Introducing 1 Samuel

Today on Truth for Life, we begin a brand new study in the book of Samuel. This historical narrative dates back about 3,000 years. The people and places all feel worlds away, but as we're about to discover, their story still gives us hope all these years later. Here's Alistair Begg to introduce us to a series titled Give Us A King.

I've been thinking about it a lot as I have been preparing this particular study this morning. And it is a coastal town, it is on the Bristol Channel. We took our children there when they were very tiny, before ever we came to live in America. And the thing that they were most excited about was that they were going to the seaside, that they were going to the ocean, that they were going to the shore, and so were we.

And little did we realize, though, that one of the unique features of Weston-Super-Mare is that low tide is a significantly low tide and puts the ocean itself approximately one mile from the shore. And so the dreadful experience, says Daddy, of walking with these little creatures and them constantly saying, Are we ever going to get to the ocean? And the answer is, Oh yes, we will definitely get there.

Well, you say, Why have you been thinking about this? I say, Well, I've been thinking about it, because although I've called our study this morning introducing 1 Samuel, the further I went in my preparation, I decided that this was really an introduction to the introduction. So I say all this just to whet your appetite and to acknowledge that you will be saying in relatively short order, Are we ever going to get to the text?

The answer is, Yes, we will, but you're going to have to be patient. My approach this morning is purposeful. This is not filler.

I think you know me well enough to know that that is not part of my approach to things. But as we begin a new series of studies, it is important for us to affirm before one another what it is we actually believe about the teaching and preaching of the Bible. Let me begin with a definition of preaching by Jim Packer. Some years ago in Scotland, addressing ministers, he provided us with this definition of preaching.

Preaching, he says, is the event of God bringing to a congregation a Bible-based, Christ-related, life-impacting message of instruction and direction from himself through the words of a spokesman. And what is so vitally important in that is that the subject of that sentence is God himself, reminding us that the message is God's message, that that message stands as fixed and true, not on account of the vehemence of the teacher, because, in fact, that may come or go. Luther, on one occasion, was confronted by some of his congregation, who said they would very much love to hear God himself speak.

They said that they would run to church if it were possible that God would speak in person, to which Luther replied, You now have the word of God in church, and this is God's word, as surely as if God himself were speaking to you. Now, it would be worthwhile beginning in this way almost every Sunday to make sure that we have absolute clarity about what is going on—or at least about what we pray will be going on. In other words, that God's word will be doing God's work by God's Spirit in God's people through the words of a frail, fallen, passing spokesman—his truth to our lives. And in the same way, it is vital that the one who is given the privilege of teaching the Bible is bowing underneath the same concerns. William Ames, in an earlier generation, said that the manner in which the Scripture is to be delivered by the preacher is, quotes, out of the inward affection of the heart without affectation. You see, the danger for the preacher is that it is a lot of affectation and no affection.

And the way in which it comes out of the inward affection of the heart of the preacher has to do not simply with the preacher's own preparation in the silent place, in the secret place, but it has to do with the preparation of the congregation, who in turn are praying through the week, bless the preacher, Father, whoever he is, when he comes, and grant that he won't come with affectation but that what he says will emerge from genuine affection for the Word and for those to whom he preaches. Now, all of that is relevant all the time, every time. But I suggest to you that it is particularly important that we give our attention to it given the fact that we're now turning to 1 Samuel.

1 Samuel is historical, it is a literary piece, and it dates back to around 1050 BC. So, in other words, we are now turning this morning to historical material that is three thousand years old. By and large, none of us are paying any attention to anything that's three thousand years old.

Why would we? There's so much that everybody didn't know three thousand years ago, and we know so much now. And if we live with the notion that because we have been born later than all these other people, therefore we are different and we are smarter, then our temptation will be to say, Well, there's not very much for us here. But in actual fact, if it is the Word of God and it never errors, then it remains absolutely applicable.

Okay? Now, we're almost there, but if you turn back two pages to the end of Judges, the very final verse of Judges helps to set the context for our beginning for Samuel. In those days, there was no king in Israel.

Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The Judges period was a period of chaos. It was a period of instability, both spiritually and at the same time socially and politically. And the circumstances are ripe, we might put it that way, for a big shift in the structure of the leadership of the people of God. And the word that is out there on the part of some is, you know, if only we could have a king like some of these other nations have a king, then I think we would be in a far better position. That, of course, was going to give rise to conflicting perspectives, as we'll see. But if you grasp this, then you will have a helpful sense of what is going on. And 1 Samuel essentially gives to us three key figures in the entire thirty-one chapters. First of all, basically chapters one to seven, the focus is on Samuel, the last of the judges and the prophet of God, then on Saul, who is anointed king, and then on David, who is going to succeed Saul. With all that said, it is now time to put it all in the water.

The birth of Samuel, there was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country. Wow, there's a start! Doesn't it just grab you?

Yeah. Well, actually, you see, it should, in a funny kind of way. Because this actually is a book that is able to hold children spellbound with its stories. If you've been brought up in the church, you, like me, have often gone to bed at night wondering as a child whether ever you would get a call in the middle of the night, like Samuel got a call, and he ran through to Eli's bedroom and so on, and then had to come back again. And that wonderful, amazing drama that is contained there in the minds of a youngster, so rich and full, and it's all in here. But this isn't exactly what you would call a dramatic beginning, is it?

Now, here is another sort of parenthetical statement. When we study the Bible, we study the Bible as the Bible is given to us. So studying a letter like the letter of Paul to the Ephesians is different from studying the narrative that is given to us in 1 Samuel.

It is different in its style. It is different in the way in which truth is conveyed. And if we do not put ourselves underneath that and understand it, then we will be tempted to teach the Bible in the same way, no matter where we are in the Bible. So we have to put ourselves underneath the authority of the Scripture in the literary framework in which it is presented to us. And it is presented to us here as a narrative, as a story, so that the way in which you read a story is different from the way in which you read a textbook, right? If you read a textbook looking for definitions, you don't look for definitions in a story. So therefore, what we have to do as we come to this study is we've got to put our story hat on, as it were.

We are reading real history, real people, in real time, given to us in a narrative that should cause us to ask questions in a way that leads us to the truth that is being conveyed. What we ought to find quite amazing is that this man, Elkanah, is essentially an unknown individual. He's an unknown individual. There are four generations of his family mentioned, so that gives him some kind of stature. But beyond that, we know very little.

Furthermore, Ramathim-zophim is not exactly the center of the universe. So we're immediately introduced to the obscurity of a man, to an unknown man, in a town that doesn't really seem to present very much at all, causing us to say, Well, this is interesting. Does this mean that the man of God's appointing, namely Samuel, comes not from among the powerful and the prominent in Israel but from the obscurity of this house? And the answer is yes. In actual fact, from the point of view of social standing or, if you like, fame, notoriety, power, within the nation of Israel, Elkanah and his family were nobodies.

Nobodies. What is significant about him? Well, we're told. What is significant? Verse 2, he had two wives.

Now the story's really hot enough, isn't it? What we're supposed to be saying is, I wonder why the two wives are mentioned the two wives, and are the two wives important? Well, we're going to discover that the two wives are fundamentally important, because if one hadn't been such an aggravational nuisance, the other one would perhaps not have prayed to the extent that she prayed, therefore may not actually become the mother of Samuel. So in other words, the bad stuff that is introduced into the framework of this dysfunctional family by Penina contributes, in the providence of God, to the good result of the birth of this child.

But we jump ahead. Presumably, Hannah—the name means grace, being his first wife—had been unable to produce for Elkanah a son and an heir. As a result of that, he had taken to himself a second wife, Penina, in order to keep the family life alive. And as we discover from the text, she had obviously been blessed in this way. Now, we're not going to stall on this issue of polygamy or multiple wives in the Old Testament except to acknowledge this—that this kind of arrangement, which we find in reading the Old Testament, is clearly tolerated but it is never commended. It is never introduced, if you like, from God's side. And it is never described for us in a favorable light.

If you track these occasions, you will discover that it is always an expression of conflict, as it is here, and of chaos, and of disappointment, and of pain. Alec Matea, my old friend and Old Testament teacher, when I asked him on one occasion, I said, Well, then, why do we have all of these things? Because it's very difficult, I said, Alec, when you're teaching the Bible and you come across a thing like this, and Elkanah had two wives. Well, he said, I think it is only there in the Scriptures, in order that it serves as a dark backdrop against which to show up the reality of God's perfect plan for marriage. Suffice it to say that the domestic circumstances of Elkanah's home, in what was actually a kind of dysfunctional family, brings to the forefront Hannah, who then becomes the central figure in these opening chapters. And that, in turn, ought to cause us to wonder again. What we've said is that this transitional period is of huge significance. It is of great significance to the people of God in terms of their structure of leadership, their obedience to his law, their relationship with the surrounding nations, so politically and socially, and in every other way it is a matter of great significance. Well, isn't it strange that the way in which this should be introduced to us is to have the spotlight focusing not, if you like, on the palace, but the spotlight is turned on a lady called Hannah who had no children?

What are we to do? Well, this comes back to what I've been saying to you earlier. The theology in 1 and 2 Samuel is to be discovered by the reader, not by definition in a textbook way, but is to be discovered by the reader as it is revealed in the extraordinary ordinariness of the lives of these individuals, so that we are supposed to read this material, to reflect upon it, in order that we might learn lessons from the text, in order that we might be able to say that although this is three thousand years ago, these are, as I've said to you, real people in a real place, and they're dealing with real hopes and real fears, real aspirations and real failures. Now, that ought to immediately be a point of contact for some of us. Because all of us, as we live our lives, are dealing with hopes, fears, aspirations, and failures. And the fact that we live three thousand years beyond this has not removed us from that realm. We may be more conscious of it than ever. So what we need to understand is that the problem that faced Hannah—which is true, actually, of the problems that face us—that Hannah's problem was not just personal in her barrenness, but it was also theological.

Well, why do you say? Well, because the promise of God to his people—and you can read this in Deuteronomy 7. In fact, I'll make sure that is there. But in Deuteronomy 7 and in verse 14, as God lays out his concerns for and plans for his chosen people, he says to them at one point, You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. You're gonna be blessed, and there'll be no barren among you.

So Hannah wakes up in the morning, and the next morning, and the next year, and the next year, and she has the issue… The predicament is that she has no children, and she's in the house with a lady who has the children. To that we will come. But the real predicament is, How do I understand this in theological terms? If God has made this promise, where do I fit in this?

But think about it. Isn't that true for all of us, in all kinds of ways? That God has said this, and here I am? Is this the end of this discussion?

Is there more to come? It would seem that I am absolutely hopeless. It would seem that I am absolutely helpless. If we had had occasion to speak to Hannah, and we had said to her, you know, the contemporary question, and so how do you feel?

What would she have said? I feel wretched. I feel confused.

Unless God does something, I've got no hope. So her predicament was not just a personal predicament, but it was theological. And finally, her predicament was not unique to her.

Was not unique to her. If you're a Bible person, you will find yourself saying, But wait a minute. This is a familiar story. Haven't we seen this already?

A lot? And you'll say to yourself, But isn't that the story of Abraham and Sarah and the birth of Isaac? Yes. Isn't that the story of Rachel, who was barren, and the birth of Joseph, who was to be the savior of his people in Israel during the famine? And isn't it also, to come far more up to date, true in the judges that it tells us that there was a certain woman who was barren, and she became the mother of Samson? Reminding us of what? Well, in each case, in each of these women, each of them shared Hannah's sad experience. And in each case, a child was born who was going to prove to be God's answer to the crisis of the time.

But it was to be set against the background of obscurity. It was to be set against the context of, Who's Elkanah? Where is this place? Who is she? If you come even further on, you're in the realm of Elizabeth and Zechariah, to which we've just spent time at Christmas. Elizabeth cannot give birth. God provides for her. In fact, we're immediately in the realm of Mary and Joseph. Mary was not barren, but she was childless. And when the angel came to announce, God is with you, you're highly favored, you're gonna have a baby, she doesn't say, Yeah, that makes sense. She says, How can this be? Since I know not a man, King James, how can it be?

The answer is God. That the Word of God is light in the darkness of Elkanah's home. That the Word of God is hope for the hopelessness of Hannah's heart. And the Word of God is the answer in Jesus not only to the crisis of that time but to the crisis of every time. And the answer to whatever your crisis is as you come here this morning, as we begin together these studies in 1 Samuel. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life as he introduces our brand-new study in the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel.

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