I am preparing a Bible study based on I Samuel 21 and 22. And as a person reads the story, there is definitely a hero (David) and definitely a villian (Saul), but nobody really acts in a way that is morally pure or that anyone could commend as a role model.
David lies.
Ahimilech disobeys the law.
Doeg gossips and commits mass murder.
Saul orders the slaughter of holy men.
Saul's soldiers refuse to obey the orders of their king.
David pretends to be mentally ill.
David draws to himself a guirilla army of misfits and appears a lot more like Osama Bin Laden than George Washington.
So, how is one supposed to learn from a passage like this? My Reformed/Calvinist upbringing tells me that the Scripture is more about God and his work than about hero worship or finding moral role models. So what might God be saying? I do not seem to see an explicit message in that regard either.
Here is what I think. Sometimes God's Word is more descriptive than prescriptive. Sometimes God's word simply shares stories like David and Doeg with us to let us know that life does not always have easy answers. I think what we are to learn in a story like this is that live is confusing and we are to do are best to be loving and faithful in the midst of situations where the answers are not clear. And as we do so, maybe our job is to simply (or maybe not so simply) trust in God's grace when we don't quite get things right and keep trying to be faithful.
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3 comments:
Timely post.
Last night, I just got done fuming over somebody extracting loads of theological drivel out of the verse "Jesus wept." Of course he threw that verse around in a heated theological battle to diss his adversaries who don't subscribe to his particular systematic doctrine.
He wept. His close friend had died, and he wept. And that is what happened. There is no need for hours of mindless detailed minutia. Sometimes we tend to think that spiritual depth comes from digging into every word and phrase in the Bible. When that does not work, of course we think it's because we aren't studying hard enough.
You are so right. Sometimes God's Word is descriptive. Very well put.
Thank you for this. Life is complicated.
As David Cho said, this is also a timely post for me.
Perhaps if you had a bit wider audience (like say, the ENTIRE Evangelical church), I would be satisfied. But now I feel like you should write a book on this. It would be like the theology of Seinfeld...
Great post, though. Very good for me to think about right now.
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