Week 14 1 Samuel 11-31
I sketched out a graph to trace Saul’s progress as king.
The x-axis was a simple time scale – the period of Saul’s reign.
The y-axis measured Quality of Leadership. It was more complicated and had to consider things like character stability mental-health integrity fairness objectivity rationality. I was asking if Saul was concerned with the betterment of the nation. Did he have a vision for Israel? Did he inspire followers? Was he focussed on concerns of state and the well-being of his citizens? Like that. Multiple factors along the y-axis.
In chapter 11 Saul became king and I started him high on the top-left of the graph.
In 13 he supervised a burnt offering. And in 14 disobeyed explicit battle orders. Serious offenses… Moving right I dropped Saul down a bit. And things continued to go-south.
In 18 David saved Israel from Goliath but Saul got screamingly jealous.
18: Saul set-up David to be killed by enemies.
19: Saul tried to murder David.
19: Saul tried to have David assassinated.
22 23 24 & 26: Saul tried again again again & again to kill fugitive David. Down down down & down drops the line on Saul’s Quality of Leadership chart – it looks like the buying power of the Canadian dollar.
The graph doesn’t lie. Saul seemed like a good guy at first. But he lived to show that good at-firsts don’t necessarily convert to good at-lasts.