1 Samuel 30-31; Psalm 106:24-48; Romans 10

June 5: The uniting principle among these three passages seems to be that faith moves us to utterly trust God’s mercy even when it doesn’t look like it’s being extended to us. Hopeless as it looked, David sought the word from God; the Psalmist is urging God’s people finding themselves in the same position that existed under the rule of the oppressors in the Judges to ask for deliverance. Paul evangelizes the pagans even as he hopes his own people see that the word of salvation was always being extended to them and all they needed to do was turn and believe.

1 Samuel 30-31: What is the decisive contrast between these two chapters? David experiences a great defeat, if not in direct combat; in that his city is destroyed, his wives are taken and some of his men want to stone him. Saul leads Israel to great defeat, in which he and his sons are killed. Saul is in the predicament he’s in because he couldn’t get a word from the Lord so he sought a medium. Why wasn’t he hearing from the Lord? Because he slaughtered the priests. It’s unclear whether he even knew Abiathar escaped. Nevertheless, Abiathar is giving David important direction, to the extent that David is able to recover his own wives and the spoil of the city, and send the Amelekites’ spoil to key cities in Israel that he and his soldiers would visit. Hebron, the first place that accepts David as King, is mentioned last, in a possibly portentous fashion.

Psalm 106:24-48: Is vv. 40-42 talking about the Captivity? It seems to be talking about the period of the Judges. The parallel is instructive, though: the people had history of being under servitude, so they should’ve known it was possible. Likewise, Jeremiah pointed to the Ichabod event, (1 Samuel 4-5), at the tail end of the period of the Judges, if not in the book of Judges, as an example that God would indeed allow their Temple to be destroyed. Both His willingness to give them over to the heathen and His mercy to deliver them from oppression are things we must keep in mind. We need to be able to say with faith, “Save us, O LORD our God and gather us from among the heathen."

Romans 10: So there’s a word that must be shared in order for the hearers to believe and be saved. Is that the same word that has always been shared? Paul quotes Moses on both sides of the issue of righteousness. First, Moses is the one who says that the man who keeps the law shall live in it (Leviticus 18:5). In other words, as long as you can keep it, you show your righteousness, and the law-keeping, righteous man will not die, he will have eternal life. But the second quote is from Moses, too. In the context of Deuteronomy 30, he has just teased the New Covenant, (Jeremiah 31:31-34), repeated the Great Commandment, (Deut. 6:5), and is about to call the Israelites of the Conquest of Canaan to choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19) What is the word that he’s sharing? "Turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul” (Deut. 30:10) What is the word Paul is sharing? Turn to confess what has now been revealed, that Jesus is Lord, that God has raised Him from the dead, trust in Him with all your heart and soul. There’s more information, but turning to depend utterly on God’s provision is the same word. So Did Israel know the truth? Yes, they knew the truth and were waiting for more. But some drew back in offense after hearing more. So, as Moses also said, (Deuteronomy 32:21), God determined to draw the heathen to Himself in order to provoke the Jews to jealousy.