Introduction to 1 Samuel
I personally love biblical narratives. Like many of you who were privileged to grow up in Christian homes and attending Sunday school, I cut my teeth on ‘Bible stories’. As interesting as those narratives are as stories, they can be challenging for the teacher, because narrative, as Leland Ryken says, “proceeds by indirection.” That is, the writers seldom do us the favor of saying, as in Aesop’s Fables, here is the lesson you should learn. One has to read not only the lines, but between the lines and the ‘codes’ in the lines. With the help of the Spirit of God, the interpreter must seek out the timeless embedded in the time-bound, historical particulars and bring those over into our own contemporary walk with God.
This is what we always try to do in handling the texts, keeping in view that in First Samuel the overarching theme is this: “Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed.” (2.30). That spiritual axiom is illustrated redundantly in this great document.
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