Samuel- Part 6

If you think of the Bible as a love letter, a tome about God’s passionate heart for you as his creation and his ongoing relationship with us as His people, then maybe 1 Samuel is narrating that stage of a romance when you get to meet the parents.

I say that because this is not only the first really multi-generational narrative of the Bible since Genesis, but one of only a few where we get an introduction to at least one parent or child of every major character. And the results are unsettling.

Pastor Aaron has recounted a few of these meetings in service the last few weeks: Hannah encountering Eli before she becomes Samuel’s mother (1:9-19), the wickedness of Eli’s sons (2:12-24), and later the shortcomings of Samuel’s sons (8:5).  This is one of my favorite books of Scripture, and the teaching on it has been rewarding. However, the writer in me wishes we’d tackled two sticking points:

1) Why do we have two whole books named Samuel when the title character is already dead three-quarters of the way through the first book (and pretty inactive halfway through that book?)

2) Why do so many great men of God seem to be poor fathers?

Literary scholars would call this father-son theme a motif, because it repeats throughout 1 Samuel. Eli is earnest in his priestly duties, but his sons are so lecherous and corrupt that God has Samuel prophesy as a child against them (3:11-17). Likewise, they die in battle (4:11). Yet God redeems Eli’s legacy, in a way, by letting him raise Samuel into one of Israel’s most righteous judges.

But Israel’s elders ostensibly want a king to succeed Samuel because, blameless as he is, his own sons are unfit for his role (8:4-8). Samuel still gets to anoint David, arguably Israel’s greatest and godliest king. Do all of David’s sons prove worthy of his legacy?  In fact, you could make a case that the only man in 1 Samuel who raises a righteous son is Saul, because Jonathan befriends David and his faithfulness helps him to rout a camp of Philistines with his armor-bearer (14:6-14).  Yet Saul is the same king who starts out insecure, grows disobedient, and eventually deteriorates into killing priests and consulting a witch; only to have his and his sons’ deaths foretold (28:15-19). Rough stuff.

Wouldn’t it be easy to infer you can either be a godly man, or a good father, but not both? I can even feel a twinge when my daughter tells me, “You’re the best Daddy,” and fear my judgment is coming! (OK, not really, but after reading 1 Samuel I’ve had to wonder if I seek the best gifts as a father).

But this of course isn’t Samuel’s message at all.  Consider how easy it would have been for God to strike down Saul but spare his righteous son. Then Jonathan is king, and no wars or civil unrest are necessary--the easiest transition yet to a godly leadership for Israel. Right?

    

Maybe that’s easier on Jonathan, but not the best way to build character and faith in God’s people. What God has tried to make so simple and clear is the fact that we cannot arrive at His perfect will through human institutions and conventions. This is not a book about godly men being terrible parents, so much as learning to trust that God alone decides where the lessons we learn and teach pass down beyond our own lifetimes. There is always an anointed leader in God’s design to carry out His plan, even if the next voice of leadership does not come where we would expect it.

God can, and often does, pass the mantle from a righteous father to an equally righteous son like David to Solomon or Abraham to Isaac. But maybe He doesn’t make a habit of it, because we’d get dependent on the tradition or a preordained lineage rather than seek His will for the future. We may each get to have spiritual descendants as well as biological ones, in that sense – just as long as we don’t err by assuming we get to build our own legacies without Him.

Written by: Chad Halcom

Edited by: Brigit Edwards