The Park Forum

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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Links for today’s readings:

Read: 1 Samuel  12 Listen: (4:19) Read: Jude Listen: (4:12)

Scripture Focus: 1 Samuel 12:13-15

13 And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; behold, the Lord has set a king over you. 14 If you will fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the Lord your God, it will be well. 15 But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you and your king.

Reflection: Monarchies Are Manmade Constructs

By Erin Newton

Royalty is a manmade construct and antithetical to the desires of God. Yet today royalty is the object of tabloids and paparazzi, whether they are royal heirs or celebrities with royal status.

Royalty is the outworking of othering. It is created once the distinction has been made between them and us.

In ancient Egypt, the pharaoh was thought to be the embodiment of a god. The king’s voice was god’s voice. He held absolute power and inevitably exploited it.

Despite God’s warning through the prophet Samuel against requesting a king, Israel was set on being like the world around them. The set-apart people demanded conformity.

Samuel laments their decision and recounts the ways in which Israel had called out to God for deliverance only to fall back into sin and error pleading for redemption again. Like a parent who has watched a child go against their advice only to find themselves at risk of disaster, Samuel gives the only advice left: This can only succeed if you (king and community) follow God faithfully. But the reality of human nature looms large. Failure is not only warned against, it is expected.

From this moment forward, the judgment of God is on a tenuous delay. We will continue reading Israel’s history, watching as the first king, Saul, embraces sin. Israel’s second king, David, does the same through the abuse of Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah. The downward spiral culminates when God delays no longer.

We are all guilty of wanting to conform to the world. We sometimes look to political or religious leaders with the false sense that this one will solve all our problems. Likewise, leaders often fall into the temptation that their words are as good as God’s. They speak in absolutes, daring anyone to disagree.

Samuel, as a prophet, stands to speak against the foolishness of his own community. And the prophets will continue to take center stage (at least in the arrangement of our Old Testament books). In reality, they were the minority voice among a community that enjoyed their worldly conformity. How different are we today?

Leaders are not gods, but we’ve blasphemously given them labels like “savior” or “messiah.” The sharp contrast necessary to maintain a hierarchy of people—a few at the top, many at the bottom—is nowhere indicated as good in God’s creation.

Our job now is to be like Samuel, interceding for our community despite our collective error.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Righteousness and justice are the foundations of your throne; love and truth go before your face. — Psalm 89.14

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

Read more: Dethroning Kings and Powers

Joshua threw down kings but did not take their place. God was the only king or power Israel needed.

Dethroning Kings and Powers

Read more: Forces and Powers

We don’t resist the world’s powers with worldly weapons or resist demonic powers by attacking humans.

Forces and Powers