READING FOR APRIL 7, 2025: 1 SAMUEL 27, 1 CORINTHIANS 2, PSALM 28:1-5 1 SAMUEL 27 While it might have been wise not to trust in the reassurance Saul gave David at Ziph, his decision to escape to the Philistines seems problematic. There is no indication that he sought God’s direction for this. No word from any Godly source to do this is given in the text. David is aligning himself with a people who worship false gods and oppose God’s people and program. Such a dramatic move affecting 600 men and their families would seem to require definite direction from the Lord. May we give careful consideration about how our decisions impact God’s kingdom. Temporary safety and pleasure are not really kingdom values.
It is the case that David’s decision caused Saul not to be concerned with David any longer. That’s not a justifying result, though. It could be that when we are no longer a threat to Satan, he doesn’t concern himself with us either. That kind of safety is not why God has redeemed us. David was reduced to finding pleasure in the eyes of Achish, a Philistine king. Again, not the ideal goal of a servant of the Almighty God.
David and his men spent their time raiding cities and killing all their inhabitants. Although the cities he chose were indeed enemies of Israel, it is not clear that this was sanctioned by God. The purpose seems to have been to enrich themselves and not leave witnesses alive. They were not fulfilling God’s original mandate to drive out the enemy from the promised land for Israel to inhabit it. When asked by King Achish what they were up to, David lied and said he was attacking locations inhabited by Israel. Achish believed David’s lie and reasoned David’s actions would make him unacceptable to Israel as a future King, thus neutralizing him as a potential threat to the Philistines. Do we know what God’s purpose is for us? If so, are we fulfilling it? Is our measuring stick God’s unchanging word as found in the Bible, or is it physi- cal safety, financial success, and/or approval of our surrounding culture? Think about it.
1 CORINTHIANS 2 This chapter is a continuation of Paul’s instruction on Godly wisdom. Paul uses the device of hyperbole to make a point. He overemphasizes the fact that he “resolved to nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). The point is that Paul did not want the spotlight on his wisdom but on the message of Christ. The fact that Paul claims that his preaching was not particularly good (to paraphrase), should help us in our faith journey as well. When we share the gospel of Jesus Christ to our friends and family, we do not need to have eloquent words or a polished speech that will leave the hearers in awe. If we rely on the Holy Spirit to help us to talk to someone about what it means for me to follow Christ, God’s power is in those words. Paul uses a quotation from Isaiah 64:4, to suggest to the people that the philosophers and Greek and Jewish religious elite of his age were ignorant of
READINGS FOR APRIL 7, 2024 CONTINUED: 1 CORINTHIANS 2, PSALM 28:1-5 the wisdom of God. Because they did not know and love God, these people were not able to see, hear, and comprehend the knowledge of God. And, on many levels this is true. We cannot understand the love of God until we have accepted it freely. We cannot comprehend the sacrifice of Christ until we know that Jesus did it for me/you.
When talking like this, one must be wary of coming off sounding like gnostic teaching. Gnosticism was/is a heresy of the church that emphasized a hidden personal spiritual knowledge that only the enlightened received. They considered the material world as evil and the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of God (https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Gnosticism). The main problem with this teaching (in its simplest form) is that Gnostics believe personal revelation from God as more important than the teaching of the church (i.e., if what I think God is telling me is different than what I was taught in Sunday School then I should automatically reject what I was taught in favor of the self-revelation).
We are not called to that kind of understanding. As Christians, we believe that the Holy Spirit has opened the scriptures up to us as a collective body. We believe that the Holy Spirit helps us to take this book that was written over two thousand years ago and use it to understand how to live in this world right now. We believe that as a church, we can read those Biblical scholars over the centuries and through prayer we can figure out how to live as a follower of Christ in this world today. Through the Holy Spirit, we have the mind of Christ (verse 16).
PSALM 28:1-5 This psalm begins as a song of lament. To lament is “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow” (www.google.com/lament). It is a plea by David for deliverance from his enemies. David pleas that if God does not act on his behalf that he will not survive. David is asking God to repay David’s enemies in the way David believes that he has been mistreated. This request fits the Old Testament theology of “eye for an eye” (Exodus 21:24). In verse 5, David expresses confidence that God will protect him and will destroy his enemies. This may be a hard psalm to read. In our modern sensibilities, we may struggle with the call for God to destroy our enemies. And yet, David’s plea may be the precise thing we need to remember. God hears us when we are angry. God hears us when we are hurting. God hears our lament and is there for us in our time of need. We do not need to sugarcoat our words to God. We can bear our true feelings and desires.
