you read through these first five chapters until David gets to Jerusalem it seems as if things are a bit out of control.  Saul’s son takes over and for a brief time there is a divided Israelite kingdom.  There is war between the houses of David and Saul.  Just when it seemed as if there would be peace and a unification of the houses with the general Abner who was going to bring Saul’s family over to David’s side, two of David’s soldiers kill him for vengeance over the death of their brother.

Soon after the son of Saul who was ruling the family is killed by a couple of rogue soldiers who thought David would be pleased.  He kills them just like he killed the messenger who told him about the death of Saul.  Finally David enters Jerusalem and it seems as if the infighting is over, the civil war aspect is finally now complete and they can go back to attacking the Philistines.  That seems normal enough.

Psalm 13 is another psalm of lament where you hear the author crying out to God.  Again, like in most Psalms of lament it ends with: I trust in your unfailing love, my heart rejoices in your salvation.  I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.  That’s a good way to end a psalm of lament.

We find ourselves in the waning days of King Saul with a story that somewhat repeats itself.  Once again David is pursued by Saul, even though previously when David spared Saul’s life he said to him: You are more righteous than I.  But that doesn’t prevent him from going after him again.  He gathers thousands of his men and then goes to sleep and David sneaks up and takes his spear and water jug.  He then goes and chastises those who were guarding Saul and Saul once again says how much he admires him, but he still is not going to stop pursuing him.

As a result David decides to go and live in the land of the Philistines which would prevent Saul from pursuing him, and as a result king Achish, of the Philistines, agrees to house David and they are faithful to each other.  But then these same Philistines decide to go into battle against Israel and Saul and David agrees to go into battle against them on the side of the Philistines.  As they get closer to each other the other Philistines leaders start to worry about David and if he would remain faithful to the Philistines, or use this as an opportunity to curry favor with King Saul.  They basically kick him out and send him home.

Once they get home they realize that their camp has been raided and their town burned and their women carried off.  They pursue and gather back all of their goods while parallel to that Saul is in battle against the Philistines and he loses and he is killed along with his sons, not to mention his son Jonathan, the one who was bound to David’s soul.  That is going to leave a mark on David which we will see later.

The Psalm is one written when David was hiding in the cave away from Saul and when the Lord delivers Saul into his hands and he cuts off a piece of his robe to demonstrate his faithfulness to Saul.  

The story gets more and more interesting as David continues to flee from the king of Israel, Saul, who seeks his life and has allies scattered throughout the territories that are reporting back to him to track the whereabouts of David.  We begin in 21 with David who arrives with his men at Nob which is a city of priests led by Ahimelech, and he receives help from the priest there who gives him food and the sword of Goliath.  He then flees from there once it is discovered that he is hiding in Nob, and goes to Gath where the people recognize him so he pretends to have lost his mind.  Our reading in Psalm 34 reflects that the Psalm is written at the time when this happens.  There is great overlap here.

David then teams up with the king of Moab and asks if his parents could find refuge with him, and he agrees.  King Saul calls Ahimelech and asks an account of why he allowed David to find refuge with him.  Ahimelech speaks to David’s loyalty but King Saul tells his men to kill Ahimelech and all the priests of Nob.  They all refuse, I’m surprise more time isn’t given to this.  But they all refuse to kill the priests until he asks a foreigner, Doeg the Edomite, to do the deed, and he does, and he kills over 80 priests.  One escapes and tells David what happened.

David continues to fight the Philistines who are his arch enemy, even though his men hesitate, they eventually go and win the battle.  Then David hides out in En-gedi and Saul follows him there.  This last time that we went to Israel we were able to go through the rocks of En-gedi.  It was beautiful, but it was also the first time that I had ever been there.  We weren’t able to make it to the top where David and Saul “met” each other while Saul was relieving himself.  As a result of David sparing Saul there is a short, very short, détente which takes us to 25.  

In this chapter we see David’s eventual wife, Abigail, sabotage her then husband by going behind his back and greeting David to make up for her husband’s uncouthness.  The end result is that Nabal dies and Abigail becomes David’s wife.  

So probably the most precious and maybe some of the most important verses in the Bible are found in I Samuel 16:7.  God does not look as mortals see, they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  Is this a blessing or a curse for us?  Is this good news or bad news for us?  What a great verse.  

We then have the all popular verses about the battle of David and Goliath.  One of my favorite places to go when we are in Israel is in that same location where David picked up his five smooth stones.  I have my own smooth stones that I picked from there and brought back home.  They remind me of how God continually does the impossible especially when we think it is not possible at all.  

We then get this interesting verse that the soul of Jonathan became bound to the soul of David and they are everlasting friends from that time forward.  Jonathan consistently saves David’s life as he warns him of his father’s anger for him and his unreasonable attempts at his life.  Twice King Saul looks to kill David with his spear and it isn’t until Jonathan suffers the same fate that he realizes that maybe my dad isn’t too crazy about David after all.  

The Psalm around 59 all contain times in David’s life when he is fleeing from Saul.  This one is called the psalm that David wrote when Saul ordered his house to be watched in order to kill him.  It is filled with pleas of deliverance and a recognition that God will absolutely save him from this fate of potential death.

We see the rise and fall of Saul in these chapters.  He rises high as he rallies the Israelites around the residents of Jabesh who are about to have their eye plucked out.  They say it is all fun and games until you have your eye poked out.  As a result of his initiative the people of Israel confirm his kingship and he has momentum that takes him into the next step.  

Samuel remains a central figure and gives a farewell speech which consists of making sure the people of Israel and Saul remember from where they came and that they must follow the commandments of the Lord.  Jonathan, the son of Saul, reveals himself to be quite a soldier with two instances where we see him overtaking the Philistines.  One of them is completely at his initiative which takes him out of the camp of his father for a bit and so he misses his father’s command to not eat until after the victory.  He almost loses his life over that one.

Saul leads the Israelites again on a rout but this time he does not obey God because he keeps the plunder and the king alive after the rout.  Samuel fixes the king part by killing the king in front of all Israel but tells Saul that the Lord has left him and that he will anoint someone else as king.  Nothing Saul says is able to change his mind and so we see that Samuel does not see Saul again.  We know that David is on the horizon, but his name is not yet mentioned.

Speaking of David, look at Psalm 10, it is a classic psalm of lament where the author asks the question: Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?  This could have been the question that Saul asks God or that David asks God later in his life as well.  The answer comes to the reader starting in vs.12 where we read that the Lord is King for ever and ever (vs.16).

The people of Israel had always asked for a king.  We find Samuel is described as a judge and his sons also were appointed judges as he got older.  There is a striking parallel between Samuel and Eli.  While Samuel is a priest, he is also the one who leads the Israelites to conquer the Philistines and take over those territories that they had taken over.  The tide shifts once Samuel takes the reigns and God continues to reveal Himself powerful and continues to fulfill the promises of the promised land.

But like Eli, as Samuel gets old and once he puts his kids in power they turn away from him and just look out after their own good.  They extort and they take bribes and they do things which are pretty common in the rest of the world today and that takes place in a regular basis.  But both Samuel and the Lord are unhappy with the situation.  The people of Israel ask for a king, and the Lord tells Samuel to get them a king.

Saul, after a series of events, is chosen as king, even if they had to find him in the luggage where he was hiding.  He is anointed king by Samuel and then he goes home.  A bit of a dénouement, but that is what we read.  I think we are just getting set up for when Saul goes into battle.  

Psalm 150 is one of my favorite Psalms and it is the one that I use to describe worship as being the most important thing that we do as church.  Everything else, all the other programs and all the other events that we take part in has to revolve around worship.  

We can’t ignore the importance of Samuel as he begins his ministry and the state of the priesthood in Israel as he begins his ministry.  Eli was the Levite in charge of the priesthood in Shiloh  and his two sons were coming up after him to take over.  They were obviously corrupt and Scripture describes them as taking food out of the hands of the people and sleeping with the wives of the people of Israel.  They were completely out of control and their hedonistic ways were known to all.  Nothing was hid.

When Samuel comes along we see him gradually winning the respect of the people, but he is not in charge yet.  At the battle against the Philistines both sons die and then Eli himself dies which leaves the way open for Samuel to take over the priesthood just as God had planned.  We have the ark of the covenant taken by the Philistines, but they couldn’t handle it so they decide to give it back.  This sets the stage for Samuel to take over and bring back the priesthood to where God wanted it to be.

Psalm 8 is a beautiful Psalm and I couldn’t describe it any other way except with a song from Amy Grant.

I tell people that the Song of Solomon is the closest thing we get to an R rating in the Bible.  Wasn’t that interesting?  It is obviously a love song with three voices calling and responding.  You have the Beloved who describes herself in 1:5 as being dark and as a result was insulted and asks why she should hide herself.  There is also the Lover who is the male counterpart who is very descriptive in his love for his beloved.  We then also have the Friends who ask questions and are put to certain tasks like finding the Lover when he disappears.

This consistent call and response is filled with sexual innuendo and covered with love poems that each person tells the other.  There are times when they desire to be together so badly, and yet it seems as if they never quite get there.  Song of Solomon seems to be filled with lost opportunities and passionate desires that never quite seem to be fulfilled.  As you read through it you are cheering on both of them hoping that they would some day, some way, get together.  But it is never quite realized.

Not once is God mentioned in this book of the Bible and you might wonder how it got included.  Like Ecclesiastes it is attributed to Solomon, hence its longer title is the Solomon’s Song of Songs.

I enjoy reading through an entire book of the Bible from beginning to end in one sitting.  I don’t do that often, but it is so much better to read the Bible that way than single verses or chapters at a time.  Remember this is like an enews that Paul writes to the church in Colossae and he addresses issues and situations that have come up in the church and gives a way forward for this fledgling community.  If there is a controlling purpose for my work at FPC it would be found in Colossians 1:28 which states that we preach the Gospel so that each person may be found mature in Christ.  Striving toward maturity in our faith is the primary, if not singular, reason why we do what we do.  

There is a lot in these chapters, but look also at vs.22 where he states that Jesus has reconciled us to God so that he can present us to the Father.  This image of Jesus presenting us to the Father is stunning.  The glory of the Son will so overwhelm the Father that the Father will not be able to see our sin on account of the perfection of the Son.  That is the kind of advocate that we need.

When we get to the second chapter we find some warnings about being caught up in philosophical theories that may sound good on paper but in practice are useless.  There are a number of general warnings against getting caught up too much in the cultural norms that are present which would distract us from a perfect worship of our God.  Chapter 3 gives us a great verse that I have used often in vs.11 which reminds us that in Christ Jesus we are all equal.  There is no distinction and there is no hierarchy in our Savior, there is no male or female as far as roles within the church, but rather we are all saved equally and for equal service within the life of the church.  This concept is not shared by all people and churches.  

Chapter 4 and the end of chapter 3 gives us the disturbing verses that encourage slaves to be obedient to their masters.  This is an example where we can clearly say that the writing of Scripture to a certain extent are tied up to the time in which they were written.  That may be offensive to some of you, but I am guessing you have never been a slave, or a person of color whose ancestors were slaves in this very land, and so the offensive nature is not personal but rather theoretical.  I’m guessing if the Scripture said something that impacted you directly you would feel very comfortable in viewing that as culturally bound.  We need to be careful when we read Scripture that we don’t read it too much based upon our own cultural understandings which are incredibly limited.