Saul--Background

There are three cornerstone beliefs held by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod:

1. Sola gratia (by grace alone)

2. Sola fide (by faith alone)

3. Sola scriptura (by Scripture alone)

I'll cover the first two at some point this year, most likely in the New Testament, but sola scriptura is a fairly simple concept which tells us to use the Bible alone to interpret the Bible. I'll use today's reading to show the connectivity of the Bible and why even seemingly odd passages fit together and make a unified whole.

In today's reading, Saul is established as the king. Yesterday, we learned that he was a Benjamite (1 Samuel 9:21), the smallest tribe, and he was from one of the "least" of the clans of Benjamin. In other words, he was suggesting he didn't have the stature or gravitas necessary to command and lead a nation, despite his physical presence of being "a head taller than any of the others" (9:2). This is yet another occasion where God didn't use the most obvious choice, but the LEAST in order to demonstrate that it's God's will and God's world, and his will WILL be done.

But why were the Benjamites the least of the tribes? In the first census of the tribes in Numbers 1, Benjamin numbered 32,200 men aged 20 and over, which increased to 45,600 in the second census of Numbers 26. Benjamin was the smallest tribe by count, but not by a huge margin. Here's where sola scriptura comes into place. Think back to last week's reading, specifically the reading of April 6th, which, when you go back and review it, I guarantee you will IMMEDIATELY remember just how confused you were when you read it. I know at our table all we did was look at each other and say "Beats me" when we tried to understand its meaning and why it was even in the Bible. We can go even further back to Jacob's blessing of his sons, when he said of Benjamin in Genesis 49:27, "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder."

It was the men of Benjamin who did the atrocities described in Judges 19, and the rest of the tribes went to war against them and almost eliminated them as described in Judges 20-21. When Saul tells Samuel he's from a minor clan of a small tribe, THAT'S why we had to read what we did in Judges--we had to learn HOW the tribe of Benjamin came to be so small, and also to show forgiveness and redemption to a tribe that was almost removed from the face of the earth. From that would come Israel's first king.

We'll read soon enough of Saul's shortcomings, and even saw today in 1 Samuel 13 that he didn't follow the Lord's instructions to the letter. Always remember when we view the people of Israel in the Old Testament times that they were clearly instructed in Deuteronomy 6:25 to "...obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, [and] that will be our righteousness." What might seem small or insignificant wasn't for the Israelites to decide--God told them what to do and how to do it. As I'll say over and over, it's the same for us today, since we disobey just as often as the Israelites did, but we're forgiven. 

We take great risks when we overemphasize some parts of the Bible over others or selectively interpret parts of Scripture. This little illustration will be repeated and is one of the most important lessons we'll learn as we read the Bible this year--the Bible is inerrant and cohesive and there's a reason for everything we read. We may not understand it at the time, and there will come passages we may NEVER understand, but that's our problem, not God's. Everything we have and will read has a purpose, and if we open our hearts and minds, we'll see it as clearly as we need to.

Scott