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- [00:05]
A
Welcome back to A Year in the Bible. If this is part of your daily rhythm listening to this podcast, then we are so glad you're here. We're in First Samuel, chapters 10 through 12 today. We talked about Saul yesterday, but today we're really going to see him emerge as king. Right, C.J.
- [00:23]
B
yep. Good word. So at the very beginning of chapter 10, Saul's anointed by Samuel. Again, we learned about the word anointed in Hannah's song, the idea of pouring oil on someone to set them apart for the Lord. So we see that here and then after being anointed with oil, the spirit of the Lord rushes upon Saul. And this might remind us of people like Samson or Gideon, how the spirit of the Lord all of a sudden comes upon them. And that doesn't necessarily say that everything they do is good and God ordained. It simply suggests that what they're doing is acting on behalf of God and their capacity as being an anointed one. So then we get to the next chapter, and Samuel again chides Israel for rejecting God and selecting a king, the type of king that they want. And eventually they re Samuel reveals Saul through the casting of lots, which is sort of like fancy God ordained prayer, supercharged dice or something like that, I don't know. But God uses them to convey his. His answers to their questions. And Saul was hiding, which doesn't really seem to be the best first impression for a king, but somehow the people are still impressed with his height. Again, this is going back to God doesn't judge kings or people the way we do. They see a tall guy and they think he'd be a powerful warrior. But God looks at the heart. So obviously that's a theme that we're all familiar with and that we'll see more and more throughout Samuel.
- [01:50]
A
So, all right, so Saul is now the people's king. How does he do as king?
- [01:57]
B
He does pretty good to start. So the Ammonites start to bother the Israelites, and the spirit of Lord rushes upon Saul, and he leads an army against them and destroys them. And then those who have been pro Saul from the beginning, they become really zealous. And they say, all those who didn't want Saul to be king, we're going to go and kill them or, you know, whatever harm them, beat them up. And Saul says, well, let's not do that today. There's a victory for the Lord. Let's not do something like that and act rashly. So in this case, it seems like Saul is acting well, okay, but you
- [02:29]
A
said he did good to start. Does that continue?
- [02:32]
B
Well, we're going to see him start to mess up here in the. In the coming chapters. Yeah.
- [02:36]
A
All right, so how do we conclude our chapters today? What happens next?
- [02:40]
B
Yeah, so one thing that Samuel says when he's about to, you know, when he. After he anoints Saul and as people are starting to embrace kingship, he says, fear the Lord and serve him. And that's the key that Samuel leaves Israel with at this point. And I think that that is sort of a way to summarize the heart behind the Old Testament. But really the heart of the New and the heart of the Christian is the idea is to fear the Lord and follow Him. And as we're going to see, Saul doesn't exactly stay on that plan. Whereas David does his best and at least is repentant in his actions, he doesn't always stay on the straight narrow either. But David at least has a heart that's after the Lord. And even though we're getting ahead of ourselves, we need to see that Saul somehow fails. But David ends up being successful in that he follows the Lord. And that ultimately points us to the one who does fear the Lord and obey his commandments in an ultimate sense, just as Samuel asked. And that leads us to Jesus, who is our ultimate king.
- [03:44]
A
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Like you said, David is to come. I still think that gives us a picture of how we're to view Saul and to view David. So what do we see about the Lord in these chapters?
- [03:56]
B
Yeah, so again, he uses people of mixed motives to work his plans in the world. The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Saul and. And even though, as we see he's going to make a lot of mistakes, the Lord still used those mistakes to his ends. And I think this also gives us a reason to sort of pause and reflect on our own lives. Do we fear the Lord? Do we try to obey his commands? Are we listening to Samuel's advice as Christians who are now trying to follow Jesus as best we can?
- [04:26]
A
Yeah, I think those are really important things for us to consider. I think my takeaway here is something that I saw drown out in the study content for today. And that was from 1 Samuel 12. And that verse says, the Lord will not abandon his people because of his great name and because he has determined to make you his own people. And so in the midst of, you know, the people making this choice with Saul, Saul seemingly starting out great, but we know what's to come here. The Lord is just saying, I will not abandon you because I have determined to make you my people. And so I love that. I thought that that was a really great thing to hold onto as we continue throughout this book. And if you're reading along with us and you want to go a little bit deeper into portions like that, we encourage you to grab the studies. You can find those at a link in the show notes. But of course, we'll be back here every day to break down as much as we can of the chapters in just a few minutes. So we'll see you back for that tomorrow.