Please read the whole chapter and feel free to post a reply even before you read my thoughts. If you don't have a Bible with you, you can follow this link to the passage: 1 Samue 15
This chapter is kind of depressing isn't it? First we have this huge slaughter, followed by Saul disobeying God, followed then by God taking the kingdom away from him and concluding in Samuel's killing of Agag. Where's the silver lining? There may not be a lot of good news in this reading, but there are some phrases of note.
The first is Samuel's words: "To obey is better than sacrifice." On one level what is being stated here is that it is far better to obey God's will than to sacrifice thank offerings, or worse sin offerings. In other words, God prefers obedience over the need for repentance. For we who are in Christ, this statement has a fuller meaning, because Jesus was obedient, and also served as the necessary sacrifice. It is far better to obey, which is exactly what Jesus did in our place, and yet he also served as the sacrifice who atoned for our sins.
Twice in this passage it says that God regretted that he had made Saul king; then in the middle of the passage Samuel says that God is not a man that he should lie or have regrets! Can anyone explain that?? I may not be able to sleep tonight working this one out. The main thrust of the passage is what I have said about Saul before, he tries to obey God by doing it in his own way, not in God's way. It also seems like he falls into blaming the people for the collection of swag we was hauling home. Sounds a lot like Aaron's excuse for the golden calf: We accidentally dropped this big pile of gold in the fire, and look what it made!
ReplyDeleteDan Perling
The issue of God changing His mind is a big one. I remember one Symposium at the Sem that dealt with the issue at length. There wasn't much consensus. It seems that God's constancy is appealing for the sake of the Gospel, and yet very often God repents/changes His mind. I suppose the closest I can figure is that God doesn't change His mind based on human/fallen thinking. Notice when He adjusts according to Saul, it still jived with His initial warnings of judgment. When He changes His mind and doesn't start all over with Moses, it seems to be because Moses appealed to God's promise in the first place. None of this makes me too confident that I know the mind of God, but it can encourage me to cling to the promise, namely, Christ
ReplyDeleteThank you for not appealing to God's omniscience in your response. The usual line is God knew Saul would disobey and so God isn't really "changing his mind". This has never been helpful to me. One way to see it is as a parent gives a child freedom, the child abuses the freedom and we must put back the restriction. In that sense we regret the freedom, but it was still the right thing to have allowed it in the first place.
ReplyDeleteDan P.