Unlocking the Bible. David Pawson

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СКАЧАТЬ like a mirror that can show us what we are like through the people we read about. We can compare ourselves with Bible characters and ask whether we would have behaved in the same way.

      With this in mind, we can note how the first two kings of Israel both started well and finished badly, yet Saul was seen as the worst king and David as the best.

      We read of the character of Saul, a man who was literally head and shoulders above the rest, with many personal advantages. We read how the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he turned into a different man. But we read, too, of the fatal flaws in his character, and how his insecurities led to poor relationships and jealousy of the gifted people around him.

      We can contrast Saul with David, whom the Bible calls ‘a man after God’s own heart’. When Samuel chooses David we read, ‘The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’

      Scripture describes David as a man of the outdoors, involved in manual labour, handsome and brave. He developed his relationship with God during the lonely days and nights as a shepherd, reading the law, praying and praising God for creation as well as redemption. These years were a preparation for him to become the most important person in the land.

      We can note his skills as a leader, asking God’s opinion before taking any decision. Even though he was anointed as king, he refused to take the throne too soon, but waited for God’s timing. He was a magnanimous man even in victory, unhappy when his enemies were killed and furious because one of Saul’s surviving sons was killed, even though Saul had been his enemy. He was a very forgiving man, and a man who could honour brave people – in the book of Samuel we have a list of those whom David honoured.

      David was therefore the opposite of Saul: he had a heart for God and he loved honouring other people. Saul did not have a heart for God and did not like to have anyone else who was successful anywhere near him.

      There are other comparisons: Samuel and Eli shared an inability to discipline their children. Jonathan and Absalom were both sons of kings but behaved very differently. Jonathan was an unselfish son of a bad king (Saul) who was willing to surrender to David’s leadership. Absalom was the selfish son of a good king (David) who wanted to seize the throne from his father.

      The women in Samuel also make a lovely character study. Hannah and Abigail both reveal interesting traits. We read of Hannah’s devotion to God and her excitement when she became pregnant. Abigail courageously averted a crisis by making food for David’s men when her husband had refused them hospitality. She so impressed David that he married her shortly after her husband’s death.

      (II) SOCIAL

      We can also study the relationships between individuals. Jonathan and David’s friendship is one of the most pure and godly in the pages of the Bible.

      The frustrating, even threatening, interaction between Saul and David is a classic example of how difficult personal relationships can be with unreliable temperaments, who alternate between welcoming and rejecting moods, especially when there is the added complication of influence by evil spirits.

      The whole saga of David and the various women in his life is full of insights into gender relationships. Nor is his ability to win the affection and devotion of the various men in his life irrelevant to contemporary society.

      The people’s insistent choice of their first king and their reasons for it have something to say for the influence of image on contemporary elections.

      So these stories have social as well as individual implications, from all of which we can learn valuable lessons. But this still falls short of the intended message of the text.

      4. Historical

      (I) LEADERSHIP

      A fourth way of considering Samuel is to see it as a study of the history of Israel. Israel developed from a family to a tribe, then to a nation, and finally to an empire. It is this development into an empire that is outlined in the 150 years covered by the books of Samuel.

      The request for a king came from the people, jealous of the unified and visible leadership which monarchies provided in other nations around them, and fed up with the federal relationship of 12 independent tribes which pertained at that time.

      Samuel warned the people that there would be heavy costs associated with any move towards a centralized government through a king. The people went ahead with their request and the course of history was set. God acceded to their request, but insisted that Israel’s king should not be like kings in other nations. Israel’s king must write out the law and read it daily, and provide spiritual leadership for the people (this provision in Deuteronomy shows that God had anticipated this development). Thereafter the character of the nation would be tied to the king.

      (II) STRUCTURE

      The move from a federal to a centralized structure for the nation was not painless. We can study the book from this standpoint, noting the struggles David faced and his skill in overcoming them. We can note how his genius as an organizer and his skill as a commander under God led the nation to reach a peak of peace and prosperity under his rule. His selection of Jerusalem as the capital city was one of a number of brilliant master strokes. The city was captured from the Jebusites and so was not regarded as the preserve of any particular tribe.

      The empire grew under David, previous enemies became satellite states and all the land which had been promised was conquered for the first and last time. The Philistines no longer bothered them. But centralized government proved to be the Israelites’ downfall as well, for when power is in fewer and fewer hands, the character of those people who own the hands inevitably determines what happens.

      5. Critical

      (I) ‘LOWER’ CRITICISM

      Lower criticism is the study of the Bible by scholars to see if there are any errors in the text. They study and compare manuscripts in the original languages, and note any discrepancies that may have occurred through errors of transmission by the copyists. This work gives us enormous confidence that the manuscripts which translators use are very close to the original and it is believed that the New Testament is 98 per cent accurate.

      The earliest of the full Old Testament manuscripts is the Masoretic text dated at AD 900. There is a complete copy of Isaiah, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, from 100 BC which is 1,000 years older than all the other copies available. This was discovered when the Revised Standard Version was being translated, so they held back the publication until the text had been checked against this older manuscript. In fact, the text they had been working on originally was very accurate and only a few things needed to be changed.

      Whilst the Old Testament text does not have the same accuracy as the New Testament, we can still be assured that there is very little which is different from the original text. Furthermore, it is worth noting that any dilemmas regarding translation are on small details and not the central truths of the faith. In Samuel, for example, there are two accounts of the death of Goliath, but only one makes David responsible. If just one letter is adjusted, the discrepancy is solved. Clearly a copyist made an error in transmission.

      (II) ‘HIGHER’ CRITICISM

      Lower criticism is a necessary and welcome discipline, but higher criticism does a great deal of damage. It came originally from Germany in the nineteenth century and filtered into many theological colleges during the twentieth century.

      The basic argument of higher criticism is that even if the original text accurately conveys what the writer meant, we can still be mistaken СКАЧАТЬ