Pondering Christ in 1 Samuel

Well, hey, welcome to Ponder by NorthernLife. We're having a conversation about the word of the Lord as it was preached on Sunday, and as we encounter it in our everyday lives. My name is Ben.

Today, I'm joined by Tristan, and for once on the other side of the table, Jack. Welcome, boys.

Thanks, good to be on the interviewee side.

Well, hello. Yeah, the girls are out and the boys are back. We're pondering today your sermon, Jack, Christ in 1 Samuel.

Could you give us a recap?

Sure. So I was approaching 1 Samuel kind of through the lens of kingship because it is the book in which the Israelite monarchy gets established.

And so first started looking at Hannah's prayer, which is at the beginning of book and sort of lays out the themes, especially of Yahweh as the true king and that true power resides with him.

And then we went and we looked at how Israel was not content to rely on him, but instead they wanted to have a system. So they replaced the system of judges with the system of kings.

And I pointed out that sort of in ancient kingship, there are sort of three key sort of functions, justice, war and religion. And we looked at what these functions were.

And then we sort of compared, we looked at how the first king in 1 Samuel Saul performed in each of those categories. And then, and we saw that he didn't do very well.

And then we looked at how Jesus, as sort of the last king of Israel and the ultimate fulfillment of kingship, truly fulfilled each of those categories and how he is our true king.

Yeah, I found that really moving, actually, coming to Jesus at the end of the message and that reading from Revelation 19. Tristan, any opening reflections on the sermon from you?

Yeah, it was very reassuring, I would say, because 1 Samuel, you always focus on how fallen humanity really is and how that still continues today in some different contexts.

And it's always good to, like you said earlier, Ben, it's to point to the cross and to what Jesus did as a righteous king. So that was good.

Well, speaking of the failure of humanity, in the Book of Judges, you see the failure of Israel under their judges.

And then in 1 Samuel 8, you read for us, Jack, the passage where Israel asked for a king. Why do you think Israel reject God's kingship and choose to want a human leader?

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I mean, certainly there's an element of the fact that, I mean, God is not actively visible, right? And this is something Israel struggle with a lot.

It's why they constantly turn to making like golden calves or whatever, right? They want some sort of visual that they can look at and not have to go to Shiloh or wherever the tabernacle has to be.

And I think also that, I mean, they say explicitly they want to be like the nations around them. There's a bit of, I guess, cultural and collective peer pressure going on, right? So, you look at Egypt and they've got a king.

You look at like Aram and Syria and the Canaanite people surrounding them, they've all got kings. And so, you kind of be like, oh, well, we feel like a little left out.

Which is tragic because Israel were called to be different.

Yeah, the whole point is that they're supposed to be different. They're not supposed to be like the nations around them. So, yeah, I think there's definitely a bit of that going on.

And there's almost a bit of laziness going on in terms of, I don't want to have to repent every time and go through this.

I mean, right before 1 Samuel 7, the Philistines are attacking Israel and Samuel gathers them all in this big meeting and they decide to commit themselves to Yahweh and then Yahweh wins. That's a big event, right?

And I think there's a sense of like, well, if we can just have someone who's always there to do stuff for us.

Yeah.

And also a sense that the judges are, the judge system isn't working because, I mean, Samuel's sons are not equal to the task.

There's another irony in that, I think, in that they want to get rid of Samuel as leader because his sons are bad, but they're instituting a system which is about where succession occurs from father to son.

Right.

So yeah, it's quite ironic in that sense.

Right. It's interesting that in judges, the leaders are ad hoc, meaning they arise when Israel need them. And it seems like what they're rejecting is that system.

And the system that they want is one person who rules for life and then passes on the kingship to their son and passes it on and on and on.

Which even from reading judges, they think that's not going to work, because the human leaders are the, I mean, Israel are the problem, but the leaders are also the problem, which makes it just so unthinkably silly, which is the correct theological

term, silly, why Israel would reject God as king. Do you think we do the same thing today? Do we reject God's kingship? What does that look like for us?

I feel like we are the opposite in today's society.

We want to be kings ourselves. So, instead of adopting what Israel wanted was that long form of settled leadership, we are in a space where our values are power and king in a secular world. And I feel like it's almost flipped on the other side.

We are in need of the eternal king. So, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's almost like we want to go to the judge's situation, but without the god part in it. Like at the end of Judges, right? Where things have deteriorated so much, it says that Israel had no king, everyone did as they saw fit.

Well, we want that everyone does at least as they saw fit part, right? As you mentioned in your sermon, Ben, right? We don't want any king.

We don't just want God as king. We don't want any human kings ruling over us. We've got this very individualized culture now, where it all dissolves down to the individual, to me.

You asked the question in the sermon, where are you substituting a system for God?

And you didn't answer that question. You just kind of left it hanging there. And I felt like it was a stab to the heart for me.

What systems do you think we or people or I use to substitute for God?

Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot of different answers for different people, obviously. I think in our day and age, we are trained to think a lot about in terms of systems, right?

Because we have these very... We have a very complex society that runs on systems, that runs on, you know, bureaucracy and long and businesses and technology, and all of these things function on systems of various kinds.

And so, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in a lot of political rhetoric, right? People talk about the system and I guess that's similar to how Israel is seeing it, right?

They want a system and the system must be rigged against me if life is hard. And like, I mentioned this in the sermon, I don't want to fully discount that because systems do have an impact on our lives, right?

But it's making the systems the ultimate and saying that they, you know, just relying on them rather than relying on God, that is the problem.

Yeah, I would say that the first thing that came into my head when you asked that question was, we get lost in a system of comfortability, where we are so used to what life presents us in a day to day, that we almost forget on that very desperate

need of reliance from God. So we get lost in just what work presents, and we lose focus on what the actual priority is. And that's something I've struggled with in the past and still do sometimes, yeah.

Yeah, for sure. Because you look at the, you mentioned 1 Samuel 7, Jack, the previous story where God leads them as king, they have to wait on God, for God to act.

And it's so much easier if we forget that God is a person with a will and a desire to sometimes wait. And let's just make a system so that we can go at our own pace and can control everything.

Yeah, you can't systematize relationships.

Yeah.

Or if you do, there's only a limited amount that you can do. Like I don't have a system for engaging with my friends, right? The most might be I have a monthly catch up with someone.

But our conversations aren't systematized. I don't sit down with you, have a coffee and say, okay, agenda, item one on our agenda. And then they're like, you know, that's just not how relationships work.

And sort of that's the thing with Yahweh and his people, right? It's a relationship. If you try to systemize it too much, it's not going to be a relationship.

Yeah.

It's almost like we're putting the system in the forefront of our minds and then we're putting God in the background. And it's completely the opposite. That's what it should be.

Do you think it also works the other way, where we use God to hide from God, as in we systematize our relationship with God to hide from God as our personal King?

That might not make sense. I said before that I felt that that question was a stab to my heart because I have this, maybe this tendency that a lot of us have to build systems within faith.

So I have a Bible reading plan and I wake up and I follow the plan and I pray a certain number of times in a certain way and I attend church and I serve and I give. And I've systematized all of these aspects of my relationship with God.

But have I done that in such a way as to avoid God Himself? As in I'm trusting the system of my faith with God instead of God Himself.

I would say there are definitely people that are wired that way. Like just that's how their brain works where they have to systematize it. That it comes down to the point of what is the state of their heart while doing those things.

Like it's a sad story, but you have countless people that prioritize their church serving and that's when they encounter God. Like it's said countless times, we say this at youth, like don't be a Christian on a Friday and a Sunday.

It's a seven day thing, it's life. So I think one, it's important to acknowledge that systems work for some people. And it's all depending on the state of their hearts.

And two, the system shouldn't be your first point of call.

Absolutely. I think that's a good point Tristan, that systems can be very helpful for engaging with God. In fact, God gives us certain systems to do so.

I mean, you go look at Leviticus and the law, that is a system that is meant to help us engage with God. Right? Same thing.

I mean, we talk in this church a lot about spiritual disciplines. That's a form of system that can help us. But it's when that system is working towards an endpoint.

And the endpoint is relationship with God. But if we make the system the endpoint, then we're having a problem. Then we're acting like Pharisees, right?

Because the Pharisees are taking this good law, and they're focusing on just obedience to the tradition, obedience to the law, as an end in and of itself. Yeah. Right?

Not realizing that the law exists for a different purpose, right? In order that you would, you know, Jesus summarizes the whole law by saying, love God and love your neighbor, right? So the whole law is directed towards a relationship.

But if you just take the law as an end in and of itself, then you're kind of cutting God out of the equation.

Yeah.

And you're kind of in a way subjecting him to a system. You're saying God must behave in a certain way because I have obeyed the system in a certain way. Whereas actually the system is supposed to move you rather than move God.

Yeah.

Well, gosh, that's so helpful. I remember Jesus says in John 5 verse 39, and he's talking to the Pharisees. He says, you study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.

But these are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. Which I'm just picking up on what you're saying, that the Pharisees make it their goal to keep the law, to do the things, to keep the system.

And in doing so, they miss the God who commands it in the first place. And so the underlying theme of the Sermon on the Mount, of so much of the words of Jesus, the teaching of Jesus is the heart. God is after our heart.

And so if we can put the system in second place, and what you were saying, Tristan, put God himself in first place, I think that's what we're drawn to.

Another example of that is, I think it's Jeremiah, I think it's chapter seven, I have to put it out. I think it's called the Temple Sermon.

As Jeremiah the prophet goes into the temple in Jerusalem, this is before the exile, and he gives this sermon calling them to repentance.

And he calls them out, he says, you guys sit here and say, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, as in we have the temple of the Lord here in Jerusalem, we'll be protected, God will watch over us just because we have

this temple system. And he's like, if you're disobeying God, the temple means nothing. If you're not in relationship with God, the system is meaningless. And I think that's a really good illustration, right?

That if you're not achieving the end that the system is leading towards, the system itself is useless.

Yes. Jesus said, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Not that sacrifice is wrong, but it's sacrifice to form a merciful person.

I mean, the same thing with Psalm 51, this Psalm of repentance.

He says, you do not desire sacrifice or I will bring it. He says, I will, what you desire is a broken and contrite heart. God desires repentance first.

And then at the end of that, once he's repented, at the end of the psalm, he says, then I will offer bulls on your altar. Right? Because the ultimate end is the relationship.

Shifting gears a little bit.

I am an uncle five times over. I have some nieces and nephews. And so it's fitting that my nieces and nephews call me uncle Ben, that the main wisdom that I want to impart to my nieces and nephews is that with great power comes great responsibility.

And so it's easy for us to sit here and criticize the kings of Israel and how bad they were. I'm wondering what power we, you know, quote unquote normal people have. And with that power, what responsibility do we have?

I think it's important in our context to recognize that we are quite powerful people.

And I don't want to diminish anyone's experience. But the fact is, compared to the rest of the world, we're pretty wealthy. And we have a vote in a pretty influential and wealthy country, right?

We have responsibilities when it comes to how we spend our wealth and how we engage with the people who are trying to sell us stuff, right?

Those international, I mean, this is sort of something I'm passionate about is like the international, commercial systems that sell us products, right? Some of these systems are very exploitative, but they're coming to us for our money, right?

So we have a responsibility to engage in that system and use our power there responsibly, as well as our voting power. I know this has been pretty political sermon and podcast in some ways.

This is all on you, Jack. Literally, your opening words in the sermon were the Constitution of Federal Australia.

Yes. Yeah. But I mean, it is true.

Like when we think about our power in this system, yeah, we have a vote and we should be using that vote and our voice as well, in the way we talk to people. We should be using that to honor God and not just for selfish means.

So that's one part of it for sure.

Can I give the more evangelical answer, please? As someone that is not so clued in on Australian politics myself.

You're lucky.

Yeah, I would say that us as Christians, as believers have the power of truth on our side and within us, and therefore it's our responsibility to pass on that power.

I think sometimes we forget and get lost again in that system of comfort, of knowing that we have a truth and a God that we can go to, and we just don't want to share them.

And we get lost in our day-to-day, and we don't have time to get what we are called to do, and that is make disciples of all nations. We need to have more outward-looking, kingdom-minded hearts.

I think, yeah, we just get lost, and it's a sad thing, but also an encouraging thing. When you see the fruit of sharing, what sharing the gospel actually comes about, like it's good.

I think there's another thing to think about also is the idea of influence. And we all have levels of influence in our lives, in our church, in our communities.

The words we speak have an impact on the people we speak to, just in our everyday conversations. And you may not... I think sometimes we can be blown away by actually how much our words affect other people.

And so, and this gets to some of the stuff that James talks about, right? Words have the capacity to build up people, and they have the capacity to tear down people.

We have the ability to encourage people and help them in God's work, and we have the ability to turn them off. And so, we should think carefully about the type of influence we have, be it in our workplace, be it in our friend groups.

I mean, we have the capacity to move the community towards or away from God, depending on how we speak and how we treat people.

Yeah, well, that's sort of the whole idea of the church as the body of Christ, that Jesus in bodily form is nowhere on this earth, but His church is.

We are His hands and feet, His voice, His heart, His hugs, like we get to embody the love of Christ to our neighbor. We're blessed to be a blessing, right? We looked at that idea.

We've had a question submitted via the QR code. I'm going to drop the link to the form to submit questions in the show notes below. If you want to jump in with a question.

This question says this. Since the kings Israel asked for were meant to be representing God, wouldn't parenthood be part of kingship on top of justice, war and religion because God is our king and our father?

Although they're not kings, Samuel's sons and Eli's sons and even David's sons did not really follow the right path. But interestingly, Jonathan did follow Saul's right path.

Should a godly king channel an element of parenthood in their leadership of a nation along with the three categories mentioned in the sermon?

Got to be careful here because maybe I think because the language of parenthood and fatherhood has historically been used by rulers, by kings to describe their relationship with their subjects and with their subordinates.

Sometimes that's a good model. We want to think of our leaders as caring for us and having that sort of relationship with us. But it can also be used negatively for unjust rulers to say, obey me, I'm your father.

So I think we just need to be careful when we think about it like that. I'm not sure if the question has this in mind, but it may also be thinking about the king's role in fathering the royal family. And that's an important part.

I think David, for example, is a terrible father. He's quite awful. And that does shape the next generation as well.

So maybe that's part of what the question is getting at.

Yeah. I've got an interesting reflection on this as a new father. I wrestle a lot in the past eight months since my daughter Esther was born on what the proper relationship should be between my work and my fatherhood.

And I've been thinking that in terms of eternity, my fatherhood is far, far, far, far more significant than my work.

Because, God willing, I'll have more kids and those kids will have kids who will have kids, who will have kids, who will have kids by the great, like God willing. And so that's a much more significant place to invest my life in than my work.

Not to say that my work doesn't have significance, but for all of us, I mean, this question kind of picks up on the relationship almost between vocation and parenthood, as in kingship and fatherhood.

I think that there should be a really significant way that kings pass on the mantle to their sons. And as to your point, Jack, that's precisely what the kings don't do. Samuel's sons were terrible.

Eli's sons were terrible. David's sons were terrible. Solomon's, the kingship goes down because they don't pass on the mantle well.

And so this is only applicable to the parents among us, of which I'm the only one on this table. But discipling our kids is really important to do what we can to make sure that they know God and live in relationship with him.

Yeah, and that's that verse in, I think Joshua 24, me and my household will serve the Lord.

Yeah, that's it.

I want to bring it back to Jesus. You finished the sermon with a reading from Revelation 19. And I said before, I was quite impacted by that passage coming at the end of that message.

And in Revelation 19, it gives this cosmic picture of the kingship of Jesus. He has a name that no one could even know. He's victorious, He's King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This cosmic picture of the kingship of Jesus outside of time. What do you think that good, true, beautiful, just, righteous kingship of Jesus means for our everyday lives? In other words, how does that big cosmic picture affect us in our day to day?

Yeah, so I think I mentioned a little bit in the sermon that there's a sense of comfort that comes from that.

Yeah. That in a time, that when, in an age where we all, anxiety levels are up, right? And there's uncertainty about the future and what's going on in the world.

There's a certain level of comfort that the Lord is King. And that He is going to win in the end. And so, that's certainly one aspect of it for sure.

I think there's also a sense that when we're facing obstacles, when we're under spiritual attack, we have someone, we've got the ammunition in our corner, right?

We've got the victor, we've got the king, the leader of the armies of heaven to defend us. That's another element of comfort that it gives. It also, this is one of the functions of Revelation, it kind of raises the stakes, right?

Who are you siding with? You siding with the cosmic king, who is Lord of all and who will win and who will triumph over the darkness in the end? Or are you going to side with the things that belong to the darkness that is to fade, right?

One of the things Revelation and apocalyptic literature teaches us to do is to look behind the things in our everyday lives, right?

When I see something that is against God, something that looks sort of, from a physical thing perspective, like harmless, but I understand the spiritual reality behind it is that it belongs to the old order that is passing away.

That helps me make my choices in life between am I going to choose something of Satan that is fading away or I'm going to choose the victorious cosmic king. It gives us motivation to persevere and to choose the things of Christ.

And it raises the stakes on that choice, right? Pick a side.

Yeah. And on that, we talked earlier about how we're tempted to be kings and queens of our own lives. There's this picture, because Jesus is the cosmic king of kings and lord of lords.

If I, I mean, you use the expression, bend the knee to Christ as king. That's actually the best life, because he's a better king than I am. When I live my life, when I do as I see fit, which is the thing from judges, I wreck my life.

I'm stuck in the cycle of sin on my own. But when we bend the knee to Christ, our king, our good and righteous and just king, that is the good life, because he is the good king. So praise God for that.

Yeah, and I would say, like, in order to how we can see this on a Monday morning, right, like seeing Jesus as this cosmic king and eternal is, it comes down to three things.

It's about having all mindfulness and active stewardship. Those three things.

Dang, you just came up with that? Wow.

It's about, like, having that moment of pause in a day, of just recognition and gratefulness to God, and then putting what the Spirit has given you actively into the kingdom for the betterment of the kingdom.

And so, like, we can say all these complicated terms, and we understand the theology of it, but to put it into practice, it requires a deeper reliance on Christ to do so.

And I think if we're mindful of those things, that's how we can recognize truly that Jesus is eternal for us today.

Yeah, it's good.

You mentioned, Jack, toward the end of the sermon, how Jesus fulfills justice, war and religion as our true king, where Saul and David and Solomon and all the kings fail, Jesus more than succeeds.

And I love that idea that Jesus fulfills the picture of kingship. In what ways do you think Jesus subverts ancient Israelite kingship?

Yeah, this is a great question. There's a consistency, actually, with the way Jesus subverts it and the way Yahweh kind of subverts it in 1 Samuel.

So in that Hannah's prayer that I talked about at the start, it emphasizes Yahweh lifts the humble from the ash heap and seats them with the princes. And that's one of the themes in 1 Samuel, right?

We get Saul, who's kind of, he's from an obscure family that raises to the kingship, and then he fails. And we get David, the least of his brothers, this young guy that no one expects, he gets raised to the kingship, right?

And there's this pattern of God lifting the unlikely and the humble, right? Jesus kind of outdoes both of them in that category, right?

You think about a king like Saul, a great warrior, riding horses into battle, a head taller than anyone else, and handsome too. Go read Isaiah's chapter on the suffering servant, right? There was nothing in his appearance to draw us to him.

He was beaten. This is a carpenter from Galilee. Who's crucified.

There are some great paintings. I can't remember the name of the painting now. It's a great painting of Jesus crucified, and it's intentionally painted to make him look as ugly and as undesirable as possible.

And that's who God has chosen to be, King of the universe. Yeah, well. So he absolutely subverts Israelite kingship, Israelite expectations of kingship.

And that's why Jesus found so much opposition in his lifetime, right? Because he didn't ride in on a white horse to conquer the Romans, right? He rides in on a donkey, and he doesn't go around killing people.

And that's why there's this opposition to him, and there's this abandonment of him, because he's not the Messiah they expect. He's not the king they want to. And he's not sort of striking down sinners left, right and center.

And even he defies the, and this is where we're again, circle back in some of the system stuff. He defies the religious system, right? We're talking about the religion aspect.

He points out that the Pharisees have made the system an end of itself and have ignored the goal of the system, which is relationship with God. He butts heads with the priesthood, but he's still, he's honoring God in doing that.

So the Israelite expectation around how a king engages with the priestly system is subverted. I mentioned the war subversion already and justice.

I mean, he takes the law, kind of makes it harsher, but then adds this element of mercy into, this is what I talked about in the sermon as well.

So I think he's subverting it in all kinds of ways that sort of get back to the themes of Yahweh's kingship that are kind of in Hannah's song.

Yeah. It's interesting in 1 Samuel 8 when Israel asked for a king, and Samuel says, no, you don't want a king. And then it gives all the reasons why you don't want a king.

And he constantly says, he will take. You look at 1 Samuel 8, he will take your daughters. He will take your money.

He will take your men. He will take your land. That's the picture of human faulty kingship.

You look at Jesus, he gives. Jesus never takes. I mean, he takes nothing apart from all the glory in the universe that he is worthy of.

But he gives his life. He gives his love. He gives everything for us.

And so Jesus, in so many ways, fulfills kingship but in such a significant way subverts it, turns kingship upside down.

Even I think of that scene in Mark chapter 10, when James and John come to Jesus and they say, hey, we want to be left and right of you when you come into your glory. And Jesus almost with a wink to camera says, you don't know what you're asking.

Because the moment of Jesus' greatest glory is when he's naked, beaten, hanging on a cross, crucified for the sins of the world. And the people on his left and right are criminals. And that is the picture of the glory of our cosmic king.

So it's like fundamentally turning kingship upside down. And that's the life that we're invited to. Jesus says, if you want to enter into eternal life, take up your cross and follow me.

Because life is found by giving it away, not by trying to hold on to it.

Yeah, the sports analogies are running wild in my head at the moment.

Like I always viewed, not always, but just thinking of this passage and what we've been chatting about or pondering about is that I see Christ as this captain of this team that is believers and that is the church.

And instead of us being against the system and governments and all like bad human authority, we shouldn't be against them. We should be inviting them in. So instead of conflict, like, like there's so many political campaigns around the world.

I've seen this firsthand in South Africa where it just goes so pear shaped because we are not looking at the same goals. We are just like, no, you're wrong. And we go after them.

But instead of that, we should be saying, yes, you can disagree with them, but say, like, come over, like, this is the better team. Like, instead of a conflicting nature that we should have, we should have one that is inviting.

That's good.

Well, we might wrap up with our pallet cleanser question of the week. My question is, who is your favorite supreme leader, as in king or queen or prime minister or president, of history?

Are we allowed to be fictional?

No. Of human history. You can't say Emperor Palpatine, Tristan.

No. Who's your favorite supreme leader and why?

Mine is in a supreme leader. He was an ex-president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. And probably the reason why sports analogies are going through my head, because he literally used a rugby team to unify a nation.

So yeah, that's the first thing that came to my mind.

It's cool.

I don't know if this is my absolute favorite, but I find him incredibly interesting. And this is one of those niche. This is one of those questions, Ben, I think you've designed for me because I love history.

That's true.

And I'm having trouble picking just one, but this is a guy I find really interesting and it's super niche.

It's the Roman Emperor Heraclius. He's quite, he's around the turn of the seventh century. He's a great warrior emperor.

He's a very interesting life. He portrayed himself in his propaganda as the new David, sort of portraying himself like a David into Goliath. So I guess that's on theme for our 1 Samuel thing.

And I find it funny because his life kind of mirrors David in a little bit. Like the first half of his reign, he's this great warrior against the odds, has this great military success. And then he's successful and he has peace for a while.

And then there's a sexual scandal in his life. And the latter half of his life, like David's, is one disaster after another. So I found that quite ironic that he sort of portrays himself as the new David and he gets that along with the bad stuff.

Anyway, that's a really niche reference, but you can go look him up. I find him very interesting.

Heraclius.

Well, you got what you asked for.

For me, it's probably Winston Churchill.

I don't know heaps and heaps about him personally, but the responsibility he had to lead Britain in the time of World War II and all of the challenges that a leader must have faced, I find that quite interesting and inspiring.

Well, that's all we've got time for today. Thank you, Jack and Tristan, for joining us. We'll be back next week pondering Christ in 2 Samuel.

Have a great week.