1 Samuel, Chapter 27

I apologize for the break in publishing, but a brief trip to Florida was much needed in order to rest and recharge my batteries. It already feels like I never went, and I have been back for only 36 hours. Such is life, however. Today I wanted to return to the life of David where we left off in chapter 27 of 1 Samuel.

When I began writing about David’s life I wasn’t quite sure where it would take me at first. The Jewish faith views the Old Testament as both a sacred historical text and as a manual of Jewish traditions. In the Christian faith we tend to view it more as strictly as a historical record. We believe that Christ Himself rewrote most of the traditions when he established the new covenant. In that view, the Old Testament serves to show why a new covenant was needed between God and man. Still, the tendency to view it simply as a book of stories instead of something hat God is trying to tell us.

On the surface, that is what chapter 27 and much of the rest of 1 Samuel looks like. There is no huge, “I am the way, the truth, and the light” type of revelation here. Instead, we see more insight into the life of David and the type of man he was before becoming king of Israel. This chapter shows his patience. He was waiting for God to deal with Saul, rather than dealing with Saul himself. For 16 months he had to live with the Phillistines and in that time he continued to seek God first. Though this chapter is short, it still teaches us this overlying message that God sometimes has us mark time in a place where we don’t want to be in order to accomplish His goals.