1 Samuel overview (part 1)
Tonight we are going to continue in our OT series as we do an overview of the book of 1 Samuel. Now I want to point out that 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel used to be just 1 book just like first and second kings used to be one book. In fact in the Hebrew Bible they are one book. So why were these book divided? The simple answer is this, when the Hebrew is translated into Greek it takes up more space and their simply wasn’t enough room on the scrolls that they used to put the entire book of Samuel so they divided it. So the Greek Septuagint translators receive the credit for dividing Samuel into 1 and 2 Samuel. These books have also been called the books of kingdoms. They would call 1 Samuel through 2 Kings the first, second, third and fourth kingdoms.
Now the book of 1 Samuel is a transition book from God ruling through Judges to God ruling through Kings even though God is the only true king and king of kings.
Key Chapters 15 - 16
This shows the transition from Saul being King to David being anointed King. This book records 3 basic stages from Eli to Samuel, Samuel to Saul and Saul to David. However the 3 major Characters of this book are Samuel, Saul and David.
Key words: Prayed or
prayer
Key Verses:
1 Samuel
1 Samuel
In these verses you
see that obedience to God’s will is very
important and that God will not be pleased if you try and it do it your way
instead of his way. How I wish that people in the religious world would take
these words to heart and stop doing things there way and get back to Bible and
do things God’s way.
Author and Date:
Sometimes we cannot know
for sure who penned some of these books but one thing we can know that whoever
wrote them did so by the inspiration of God.
2 Peter 1:21 for prophecy never came by the will of man,
but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
2 Timothy
So we can see that God is
true author behind these books. With that being said I will now show the most
logical choice of who wrote this book. Now we know that the book is called
Samuel but this doesn’t mean that he wrote it because it could simply bare his
name because his the major focus in the first part of this book. However it is logical that he did pen
at least the first 24 chapters of this book. We can see that he did write some
things in:
1 Samuel
He was also the head of
group prophets.
1 Samuel
So he certainly could
have wrote part of this book. However he could not have wrote Chapters 25 and
beyond because these things happened after his death. Now the next logical
choices that helped write 1 Samuel come from:
1 Chronicles 29:29 Now the
acts of King David, first and last, indeed they are written in the book
of Samuel the seer, in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad
the seer,
So it certainly possible
that these 3 men Samuel, Nathan, and Gad wrote the book of Samuel but this is
just and educated guess.
Another difficult thing
is in dating this book. Now there are certain things we do know. We know that this book is
continuation of history after the book of Judges as we can see that both Eli
and Samuel were Judges and then we transition to a King. We can also know that
1 Samuel covers about 100 years from the birth of Samuel to the death of King
Saul. However assigning an exact date cannot be done but I can give you a range
time that most scholars date it. 900 BC
to 1200 BC.
I believe there is a two
fold message of this book.
1. To obey God and enjoy
the blessing of victory over sin and evil.
2. To recognize the power
and the need for prayer in all aspects
of our life.
Main Theme:
The main theme of the
book is to show both the goodness and the severity of God. Many people today
only want to think about the goodness of God and they stay far away from the thought
of him taking vengeance on those who oppose him. We can see this concept taught
in the NT as well.
Romans 2:5 But in
accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up
for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment
of God, 6 who "will
render to each one according to his deeds": 7 eternal life to those who by
patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are
self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness -- indignation
and wrath, 9 tribulation and
anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the
Greek; 10 but glory, honor,
and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek. 11 For there is no
partiality with God.
God has given us choice
to be for him or against him. Those who live righteous life will experience
eternal life in heaven but those who try to do things there way instead of
following God’s will face his wrath because he is a just judge. We can also see
that God doesn’t care what you look like on the outside he cares what you look
like on the inside. We can see this in Saul.
1 Samuel 9:2 And he
had a choice and handsome son whose name was Saul. There was not a more
handsome person than he among the children of
Of course Saul was the
first King of the children of
1 Samuel
You see his good looks
and body build did not keep God from leaving him. We also see that Samuel
himself had a hard time not judging a person by their outer appearance as we
see in:
1 Samuel 16:6 So it
was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, "Surely the LORD's
anointed is before Him." 7
But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the
height of his stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not
see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD
looks at the heart."
Just as God doesn’t show
partiality as Christians we should strive not to show partiality nor should we
judge someone by the outer appearance. James also talks about this in:
James 2:1 My
brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of
glory, with partiality. 2 For
if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel,
and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, 3 and you pay attention to the one
wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good
place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or,
"Sit here at my footstool," 4
have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil
thoughts? 5 Listen, my
beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich
in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 6 But you have dishonored the poor
man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? 7 Do they not blaspheme that noble
name by which you are called? 8
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; 9 but if you show partiality, you
commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
Let us always strive to
be careful not to judge a book by its cover.
Now lets take a brief
look as some the people in the book of 1 Samuel.
Hannah – whose name means “grace” She was a Godly women who really wanted to have a
male child. With her eye full of tears she prayed to God for this blessing a
promised to dedicate her son to the Lord. Her prayers were answered and she
kept her promise and gave her son Samuel over to the Lord after he was weaned.
Because of her faithfulness we see that God blesses even more.
1 Samuel
Hannah show us the power
of prayer and blessing that come from remain faithful to God.
Eli – whose name mean “ascension” was both priest and a judge. However he
apparently had not done much in the way of training his sons in the way of God
because it says that:
1 Samuel
Eli was also training
Samuel at this time and he was teaching him the way of the Lord. But man of God
speaks to Eli and tells him that his priesthood is going to be taken from him
and given to another and that his sons were going to die. This prophecy was
further confirmed by Samuel who received word from God.
1 Samuel
This comes to past and
now Samuel is the new priest.
Samuel – whose name means “the name of God” or “asked of God” was a priest, judge
and the first prophet since Moses. Samuel was born from his mother Hannah and
he was to be raised as Nasserite and no razor was to touch his head. He raised
up by the Eli and then he took his place. Samuel is unique that he was the last
Judge and he was beginning of this new era of prophets. Notice how the NT
paints this picture.
Acts
Acts
Samuel didn’t have any more success with his
sons than Eli had with his as we find out in 1Samuel 8 that his sons also
turned out to be corrupt and it was because of this the children of Israel want
a king to rule over them and God allows this to happen. Samuel informs the
people what will happen under a human king but they don’t care they want a king
anyway so Saul is anointed King. Samuel also anoints David as king latter as
well. As I mentioned earlier Samuel was the leader of group of prophets.
Saul – whose name means “desired” was a
very hansom man and became the first human king of the children of
1 Samuel
You see Saul thought it
would be ok this one time to do this offering himself because Samuel wasn’t
there yet but we can see this was not
acceptable to God. Again I cant help but point out that God wants his people to
take his commands seriously and not say them to themselves, Oh God wont mind if
we use mechanical instruments in our worship or he wont mind if allow our women
to be our Elders or preachers. Those in the religious world are doing exactly what Saul was doing
here and trying to justify going against God’s commands by the situation at
hand. Let us be careful not to follow in Saul’s footsteps. We can also see the
Saul did not obey Gods command in 1 Sam. 15 because he ends up sparing King
Agag and the best of flocks the belonged to the Amalekites even though God told
him to spare this king or these flocks. Saul also had spirit of envy against
David and tried to kill him in 1Sameul 19. We also learn that Saul loses the
spirit of God and it is replaced with an evil spirit in 1Saumel
David – whose name means “beloved” is described very well in:
Acts 13:22 He raised up for them David as king, to whom
also He gave testimony and said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man
after My own heart, who will do all My will.'
23 "From this man's seed, according to the promise, God
raised up for
David
was man after God’s own heart and he trusted in God as we see him take on
Goliath and many other enemies that he defeated in the name of God. David had
several chances to kill Saul but he did not because he could not kill a person
that was anointed by God. Of course David certainly wasn’t perfect as he fell
short of God glory or more than one occasion yet he knew how to ask for
forgiveness and he received it. This is great example for us to follow because
when we see that we have sin in our life we need to be like David and bow
before God and ask for forgiveness and realize that God will forgive us.
There
are many important lessons we can learn from this book that we can apply to our
own lives as you will see in the following weeks when we take closer look into
the wonderful book.