Author: Bryan Richardson

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 24 (day three)

But David and his men went up to the stronghold.

Saul wept nostalgic tears.  The golden times of David’s service in Saul’s household—those were the days.  Too bad he didn’t understand: The past is a good teacher, but it’s a terrible coach.  It can remind us where we’ve been, but it can’t urge us on in the direction we must go.  The future’s coming, and only those who make peace with the present will live well in that future.  Does that mean satisfaction with the present?  Hardly.  It means understanding that you start with what you’ve got, not with what you wish you had.  David’s present wasn’t a good one, but it was what he had.  Saul withdrew into his memories. David went up to the stronghold.  That wasn’t his future, but it’s how he would get there.

Re:Verse reading— 1 Samuel 20:1-17, 30-42 (day three)

Then they kissed each other and wept together. 

Let’s face it, it’s more fun to argue about whether Jonathan and David were gay than actually to pursue the intimate friendships that will show the love of Christ to a world that’s lost its way.  While we’re at it, though, let’s all beware the temptation to read back into the scriptures the controversy du jour.  To identify homoerotic overtones in the friendship of these men is to ignore the ancient social conventions that made room for the kind of demonstrative affection that is alien to our thinking save in sexualized settings.  They were not lovers, they were friends.  We used to know what that means.  And we can again.  But it will take work—deeper than occasional girls’ nights out, higher than gym time with the brahs.  Iron won’t sharpen itself.

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 18:1-16, 19:1-7 (day three) 

David eluded him twice.

Yeah, David wasn’t going to stick around for a third chance to duck.  Two spears into the mentoring program, Saul’s orders opened up an opportunity to get out of there, and David was off to the front.  There would be no third spear.  Saul had squandered yet another season of God’s generosity.  Even in the sad decline of Saul’s reign, the goodness of God allowed Saul the dignity of teaching a young and capable apprentice, an opportunity that shined a redemptive beacon in the twilight of his kingship.  A chastened man would have recognized that redemptive possibility.  A chastened man would have cautioned David to take a different path than he had taken.  A chastened man would have provided the king-to-be with hard-won wisdom.  Saul was not that man.  Are you?

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 17:1-11, 26-32, 38-51 (day three) 

“What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?” 

One can make a case that this question is actually rhetorical—that David is exposing these concerns as paltry diversions and absolutely beside the point: “The enemy commences with chest-pounding triumphalism against a God-delivered and God-shepherded people, and the best you can do is drool over the wanted poster?”  Saul had proven himself unwilling or unable to provide any spiritual context for Israel’s predicament.  Spinning fantasies of rewards and glory for some imaginary hero was all that kept Saul’s scared soldiers from deserting.  David stepped into the breach, clarifying the issue: The biggest danger they faced was not the end of their self-governance, but the end of their knowledge of God.  Fear Goliath, and Goliath is all you’ll find.

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 16.  (day three) 

“How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me.”

When the king lives in fear, no one is safe.  The man who lives in fear will use every ounce of energy to stave off the dread until there’s no strength left to seek the welfare of the weak and the small.  Fear is the soul’s Dead Sea.  Energy flows in but nothing flows out.  And nothing can live in or near a life like that.  No wonder Samuel kept his distance from Saul.  The whole nation was increasingly at risk of descending into anarchic madness because of the ruler’s rising fear.  In those dark days, Samuel braved Saul’s deadly wrath to shepherd the David’s ascension to the throne.  The hard work of courage is the only answer to the influence of fear.  Pray.  And rise.

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 15 (day three)

“I was afraid of the people and so I gave in to them.”

It takes Saul three iterations of the narrative for him to speak the truth.  First, Saul does his best to convince himself that the plunder is purely for noble purposes.  Second, Saul attempts to redirect: The main thing got done, didn’t it?  Finally, Saul arrives at the real story: “I acted out of fear.”  Herein lies the reign-defining difference between David and Saul.  David says, “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”  Saul says, “What time I am afraid, I will do fear’s bidding.”  It is not a sin to be afraid.  It is a sin to serve fear as one’s master.  Of course you’re afraid.  But what are you going to do from that point?

Re: Verse reading—1 Samuel 9 & 10 (day three)

Is not my clan the least of all the clans?

Self-abasement is not the same thing as humility.  The former stems from a deep-seated despair that one’s inner defectiveness relegates him to a status of low regard in the eyes of others.  The latter comes from a wisdom that knows that one’s inner beauty will arouse impulses in him to use that beauty as a manipulative tool or an excuse for self-seeking, and that those impulses will be checked only by a regard for the welfare of others.  Self-abasement masquerades as humility for a while.  But humility will always welcome others.  Self-abasement will eventually blame others for one’s own despair.  The more power a person has, the deadlier the blame becomes.  Witness the life of the son of Kish.  There is no substitute for humility.

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 7 (day three) 

“Do not stop crying out to the Lord our God for us.” 

Samuel stood in a place of agency on behalf of the Lord and in behalf of the people.  This is the essence of priesthood.  When people are weak, they seek out another who is stronger.  In the fellowship of disciples of Jesus Christ, we will each take our turn in the weak seat.  And we become like priests for one another, announcing God’s provision, proclaiming God’s forgiveness, telling the truth when it’s hard, pointing out his presence.  When one who is weak approaches you for help in seeking God, will you rise to the occasion?

Re:Verse reading–1 Samuel 3 (day three) 

“The lamp of God had not yet gone out.”  These words refer to an actual lamp with an actual flame—the lampstand at the curtain on the other side of which sat the ark of the covenant.  It was to be kept burning from evening till morning.  This detail of dimly burning fire serves to mark the time as the wee hours.  But it marks something else, too.  It signals to us that God has not given up on saving the human race.  We know that these words indicate God’s intention because we can look at the entire witness of scripture in a way that the people living it at the moment could not.  In every night dimly-lit, in every church persecuted, in every incident of God’s supposed slowness, there rises the providence of God.