• Home
  • About This Blog
  • Contact Me
  • Subscribe
  • Comment Policy

Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

  • Westminster Shorter Catechism Series
  • Sermon on the Mount Series
Home Bible Reflection The People Began to Scatter

The People Began to Scatter

Posted on November 28, 2010 Written by Mark McIntyre 2 Comments


Fork in the Road SignI see in humans (principally in myself), an amazing ability to find good reasons to do the wrong thing. We (perhaps I am alone in this, but I think not) can muster arguments to do what we want even if it is not what we know is right.

An illustration of this can be found in 1 Samuel 13. Saul, a newly minted King of Israel, finds himself in a situation where the people are beginning to scatter because they are facing an enormous Philistine army. They cannot fight until proper sacrifice has been made and Samuel, who is to perform the sacrifice, is nowhere to be found. From Saul’s perspective, things are starting to unravel. As a result, Saul takes things into his own hands and usurps the function of the priestly office and performs the sacrifice.

It would be easy to look down on Saul at this point. Yet, when I am honest, I see the same tendency in myself to get impatient with God and to take things into my own hands. I can be just as manipulative and conniving as Saul. Saul had arguments that would stand up in court of public opinion, but not in the court of Almighty God.

It appears that by performing the sacrifice, Saul put more confidence in the ritual than he did in the God the ritual was to worship. God is not obligated to bless, and He certainly is not obligated to bless us because we perform rituals. Later on in his life, Saul had to be reminded by Samuel that “to obey is better than sacrifice.” It is all about relationship and not about ritual.

The lesson I take away from this is that God is in charge of timing; my job is to be responsive to when, where and how he leads.


Filed Under: Bible Reflection Tagged With: Books of Samuel, Fear, God, Israel, Samuel, Saul

About Mark McIntyre

A follower of Jesus Christ who shares observations about how Scripture should impact the church and the world. Mark is the original author and editor of Attempts at Honesty.

Follow Attempts at Honesty

Honesty in your Inbox

Twin Focus

External versus Internal Focus

I’ve been involved in some discussions recently regarding the focus of the church. Should our focus be toward the outside to bring new people in or should our focus be on building people up that are already in the church? I struggle to see how these two can be separated without doing damage to what […]

Question 13

Did our first parents remain as they were created?

Every good story has some tension or a struggle in the plot followed by a happy ending. The story of the people of God is no exception. I will repeat the summary of the Bible that I quoted in my post about Question 12, “God made it, we broke it and Jesus came to fix it.

Not so common sense

Perhaps I am on my way to being a curmudgeon but I am increasingly amazed at how little common sense is displayed by those who have the desire to lead and educate us.

Hymns

On the singing of old hymns

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I have to say that sometimes I miss the old hymns in our worship. I do not miss how the hymns were executed, but I do miss the lyrics.

Bock on Sainthood

“This sainthood is one of the great benefits of being a recipient of God’s grace. It also reflects a responsibility to act like one who has received this calling.” Darrell Bock I copied this quote down, but unfortunately, I didn’t note in which book I found it. But this is a good reminder that our […]

Post Series

  • Westminster Shorter Catechism Series
  • Sermon on the Mount Series

Categories

Archives

Blogger Grid
Follow me on Blogarama

Copyright © 2022 · Focus Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in