My site is for uplifting and encouraging those that need spiritual advice and guidance.
Author: Shaunelius Sterns
I have been married to my wonderful husband for 21 years now. I am a Christian, poet, singer, songwriter, and artist. I have five beautiful children. I enjoy writing and reading my Bible. I also love to pray for others. I love nature and being outside on sunny days. I love spending time with my family and watching shows that makes me laugh.
It takes intentionality to reflect on Christ during the busy seasons of our lives. Below, you’ll find an excerpt from the Preaching the Word Commentary on John. We’ve grabbed the section that covers John 1:1-3, a great section for meditating on the eternal Christ and person of Jesus.
The Greatness of the Eternal Christ
It is rightly said that each of the Gospels presents Christ with a distinctive emphasis. Matthew emphasizes his kingship, Mark his servanthood, Luke his manhood, and John his Godhood. Certainly all of the Gospels present all four truths, but their separate emphases have allowed them unique functions in telling the story of Christ.
INTRO TO JOHN
John is unique in his powerful presentation of Jesus as the great Creator-God of the universe. His massive vision of Christ has been used countless times to open the eyes of unbelievers to who Jesus is and the way of redemption.
This Gospel’s continuing effect on Christians is equally profound because in John’s account believers find an ongoing source for expanding their concept of the Savior’s greatness. The serious student of John will find that each time he returns to the Gospel, Christ will be a little bigger – something like Lucy’s experience with the lion Aslan (the Christ symbol in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia) as she again gazed into his large, wise face.
“Welcome, child,” he said.
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
My hope is that as we work our way through the wonders of this book, we will find Christ bigger and bigger and bigger.
The prologue to John’s Gospel (vv. 1-18) is considered to be one of the most sublime sections in all of Scripture. Some believe it was an early Christian “Hymn of the Incarnate Word,” for Christ’s incarnation is its subject, and it is marvelously poetic. Even more, it introduces us to some of the major ideas of the book: the cosmic Christ who came as light into the world, suffered rejection, but gave “grace upon grace” (1:16, RSV) to those who received him. This hymn gives us a sense of the matchless greatness of Christ (vv. 1-3), the greatness of his love (vv. 4-13), and the greatness of his grace (vv. 14-18).
As John begins this introductory song, the force of what he says is so staggering that the words almost seem to bend under the weight they are made to bear. The opening three verses are an amazingly congealed expression of the greatness of Christ.
THE GREATNESS OF CHRIST (VV. 1-3)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (vv. 1-3)
ETERNALLY PREEXISTENT
“In the beginning was the Word.” There never was a time when Christ did not exist because the word “was” is in the Greek imperfect tense, which means “was continuing.” In fact, the entire first verse bears this sense. “In the beginning was continuing the Word, and the Word was continuing with God, and the Word was continually God.” Or as one of my friends accurately (though ungrammatically) concluded, “Jesus always was wasing!” That is precisely it. Jesus Christ is preexistent. He always was continuing. Christ is eternal.
If you are like me, this kind of thinking makes for a super-headache. Our minds look backward until time disappears and thought collapses in exhaustion. Thus we begin our thoughts of the greatness of Christ. (The same thought can be found in 2 Corinthians 8:9, Philippians 2:6, and Colossians 1:17.)
ETERNALLY IN RELATIONSHIP
Next the apostle adds, “and the Word was with God.” Literally, “the Word was continually toward God.” The Father and the Son were continually face to face. The preposition “with” bears the idea of nearness, along with a sense of movement toward God. That is to say, there has always existed the deepest equality and intimacy in the Holy Trinity.
Again our minds stagger as we think of Jesus as always having continued (without beginning and without end) in perfect joyous intimacy with the Father.
ETERNALLY GOD
Moreover, as the final phrase of verse 1 adds, “and the Word was God.” The exact meaning is that the Word was God in essence and character. He was God in every way, though he was a separate person from God the Father. The phrase perfectly preserves Jesus’ separate identity, while also stating that he is God. This was his continuing identity from all eternity. He was God constantly.
The simple sentence of verse 1 is the most compact and pulsating theological statement in all of Scripture. Jesus was always existing from all eternity as God, in perfect fellowship with God the Father and (though not mentioned) the Holy Spirit. He is the cosmic Christ.
Learn More!
Did you enjoy this excerpt? We pulled it straight from the Preaching the Word Commentary.
Click here to get a copy!
But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.
Luke 6:35 KJV
https://bible.com/bible/1/luk.6.35.KJV
When you download the app, you can get this Bible and many others for free, including other books as well. Download the app today and start looking at the Word of God in a brand new way. God bless.
The Berean Standard Bible (BSB) is a completely new English translation of the Holy Bible effective for public reading, study, memorization, and evangelism. Based on the best available manuscripts and sources, each word is connected back to Greek or Hebrew to produce a transparent text that can be studied for its root meanings. It is the result of a careful translation and styling process to maintain core meanings and produce an English text of high literary quality.
This version contains the full BSB text, footnotes, section headings, and cross references. Also included are translation tables, lexicons, outlines, and summaries. The Berean Bible Translation Committee works with three levels of input and decision making. Public comment and evaluation is received from teachers, pastors, and students on freely available translation tables. On the next level, a translation team consisting of the Bible Hub and Discovery Bible teams handles the core work and coordination. This team has been responsible for a large part of the translation, styling, consistency checking, and proofing. Supervising the translation process, finalized translation decisions, and directed the use of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic sources is the Bible translation team, which includes Dr. Grant Osborne (NT lead), Dr. Eugene H. Merrill (OT lead), Dr. Gary Hill, Dr. Maury Robertson, Dr. Ulrik Sandborg-Petersen, and Dr. Baruch Korman.
Free offer ends July 31, 2022. Click below to get a copy today!
TAP HERE for the Berean Standard Bible
From the Heart of the Giver
There once was a person who gave everything he had. He did it because much had been given to him. Nothing he had was his before it was given, so he did not hesitate to give in the same way that it had been given to him. If he had believed that what he was given was his own, due to his own talents, his own strength, his own efforts, then he would have struggled to share his wealth. “But it was never mine to keep,” he thought. “So if it is not mine in the first place, how can I not give back in the same way that it was given to me?”
Whether the man had a lot or had little, at any given point in time, his attitude was always the same. When he had much, he was able to give away much. When he had little, he still gave away a portion of what he had. And because he did not hold on to what he had been given—because he did not keep it all for himself—his heart was pure. He was more easily able to remember that everything he had been given, in the first place, was given to him freely, as a gift.
“How could he not give in the same way that he had been given?” he asked himself. “And what if his giving encouraged more giving in others,” he thought. The gift will keep on giving, then. “It will grow and produce and spread,” he thought, “if I do not hold on to it, keeping it to myself.” It is from a pure heart of the giver that a gift multiples—its good increasing—again and again.
When I speak of this to you, it is not to lecture you. For I am your Father, and I teach you many things. It is in my love that I teach, that I shepherd you, that I instruct you of what is good for you. I do this because my love for you is deep and wide and beyond measure. I don’t hold back on my love for you. I want you to understand how giving from the resources I give you is good for your heart.
When you forget to give to others what you have been given, you forget Me. You forget my love for you. You forget that I have given you everything. I don’t say this to make you feel guilt. I say this because I want you to grow in your love—to receive more and more of what I have to give you. And when you give what you have been given, you are practicing the same love I give to you. You are giving from my own heart. You are becoming more and more like Me.
Think of the ways I give to you—think of the ways in which I love you. I love you from an abundant love, from a love that does not skimp and worry and reserve itself for good behavior. I give because I am love. I give because it is who I am. And because you are my child—my son, my daughter, and all I have is yours, I ask you to follow Me and give in the same ways that I give: give from knowing that all that you have has been given to you. Give from knowing you are loved. Give from knowing that nothing you give to others will be wasted. For when you give with the pure heart I give you—from the place of knowing that all I have is yours, and all you have is mine—we are giving together; we are participating in the action together. And you will feel fulfilled in how you give; you will be filled with joy in what you give. For you will not be doing it alone. You will be doing it with Me.
Do not forget my love for you. And my delight in fathering you. You are my child. You are the one I love. I would give everything again and again for you. And now I invite you to do the same. Practice giving from your full heart. Practice giving from what I give. Then nothing will ever be wasted. It will grow and grow and grow.
Exercise:
Jennifer and I just love this invitation. What it is, is an invitation into an entirely new kind of life. And it’s a challenge too, because it is not an easy thing to move into. It takes some real trust. It takes a step out into the unknown—with our heavenly dad. It’s an invitation into life where we begin to grasp the fact that everything He has is ours.
Scripture says, “Long before he laid down earth’s foundations,” God chose us and “settled on us as the focus of his love.” That’s from Ephesians chapter 1. He chose you to be His beloved son, His beloved daughter. He chose me. He “predestined us for adoption to himself.” He gave us “full legal adoption as his children.” That’s from Galatians chapter 4. And “because we’re his,” wrote the apostle Paul—because we are His very own sons and daughters—we can “access everything our Father has.
Let me say that again. We get everything. Because we are His, we get access to everything our Father has.
It’s hard to get your mind around, isn’t it? It sure puzzled and amazed King David. Looking at everything God created, David asked: “Compared to all this cosmic glory, why would you bother with puny, mortal man or be infatuated with Adam’s sons?” (TPT, Psalm 8:4)
We don’t deserve it, and it doesn’t make sense—but we get it nonetheless. God, in his outrageous love, made us—you and me—His heirs. He gives us access to everything. So, whether we see it or not, whether we’re willing to accept it or not, we live in a state of abundance—not the kind of scarcity that our world and our culture tries to convince us we live in. And so, we actually do not have to worry and scrape and compete and protect ourselves all the time—like our culture teaches us to do.
Because we are His, we can access everything our Father has. So, all we need to do is just act like sons and daughters. We just need to live into our inheritance as beloved sons and daughters. We need to trust Him. Trust that He will come through for us. We need to relent and surrender into trust—knowing that we are blessed, richly, now. Knowing that we are cared for, always. Knowing that we will continue to be blessed . . . in surprising ways and perfect timing.
And why? Why have we been so blessed? Well, we’re blessed so that we can do what our heavenly dad does. We are blessed so we can bless others. So we can give away, freely, what we’ve been given. So we can give knowing that we’ll always be taken care of by our heavenly dad.
Paul knew it. He wrote, “I am convinced that my God will fully satisfy every need you have, for I have seen the abundant riches of glory revealed to me through the Anointed One, Jesus Christ!” That from Philippians chapter 4. King David knew it. He sang, “The Lord is my best friend and my shepherd. I always have more than enough.”
Let’s go back to what Holy Spirit said just moments ago. He said: “Do not forget my love for you. And my delight in fathering you. You are my child. You are the one I love. I would give everything again and again for you. And now I invite you to do the same. Practice giving from your full heart. Practice giving from what I give. Then nothing will ever be wasted. It will grow and grow and grow.”
I Have So Much More to Give You In a world that tells you to take what is offered to you—and hold on to what you have; that nothing you have is enough—it is difficult to not live in fear. You are being taught a mindset of scarcity—that there is a limit to resources, a limit to what is available to you. So you believe you had better hold onto what you have. It might be taken from you. It might be stolen from your very hands. All the things you worked so hard for. All the things you’re owed. All the things you feel you deserve. And this mindset limits your freedom, your ability to receive joy and live unencumbered by the rules of a world that only wants to tear you down. But not Me. I do not tear you down. I have so much for you. And I want to show you how to release the fear you have about not having enough resources. I am enough for you. I have everything you need. It is time to release from your grip now all the fear about what you believe you lack. From intelligence to appearance to material wealth to relationships, what are you believing I don’t provide? How are you believing it is not enough? From this attitude of scarcity comes an attitude of withholding. When you believe you are not enough, you try to look everywhere for what you believe you have not received. And that is when you don’t offer what you have been given to others. You don’t believe you’re smart enough—so you don’t offer your opinions. You don’t believe you are rich enough, so you don’t offer your material resources to others. You don’t believe you are interesting enough, so you don’t initiate contact with other people. Your warped ideas about who you are and what you have been given is robbing you of the rich, full life I want to give you. When you live thinking you do not measure up—that everything you are and everything you have is lacking, you bury your talents in the ground. You do not trust Me or love Me. You forget that all I am is yours and all you are is mine. You are not alone here, son, daughter. You have been given much. It is time to bring what I’ve given you into the light. So trust Me. Watch what I do with what you give. You trust Me with much, and much will be given to you in return. You trust me with little, you are squandering Life that comes from faith, faith in Me—faith in my resources and resourcefulness more than your own. Do you remember what I did with the one loaf and the seven fish in the face of thousands of hungry people? I fed them. I turned what was given to Me into more than enough for them. I more than satisfied their hunger. So, trust Me. Trust Me to come through for you. Trust Me with what you have been given. Trust Me with your provision. Trust Me with your gifts, your time, your money, your talents. All that you have is just a starting point. I have so much more to give you. And I want to bless you over and over and over again. What is your loaf? What is your fish? Hand over your basket. Watch what I do when I hand it back. Exercise: The apostle Paul gave us a great picture of trust when he wrote about the church in Macedonia in 2 Corinthians chapter 8. And the picture is striking. And challenging. It sure challenges Jennifer and me. Because Paul kind of called out the Corinthians. No, I shouldn’t say “called out.” He called them up—up into a new kind of life, a better way of living. He called the Corinthians into God’s way of thinking. He called them out of a scarcity mindset and into a mindset of abundance. He called the Corinthians into a world where things like the miracle of loaves and fishes actually happen. And we want to live in that kind of world. Here, Paul wrote this: “For even during a season of severe difficulty and tremendous suffering, [the Macedonian church] became even more filled with joy. From the depths of their extreme poverty, super-abundant joy overflowed into an act of extravagant generosity. For I can verify that they spontaneously gave, not only according to their means but far beyond what they could afford” (2 Corinthians 8:2-3). The Macedonians were dealing with difficult circumstances themselves—persecution and poverty—circumstances that would make the rest of us pull in, protect ourselves, hold tightly to what we do have and make sure we have enough to get us through the difficult time. For most of us, if we found ourselves in those kinds of circumstances, giving and helping would probably fall by the wayside. But the Macedonians did something different. They gave anyway; they gave above and beyond. They showed radical trust and gave with radical generosity. And here’s what blows Jennifer and me away most: Not only did the Macedonians give and give generously. Paul wrote that they “actually begged . . . for the privilege of sharing in this ministry.” That is from 2 Corinthians chapter 8 verses 4-5. They begged for the privilege of helping people in need, people who were hurting and lost and confused.
How to Live Deeper in the Kingdom
My capacity is not your capacity. And I want to increase your capacity to receive Me. Because I want to give you so much more. And what I give you is good. It is always more than enough. And this plentitude is something you can test: you can test whether what I give you is what you need to love well today, or serve well today, or bless others today. Go ahead. Test it. Because what you’ll find is that you are never lacking in the gifts of the Kingdom.
But you must desire what I offer. You must want what I give, more than the counterfeit “gifts” this world gives you . . . and that takes time to learn.
The world is not your enemy. When I say “things of this world,” I do not mean you have to shut yourself away and be afraid of cities or technology or new ideas or what are considered human advancements. I have given my sons and daughters the ability to create and dream and consider how problems can be solved. But . . . it is also in this world where ideas are planted and promulgated that are not from Me. And you need to discern what is good for you—and what will lead to the death of your soul.
I am always leading you deeper into the kingdom. There is so much I want to reveal to you. It is beyond what you can imagine and see right now. But with each step you take in trusting Me, I entrust more of the kingdom to you. Each time you say yes, each acceptance of my healing in you, can lead to my love breaking through in ways you need it most. For there are many broken places in your heart that I have come to mend. Any place in your heart that is broken—places where lies have come or things have been done or choices you have made that have wounded your heart—I will repair and make new, if you want Me to.
If these places in your heart are not made new, you limit your ability to receive blessing from Me. For healing requires faith and obedience, and you must trust Me to heal you. You must believe that I can, indeed, do it. Do you? Do you believe I can do it? Then the emotional scars within you will be smoothed over. You will feel the scars, but my love will make you new. You will not be held back by their effects any longer. So trust in Me. Trust in Me.
Do you know that I love to garden? I love to till the soil, restore the earth, bring nutrients to the soil that has been hardened and forgotten and unused. I tend to it, knowing what a plant needs to thrive there. I provide the quiet rich earth where the seed, once planted, can leave behind its outer shell and die. And then the plant can shoot forth new life from within and reach for the sun. Water and light and food grow the plant so there is nothing holding it back. And I tend to the weeds around each plant in my garden. They grow up together, the weeds and the good plants. And the plants must trust Me to get rid of the weeds that are not supposed to be there. For they stifle growth. And they prevent the plant from thriving. Do you trust Me, as the gardener, to protect you, in this world of many dangers and threats, to give you what you need to thrive? Will you work with Me so I can weed out what needs, right now, to go?
All that I have is yours. I want to give you more and more of Me, give you with more good things to do and see. But you must accept that what I give you is everything you need to thrive, right here, right now. Everything you need to thrive is available to you. For I am available to you. And when you ask Me for help, when you seek more healing, more breakthrough from hardened soil, I will ask you to look at what I have given you already, and I will ask you to trust Me to do great things with the gifts you already have. Use what I have given you to seek Me, and you will find Me. And more of Me will be given to you. Remember, I increase your capacity to receive more and live even more fully in Me. Do you want to do that? Are you willing to trust and follow Me?
Exercise:
Our Father God gives us everything we need to live and thrive. We lack nothing—unless, of course, we reject His gifts and His provision. Now, you might respond, “I don’t reject those things! I welcome His help!” But we do reject His gifts and provision. We do it all the time. It’s our nature. It’s been our human nature since the first man and the first woman rejected Him so long ago. And this rejection becomes ingrained in our rhythms and habits and the way we view ourselves and the world—and we don’t even realize we’re doing it.
Our heavenly dad holds nothing back from us. He would never withhold His love or mercy or grace. He isn’t that kind of father. He sent His only begotten son to be tortured and to die a horrific death on a cross, so that we might live—so that we might live a life of fullness and beauty and adventure, forever. That’s the kind of father He is.
And He’ll never change. Because He doesn’t change, and He never will. His generosity will never wane. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” That’s from James chapter 1, verse 17.
Do you believe this? That God cares for you and provides for you and always will?
Are you living like you believe it?
Holy Spirit just told us how this works. He said: “My capacity is not your capacity. And I want to increase your capacity to receive Me. Because I want to give you so much more. And what I give you is good.” He wants to teach us to stop rejecting His gifts and His provision. He wants to guide us into lives where we trust Him and surrender into abundance. He wants to wake us to the reality that we are favored sons and daughters of a good and powerful King—and not orphans, who must provide for themselves in order to survive in this cruel, cold world.
What do you think about this? Do you want it to be true? Do you want to trust Him a bit more, to open your heart a bit more, and learn to receive a lot more?
Do you remember Jesus’ parable of the sower in the field? Here is how Matthew the Apostle captured what Jesus said: “Consider this: There was a farmer who went out to sow seeds. As he cast his seeds, some fell along the beaten path and the birds came and ate them. Other seeds fell onto gravel that had no topsoil. The seeds quickly shot up, but when the days grew hot, the sprouts were scorched and withered because they had insufficient roots. Other seeds fell among the thorns and weeds, so when the seeds sprouted, so did the weeds, crowding out the good plants. But other seeds fell on good, rich soil that kept producing a good harvest. Some yielded thirty, some sixty, and some even one hundred times as much as he planted! If you’re able to understand this, then you need to respond.” That is from Matthew chapter 13, verses 3 through 9.
And then Jesus explained to his disciples what his parable meant. Here, again, is how Matthew captured it in chapter 13 : “The seed that fell on the beaten path represents the heart of the one who hears the message of the kingdom realm but doesn’t understand it. The Adversary then comes and snatches away what was sown into his heart.” That is verse 19.
Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever read something in Scripture or heard a sermon on a particular topic, and then just ignored or rejected what it was saying? Have you ever heard the truth, when you really didn’t want to hear it, and just let it pass you by?
Think of a time when this might have happened in your life.
Jesus continued explaining the parable in verses 20 and 21. He said, “The seed sown on gravel represents the person who gladly hears the kingdom message, but his experience remains shallow. Shortly after he hears it, troubles and persecutions come because of the kingdom message he received. Then he quickly falls away, for the truth didn’t sink deeply into his heart.”
Have you ever felt like that? Have you ever gotten excited about the truth of Jesus—maybe at a weekend retreat or a conference or a concert—and then just had it fade away? Maybe when you got back to real life or maybe when your life got a bit harder than it had been?
Jesus explained the next kind of soil in verse 22: He said, “The seed sown among weeds represents the person who receives the message, but all of life’s busy distractions, his divided heart, and his ambition for wealth result in suffocating the kingdom message and prevent him from bearing spiritual fruit.”
Have you ever felt like that? I think a lot of us have. With our lives filled with so many things—work and worry, competition and striving, comforts and distractions and ways to numb ourselves—it’s no surprise that our hearts can become divided. It’s no surprise that, when we begin to choose to make some of these things priorities, they can simply crowd out the truth of Jesus and keep Him from working in our lives.
And finally, Jesus explained the last kind of soil in verse 23: He said, “As for the seed that fell upon good, rich soil, it represents the hearts of people who hear and fully embrace the message of heaven’s kingdom realm. Their lives bear good fruit—some yield a harvest of thirty, sixty, even one hundred times as much as was sown.”
Do you want that? I sure do. So how to do get there? Well, remember, Holy Spirit told us that He loves to garden. He loves to till the soil, restore the earth, bring nutrients—so that the soil of our hearts can become good, rich soil. And He asked us a direct question: “Do you trust Me, as the gardener, to protect you, in this world of many dangers and threats, to give you what you need to thrive? Will you work with Me so I can weed out what needs, right now, to go?
So, now, friend, what do you say? Will you say yes, right now, to Jesus?
Jesus, I do trust You. But help me to trust you more. Come and work in my heart. I give you permission, now, to do whatever work you want to do there—even in those deep and dark places in my heart I’d rather keep hidden. I give you access to all of it, to all of me. So, come Lord Jesus. Come and bring your love and care and goodness into my heart and into my life.
In your name I pray. Amen.
Experience the Rush podcast—and encounter Holy Spirit in your modern life.
“Feed your body as well as your soul.” – Shaunelius L. Sterns
The New American Commentary collects the best in contemporary evangelical scholarship in a series that examines the entire Bible in depth. This commentary consistently supports the inerrancy of Scripture and contributing scholars all hold explicit commitments to Scripture’s infallibility. Its distinctive perspective is a focus on the theological ideas springing from Scripture. Along with the textual grounding of an expository commentary, the New American Commentary also focuses on the broader strokes of theology developed by each book, and interprets each book as a theological unity. Rooted in conservative theology, the New American Commentary also directly engages a wide range of theological and exegetical issues raised by contemporary biblical scholarship.
Based on the NIV Bible text, the New American Commentary offers a verse-by-verse analysis of the Scriptures. A mid-level commentary, its scholarship reflects comprehensive biblical research in original languages, but avoids overly-technical prose to maintain accessibility to readers without a seminary background.
On Sale Now!
New American Commentary (42 Vols.)
In First Samuel, we see Israel transition from a system of Judges to a monarchy. Although the narrative does give us a close-up view of what got the nation to this point, it’s helpful to zoom out and examine the factors at play. Why would Israel prefer a system like the other nations? Let’s examine the 5 reasons Israel wanted Saul as king, according to the New American Commentary.
The Lord Gives Israel a King “Such as All Other Nations Have”
This second major section of 1, 2 Samuel details the outworking of one of the Torah’s most important predictions, the transfer of supreme social influence in Israelite culture from judges and Levites to kings. 1 Samuel 8:1-14:51 functions as a historical commentary on Deut 16:18-17:20 and provides insights into both the proximate and underlying causes for Israel’s immutable decision to be ruled by an earthly king. As presented in 1 Samuel 8, the following political, military, and spiritual factors underlay Israel’s demand for a leadership change:
1. The failure to establish a system producing an adequate number of qualified judges to lead Israel (8:3-5; cf. Deut 16:18).
In particular, the ability of the judgeship system to provide a system of succession failed. Four different judges were mentioned in the Bible as having sons who held positions of leadership following their fathers’ deaths. In three of the cases–Gideon’s, Eli’s, and Samuel’s–the sons were portrayed as unworthy successors. In the one instance where apparently successful succession did occur–Jair–it does not appear to have been carried on past one generation (Judg 10:4).
2. The desire of the people to have a national, rather than local or regional, government (cf. 8:4).
Samuel is the first judge in the Bible who was accorded truly national status; eleven times in the Hebrew Bible, Samuel is noted as leading, or at least being influential, throughout all Israel. Biblical narrative accounts give no suggestion that any of the judges prior to Samuel ministered to all Israel.
Samuel’s influence as both prophet and judge exceeded his regional boundaries, suggesting that he was a transitional figure, preparing Israel for more formal national leadership. His leadership over extensive regions indicates that Israel was moving away from the Torah ideal of numerous simultaneous judgeships (Deut 16:18). Likely this situation came about because of a lack of qualified candidates in many localities (cf. 8:2-3), reflective of the generally degraded state of Israelite society at that time. While exercising less control than a king, Samuel’s career seems a necessary event in preparing Israel for monarchy.
3. The perceived need for more human military leadership in armed conflicts against other nations (cf. 8:20).
Israel’s elders considered the tribes’ external military threats to be sufficiently serious to warrant a fundamental change in leadership style. It is reasonable to assume that economic considerations, especially the desire of wealthy Israelites to preserve their wealth from foreign confiscation, played a key role in the call for a strengthened military structure.
4. The desire of the people to have a form of national government that was “like the other nations” (cf. 8:5, 20).
The Torah had foreseen a day when Israel would desire a king “like the nations” (Deut 17:14) surrounding them, and in the latter part of Samuel’s career that day came. The Torah implicitly suggests this event would be undesirable, since Israel was to be fundamentally different from the other nations; the Lord was to be their king, with the nation set apart for service to their divine monarch.
5. The more fundamental reason for Israel desiring a king, however, was spiritual: they had rejected God as their king (8:7).
The Bible indicates that the concept of the Lord’s kingship over Israel was as old as the foundations of Israelite society, being traced to Moses (Deut 33:5) and acclaimed by non-Israelites (Num 23:21). Any attempt to have an earthly king to take the Lord’s rightful place (cf. 8:20) would end catastrophically.
Remarkably enough, the Lord honored the people’s request, giving them precisely what they requested–Saul, a king “such as all the other nations have” (cf. 8:5). Saul, son of Kish, was as physically impressive and spiritually blind as the pagans. Saul’s unfitness to lead the Lord’s people is foreshadowed in the opening narrative portrait of Israel’s first king (9:3-10:16). There Saul is depicted as a bad shepherd, a metaphorical image in Semitic societies of an incompetent or ruinous leader.
Saul’s Spiritual Incompetence
This dark hint is reinforced in the writer’s selection of narrative details that illustrate spiritual incompetence of almost legendary proportions. Because of his spiritual obtuseness, Saul was able to live within five miles of Samuel, the most significant spiritual figure since Moses, and yet be completely ignorant of the prophet-reformer’s existence. So complete was Saul’s darkness that he had to be told by his servant that a prophet could help him, and even then Saul assumed that prophets needed to be hired to perform their divine task. He displayed a fundamental ignorance of basic Torah regulations in such areas as diet and military conduct, and when he did institute Torah-based reforms, he exempted himself from them. His hypocrisy was most glaring when he attempted to justify his failure to destroy the Amalekites (15:9; Deut 25:19) and when he sought guidance from sources explicitly forbidden by the Torah (28:3-19; Deut 18:10-14).
Clearly deliberate parallels are established between Saul and Achish, the Philistine king of Gath, further reinforcing the notion that Saul was a king “such as all the other nations have”. Both were impressed with David and had him serve as a personal bodyguard; both believed David was a serious threat to Saul; and both misjudged David, though in opposite ways.
The biblical writer passes judgment on Saul for his failure to live up to fundamental Torah guidelines. But more importantly the writer faults Israel for desiring a king who was not “after God’s own heart,” that is, wholeheartedly devoted to God.
Get More Like It!
Did the above commentary interest you? Click the link below to continue learning!
New American Commentary (42 Vols.)
“Life is beautiful, but everyday is what you make it.”
Food for the Soul 