Week 14 I Samuel
Saul was Israel’s first king, and he started out pretty well. The Lord endorsed him, put his spirit on him, helped him get established. But in chapter thirteen something happens. After that it’s all down, down, down for Saul.
The tricky thing for the bible reader is that what Saul did seems wrong, but it’s also understandable.
What he did was to offer a sacrifice to God. Since he wasn’t a Levite he shouldn’t have. So when Samuel arrived he asked Saul a probing question: what is this you have done?
But Saul had an answer, had his reasons…
My troops were panicking
You didn’t get here in time
The Philistines were ready to attack
A sacrifice needed to be made
These were all true, and under the circumstances made logical sense. But Samuel paid no attention to Saul’s excuses. He just said: how foolish! You have disobeyed the command of the Lord your God. Then he added that the Lord was looking for a king who – unlike Saul – was: a man after his own heart. Obedience and heart.
This juxtaposing of OT-law-and-your-heart has come up before. I saw it in Deuteronomy, quite a few times. Now here it is again. OT obedience isn’t so much looking like a mechanical legalism, isn’t like dancing with a droid. I think it’s more like finding an Andalusian gypsy who wants to fandango.
Notes: quotes from I Samuel 13:11, 13, 14. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is a nice example of religion of the heart.