Author: John Tillman

Links for today’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel  21-22 Listen: (6:35) Read: Revelation 2 Listen: (4:59)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel  23 Listen: (4:18) Read: Revelation 3 Listen: (3:53)
Read: 1 Samuel 24 Listen: (3:36) Read: Revelation 4 Listen: (2:09)
Read: Samuel  25 Listen: (7:12) Read: Revelation 5 (Listen: 2:39)

Scripture Focus: 1 Samuel 21.10-15

10 That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. 11 But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances: “ ‘Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?” 12 David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. 13 So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. 14 Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? 15 Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

Reflection: The Enemy of My Enemy

By John Tillman

David, fleeing from Saul, went to the enemies of his enemy, seeking shelter and alliances.

David first fled to Achish, king of the Philistine city of Gath. Later Achish trusted David, (1 Samuel 27.12; 27.12; 29.6-9) but David’s first visit was a dangerous failure. Achish’s servants remembered David as the killer of Gath’s great hero, Goliath. Sensing their hostility, David acted the part of a madman until Achish sent him away.

David also sent his family to another of Israel’s historical enemies, Moab. David’s great-grandmother, Ruth, was from Moab, so he may have played on this family connection.

David’s world functioned through broken systems of tribalism reflected in two ancient truisms that we still deal with today. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” and “Me against my brother. My brother and I against my cousin. My cousin and I against the infidels.” David played into systems of tribalism to survive and, at times, we might be forced to do the same. When we do, we are, like David, enacting a kind of madness.

Tribalism claims to prioritize those we love more over those we love less. Some do try to dress tribalism up in Christian clothes. They claim that we must love first our family, then the church, then our tribe (by this some mean race), then our countrymen, then foreigners, etc. But this is the same brokenness no matter how you dress it. In reality, this Christianized tribalism is concentric circles of enemies who are a little bit less our enemy as they move towards the centermost circle, ourselves. Christians have vertical spiritual priorities of loving godly things above fleshly things, not horizontal priorities between fellow children of God who are equal at the foot of the cross.

Tribalism is a mold of the world we must not be conformed to. It isn’t an ideal we should pursue. Tribalism is the plural of selfishness. Tribalism is one of the barriers that Jesus, the son of David, came to dismantle.

If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? (Matthew 5.46-48)
Which of these acted like a neighbor? (Luke 10.36-37)
Who is my brother, sister, mother? (Matthew 12.48-50)

Jesus’ teaching cuts across our concentric circles of “othering.” To follow Jesus, we love even our enemies and abandon the exclusivity of tribes for the inclusivity of the family of God.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer

Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalm 100.2

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Responding to Political Violence

It seems more and more Christians are willing to whitewash politically motivated violence as necessary self-defense.

Responding to Political Violence

Read more: Betrayal and Failure

We’ve been betrayed by leaders, institutions, our faith communities, former heroes, and even friends or family.

Betrayal and Failure — Guided Prayer

Links for today’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel 20 Listen: (6:42) Read: Revelation 1 Listen: (3:43)

Scripture Focus: 1 Samuel 20.30-32

30 Saul’s anger flared up at Jonathan and he said to him, “You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don’t I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you? 31 As long as the son of Jesse lives on this earth, neither you nor your kingdom will be established. Now send someone to bring him to me, for he must die!”

32 “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” Jonathan asked his father. 33 But Saul hurled his spear at him to kill him. Then Jonathan knew that his father intended to kill David.

Reflection: Revealing Actions

By John Tillman

When a spear is hurled at you, it clarifies your thoughts. Or ends them. For David and Jonathan, the hurled spear of Saul threatened their lives but revealed truth.

After dodging Saul’s spear multiple times, David fled. Eventually finding Jonathan, David accused Saul of plotting to kill him. Jonathan did not believe David’s accusation. (He previously convinced Saul to spare David.) David’s explanation to Jonathan is remarkably similar to the explanations many abuse survivors have given to their incredulous friends: “Of course, he doesn’t act that way when he’s with you. He’s hiding this from you.” Even though Jonathan doubted the conspiracy, he set out to test what David had said and took steps to protect his friend.

It is hard to believe people you love are wicked. We have trouble imagining it. We all know our family, friends, coworkers, and faith leaders are flawed and imperfect, but it is difficult to accept that they might be involved in truly awful things. When we hear accusations, we might react exactly as Jonathan did to David: “Never!” (1 Samuel 20.2) Like Jonathan, we might think we would have noticed if our well-loved leader or friend was guilty. But the truth is, it is easy for us to be blinded.

Jonathan, guided by love rather than fear, chose to put David’s accusation to a test. He must have been holding out hope that he would discover that nothing was wrong. Saul’s hurled spear made everything clear. Saul was exactly what David accused him of being. Jonathan was loyal to his father, a hero in his own right, and devoted to his father and family. But suddenly he was attacked and labeled as an enemy.

Have you ever experienced a sudden attack from an unexpected source? Have you ever asked the wrong question and had your head bitten off? Have you ever questioned a leader and been labeled a disloyal troublemaker?

There’s a truism that says, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” Saul revealed who he was through his spear that tried to take life. Jonathan revealed who he was with his arrows used to save life.

When difficult challenges, situations, or problems arise, whether for yourself or those you love, what you choose to do reveals who you are. Christian action should reveal the identity of Jesus. When you are pressed, will Jesus be revealed in your actions? Or something else?

Divine Hours Prayer: Psalm 69.1

Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. — Psalm 69.1

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Facing Ugly Truths

May we respond with more wisdom, but may we always speak and act to bring justice to the vulnerable.

Facing Ugly Truths

Read more: Tribe Over Truth

I have stood in that precarious place, watching and waiting to see how people—people I trusted with my story—would respond.

Tribe Over Truth

Links for today’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel  18 Listen: (4:30) Read: 2 John Listen: (​​1:50)

Scripture Focus: 1 Samuel 18.1, 12

1 After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.

12 Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with David but had departed from Saul.

Reflection: Love Versus Fear

By John Tillman

The writer of Samuel consistently contrasts Jonathan and his father, Saul. One such contrast, greatly emphasized in 1 Samuel 18, is love versus fear.

Jonathan saw David’s success and loved him. Saul saw David’s success and feared him. Love made Jonathan generous. Fear made Saul jealous. Love made Jonathan loyal. Fear made Saul deceptive. Love made Jonathan understanding. Fear made Saul controlling.

Fear drove Saul to keep David close to watch him, and send him out on dangerous missions, hoping that he would fall in battle. (Later, David used this same method to kill Uriah, showing how far he fell from where he started.) Love drove Jonathan to dress David in his own royal attire and weapons and to support David even when it endangered his own life and future.

The person with the most to lose if David became king was not Saul. It was Jonathan. Yet, Jonathan’s reaction to David’s ascendant path is one of joy and Saul’s one of dread.

Perhaps Jonathan sensed that the kingship would not pass to him. After all, judgeships did not  pass to offspring. Even though Saul was called king instead of judge, and Saul and Samuel assumed dynastic succession, Jonathan may not have. In this way, gifting David his robes may have meant tacitly accepting David’s coming kingship.

We should seek and aspire to be Jonathans not Sauls. Saul-like, fearful leaders will try to infect you with their fear. Overcome fear with love. However, love is not just feel-good sappiness. Love is serious. Love doesn’t agree with everyone, approve of everything, or allow anything and everything people do or demand.

Fear shifts with the wind. Love has standards, rules, moral truths, and unshakeable faith and determination. Fear denies flaws and obscures truth. Love apologizes and risks confrontation. Fear blames others and resorts to brutality. Love takes responsibility and endures hardships willingly. Fear feigns brave ferocity. Love will not retreat from spears, torches, swords, or even a cross.

A better model than Jonathan for your fearless love is Jesus, who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but given up. He traded kingly sonship for lowly servitude, and surrendered cosmic authority passing through death and the grave for us. (Philippians 2.6-8)

We need to seek and be leaders who are driven by love and not by fear. Jesus loves us fearlessly. Return and share fearless love.

Divine Hours Prayer: A Reading

Jesus taught us, saying: “The Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will, and as I have power to lay it down, so I have power to take it up again; and this is the command I have received from my Father.” — John 10.17-18

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: A Sympathetic Villain Origin Story

Saul had everything he needed to be a great and heroic leader…However, this was a villain’s origin story.

A Sympathetic Villain Origin Story

Read more: The Godly Impatience of Jonathan

Even under a wicked king, his father, Jonathan was faithful, brave, and honorable…May we have a godly impatience like Jonathan.

The Godly Impatience of Jonathan

Links for today’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel  17 Listen: (8:59) Read: 1 John 5 Listen: (3:00)

Scripture Focus: 1 Samuel 17.32-37

32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

“What trouble are giants?
What’s wrong with being small?
The bigger they come
You know the harder they fall” — Rich Mullins, “What Trouble Are Giants”

Reflection: The Lord Who Rescues

By John Tillman

David and Goliath is a big story. No pun intended.

“Deconstructing” David and Goliath is popular. Some claim it is mythical, but many who accept its historicity cut the legs from underneath this giant story another way. Pun intended.

They overcomplicate it by villainizing David’s motives, or minimizing Goliath’s threat, claiming Goliath was disabled with gigantism and blind. Or they oversimplify it claiming it has one and only one message, the gospel. “We are Israel. David is Jesus. Goliath is Sin/Death.”

David and Goliath, like all scripture, “is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3.16-17) David and Goliath is as “useful” a story for adults as it it for kids and students. It doesn’t have “just one message,” but it does have a core meaning.

“This is a story out of History
About real people with a real problem
That seemed larger than life
About a God who is greater
Than all of our strife.
About a man who fought
In God’s power and might.
Who ran to the battle
And surrendered his life.”

The above opening synopsis of a rhyming, comedic depiction of 1 Samuel 17 is burned in my brain from thousands of performances (usually as Goliath) with a dramatic arts ministry based at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary during my time there.

This story is first about a God who rescues. That priority is important but not exclusive. Even “conceited” (according to his brother) David claims God will defeat Goliath, not himself. However, this story is also about a person who responds. If it was only about God, David’s brother or Saul or Jonathan, or a nameless Israelite soldier could have done it. We cannot divorce the God who rescues and the person who responds from each other without losing the meaning of each.

The story is also about a God who uses unexpected methods to gain victory in seemingly hopeless situations. David’s line, “it is not by sword or spear,” is not just theatrics. It’s real. There were only two swords among all of Israel’s soldiers and David wasn’t holding one of them. God takes the weapons of the enemy, (Goliath’s sword, the Romans’ cross, and even Death) and uses them as the tools of victory.

God alone rescues. Be a person who responds.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer

Love the Lord, all you who worship him; the Lord protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily.

Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord. — Psalm 31.23-24

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: David’s First and Last Giants

Whether through a well-thrown stone or a well-placed ally, it is God who saves us from giants.

David’s First and Last Giants

Read more: Minority Report Vindicated

Fear makes us forgetful. Hearing the story of the Anakites, the people forgot everything God had done for them.

Minority Report Vindicated

Links for today’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel 14 Listen: (9:01) Read: 1 John 2 Listen: (4:04)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel 15 Listen: (5:46) Read: 1 John 3 Listen: (3:21)
Read: 1 Samuel 16 Listen: (3:45) Read: 1 John 4 Listen: (2:58)

Scripture Focus: 1 Samuel 14.3-15

12 The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.” So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Climb up after me; the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel.” 13 Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him. 14 In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.

15 Then panic struck the whole army—those in the camp and field, and those in the outposts and raiding parties—and the ground shook. It was a panic sent by God.

Reflection: The Godly Impatience of Jonathan

By John Tillman

Just after the disappointment of hearing Samuel tell Saul that his kingdom will not last, we get a long section of insight into Saul’s son, Jonathan, who acts when his father is passive and demonstrates wisdom when his father is foolish.

In the previous chapter, Saul failed a “Gideon-like” spiritual challenge. Saul was waiting with his army for Samuel to come offer the sacrifice. When Samuel was delayed the men became frightened and started to slip away. Saul broke God’s command in an attempt to retain more soldiers. His ungodly impatience was condemned by Samuel.

Saul ended up with only 600 men. (Twice what Gideon had.) But while Philistines advanced, established outposts, and sent raiding parties, Saul failed to meet them. In Samuel’s absence, Saul sought spiritual leadership by huddling with the grandson of disgraced leader, Phinehas, a corrupt son of Eli.

Jonathan seems to have gotten tired of waiting. His godly impatience led him to outdo Gideon’s great victory. Gideon sent the Midianites into a panic at night, through deception, with 300 men. Jonathan sent the Philistines into a similar panic in broad daylight, with an open challenge by only two men—and only one of them had a sword! After Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed about 20 soldiers, God sent an earthquake and a panic that caused the Philistines to start killing each other.

Jonathan is a sharp contrast with his father. Where Saul enacts religious appearances, Jonathan lives a fully realized faith. Where Saul seems oblivious to God’s clear instructions, Jonathan seems sensitive to God’s subtle guidance. Where Saul leads through threats and authority, Jonathan leads through cooperation and partnership. Where Saul lives by foolish oaths and decisions, Jonathan lives by wisdom and honor.

Seeing the greatness of Jonathan is a bittersweet picture of what could have been if Saul had made different choices. But Jonathan also shows us that we don’t have to wait for “leadership” to follow what God has for us. Even under a wicked king, who happened to be his father, Jonathan was faithful, brave, and honorable.

May we have a godly impatience like Jonathan. May we not allow corrupt, inept, indecisive, or hesitant leaders or peers to prevent us from doing what is right. Our family of faith, blood, or politics doesn’t have to define us and we have the freedom and responsibility to defy them when they make foolish or wicked decisions. (1 Samuel 14.28-30)

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

O Lord, I call to you; my Rock, do not be deaf to my cry; lest, if you do not hear me, I become like those who go down to the Pit. — Psalm 28.1

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Not So Random Acts of Kindness

When David settled into his role as the king of Israel, he turned his attention to honoring the friendship he had with Jonathan.

Not So Random Acts of Kindness

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