S5: Day 80: 1 Samuel 7–9

0:00Hey, thanks for joining us day after day as we are joining through scripture together. We're in the midst of first Samuel. Today, we're talking about chapters seven through nine. Yesterday, we talked about the ark. We talked about it going to the Philistines coming back to the Israelites. What's next, CJ? So we kind of mentioned already that first Samuel is sort of in between what we learned about with the judges, and it's also headed towards kingship. And here I see, I think we see the four S's that we talked about in the book of judges, sin, suffering, supplication, and salvation. So the Philistines, oppressing the Israelites is a consequence of their sin. So then Israel suffers, but then they repent and Samuel being the judge here, talking on behalf of the people, supplicates the Lord and then God delivers them. All right. And so that's in chapter seven and chapter eight. There seems to be a little bit of like a change in senior year, we're switching gears.

1:01Yep, exactly. And again, going back to judges a little bit, we remember how the book of judges flirts with the idea of kingship. It's kind of bubbling under the surface. And in first Samuel eight is where we see Israel explicitly as a whole begging for a king, whereas before in judges, it was kind of local and it depended on the person and the judge. But here, Israel as a whole seems to want a king. I think the reason why they want a king is because Samuel is old and they trust him, but kind of like Eli's sons, Samuel's sons don't seem to be the best sort of guys. So Israel's thinking, well, what's next? And Hannah's song, we already referenced as well, anticipates kingship in the book of Samuel. But on God's terms, so we see that God exalts the horn of his anointed. But God will raise up and will bring down everything's up to God and his power. But here it seems like people are trying to pull kingship towards them rather than

2:02letting God decide and God determine. So in that sense, the first king that they choose looks a lot like the sort of king that they want. Saul is tall. Saul is handsome. He looks like he would be a great warrior and he can go and fight their battles on their behalf. So what ends up happening is God says, okay, if you want this sort of king, then Saul's going to be your first king. And Saul wanders around, his donkeys go missing, so he's looking for them and he serendipitously runs into Samuel and Samuel says, well, you're going to be our first king and he ends up anointing Saul and the next few chapters of Samuel are going to be about Saul himself and his kingship. Yeah, we'll be following him for just a little while here. So one of these chapters tell us about God and Jesus. Yeah. So I think here this is another example of how somehow it's actually kind of fasting when you read these stories. Somehow human choice does not, that seems to be against God's design actually works to

3:08God's greater ends. And I think this is a perfect example of that kingship has been in God's plan the whole time, obviously leading to Christ, who's the ultimate king and the fulfillment of the office of kingship. But somehow people are trying to choose kings for themselves and take things, they have sort of a scarcity mindset rather than opening themselves up to God and relying on God. But yet God weaves all of those things in and it eventually still leads to David, the king after his own heart as we'll see here in a few chapters. So I think we see God's providence in a story like this loud and clear. Yeah. And just to echo that, I think my takeaway from this is God's patience with his people because like you said, this isn't exactly his plan for them. Right. Yet we see him working in and through that and we see God's patience mentioned throughout the Old Testament. And I feel like though it's not mentioned explicitly here, I'm seeing his patience toward his people in this moment. So okay. That wraps up for Samuel 7 through 9. It sounds like we're talking a lot more about Saul starting tomorrow.

4:10Exactly right. And we'll see you back then.