PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

We find Saul’s first battle as king.  Do you notice that he hears about the potential of an invading and cruel nation while he is returning from the fields with his oxen.  We are not to think that when Saul is made king that somehow he is living in a castle on a hill far away and that people are serving him.  No, it actually seems like nothing in his life had changed.  Actually, what has changed can be seen in vs.6 where we read that the Spirit of God fell upon him in power.  That is a great change and that has to be the direct result of the change of heart that he had in the last chapter.

Things get a bit confusing at the end of the chapter.  We have Saul lead an armed force against the Ammonites and he takes them by surprise.  The battle is complete and “no two of them were left together.”  It was a rout by the Israelites like they had never experienced before.   As a result the people wanted to single out the naysayers from within Israel when Paul took over.  Their hope was to eradicate the naysayers from among them and actually kill them.  Fortunately Samuel steps in and says, hey, instead of that, let’s just have another service of confirmation for Saul’s reign.  Let’s just have a party instead.

Starting at vs.15 we find the actual coronation of Saul.  All the people go up and offer sacrifices to the Lord.  Everyone rejoiced greatly.  It just takes a massacre in order for the people to support Saul.  

We find the anointing of Saul take place at the very beginning of this chapter.  Stacy and I have watched both seasons of the show The Crown.  It is something we have never done before, watched a show consistently.  It was fascinating and I am somewhat looking forward to the next season starting in November.  The pomp that went into the crowning of Queen Elizabeth was amazing.  The weaving of the political and the religious is evident in that the Queen is said to have been chosen and anointed by God.  In front of everyone the choosing of the queen becomes evident and becomes front and center.

That really wasn’t the case with Saul.  There was only Samuel and Saul and he gives him directions on what to do in order to make his anointing a public affair, which up to this point it has not been.  Samuel gives him a whole list of things that he is going to see and how he is supposed to act.  As king he is told that he is to prophesy, and so there is a very real intersecting between the religious and the political.  Now that is something that we do not have within our governing system, but many countries do, especially those that have monarchies.

Don’t  overlook vs.9 where you see that  God gave Saul a new heart.  That is what we are given when we receive Jesus as our Savior, as we sign onto the new covenant and our lives are recorded in the book of life, we are given a new heart.  But like anything new, it can get used and abused, as we see later on with Saul and his heart.  

Do you see how Saul embraces his new responsibilities?  I love this quote in vs.22 which reflects how he was feeling about becoming king: “See, he has hidden himself among the baggage.”  Yeah, not really embracing his new role.  But all the people call out to him: “Long live the king.”  When we are called to a new role or to a responsibility within the church our first reaction might be to hide among the baggage.   But I pray that we would extricate ourselves from our suitcases and start to feel more comfortable as we lead people and as we lead the church to a future where our hearts would be changed for the Lord.

Today we get introduced to the first king of Israel.  It is interesting how he is described.  Look at vs.2 where he is described as a handsome man.  Then look at I Samuel 16:7, just 7 chapters later where it seems as if God is commanding Samuel to not pay attention to the way he looks.  What a complete reversal this is.  

The story goes that the first king of Israel was out searching for the lost donkeys of his father.  Does this sound at all  like Genesis 37:14 where Joseph goes searching for his brothers and their flocks?  I think there is some similarity, because what happens next changes the course of Israel and the course of the world.  Joseph is captured and sent into Egypt thus saving the nation of Israel from extinction.  Saul searches for the donkeys and is met by Samuel who was told the day before that a man from the Benjaminite tribe was going to meet him, and he would be the next king.  This also changes the course of Israel and eventually the world.

Also, just like the story of Joseph, a meal is presented and Saul is surprised by the attention that he gets, just like the brothers are surprised by the attention that they get from Joseph.  At the end of the meal Samuel says that he wants to see Saul alone.  That is where we leave this chapter.  But next chapter we are going to have the first crowning/anointing of a king.  Can’t wait!

The problem which brings up the issue of a king is that the children of Samuel are corrupt.  If Samuel had children who were righteous and willing to do the will of the Lord then the people never would have asked for a king.  It seems like both the children of Eli and the children of Samuel were the typical pastor’s kids who were rebellious and unleashed.  It is interesting how the people of Israel gather together and confront Daniel and say nothing about the corruption of his  children, but rather change the subject and think: Well if we can’t have other gods like the other nations have, let’s have the next best thing, a king!

Samuel doesn’t know what to do with this request so he does the best thing, he asks God what he is supposed to do with this request.  God doesn’t get angry, but is somewhat passive aggressive as he reassures Samuel that the people aren’t mad with him but that they always treated God this way, in that they wanted something tangible to take the place of God.  Instead of allowing God to be their king, they wanted to choose their own king.  Yeah, God wasn’t happy, but it isn’t your fault Samuel, the people have always been this way.

Before you give  them an answer remind them of what it means to have a king: he will take your property, he will take your sons, he will take your wives, he will take your daughter, he will make you a slave, you will have no freedom…but if you want a king…go for it!  Samuel relays this information to the people and their main issue is that they want a king for the sake of security.   We need someone to lead us into battle against our enemies.  Isn’t it amazing what freedoms we will be willing to give up in the name of security.  

Wow, this is so applicable to today.  We are willing to give up freedoms, we are willing to give up openness, we are willing to give up our obedience to love the stranger, we are willing to give so much up in order to feel safer, even if we are not safer.  That is what marks our society and our culture today.  It is frustrating as you know that the steps that people take are actually not going to make them safer, but the Lord says, go ahead, give them a king.  Give them what they want to make themselves feel safer, even if they are not safer and are actually disobeying the Lord in what they are doing.  God have mercy.

It seems as if we have entered once again the season of the the Judges.  Samuel takes on the responsibility of being a Judge as we find in vs.16 of this chapter.  Notice that he is ministering to the people of Israel as the high priest.  During this time the Philistines tried to go against him because they heard that they were all gathered at Mizpah.  As a result they went up against the Israelites, probably to show this new upstart who was in charge, and tried to slaughter them while they were in Mizpah.

It didn’t go so well.  The Lord actually revealed himself in a terrifying loud voice and created confusion among the Philistines as they were attempting to attack the Israelites.  As a result the men of Israel were able to rout the Philistines and they chased them away from their land.  That went well.  Do you know the song that goes: Here I raise my Ebenezer?  This is from where it comes.  Samuel raised an Ebenezer, which means stone of help, in order to show what the Lord had done on that day.  What is our stone of help?   What do we have a signal and a sign to us that the Lord is going to help.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to have somewhere in the church, maybe in the courtyard, a stone of help, an Ebenezer to remind us that the Lord is our help and our strength.  Let’s finish this day with a reminder that we ought to raise an Ebenezer to remember that God has helped us.

The glory of the Lord returns back to the people of  God.  We find in this chapter that the Philistines had the ark of the covenant for seven months and wanted nothing to do with it.  So they consulted with their religious people and they told the leaders that they should send it back from whence it came with an offering to basically say that we are sorry for taking it from you.

Notice that the pain of the lost battles and the lost men in battle had not dissipated but remained with the people.  Reclaiming the ark was important and it was a reminder to the people around the Israelites that you may defeat the people in battle, but you cannot defeat the God who is behind them and supports them.  You then have this puzzling presence of Jeconiah who wasn’t at all interest in the celebrations that were taking place and killed the folks who were happy about the ark.  We don’t hear about him again.  

The ark of the covenant is not a wanted possession for the Philistines.  Every place that it goes a common occurrence takes place.  All the people in that area break out in tumors.  It almost sounds like the Ark of the Covenant is a radioactive assembly.  But in reality what we realize is that the Ark of the Covenant for the people of Israel represented the presence of the Lord, so if the Lord is present but the people who surround the presence of the Lord does not respect and honor the Lord, then they are going to know about it.

The first home of the ark is right alongside the god Dagon.  Dagon was a god of grain whom the Philistines had adopted as one of the major gods.  But look what happens to good old Dagon.  Not only does he fall over, but then he also loses his head and his hands.  No wonder the people of Ashdod decided they probably didn’t want this ark thing around them.  Can you blame them?

When we are not in the will or the desire of God then more often than not we will find that out in not very positive ways.  I am convinced that God lets us know if we are following the path that He has laid out for us, and also if we are not.  It became obvious to the Philistines that the God of the Israelites was a God with whom one should not mess.

The glory departs from Israel.  

So that scene is not from the Bible, but it is the discovery of the ark by Indiana Jones as a result of the ark being lost by the defeat of the Israelites at the hands of the Philistines.  We lose track of the ark eventually, even as here the Philistines take it only to give it back later.  Too scary and too much responsibility.

But it is here more than any other place in the Bible where we see the glory of the Lord leaving Israel, to the point where the wife of the son of Eli, has a child who is named Ichabod, which means that the glory has departed from Israel.  Who remembers Ichabod?  Maybe this would help.

Anyway, let’s stick with the Bible, shall we?  The Philistines conquer the Israelites twice and the second time they take what is considered the presence of the Lord, the ark of the covenant.  As a result of the battles the sons of Eli are killed just as the Lord had told Samuel that it would happen.  When Eli hears of the capture of the ark, not of the death of his sons, but of the capture of the ark, he falls backwards and breaks his neck.  No, like he legitimately breaks his neck and dies.  

We now have the high priest dead and his two sons who were the heirs apparent to the priestly throne.  Guess who that leaves?  That’s right, Samuel.  

Samuel gets a calling.  This is another classic Bible story of Samuel when he is a child, and as vs.7 states, he does not yet know the Lord.  What a strong statement.  There are a few of those strong statements in these verses.  The first we find in vs.1 where we read that the word of the Lord was rare in those days.  God was simply not speaking because no one was listening.  

He finds Samuel sleeping by the ark of the covenant.  Okay, we can’t just let that pass.  The ark of the covenant was considered the presence of the Lord.  In vs.10 after two unsuccessful attempts to get Samuel’s attention, the Lord actually comes and stands in Samuel’s presence and calls out to him.  Eli, the wise high priest whose kids were scoundrels, instructs Samuel to respond and to listen to the Lord.  We need people like Eli who instruct us to be quiet and listen to the Lord.  Oh how things would be different if we listened to the Lord. 

The message is not good for Eli’s sake, but he accepts it and realizes that it is what his family deserves for, as we said earlier, his kids were scoundrels.  We then read in vs.19 what sets up the rest of the book of I Samuel, that the Lord was with Samuel.  From that we read that his authority and the respect that is given to him is given to him through all of Israel.  This doesn’t happen overnight.  This is a result of Samuel living in the presence of the Lord for his entire life.  

Keep notice of the fact that all of this is taking place at Shiloh.  It is at Shiloh where God continues to reveal himself simply because it is there where Samuel resides.  It is also where the ark of the covenant is as well as the center of the spiritual life for the people of Israel at that time.  Shiloh, don’t forget it.

We have a couple things happening here.  First of  all Samuel’s mom, Hannah, is a great comparison to Mary.  Look at her prayer of thanksgiving in this chapter and compare it to the Magnificat in Luke 1:46-55 and you can see a similar story of two women praising the Lord for His mighty acts.  

That story of Hannah is interrupted to give us an update on the sons of the high priest who were “scoundrels”.  Not only did they steal the sacrifices that the people brought to the Lord but they also slept with the attendants as they worked in the temple.  It had become a real cesspool of activity and Eli knows it.  He speaks harshly against his now grown children but they would not listen to him.  As a result at the end of this chapter we read that God is going to destroy the house of Eli and the lineage of priests which He had established while they were wandering the wilderness, and set up a new priestly family through Samuel.

In the meantime, Hannah remains faithful and comes every year to visit Samuel and even makes him a tiny little robe so that he would be comfortable as he worked and learned in the temple.  As a result of their gift of Samuel and their faithfulness to the Lord we see that they are in turn blessed with even more children.  Wife #2 disappears out of the picture as Hannah takes center stage in these first two chapters.  

The scene is set for Samuel to grow up and for the sons of Eli to recognize that he is favored among the Lord.  This is bound to create some violent tension.