The Bible OverBrew - Bible in a Yearنموونە

Week 12. Day 3. 1 Samuel 15-18.

These chapters recount the Lord rejecting Saul, and then David being chosen king as his replacement. For what it’s worth, my own personal view is that Saul’s primary function in the narrative is as a negative contrast to David – but as noted yesterday, others have a more positive view about how he starts out.

Ch 15 What is the Lord’s verdict on Saul. Why?

(Note the sevenfold repetition of ‘voice’ emphasising the important of keeping God’s word.)

Ch 16 David is anointed king.

Anointing involved pouring oil over a person to set them apart for some task, usually to be a priest or prophet, or to be the king. Anointing with oil symbolised the empowering of God’s Spirit (as seen in 1 Sam 16:13). The Hebrew word for ‘anointed’ is ‘Messiah’ and the Greek word is ‘Christ’. Thus, to call Jesus Messiah or Christ points to him as a spirit-empowered king in the line of David.

Why does God choose David?

Ch 17 David and Goliath. Goliath is presented as a ‘serpent figure’ (cf Gen 3:15) with his ‘scaly’ armour (17:5) who threatens God’s people.

• What does David do?
• How is David shown as being unlike Goliath and Saul?

David shows himself to be a ‘serpent crusher’ foreshadowing Jesus who will defeat evil once and for all, on behalf of his people!

NOTE: Days 1-5 of each week contain the scripture reading for that week. Day 6 has just the 'key chapters'. If you want a briefer version of this plan that still takes you through the whole Bible, you could just read the key chapters featured on day 6. Day 7 has the podcast video where we discuss the week's reading.