{"id":4597,"date":"2023-02-28T00:24:54","date_gmt":"2023-02-28T06:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4597"},"modified":"2023-02-28T00:24:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T06:24:54","slug":"devotional-on-1-samuel-47","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-samuel-47\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 1 Samuel"},"content":{"rendered":"

2015 – Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore – Munising, MI<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nThe good, the bad, and the ugly
\n1 Samuel 27: The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country.
\nOne thing about the narrative of the Bible is that we\u2019re told the whole story, both good and bad. I think that David’s time in Philistine country is, for him personally, what the book of Judges is for the Israelite people as a whole. David does it and we\u2019re told about it, but none of it\u2019s to his credit. Right off, David says that he thinks sooner or later that Saul’s going to capture him, so he needs to escape the country. Where\u2019s his faith in God who’s proven faithful to him across the years? Has he forgotten the incidents at the cave in En Gedi and at Hakilah Hill? Then we see him go to the enemies of Israel and of God, the Philistines, for refuge. King Achish foolishly thinks to himself that, “An enemy of Saul is a friend of mine.” That\u2019s a major mistake on his part but David’s decision stinks to high heaven. It\u2019s unworthy of one anointed of God. Once he settles in Ziklag, David starts raiding small towns. When Achish asks him where he\u2019s been he lies and says he\u2019s been raiding his own people, Judah. Instead, he raids Philistine towns and hides it by killing everyone living in them. When I read of mass killing during the occupation of Canaan I\u2019m uncomfortable, but at least that they felt they were doing God’s will. In David’s case, he\u2019s just making a living off of raiding villages and killing people. The writer of the Scripture just tells us what happened, but I come away from this passage thinking that this isn\u2019t of David’s proudest moment. Later on, when David wants to build the Temple he\u2019s told he has too much blood on his hands. I think this incident is an example of that. I understand that David was living in different times and that beyond that I\u2019m not David’s judge. I also remember here that even biblical heroes (not to mention me) stand in great need of God’s mercy, grace, and forgiveness.
\nTake Away: Even heroes of the Bible need God\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The good, the bad, and the ugly 1 Samuel 27: The best thing I can do is escape to Philistine country. One thing about the narrative of the Bible is that we\u2019re told the whole story, both good and bad. I think that David’s time in Philistine country is, for him personally, what the book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1473,7],"tags":[114,245,369,413,421,651,654],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14292,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4597\/revisions\/14292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}