OK, I am going to be honest and say I am not really certain what is happening in 1 Samuel 13. Saul is preparing for a battle against the Philistines and I guess jumped the gun a little bit and Samuel got after him for that. Samuel tells Saul that he is now not in God's favor. Then it confuses me once again by saying that none of them had weapons. Really, why would you plan to go into battle if you had no weapons and no means of getting them. I guess I am lost on this chapter.
Now, we move into chapter 14 and see that Saul's son Jonathan has kind of taken the battle into his own hands. It appears that he is using God as his guide and allowing God to make the decisions for him. Jonathan travels to a Philistine outpost and God delivers it to him. Jonathan and his armor bearer then continue on and the battle actually begins and grows. The last part of 14 I am still trying to wrap my head around. I do not see how it could have been bad for Jonathan or the Israelites because Jonathan ate the honey. If he had not heard he would not have known that Samuel had put our a curse. I am not sure why Samuel would have put out a curse like this in the first place. It only makes good military sense that your soldiers be feed so that they can perform better.
The last part of Luke 19 is once again a repeat of earlier readings. I am still trying to figure out why we have things multiple times within the Bible? We read once again the story of Jesus riding in to town on the donkey and of Him tearing up the temple.
Tomorrow's reading is:
1Samuel 15, 16 and Luke 20:1-26
13. The way I understand it Saul was suppose to wait on Samuel to come and make an offering. When the set amount of time went by Samuel wasn't there yet and Saul felt like he was loosing the people so he went ahead and made the offering himself. Then Samuel shows up, apparently right afterwards and is says that Saul making the offering displeased the Lord. I can totally see how this would happen given all the strict rules for making offerings.
ReplyDelete14. I think that part of the point in this chapter is that cursing the soldiers for eating didn't make sense. I think we are starting to see Saul fall apart a little.
19. I could have sworn when we read this story before it was a donkey tied to the tree? I think that we are getting different people's accounts of what happened and you never know what you might gain from a different perspective. I'm sure if I asked you and Jenn to tell me what happened in your house last night I would get two different stories about the same events. About the last part of the chapter: It is crazy to me to think of people selling things in church. Can you imagine going to church and having vendors set up in the back?!