1Samuel 15

Does God repent? Yes, but not the way we do.

When we do it, we recognize our sin for what it is and turn from it, intending in God's power to never do it again. None of that sentence applies to God, though. I think the answer is that God loved his children (and still does) but knew they needed enough rope to hang themselves. He hated the pain it caused, but he knew Israel wouldn't any other way.

Review: KING LEAR by William Shakespeare

This is considered one of Shakespeare's greatest works, and one of the greatest plays in the English language, so it doesn't much matter if I liked it or not. I did though.

Lear begins by fishing for compliments from his daughters, dividing his kingdom among them based on the extravagance of their declarations of love for him. He only goes downhill from there. In a few words, the play is about the descent of the King into madness.

It's not always pretty, but it's always interesting. The archaic language is a hurdle, but not as large a hurdle as you might think. I recommend this, for its realism. The situations may be unfamiliar, but they're handled in a very real way.

1Samuel 14

Saul made a couple of rash vows, and was too much a coward to follow through when it was his family at stake.

The amazing thing is that he mentioned his son Jonathan by name. When it came down to it, though, he couldn't keep his vows.

Review: THE PURITAN BIBLE PRIMER by Jon J. Cardwell

Cardwell, if I'm not mistaken, is a pastor in Anniston, Alabama. He has compiled several books, largely from public domain sources. This one is geared toward training children.

Though Cardwell is a Calvinist --as were the Puritans --and the Primer is written that way, it's easily adapted for a non-Calvinist perspective. Even as it stands, though, it's a great book, and I'm thankful that Cardwell has made it available.

I recommend this to anyone who speaks time with children.

1Samuel 13

Saul lost his kingdom because he tried to usurp power that wasn't he.

He was already king, which gave him near-absolute power over the Hebrews, and he was occasionally a prophet, when the power of the Holy Spirit came on him. One type of power he didn't have was the power to offer sacrifices, which belonged to the priesthood alone. Only one person held the officers of prophet, priest, and King, and his name wasn't Saul.

And lead us not into temptation

The book of James tells us that God can't be tempted, and doesn't tempt anyone else. That's good to know, but then what's this line doing in the Lord's Prayer?

The first thing to notice is that we don't ask God not to tempt us, but not to lead us into temptation. Sometimes God will allow us to be tempted, for our good or that of someone watching.

The second thing we should be aware of is that there is a difference between temptation and testing. The Lord will not tempt you, but he will test you, as he does all his children. That sounds like a fine distinction, and it feels that way sometimes. I can only tell you my way of looking at it; if it helps, you're welcome to it and if not, you're welcome to throw it away.

God tests us to see us succeed and grow stronger. Satan tempts us so we'll fail and grow weaker,

Simplistic, maybe, but it's worked for me.

1Samuel 12

Samuel was unusual among the judges. He was the last one, and bridged the gap between rule by God through the judges and rule by kings. He led from the tabernacle rather than leading an army.

And though he was chosen by God, like the other judges, he had to spend half his farewell speech proving his own honestly. How sad.

Review: HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? by Francis Schaeffer

I probably misspelled his name, but I'm not concerned enough to look it up, and that's not the important part anyway.

The important part is that every professing Christian should read this book immediately. Not instead of a Bible, but with a Bible. Check Schaeffer's book against Scripture. Then act like it.

At the surface, it's a book about art, contrasting older works with newer ones. If you never get past that, it's still a very good book, and you'll likely learn to good deal about art and art criticism. It doesn't take a lot of digging to find out it's really a book about worldview.

Worldview is basically the lenses through which we look at the world . An American sees the world very differently than an Australian, though there will be similarities as well. A Han looks at the world differently from a Uyghur, though they both live in China. Men and women have different worldviews. In this book, Schaeffer makes the point that the Christian worldview is different than the non-Christian one, and draws that seemingly simple observation out to its logical conclusion: that Christians should be different from other people.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I really can't.

1Samuel 11

the people of Israel were ready to kill whoever had put Saul forth as king. 

They were the same ones who demanded a king and loved Saul because he was taller than everyone else. Seems kind of dumb in hindsight, doesn't it?

Please forgive me

I think I've figured out my defining sins: lust and pride.

By defining sins I mean the ones that have always been with me. They're the ones that were there when I thought I'd rooted everything out. They're what I see when I look at myself.

Unfortunately. I learned to lust early. By the time I got to high school, where every girl had something to look at, I was in the habit of checking  them out. And that's how I did it: habitually. Even if I didn't like the girl, my mind was still racing. I owe a much greater apology to the few I physically defiled, but I did more a hundred times a day in my head. I believe God's forgiven me, and I hope you will, too.

As for pride, I've been told for as long as I can remember that I'm smart. Add to that the fact that we have everything when we're young, and I was an arrogant little snot. If I ever made anyone feel stupid or said or did hurtful things, I'm very sorry and can only beg your forgiveness.

It's been a long time, and I should have apologized sooner. Sorry about that.

1Samuel 10

As I said, Israel got the king it deserved. 

Saul's first official act, his own coronation, was something he tried to hide from. Tall as he was, Saul was in over his head trying to rule Israel. He was a man trying to do God's job, and I can almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

Review: ANNA KARENINA by Leo Tolstoy

This is a long book. More correctly, it sprawls. The title character is only one of many foci in the book, and while her adultery is a major plot, the book spends as much time on several members of her extended family.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky noted that Tolstoy concocted long, detailed histories for even minor characters, and that shows in the life that infuses such characters. The downside to this obsessive detail is long books that move very slowly.

I'm glad I made it through this once, but I can't see doing it again. I recommend it if you like the idea of several interconnected romance novels. If that doesn't sound good to you, just be glad I read it so you don't have to.

1Samuel 9

Israel wanted a king with which to impress the other nations. Saul looked like a king; he was tall, handsome, and very impressive.

Israel got exactly the king it deserved.

Review: THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING by Anonymous

We don't know exactly who wrote this, other than that it was an English monastic who wrote it almost 800 years ago. Now it's considered a classic of Christian mysticism.

The heart of the book is its approach to meditation. In essence, it is this: whatever is good and thus aligned with God, ultimately comes from God. Anything that doesn't is by definition sin. Therefore, thinking about God includes everything good, and thinking about sin includes everything bad. 

As someone deeply interested in these practices, I recommend this book, with one caveat: read it with a Bible in your hand.

1Samuel 8

Just so you know, the people already had a king: God.

God had Samuel tell them the downside of having a human King. They didn't care; they still wanted to go like be the the other nations. So God did the worst possible thing he could do to his people. He gave them what they wanted.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us

I can tell you what this doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that you won't be forgiven until you forgive everyone who ever wronged you, as I was first taught. However, it also doesn't mean that it's just filler, to be safely ignored.

In fact, the only way you can ignore it is to be perfect and require no forgiveness. If that's the case, then not only do I have nothing to say to you, but neither does Christianity. Try Hinduism or Buddhism; I hear they're looking for perfect people.

If there are any people left and you want to know what Jesus meant, just look at what he said. The Church has tried to allegorize and spiritualize his words for 2000 years, but precious few have read them and tried to follow them.

To be forgiven requires that you be willing to forgive. In that way it's just another way of saying, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

1Samuel 7

Have you ever heard the song "Come Thou Fount"? There's a line that says, "Here I raise my Ebenezer", which doesn't make sense without some context.

Here's the context.

Review: JULIUS CAESAR by William Shakespeare

Like Shakespeare's other plays, this one has a decent story rendered more difficult than it has to be by the antiquated language.

For the record, this is the only Shakespearean play I've memorized a large chunk of. In my 10th grade English class, Mrs Atchison had us memorize  something like 100 lines of this. Going on 30 years later, I still remember a lot of it.

1Samuel 6

The Philistines got rid of this ark, buy God didn't lower his standards any.

The ark was sacred. It was to be handled, moved, and even looked at in a certain way, and there were consequences for those who didn't follow the law. 

Three verses always misquoted

Everyone gets things wrong every now and then. However, here are three Bible verses I've never seen or heard as they appear in Scriptrure:

Matthew 3.16: this one is interesting because all four Gospels use the exact same words to describe the way they Holy Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism: "like a dove." Did he come down in the form of a dove? Maybe; the Bible doesn't say. That's never  stopped anyone, though.

Luke 22.44: I couldn't tell you the number of times I've heard about the great drops of blood Jesus sweat the night before his crucifixion. I've even learned about a medical condition in which great stress makes me body sweat blood. The only problem is that the Bible only says that his sweat was like great drops of blood. I'm not saying all those people were wrong. I'm just saying they read more than was there.

2Corinthians 5.8: This is the verse that started me thinking this way. Someone said "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord",  and I looked it up. Paul actually wrote, "I am willing to be absent from the body and present with the Lord." So am I. It's hard to imagine a Christian who isn't.

Let's be more careful with Scriptrure. We don't need to make it more interesting than it already is.