READING FOR MARCH 27, 2025: 1 SAMUEL 21, ROMANS 11, PSALM 24:7-10 1 SAMUEL 21 This writer approaches this chapter with even more caution than normal, for reasons that will become apparent. We left David in the previous chapter fleeing from Saul. Now he arrives at Nob and encounters Ahimelech the priest. David tells Ahimelech he is on a secret mission on behalf of King Saul. This is certainly not true. Later on, we will find instances of David sinning in the Bible where it is clearly identified as wrong, but not here. In this untruth a possible defense might be his lie was meant to save life, namely his own and his men. This would place his lie in the same category as Rahab saving the Hebrew spies and the Egyptian midwives saving the Hebrew babies. Yet, the threat to human life in this case was not nearly so direct. Plus, there is no specific scripture that later justifies this specific untruth. Thus, the lie does not appear to be justified based upon the evidence provided in the text.
The next interpretive challenge immediately follows. David asks the priest to give him five loaves of bread. He doesn’t stipulate the kind of bread. The priest says all he has is the consecrated bread and adds the only restriction is that the men with David need to have not had relations with women. David affirms that to be the case and doubles down on the idea that they are on a special mission for the king, which they were not. The priest gives the men the older bread then in place for God and immediately replaces it with newly baked conse-- crated bread. The challenge here is Lev. 24:8-9: “Every Sabbath day he shall set it [consecrated bread] in order before the Lord continually; it is an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the Lord’s offerings by fire, his portion forever.” It’s possible to justify David’s eating it by saying the Leviticus text doesn’t say only priests can eat it, so it wasn’t breaking the law. But Jesus said he did break it:“Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions— how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone?” (Matt. 12:3-4). A few verses later Jesus adds: “But if you had known what this means: ‘I desire compassion, rather than sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Matt 12:7). This seems to suggest that the higher need is to be obedient by showing compassion to the hungry rather than use the ceremonial law as an excuse not to be compassionate. The final scene in this chapter has David finding refuge in Gath with the Philistines, Israel’s enemy. When David learned that the King was aware of his past military victories for Israel, he pre-- tended to be insane. This trick removed the King’s concern and showed David’s creativity.
ROMANS 11 Paul says flat out that God has not rejected the Jews. This is a clear refutation of Replacement Theology. It might appear that Jews have totally rejected God, just as Elijah mistakenly believed he was the only faithful Jew left in his day. God disabused Elijah of that error: “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal” (Rom. 11:4). Paul READING FOR MARCH 27, 2025 CONTINUED: ROMANS 11, PSALM 24:7-10 states that, like then, God had a remnant of Jesus-believing Jews in his time. He himself is a prime example. Yes, there are many Jews who have rejected Jesus and have thus received a spirit of stupor. As we discussed about Jesus and his use of parables and with the Pharoah in Romans 9, those who have first hardened their own hearts through rejection of the truth will be further hardened. There is this consequence for rejecting truth.
The good news is this rejection by the Jews has enabled space for Gentile to hear the Gospel and respond in faith. We see how this worked out practically in Paul’s outreach to the Jews in Corinth: “Paul began devoting himself completely to the word, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. But when they resisted and blasphemed, he shook out his garments and said to them, ‘Your blood is on your own heads! I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles’” (Acts 18:5-6). Paul goes on to say that, although this stumble by the Jews has opened the gates for the Gentiles, it does not mean the Jews as a people will never have an opportunity for salvation. He looks at this like a bank shot in basketball. The fact that Gentiles are now entering the kingdom through faith will eventually make the Jews “jealous,” which will in time lead them to believe also.
Paul uses the analogy of the olive tree. Jews were the tree’s branches, but these branches were broken off due to their initial rejection of Jesus. This enabled space for Gentiles to be grafted into the tree. However, because the Jews are naturally olive branches they can be reattached as believers. This will happen (Rom. 11:26)! Also, should any Gentile Christians reject Jesus, as some have recently done, they will be removed from the tree and lose their salvation. How will individual Jews be grafted into the tree? By God’s grace through their placing faith in Jesus. For the most part, this has not happened, yet. When will this happen in greater numbers? From the prophecy in Isaiah 59:20 that Paul quotes, it appears this will happen when Jesus comes to turn Jacob (Israel) to God at His second coming. Does this boggle the mind? That means we’re starting to get it right: “Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways” (Rom. 11:33).
PSALM 24:7-10 In these verses the expression “King of Glory” is used five times. Who is this King of Glory? Three times the answer given is the Lord, also identified as a mighty warrior. Who is this warrior King and Lord? Revelation reveals that He is the Lamb who was sacrificed for our sins: “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful” (Rev. 17:14). That is the Gospel. Victory through death. The forces of evil and sin are finally defeated by Jesus who was given to pay the price for our sins. All those who receive Him by faith as their Savior and Lord are promised to be with Him in Glory as the called, chosen, and faithful ones.
