1 Samuel 17:1-18:4, John 8:21-30, Psalms 111:1-10, Proverbs 15:11
Today is the 17th day of May welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian it’s great to be here with you today as we continue our journey forward. And the next step on our journey leads us back into the book of first Samuel. We have gotten to know Israel’s first King Saul and we have also gotten to know this shepherd boy who’s become a celebrity for killing a giant whose name is David. We’re learning that Saul wants David dead and David doesn’t want to be dead. And, so, he cries out and trusts in the Lord in all that he does because it’s his hope of survival. And, so, let’s pick up the story. Today, first Samuel chapters 20 and 21.
Commentary:
Okay. So, both in the Old and the New Testament passages that we read today we see something that is true and true for all of us. We just don’t want to admit it very much. And that is we watched people see things and interpret them differently. And once that interpretation becomes a conviction then it also becomes actionable, and actions are taken and when the interpretation is wrong the actions are wrong and they perpetuate further problems. So, let’s go into first Samuel for a second and just read a couple of verses from our reading today. And I quote from the Bible from the lips of Saul. “You son of a perverted, unfaithful woman.” That…let me just stop there for a second because we can reconfigure those words into a…a…a modern saying and it would be offensive, right? So, Saul is saying this to his son. “You son of a perverted unfaithful woman. Don’t I know you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness. For as long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, you will not be established, nor will your kingship. So, send for him and bring them to me because he surely must die.” This is Saul’s interpretation of David not showing up for dinner. He is not correct about what he is assuming. David isn’t trying to be a threat to Saul. David is too busy trying to stay alive at this point. And yet David’s inside Saul’s head and Saul is making up all kinds of stories and scenarios about David and David has become Saul’s enemy in his head. And this takes action. So, let me just read a couple more verses. “Jonathan answered his father. Why should he be put to death? What has he done? Saul through his spear at him to hit him so Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put David to death.” Right? So, Jonathan’s saying dad, why do you want David dead? What has…what has he done that’s disloyal or unfaithful to you or our country? Why do you want him to be dead? And Saul then picks up his spear and throws it to kill his son. That’s how far these incorrect assumptions when they’re lived into, when they become convictions, when they become beliefs, and they become actions, that’s how far this can go. This is what the Bible is revealing to us. This is how far it can go. And this is how far misinterpretation and assumption about God can go.
Because now we flip the page and go into the gospel of John, and in response to Jesus, restoring the sight of a man who had never seen before we have assumption and action. And, so, let me read a verse from John. “Then some of the Pharisees said, this man is not from God because he does not keep the Sabbath.” Or let me read another verse. “They told him, give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, I do not know if he is a sinner. One thing I do know, I was blind and now I see.” So, Jesus healed a blind man, restored his site. For the first time in his life, he could see. This happened on the Sabbath day. This broke the tradition. Or maybe a better way to say it is, this broke the interpretation of the tradition. The religious leaders were seeing a miraculous move of God in restoring what had been broken and lost, and in this case that’s the blindness of the man, but because this broke the interpretation of their tradition, they couldn’t see God at work in their midst. They were blinded by their incorrect assumptions. And, so, the Bible is helping us to take a step back, look at our own lives, look at the examples that were given today and realize that we can misinterpret things, create convictions about things believe those things, take action around those things and still be wrong. We are not as powerful as we think, not as wise as we think. And where this should lead us is to a place of humility and away from a place of pride and arrogance. And once we find that place for ourselves, we need to understand that that needs to be extended to everybody. The examples of a king misinterpreting circumstances and the religious trained and educated leaders missing God standing in front of them shows us that everyone is included here. And without humility, without open hands, without open hearts, we can be fighting in the wrong direction for a very long time, causing all kinds of destruction. We saw two examples of people seeing things incorrectly and acting on those incorrect assumptions today. We are all guilty of this. But now we are aware of it, which means now we are responsible for it. And we will not be able to carry the weight of that responsibility without an enormous amount of humility and open heart and open hands to the leadership and the mastery of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Prayer:
Father, we invite You into that. We try to take all of the sensory data and input that comes into our lives and run it through our minds and make connections and connect the dots so that we can have some sort of reality that we understand. And yet we confess that we’ve thought things were moving in a certain direction when reality was different and we missed it. And we can continue to miss it even when You are standing right in front of us as we’ve seen in the Scriptures today. And, so, we could throw up our hands and go, well then, I guess it just can’t be done, or we could throw up her hands in surrender and say yeah, it just can’t be done without God. Come Holy Spirit. Lead us into all truth. Open our blind eyes. Show us our blind spots that we might walk the narrow path that leads to life and that we might be true. We ask this in Your precious name. Amen.
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Community Prayer and Praise:
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