All that was despised and worthless they utterly destroyed.

 

Monday, June 19, 2023


Psalms 110; 111

1 Samuel 14:52-16:16

Acts 9:32-43


All that was despised and worthless they utterly destroyed.


These are hard words in 1 Samuel. They are completely out of line with our modern sensibilities. But in the context of God’s grand plan of redemption, where we can see rather more clearly how God is working through human history to reverse the curse we brought upon ourselves in Genesis 3, it starts to make sense.


God is in the midst of burning away the chaff of sin from His good creation. He has chosen a people – the Hebrews – and chosen a land – Israel – in which they will live and be forever blessed. Since God likes to use us humans to work out His plans in the world, He has commanded His chosen people to be the instrument of His righteous judgement. But we humans keep doing things wrong.


A complete destruction of an evil people was not carried out by Saul and his army. Let’s not get sentimental about this: they would have done a great genocide, and been completely right in doing so, had they not also been greedy. Whatever God’s ultimate purpose in this story was, it revealed the basic fact that we cannot help but disobey God’s explicit instructions.


In their greed, Saul’s armies were happy to destroy what was worthless. God’s intention was not to make these men rich, however. And so in the revelation of Jesus Christ – the climax of God’s grand plan of redemption – we see that “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1:28) In the grand narrative of Biblical history, Jesus comes along and proves to us that violence will not achieve God’s purpose. We are instead to use the greatest of God’s powers: the power to love. And this power is to be used to bring people in to, not keep people out of, the kingdom of heaven.

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