A Puzzling Parallel
Wednesday (September 17)
A Puzzling Parallel
1 Samuel 8:1-3
When Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but turned aside to gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
Reading slowly and reflectively through the Bible as a 39-year-old, and having been a disciple of Christ for 34 years, is as humiliating a process as it is enlightening. Humiliating in the sense that I continue to encounter conundrums like the one facing us here in 1 Samuel 8:1-3 as if for the very first time, which means that I’ve either been a bad reader or a bad listener or both. I’ve walked away from the chronicles of heroes like Abraham and Moses and Samuel foolishly thinking I’ve got a pretty good grasp on their successes and failures, but I’ve missed crucial addendums and failed to ask difficult questions. But maybe that’s part of the point of progressive revelation. That we, as we grow as disciples and step forward in our own lives of faith, are constantly re-evaluating and re-learning yesterday’s epiphanies through the lens of today’s perspective. Though our LORD’s words will stand unchanged forever, the little notes we write today in the margins will become antiquated by the weekend.
I’m a little speechless upon reading that Samuel’s own two sons abused their leadership position for private gain. Aren’t you? To think that Samuel raised up boys who publicly defamed the honor and glory of the LORD before a watching world, yet he kept them in their prominent roles anyway, casts a shadow over his otherwise pristine ministerial. However, the oddest part
to me is that God condemned Eli for this very thing, and it’s only because Eli’s household lost the priesthood that Samuel was able to rise in Eli’s place. So why doesn’t the LORD condemn Samuel in the same way He condemned Eli? Why do Samuel’s boys get away with their corruption, but Eli’s were killed for it? We don’t know. But questions like these confront me with a deeper resolution of faith, and it’s this: that perhaps the reason our lives today, like the Bible in our laps, have a million blanks we can’t fill in is because the Author of both wants us to trust His wisdom rather than our own.