The Narrow Path

  Monday, June 30, 2025 Psalms 148; 149 1 Samuel 21:8-22:5 Acts 14:1-7 Everyone Who Was In Distress (1 Samuel 22:2)   And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was bitter in soul, gathered to David. And he became commander over them. And there were with him about four hundred men. Being on the receiving end of harsh criticism is tough. We all like to think we are doing the right thing, all the time. But being on the receiving end of a compliment is often more difficult. Particularly if you have spent some time sitting with Jesus’ teachings about humility and self-emptying. But sometimes (well, more often than we would like) we are actually the right man for the job, as it were. Being a Christian in a world of confusion means we often have that needed word of encouragement, or a greater degree of wisdom than our peers, or find ourselves as the one person in the group with the most generous and patient heart. Ha...

  Friday, June 27, 2025 Psalm 140 1 Samuel 20:12-34 Acts 13:26-41 Observance: Cyril of Alexandria, bishop and teacher (d. 444) Swear By His Love (1 Samuel 20:17) And Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him, for he loved him as he loved his own soul. The greatest tales in history that tell of glorious deeds, honourable people, acts of bravery, and all those wonderful sorts of things find their basis in the type of love that God commanded us in Leviticus and later in Jesus to “love your neighbour as yourself”. This type of love has a depth like no other type of allegiance or affection. Jonathan loved David as he loved his own soul, and asked David to swear on that love. To make an oath on the basis of this divine love is to make a promise that one can trust. The trust of the oath is not demanded by anything so base as money or duty, which can change hands. The love of God that inspires us to love one another grips us so tightly th...

  Thursday, June 26, 2025 Psalms 137; 138 1 Samuel 19:18-20:11 Acts 13:13-25 Kill Me Yourself (1 Samuel 20:8) [David said to Jonathan] “Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. But if there is guilt in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father?” Getting into trouble is no fun. Especially if you don’t know what you have done to cause the trouble. Even more so if you actually haven’t caused any trouble yourself, but all the trouble is become someone else has problems they need to deal with themselves. And this is where David finds himself. Saul is jealous for his throne, but God is taking it away from him. David is the unlucky one who finds himself in the position of being the one to replace Saul, and so Saul is out for blood. As we read in today’s lesson from Acts, David was man after God’s own heart. This is a phrase we find in scripture, even though w...

  Monday, June 23, 2025 Psalms 124; 125; 126 1 Samuel 17:55-18:16 Acts 12:1-11 Souls Knit Together (1 Samuel 18:1) As soon as David had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. There’s a gag floating around observing the fact the Jesus’ greatest miracle was having twelve close friends in his early thirties. But perhaps it is not as much of a gag as it sounds – close friendship is something reliable when we are children, but, like our backs, gets more difficult as we get older. C. S. Lewis’s famous work The Four Loves goes into far greater detail than I can about the different types of friendship, affection, and, yes, love. He draws on Classical definitions, and there are some great categories he comes up with. But while we can be as academic as we like about relationships, it still needs to actually be done in order to happen. The friendship between David and Jonathon i...

  Saturday, June 21, 2025 Psalms 121; 122; 123 1 Samuel 17:41-54 Acts 11:19-30 That All The Earth May Know (1 Samuel 17:46-47)   [David said to Goliath,] “This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord 's, and he will give you into our hand.” Please bear with me; comparing these speeches of David alongside Homer’s in the Iliad just makes life more exciting. I wonder if it is a boy thing, to enjoy a jolly good taunt before a big fight scene. David isn’t the only one (nor is Homer) – Arnie had plenty, as did Aragorn and James Bond. When the good guy stands up to put down the baddie once and for all,...

  Friday, June 20, 2025 Psalms 114; 115 1 Samuel 17:24-40 Acts 11:1-18 Untested Armour (1 Samuel 17:39) ...and David strapped his sword over his armour. And he tried in vain to go, for he had not tested them. Then David said to Saul, “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them.” So David put them off. Reading about the exploits of David alongside Homer’s Iliad, it is exciting to get some wider context on ancient warfare. The ancient Greek waxes lyrical about gleaming bronze armour, martial prowess with spears, and terrifying sword-work. As champions boast at each other from either army on the shores of Troy, arrows fly out. Men bravely charge, blinding sunlight bouncing off polished bronze, spears are thrust through breastplates, swords chop through limbs, and men succumb to “the hateful darkness” of death. There is every reason to suspect that the experience of the Israelites and Philistines were no different. Yet when David comes onto the ...

  Thursday, June 19, 2025 Psalms 110; 111 1 Samuel 17:1-23 Acts 10:34-48 Observance: Thanksgiving for Holy Communion And David Heard Him (1 Samuel 17:23)   As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him. Boyhood lasts far longer than it ought to. In the schoolyard, boys find trouble, word spreads from the students to the teachers, and then the headmaster walks up to the calls of “you’re in trouble now!” The same situation repeats itself again and again on the streets outside clubs at night – young men, or hairy boys, do silly things, the bobbies arrive, and the same phrase rings out, just this time with years of practise, “you’re in trouble now!” While we may feel this phrase is suitable for immature situations, there are also times in situations with more serious consequences when it comes to mind. S...

  Wednesday, June 18, 2025 Psalm 107:1-22 1 Samuel 16 Acts 10:17-33 If They Hear About This… (1 Samuel 16:2) And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord .’ Have you ever been unwillingly drawn into what you thought was a conspiracy? Our consciences can be unpleasant things, niggling at us, arguing with us. This is exactly where the prophet Samuel found himself. The Lord had told him to go and anoint a new king; yet Samuel was worried that a coup, no matter how divinely inspired, would be the end of him (and quite possibly justifiably so). In reply to his worries, the Lord gives him a cover story. Take the required sacrifice. Is God being sneaky here? Is Samuel to pretend he is going to offer a sacrifice, when in reality he is going to overthrow the king? Actually, the Lord re-frames the issue entirely. This is not a coup, rather ...

  Tuesday, June 17, 2025 Psalm 106:1-24 1 Samuel 15:17-35 Acts 10:1-16 Little In Our Own Eyes (1 Samuel 15:17) And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel.” Humility is a great Christian characteristic. Our Lord has a humble heart, and he teaches us to follow him in this attitude. And so we should make sure to reflect on what makes humility, because there is so much opportunity to get it wrong. King Saul was accused by the prophet Samuel of a misguided humility. The king had, apparently, a poor sense of himself; we might call it something approaching low self-esteem. He was “little in his own eyes”. Here is our lesson in avoiding false humility. Saul’s false humility was not a veil covering pride underneath; his false humility expressed itself in a couple of other ways. First was the problem of low self-esteem. Saul saw himself as of not much con...