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Introduction to 2 Samuel

If you want to take your Bibles in turn, we are starting into a new book of the Bible. And while I have enjoyed talking about the marks of a healthy church, I am really excited to be back in a routine of just going straight through a book of the Bible. So 2 Samuel is where we're going to be for the next few months probably. 2 Samuel chapter 1.

The Importance of Leadership

How should Christians think about leadership? Is it really necessary? How should we respond when a leader falls? Leadership, as we've touched on multiple times in the last year, is a gift from God. And leadership in the home, in the church, in the nation, they are absolutely crucial to the flourishing of a people. In fact, I think what the scriptures assume is that a bad leader is, in fact, preferable to no leader at all. Leadership is necessary and it is crucial.

Modern Views vs. Biblical Views

This is very different from the way our world views leadership. A little over a decade ago, you might remember the events known as the Arab Spring. Violent protests and uprisings toppled governments throughout the Arab world. And the US media largely covered that as a win for democracy. However, over a decade later, most of those countries are in the same position. Or worse, as strongmen have strengthened their grips, or they were substituted by military-backed leaders, strongmen, or the nation descended into chaotic disorder. I think of all the nations that have those uprisings, only one is what we would recognizably call some form of democracy now.

were creeping up on the 4th of July here in our country. And I don't know how many Americans realize that the United States as we think of it was not really born in 1776. After the years of the Revolutionary War, the colonies had signed the Articles of Confederation and they created a very weak federal government. By the time you fast forward to 1789, the infant country was on the verge of collapse. Congress had no credibility. They hadn't paid the soldiers for the revolution still 15 years later. There was no central leader to speak of. The colonies had cast off their king, but they had nearly descended into chaos themselves. And as Americans, we can say praise the Lord for the constitutional convention that kind of pulled out of that mass, but there was no guarantee that that was going to work.

David's Respect for Authority

And stories like these would not surprise a man like David's. David had twice had the opportunity to save himself from a wicked king by taking that king's life with his own hand. Saul had given David every human reason to seek revenge, to assassinate him, to take by force the throne that God had promised to him. And yet, in both cases, 1 Samuel 24 and 1 Samuel 26, David refused. In fact, the time he actually reached out to take a part of Saul's robe, he later regretted having reached out his hand in any way against the Lord's anointed king.

David seems to have deeply internalized the truth his son Solomon later wrote in Ecclesiastes 10.20, that we should not even speak against the leader of the people. Though David had been running from Saul for years, he maintained a respect and even a love For the king of his people. And gratitude to God for the good that was brought forth through this imperfect man.

David's Flight to the Philistines

Having said that, the game of cat and mouse had become pretty precarious for David. And so we see in 1 Samuel 27 that David decides it's better to risk sheltering with the Philistine enemy. than to keep waiting for Saul to show up and execute him. We might not realize this as we're reading through, it's one of those things we can not stop to think about, that if David had those opportunities in close quarters to kill Saul, means that Saul had tracked David to those close quarters and was