Saturday, March 28

Scripture: So that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles. (1 Samuel 8:20).

Observation: The elders of Israel are demanding (they don’t ask) for Samuel to appoint the first-ever king over Israel. Their rationale is threefold. First, they want to be like other nations. All of Israel’s neighbor nations have kings, so why shouldn’t they? Second, they want a king to govern them. Up to this point in Israel’s history, the people were governed by leaders who fulfilled a variety of functions, but none of them were kings. Moses was God’s mouthpiece. Joshua was God’s general. The judges, as morally compromised as they often were, were God’s champions who defended Israel against stronger nations. But kingship is an altogether different form of governance. A king is God’s handpicked ruler, which makes defying a king the same thing as defying God. Therefore, kings have the divine right to do… well, anything they want; the only higher authority to hold them accountable is God. Kings can design government the way they want, imposes taxes as much as they want, start wars as frequently as they want, enrich themselves as much as they want, and treat their subjects however they want. Here in 1 Samuel, the elders tell Samuel they want this sort of governance. There’s no going back. Once God selects a king, then that king’s direct descendants will always have a claim to the king’s throne, and those who believe in the legitimacy of that claim will fight to the death for their king, and those who reject the legitimacy of that claim will fight to the death to overthrow whom they believe is a false king. Third, the elders of Israel want a king who will fight their battles for them. Samuel, who will be the last of Israel’s judges, is getting old and will not be around much longer to fight Israel’s battles. Installing a king would guarantee that there will always be a military leader with a tax-funded army to defend Israel. How quickly the elders have forgotten when God fought Israel’s battles with no assistance from the people: when God freed the people from slavery in Egypt and parted the Red Sea, and most recently in 1 Samuel, when the ark of the covenant freed itself from captivity and came home to Israel with no human help.

Application: God is King. Period. While it’s true that God consents to the Israelites having a king and some of the kings, like David, will do the job justice most of the time, that doesn’t mean God is happy with the arrangement. God flat-out tells Samuel: “they have rejected me from being king over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7). Installing a human king over Israel is not the best idea. Rather, as a form of government, having a king is the least bad idea when compared to the alternatives. The judges weren’t working. Sure, Samuel was good, but his sons were corrupt and there was no guarantee that another competent judge would rise to take Samuel’s place. Without God himdelf coming down to be king, selecting a human king would be the worst possible form of government- except for all the other ones. It’s the best option available. Wouldn’t it be great if one day, God took the job?

Prayer:

People in government have a hard job. Between the paper work and the thankless grind of keeping the roads paved and the water flowing and the trash picked up and funding truly necessary work like the mail and fire hydrants and everything a first-responder knows how to do with one hand tied behind their back with ever-shrinking pools of money and the competing urgent demands of constituencies who have the real power to vote you out of a job and the unseen miracles that You are able to work in the world because a devoted public servant showed up to their computer and gave their job their best effort and whole heart, which makes the critiques of the digital mob painful because the silent best of government is invisible to the loud majority of the rest of us- being in government is hard; and so: give extra blessing to the public servants out there, please? Grant them courage and resilience for the long slog of thankless worthy work and abundant rest on their days off. Help all of Your children to unite behind Your chosen King, Jesus, who is the eternal picture of love and who alone is worthy of ruling galaxies and governments alike. Onward we go: amen.