There is a rhyming of ideas here.
Eli was a Judge of Israel and had 2 sons that went bad when he was old. 👴🏽👳🏾♂️👳🏽♂️
Samuel was a Judge of Israel and had 2 sons that went bad when he was old. 👨🏽🦳🧔🏽🧔🏽♂️
These bad sons are part of the reason that the people come to Samuel asking for a king. No wonder Samuel is taking it a bit personally.
I don’t know if the people thought that somehow a king wouldn’t be capable of being just as wicked as the sons of Eli or just as crooked as the sons of Samuel…. Or what.
Maybe they thought they needed separation of Church and State. 👀
Their stated causes were:
- To be like the other nations. 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇨🇦🇮🇱
- The king will be the judge, not the priests. 👨🏻⚖️⚖️
- To be a military leader. 🪖🎖️
That 2nd one is actually the big one. It’s mentioned 3 times in chapter 8; in verses 5, 6, and 20.
Josephus comments that Samuel’s sons are an example of how sometimes bad parents will have kids that turn out great, and godly parents will have kids that turn out bad. Maybe. And who is Josephus or who am I to judge the prophet Samuel? But, have you noticed there is not so much as a reference to Mrs. Samuel? Did you notice that Samuel spends basically his whole life traveling the length and breadth of Israel settling disputes and trying to get the people to know God’s ways? Does it remind you a little of Moses wearing himself out trying to judge all the cases from dawn to dusk? Maybe it would’ve helped if dad had spent more time with his wife and sons.
You’ve probably heard the term “golf-widow.” That’s a woman whose husband spends all his free time at the golf course.
⛳️🏌️
There are ministry-widows (and widowers- but don’t get me started on THAT! 🤨) and orphans too. If you know me personally, you’ve probably, (at least once), heard me opine about the state of the church. When 10-20% of the people do 100% of the work, someone is going to get burned out while others are basically freeloaders consumers.
I don’t automatically condemn the “consumer.” Maybe he or she is a babe in Christ 👶🏽 who needs to be fed the milk of the word, 🍼patted on the back a lot, and have their poopy 💩 spiritual and moral messes cleaned up. Maybe it’s a saint who is going thru or has recently been thru a LOT and they have nothing to contribute at the moment. But neither of those conditions should be permanent. Babies are supposed to grow up. The empty are meant to be filled. But if we lead people to believe that you are a consumer until you get a gilded invitation from Heaven 📬, graduate from seminary 🎓, and get assigned a role at church ⛪️ in order to become a contributor, we perpetuate a burnout-prone system.
I’m not saying we just grab a warm body and stick them in front of class, (even if they have been a member for ages). I believe in study and mentoring and coaching and critique and developing people’s gifts and skills. We need more of this in the Body of Christ. But it doesn’t need to be some huge branded thing with curriculum and flow charts and whatnot. We just need the other 80% of normal saints to flip from:
“What can church do for me?”
To
“What can I do with the LORD for others?”
And we need it all to be drenched in prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit with no other purpose than to partner with and please the Lord. Meaning: the Bride of Christ needs to start thinking more like a bride and less like a business mogul or a poor person on welfare.
😐 You’re getting preachy again.
😒 I know. I’m sorry.
🤔 Remind me where you were you going with all this??
🤨 Samuel. His family is barely mentioned. His sons became crooked. He spent all his time doing ministry. Maybe that was a problem. Maybe we could learn something.
😌 Oh. Yeah. Right. Continue…
Ministry burnout is REAL. One thing I couldn’t understand when I was a kid was how on earth ministers could get tired and need vacation. After all, they only worked one day a week.
😏
Then I went into ministry.
Ahh… 💡Now I understand.
For context, I grew up learning how to work. We did farm chores and gardening. We hauled wood and cleaned. We even hauled rocks. If you don’t know what “hauling rocks” is, it’s basically what it sounds like.
🪨🪨🪨 You pick up rocks and haul them from the place you don’t want them to be to the place you do want them to be. Missouri is a very rocky state. 🪨 Very. 🪨 Rocky. 🪨So I know what it is to put in a full day of physical labor. 🥵
Y’all, I recall a particular instance in a service where I sang my soul out on ONE song and afterwards felt as if I had just been hauling rocks all afternoon. My legs were weak, and I was exhausted. And I REALLY wanted to sit down and have a glass of water. After ONE song. 😳
You can’t see it, but when people do ministry and really pour their hearts out, it is very depleting. It may not look like your preacher or worship minister of Bible teacher is doing much, but what you can’t see is the spiritual exertion and life being drained out of them. You also don’t see the extra spiritual arrows fired at them because they are a threat to the kingdom of darkness. 🎯
I say all that to get back to Samuel…(again)
Did he prioritize ministry over his family? Did he ever take seasons of rest? Or did he maybe get a bit of a savior-complex thinking that he was the only thing standing between Israel and idolatry? Did his sons grow up jaded about ministry? Or maybe jealous that dad spent more time with other-people’s kids? They certainly figured out that ministry is where money came from. That’s a danger for “preacher’s kids.” This story of how Samuel’s sons turned out makes me sad. It still happens today. (I once tried to share the gospel with a drunk guy in downtown San Antonio. He told me his dad was a Baptist preacher. 😞)
If you serve in full-time ministry or bi-vocational ministry… (and, ho boy am I a fine one to talk because – hello – Miss Burn-Herself-Out-Once-A-Decade-For-Good-Measure here, but…), we would really do others, ourselves, the kingdom of God, and the public in general a huge favor to develop some “work-life-balance” skills. 😬
When you work, work hard.
When you rest, rest hard.
Jesus said, “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” A wise, experienced couple at Bible college told me, “When you say ‘yes’ to something, you’re saying ‘no’ to something else. And when you say ‘no’ to something, you’re saying ‘yes’ to something else.”
Before you say “yes” to something in ministry, be sure you understand what you will have to say “no” to , to make it happen. It helps to get really clear on your “yes” so you can be graciously firm on your “no.”
Choose wisely.
And speaking of choices…
The Lord tells Samuel to give the people what they want. They will come to regret it, but when that day comes, there will be no unmaking this decision.
ON A WILD DONKEY CHASE 🫏🫏🫏
Or- KJV: A WILD-ASS CHASE 🤭
The set-up of circumstances here is way too uncanny to be coincidence.
We meet Saul – the drop-dead-gorgeous son of a powerful Benjamite named Kish. He’s also taller than everyone around him. Kinda like this:
Saul and one of his dad’s servants spend 3 days on a wild donkey chase all over the territory of Benjamin.
☝🏼😌 To clarify, the chase was wild, the donkeys were tame.
While they are doing that, the Lord is giving Samuel information about the future king situation and that he will meet the future king tomorrow. 👑
At the same time, there is a scheduled sacrifice for the people in a certain city. (I think it’s either Gibeon [Zuph] or Ramah the hometown of Samuel). A group of important men have particularly been invited for this feast. 🍖
The Lord is going to bring these 3 distinct timelines together. None of these people know anything about one another. Yet.
🤔
Think about this for a moment. You might be one or two or three days away from meeting a pivotal person or being at a life-changing event that you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about right now. 🤯
And the LORD is weaving all these threads together. 🧵🪡 He directed Saul and Samuel and Israel and even a bunch of donkeys. 🫏 He can direct you.
Saul and the servant approach the city and are directed to the gathering at the high place. Samuel enters as well and his path converges with Saul. The LORD tells Samuel – “this is the guy.” 👉🏽 🧔🏻 ⬅️
Saul is just out looking for donkeys and he runs smack into God’s calling on his life. It kinda reminds me of Saul of Tarsus. He wasn’t looking to become the Apostle Paul or travel the Roman world preaching the Gospel or write 1/3 of the New Testament. He was chasing Christians, not donkeys, but he also ran smack into God’s calling for his life.
I love how Samuel just casually drops a live prophecy grenade into Saul’s lap: 💣
“And don’t worry about those donkeys that were lost three days ago, for they have been found. And I am here to tell you that you and your family are the focus of all Israel’s hopes.”
1 Samuel 9:20 NLT
The people desire a king. Saul is it. He is the desire of Israel. They just don’t know it yet.
Saul’s response sounds a lot like Gideon’s. My family is the least. My tribe is the smallest. Yada Yada. “Ok, Mr. Head & Shoulders Taller. Don’t you dare try to say you’re the smallest in your father’s house.” 🤨
Samuel places Saul at the head of the table and introduces him to the men gathered. The Septuagint and Josephus both have the number of men invited to the feast as 70, rather than 30. And if it was, this may have been Samuel reconstituting the “70 elders of Israel” like Moses had. These may have been men who could help Saul lead the kingdom.
If a wise elder leader, (that everyone knows and trusts), introduces a young man, it’s basically instant validation. Samuel is putting the weight of his own reputation and integrity behind Saul by presenting him at this feast. By giving him a specially reserved portion of the sacrificial meat he is showing everyone that Saul is an important man. They may not yet know why, but if Samuel says he’s a big deal, then he’s a big deal. 🥇
By the way – not sure if you’ve ever had leg of lamb. That’s probably what Samuel gives to Saul. The WHOLE thing.
And we’re going to leave it there with Saul sleeping on the roof after dinner because the next morning begins a new section of narrative that continues through chapter 10. And it’s a doozy. Saul wanders into a Pentecostal-Charismatic church service. Somebody get a tambourine…
To The Reader 