Thoughts on 1 Samuel 15

Today's reading: 1 Samuel 15; 1 Corinthians 1

And Samuel said,
    “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
        as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
    Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
        and to listen than the fat of rams.
    For rebellion is as the sin of divination,
        and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.
    Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
        he has also rejected you from being king.”

This declaration from Samuel comes at a time when we would be tempted to think he is overreacting and that maybe what Saul did was a little misguided, but ultimately not a bad thing. God sent Saul to destroy the Amalekites and all that they have, but Saul and his men kept the best of the livestock alive instead of devoting it all to destruction as they were told to. When Samuel confronts Saul about it, Saul's response is that they kept it all as offerings to the Lord. So if God told them to destroy it, isn't it kind of okay for Saul to keep the livestock worth sacrificing as an offering to the Lord since it will get destroyed at that point anyway?

There are a couple things I want to say about this, but the first thing we need to realize is that this is not nearly as innocent and God-focused as it may sound. A lot of people today have a very inaccurate picture in their heads when they think of Old Testament sacrifices. We tend to imagine someone leading a bull or a sheep up to the temple, handing it off to the priest, and then walking away while the priest and his buddies hoist it onto the altar, kill it, and then burn the whole thing up. But if you remember back to when we were reading through Leviticus earlier this year, that is far from how it went. The animal would be killed, its blood would be poured out, and then the fat and certain other parts would be burnt on the altar, but for regular offerings the rest was shared. The priests would get a portion, and the rest would be for the person making the offering, their family, and whoever else they invited to feast with them before the Lord. These offerings were meant to be joyful expressions of gratitude to the Lord, and the offerers were participants in it.

So while saying they kept back the best of the livestock to offer it to the Lord sounds good on the surface, the reality is that this was a very clever, underhanded way for them to keep some of the best of the spoil, and at least get a feast out of it rather than destroying everything like they were told. This was nothing more than a veneer of piety over their own lust after the forbidden spoils of the Amalekites.

But the other side of this is that what Samuel tells Saul holds true even if Saul did this with integrity, not trying to game the system. Doing one good thing for the Lord in violation of something else He has said is still disobedience. This is a much less serious example, but think about this with regard to me and my children. I have three young kids that love to do these giant floor puzzles, so we have a handful of them. They like to try to do them all and cover the floor in puzzles. Now imagine that we have friends coming over for the evening so I tell the kids to clean up the puzzles covering the family room floor. Later, right before our friends arrive, I look into the family room and see the floor still covered in puzzles with my kids nowhere around. When I call for them my oldest pops up and excitedly tells me she got her brothers to clean up the Barbie stuff that was all over the floor in her room so it’s nice and clean now! Under pretty much any other circumstance, I would be thrilled that she did that, but in this case she ignored a direct instruction from me to go do something else, even if that something else would otherwise be a good thing to do. To make matters worse, she didn’t just disobey herself, but she led her younger brothers to disobey as well and go do something other than what I told them. So not only does she bear the responsibility for her own disobedience, but she bears responsibility for her brothers’ disobedience as well since she led them astray rather than using her position as oldest to lead them to listen and pick up the puzzles.

This is the situation Saul is in. Saul is not just some guy in Israel, he is the king. He is the one that should be keeping the people in line before the Lord, but instead he is a ring-leader in their disobedience. So it’s not just what he personally has done that is at issue, but what he has led and facilitated all of his men to do as well. He had a very clear and direct instruction from the Lord, but wanting to keep some of the best for himself and his men, under the pretense of piety, Saul led the people in disobedience and lost his throne as a result. While he still held his title as king, God no longer recognized him as king over His people and was choosing someone else instead.