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April 2, 2017 — Charles Yu

Series: God and Israel: Origins

Message: God’s Plan for Kingship

Main Idea: God plans for a king who seeks after him in his relationship and his behavior. The people want a king that will give them security. These two visions clash in the kingship of Saul. Purpose: To help people understand God’s plan for kingship and how it differs from what people want for kings. Text: 1 Samuel 8:1-20; Deuteronomy 17:14-20

I. Introduction

• Movie clips - Fellowship of the Ring. Boromir: “Gondor has no king; Gondor needs no king” - Fellowship of the Ring. Boromir pledges allegiance

• The Fellowship of the Ring, the first of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. - The author, JRR Tolkien, was a Christian, and he drew inspiration from the Bible. - One of the main storylines in the Bible is the rise of kingship in ancient Israel; the gradual

corruption of this kingship, and its eventual collapse; and then, at the final climax of the whole story of the Bible, there is the Return of the King.

• Today, we are at the beginning of this storyline, looking at the rise of kingship in the story of Israel.

II. Review Love this Book & Introduce the King of the People of God

• Love this Book

- The first section is God and the world. God creates a world and a people, and he envisions a community of love on earth. The people rebel against God, and the world falls apart.

- The second section is God and Israel. God wants to woo the rebellious world back to him, so he calls together a kingdom to show the world what knowing God and living with God is like.

- There are 4 components to the kingdom of God: a people, laws, land, and kings. - Last week, we started the section on kingship with the book of Judges.

‣ Pastor Matt tells us that this book is all about the failure of God’s people. They can’t keep covenant; again and again, they turn away from God to worship idols.

‣ Toward the end of the book, the narrator pretty much gives up on the people of God, and he says we need a king.

• From this point on, the stories of kings constitute the bulk of the rest of the Old Testament stories. - It runs from 1 and 2 Samuel through 1 and 2 Kings. (The main storyline of the Old Testament ends

with a book called the Book of the Kings. It’s about kingship.)

• When we talk about kingship, we (Americans) have problems. Americans are almost uniquely unqualified to read the Bible, because we have never had kings or queens in our history.

- Americans are about independence and autonomy, but this conflicts with what we believe as Christ-followers—Christ-followers are corrupted sinners in need not only of a savior, but of a king, a leader who strengthens us, someone we can follow.

• The Bible asks: “Is kingship really a good idea?” at the beginning of this storyline about kings. - The answer is: “It depends.”

III. Is Kingship a Good Idea?

• At the end of the book of Judges, the people of Israel have fallen into a political, moral abyss. Then

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Hannah, a faithful woman full of prayer, changes the trajectory of the people. - Hannah has a son named Samuel, and he becomes the leader of Israel. - He restores the nation to some semblance of order, and we pick up the story at a critical

juncture: everybody’s worried about the transfer of power

• 1 Samuel 8

- Samuel is getting old, and his sons are not working out as leaders. The elders representing the various tribes gather to say: We need a king.

- There are big differences between judges and kings. ‣ A Judge is raised up by God. He or she comes out of nowhere, gains popularity with the

different tribes, and has moral authority. People listen to them and rally around them. Then the judge dies, and the people returns to their tribal authority structure.

‣ Kingship is permanent, pervasive, and compulsory. A king will build a center of power. ‣ Samuel makes this clear to the people.

• This is kingship in the ancient world: conscription, a standing army, taxation for the maintenance of a permanent government.

- A king will be in all aspects of your lives; he will rule over you. A king is about authority, power. - A king is not someone you respect because of their talents. A king is someone who has the power

to compel you to do things by force. - That does not sound good.

• I Samuel 8:6-8 God says they want a king because they don’t want God as their king. - This is part of their rebellion. - God tells Samuel not to take it personally: They’re not rejecting you; they’re rejecting me. Do

what they ask. You can’t argue with them. This has been going from the day of when I got them out of Egypt.

IV. The Promise of Kingship in the Story So Far

• I Samuel is part of this unified narrative that runs from Genesis through 2 Kings. - Scholars call this main narrative Primary History. It is a single literary work edited together during

the Babylonian exile. ‣ When we read 1 Samuel 8, we are expected to have read everything before and have it in

mind. ‣ What God says about kingship should be rather surprising because we have been given hints

and predictions that there will be kings in the Kingdom of God (Genesis 17:3). ‣ Genesis 49:10 Judah sacrifices his life for his brother Benjamin out of his love for his father. In

so doing, he demonstrates the qualities of kingship, and the Genesis ends with the prophecy that the line of kings will come through Judah until the coming of the one who will command the obedience of the nations (the return of the king).

V. The Ideal King of Israel (Deuteronomy 17)

• Deuteronomy 17:14-17 - Requirements for a king: Someone chosen by God, and “He must be from among your fellow Israelites”—the king should be part of the covenant, someone who will be faithful to God.

- The king of Israel should not: “acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them.” ‣ Horses are not native to Canaan. They are imported from Egypt. That will require extensive

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trade with Egypt, and God does not want them to be drawn back by the influence of Egyptian culture and religion.

‣ Horses are also a critical component to the premiere weapon system of the ancient world: the chariot. Limiting the number of horses means limiting the number of chariots. This is about defense spending. First command to the king: don’t build a big army.

- The king “must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.”

• Deuteronomy 17:18-20 God wants a king who is: - Literate (educated). He reads; he writes; he understands. He’s reflective and thoughtful. - A devotee of the torah (daily quiet time: spiritual disciplines, a relationship with God, obedience). - Careful in his relationship with God (takes it seriously), expressed through obedience to the

Torah. - Humble.

VI. The Relationship Between 1 Samuel 8 and Deuteronomy 17

• Deuteronomy 17:14 and 1 Samuel 8:5

- They’re echoing Moses’s prediction that they will indeed ask for a king like all the other nations. - God’s reaction doesn’t make sense, and it’s not supposed to. The intended response to this

passage is confusion and bewilderment. - You’re supposed to say: What about Deuteronomy 17 (and Genesis 17 and Genesis 49)? - 1 Samuel 8:19 The people make a perfectly reasonable request (prophesied and predicted in the

story). God and Samuel react badly to it (confusing us), and then we get the reveal. We learn what God and Samuel knew all along, which is: the people are looking for a warrior king.

• The wrong lessons from the period the Judges. - In the book of Judges, the people reject God; they turn away from him. - God removes his protection, and other nations come and subjugate them. - They cry out to God, and God delivers them with a judge and calls them back to worship. - What is the point of the warrior king?

‣ A permanent standing army capable of preventing subjugation. (That way, they don’t have to worry about running away from God anymore.)

VII. Saul the First King of Israel

• They get a king they ask for: - He is tall. He can fight. We want a king who will protect us. Security. - A king who knows how to use authority. - He threatens people if they don’t come and fight (judges had to rely on volunteers). - Great warrior, but he embodies the tension inherent in kingship.

• How does a king make decisions against alliance, against military spending? - Saul chooses expedience. He knows how to fight wars; he knows what he needs to win battles,

but he doesn’t realize he needs God. Obedience trumps expedience.

• God rejects Saul as king. (1 Samuel 13:1-14) - Political expedience.

‣ He’s a warrior. He knows what he needs to win. He need morale. He needs his soldiers to fight with a sense that God is on their side. The way to do that in the ancient world is a sacrifice.

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‣ Problem in Israel: separation of power. King is the military guy; Samuel becomes the priest. ‣ Expedience over faithfulness. He does what makes sense, not what is faithful. What produces

results, versus what is commanded by God. It’s so easy to do this.

• Second rejection (1 Samuel 15:20-23)

• Expedience (1 Samuel 15:22-23). Do what the people want. Do what is popular. - Saul gets it. He knows how to be popular; he doesn’t know how to be obedient. - He also knows how to justify himself (it’s for a sacrifice). - Right here, right now, I depose you. You are no longer king. Samuel lowers the boom on Saul. - It’s over, but it’s not—and this scene begins the dominant struggle between God and kings in the

main storyline.

• In a few weeks, we will introduce the prophets, God’s spokespersons, and we will see this epic battle between kings and prophets. (Right here, we already see the problem: Samuel says, “You’re done,” and Saul says, “No, I’m not.”)

• 1 Samuel 15:24-31

- Saul wants a photo-op from Samuel. He wants the stagecraft. - Saul wants everybody to see that Samuel is on his side, and he has the approval of Yahweh. - Saul doesn’t care about the underlying reality. He makes his own reality. - Since he won’t step down, God will have to take him down, and Saul becomes the main threat to

the people of God and to the life of a new King named David. (Next week: David, a king after God’s own heart.)

VIII. Lessons for Us

• We are sheep. We go astray, led by other sheep. That’s the story of the people of God. (Do we need to follow anyone?)

• This passage and later ones are not about us anymore. - They are about the king of the Kingdom of God. (Partially: we also exercise authority in our own

spheres, so there are things we can learn about political expedience versus faithfulness, but ultimately the story is focused on the kings of the Kingdom of God—which means these stories are ultimately about helping us understand Jesus.)

• Different visions of the kingship: warrior vs. servant. - The same dynamic at the time of Jesus. First Century Jews wanted a warrior king, somebody who

would rally the people to drive out the Romans and re-establish the kingdom of God. ‣ Jesus says: I’m not that guy. I’m the king, but I’m the king who gets killed. ‣ Peter says: What are you talking about Jesus?

• Next week we get to see a king who is zealous for God and what that looks like. • Do you want to follow a warrior or a servant?

- Do we want a king who will give us security? Or do we want a king who sacrifices his life and asks us to do the same?

- Do we want somebody to do it for us, or somebody to leads us in covenant faithfulness? - What kind of a king do we want? A best friend? A protector? A king who commands our

allegiance and rallies us to the best of ourselves (the role of Jesus as king)?