Author: theparacleteshammer

Calling does not come without some sort of revelation by the Holy Ghost.

Okay, forgive me for saying “Holy Ghost” instead of the “Holy Spirit.”  As a Methodist, I grew up hearing the Holy Ghost mentioned, more than the Holy Spirit, as part of our liturgy.  I still have not broken that habit quite yet.

More ruminations come from 1 Samuel 3.

Consider the following.   Aaron’s family was not give lattitude to be God’s chosen priest until the Lord spoke to Moses.  After that, there was a perpetual ordination on those in Aaron’s house and in certain of the line of Aaron, specifically the line of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, who demonstrated his zeal for the Lord by thrusting through the Israelite and his Midianite beloved with a spear.

Moses knew nothing of the Lord until He spoke to Moses through the burning bush in His revealed form.

In the days of the priesthood of Eli, there was no widespread revelation.  Maybe the Lord was behaving thus, not only for the reasons I have mentioned previously (see previous entries), but also because He was showing mercy to Eli’s line and giving them space to repent before He revealed Himself afresh, because, as we have seen in the Torah, when the Lord manifested Himself, it was usually along the lines of a pronouncement of judgment (fiery serpents, Korah’s rebellion, Aaron and Miriam’s rebuke of Moses, the people complaining several times in the wilderness).  Now this was not always the case, but it usually was.


Ultimately, we can do no more than speculate, but I would think it had something to do with a number of these reasons.

Now, in the case of Samuel, the Lord, the Scripture says, “called” Samuel.  This was like the Lord calling Moses, or calling the dry earth ground.  It’s the typical word used when God speaks and names something.  Nothing special about this word, or unique in the Hebrew.  And yet, “called” means something.  It means God has named you something, for His purpose.  When God calls something, He is defining that thing’s identity.  If He calls you a prophet to the nations, as He did Jeremiah, then your identity is wrapped up with prophecy to a degree.  If he calls you an apostle to a particular people group, then you are called to establish the kingdom among that particular group of people.  If He calls you an evangelist or teacher, then that means your identity is wrapped up to a degree in evangelizing the lost, or teaching and making disciples.  It says something about you to be called.  It says that, as Bob and Larry would tell us, that God indeed made you special and loves you very much.  

In this case, God, in the silence of the spiritual darkness of Israel, stood by Samuel and called him.  He was called to see (1 Samuel 9:9, 19).  Samuel was commissioned a seer by the Lord.  

Seers may have been pretty common in those days (1 Samuel 9:9).  “What days,” you ask?  Well, 1 Samuel 9:9, which says, “(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a seer.)” is a passage for which I can give at least 2 possible interpretations.  I am interpreting the word “formerly.”

1) “Formerly” can refer to the time that 1 Samuel was written. Some scholars have said that the books of Samuel were written after the kingdom divided, since we are given internal evidence, or evidence from the text of 1 and 2 Samuel, that this was the case.  The writer frequently refers to the division of the kingdom by implications (1 Samuel 11:8 mentions the numbers of the armies of Judah and Israel as separate entities). 

2) “Formerly” may refer to the up to the time of Samuel’s ministry, this is the first time our culture, which is skeptical of the gift of prophetic seeing, is given a biblical glimpse into the unique gift and office of a seer.

To an extent, both interpretations yield the same result.  The author, in the context of Samuel’s ministry (1 Samuel 9) and his ordination to that ministry, details the nature of his ministry; its effects on the current priesthood and ministry; and the response of the people to his ministry.


In the next post I will cover the text of the passage, instead of the background matter and context.

Jon Greene, a friend of mine and soldier who spent many years overseas fighting on behalf of this great land made a comment several days ago, which I then shared.  I would like to recount it and, I believe, a possible scriptural response.

Jon’s comment

I think Eli gets a worse rap than he deserves sometimes. He was a poor priest, but mostly he was a poor father. His kids ran over him. He’s guilty mostly of being a pushover. But, by the time Samuel came on the scene, he already knew that his priesthood was kaput. It had been prophesied. And yet, he still chose to equip Samuel, which was even more amazing considering he was not his own son.

1 Samuel’s response

While I love Jon’s motive for the last sentence (an attitude that asks, “how would we have behaved, in this situation?”), and think it’s a well-written, poignant, evenhanded analysis that would sober any minister who seeks to railroad Eli with unbridled judgment without exception, since the Lord did use Eli to raise up Samuel, in part, Scripture does make something perfectly clear; Eli does deserve a bad rap, though not necessarily as bad as some would give him.

Compare Jon’s comment with 1 Samuel 2:29, where God sends a man of God to rebuke Eli, and consider the following (emphasis mine bold

Why do you kick at My sacrifice and My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling place, and honor your sons more than Me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel My people?’

In other words Eli and/or his sons did the following things as spoken by the Lord

1) Eli, at the very least is accused of kicking at the sacrifice of the Lord .  “Kicking at” may be considered a euphemism for handling the sacrifice with an improper or irreverent attitude (“an unworthy manner, without self-examination and an attitude of repentance).  See Paul’s indictment of the Corinthians with respect to the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:27-29).


2) Eli honored his sons above the Lord.  Plainly as day, God takes the attitude we have seen, and maybe some we have not seen up to this point as one that dishonors him, and places concern for family above concern for the things of God.  


3) Eli, Hophni, Phineas make themselves fat with the best of the offerings.  Instead of subsisting humbly on the portions they are given, they take the first and best of all the offerings for themselves.  The illustration here is found in 1 Samuel 2:12-17.  This is a violation of the laws of the meat offerings and the fat and blood segments of priestly meat offerings.  

So, in my estimation, Eli does bear some of the blame for what is happening with his sons in this context.

More continuing thoughts on 1 Samuel 3


Your thoughts?

While pulling onto the ramp of State Road 57 in Agawam, something from the message today resonated in me.  A little revelation. 

The pastor spoke on the transfiguration of Jesus, and said that Moses’ ministry was one of the greatest apostolic ministries of the Scriptural record.  My first response to this was one of scoffing, I confess.  Since apostles did not make a formal entry into the biblical record, as such, until Jesus commissioned the first 12 and designated them apostles (Luke 6:13). 


But while pulling onto the highway, I began to think about it again, and my teacher’s mind went into assessment mode, as I am sure many of my scholar friends do, like the Bereans.  I consider myself a Berean in that I love to search the Scriptures daily, and frequently I search the Scriptures in my mind because much of it is there.  


Tbe exhortation for today that came out in the midst of the message was that passage from Romans 10:6-8 that says 


Rom 10:6  But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
Rom 10:7  Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
Rom 10:8  But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;






That is, the first two verses discuss the distance we percieve Christ to be in relation to us (that we err on the side of considering God too transcendant) and we percieve the distance to be so great that God is nothing more than a cosmic clockmaker who is so busy “being God” that in order for us to bring Him into our circumstances, someone, a messenger perhaps, has to go on an epic journey, ascend the mountain of God, as in the case of Olympus, for all the Percy Jackson fans, or descend, as in the case of Hades, for all the Clash of the Titans fans, and bring Christ back into our situation, when the word that is designed to encourage us to live a life of faith is really nearby, and even in the heart of the believer.  The word is also twofold.  That is, there is another meaning than just the word of encouragement.  The other meaning for “word” is the Word of God, Jesus the Word of God made flesh.


But I digress…


As I was making my way onto the ramp, I assessed Moses’ office from the perspective of the apostolic, and I recalled the verse from 2 Corinthians 12:22.  Now with that in hand, I feel it appropriate to pose several questions.


1) Did Moses operate in miracles, signs, and wonders as the marks of an apostle?


2) Did Moses establish or advance the kingdom of God in a noticeable form?


3) Did Moses live as one separated unto the work of the Lord?

4) Did Moses undergo persecution?


I know these questions are not comprehensive nor definitive in concluding beyond all doubts, but still it does help us consider a bit more and perhaps arrive at a decent answer.


Answers


1) the 10 plagues against the Egyptian Pantheon, Manna from wilderness, God’s promise to show Pharoah His wonders, The signs of leprosy and Moses’ staff.  The parting of the Reed/Red Sea.  The drowning of the Egyptian Army in either 300 feet of water or 3 feet of water, the budding of Aaron’s staff, the destruction of Korah’s rebellion, and water from rocks twice. Do these all deserve classification as miracles, signs, and/or wonders?  I would say yes.


2) Moses did what the Lord wanted him to do.  He told Pharaoh to let God’s people go.  He was given instructions to take over the Promised Land (which he did not do because he disobeyed the Lord.  He tried doing the best he could most of the time to help establish Israel as a nation, while they traveled in the desert.  Perhaps he could have done better, but given his resources, he did work pretty well with what he was given.


3) 40 days on Mt. Sinai, recieving the law.  Another 40 days without food or water repenting and learning to have mercy on God’s people.  Continual time in the presence of the Lord in the tabernacle, as frequently illustrated.  40 years spent alone in the wilderness of Midian, getting ready for a showdown with Pharaoh. Also, when he did have a contest with Pharaoh, He did not tell Pharaoh to let the people go, or to let Pharaoh’s people from the region of Goshen go.  He said, “Let MY people go.”  As far as God was concerned, they were already set apart for His purposes.  It was just that they refused to let the “special, peculiar people go.”  No one else could step into the tabernacle, to see God, speak face to face with Him and live to tell about it. Frequent separation outside the camp of Israel with the tabernacle of meeting.


4)  Moses underwent persecution from Pharaoh, his adopted grandfather, from his own people who groaned and whined constantly, from Aaron and Miriam, and from Korah, among others, and God constantly defended him to the last letter, jot, and tittle, except in the matter of the water from the rock, when he was told to speak to the rock, and instead bashed it with his staff in anger.  


Given this, I can see the evidence to support a sort of apostolic role for Moses, where Israel is concerned.  

I would, however, like your thoughts.

Next post;
The call of Samuel and the prophecy concerning the nation of Israel and the cleansing of the priestly house of Levi.


I would however

¹ Now the young man Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli.  And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.
Vision is critical in this narrative, since Samuel will flow as a seer, a calling that requires vision to be operative and cleansed and visions to be present.

 ²At that time Eli,<sup class="xref" value="(C)”> whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place.


<sup>Eli, whose eyesight had grown dim, maybe because the sun was setting on his ministry is contrasted with Samuel in the following verse, was set in contrast to Samuel who was beginning his ministry.  I would say that, even though Eli got a lot of judgment from us in the church, perhaps some grace should be extended him because he chose to protect and mentor Samuel.  Samuel was his spiritual heritage, legacy, and successor. 


3</sup> The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down<sup class="xref" value="(E)”> in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.

It was not yet going out, though it was about to, for the carelessness that this generation, represented by Hophni and Phineas, treated the things of God.  They treated the things of God in the temple with contempt, as shown by the lamp of God.  It was in this moment of dimness, where Samuel was sleeping and functioning not in rebellion but ignorance (ignorance is not necessarily a bad thing, since we frequently as believers stumble into the things of God through ignorance because He takes hold of us), that God chose to speak.  

⁴Then the LORD called Samuel, and he said, “Here I am!”

Samuel is willing and ready to do whatever is asked of him.  He is obedient at the first, and to the last.  This is the mark of a vessel that is fit for use by God.  
 
⁵and ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down.

Samuel is intent on obeying, even in ignorance.  He believes that he has been called, and so he, with a soft heart, unlike Hophni and Phineas, and, to a certain extent, Eli, runs to Eli and tells him that he is ready to obey.  This repeats several times until…

⁶And the LORD called again, “Samuel!” and Samuel arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.”  

⁷Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.

^{Samuel is following what he does not know.  Many times, we are prompted of the Lord, but cannot give a satisfactory explanation for our actions, but simply that we are following and obeying the Lord.}

⁸And the LORD called Samuel again the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the young man. 

⁹Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down, and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant hears.'” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

This is where Eli trains Samuel to recognize and obey the voice of God.  This is where Samuel is raised up in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.  This is a watershed moment in further establishment of Israel, as we will see at several critical verses in the next passage.  Samuel’s actions dictate the flow of the rest of the book.   

Thoughts?? 

 ^{Brother Jon Greene, my Charismatic colleague who operates a website, http://revolutionbrigade.com/ , that includes an enjoyable blog made an interesting observation about my entry yesterday, which follows as such.}


I think Eli gets a worse rap than he deserves sometimes. He was a poor priest, but mostly he was a poor father. His kids ran over him. He’s guilty mostly of being a pushover. But, by the time Samuel came on the scene, he already knew that his priesthood was kaput. It had been prophesied. And yet, he still chose to equip Samuel, which was even more amazing considering he was not his own son.

^{I can only add a hearty amen, especially to the last comment.  I wonder if perhaps Eli, in raising up Samuel (of course this was all part of the destiny appointed since Hannah was going to surrender the boy to the Lord), was trying to make up for his mistakes with Hophni and Phineas.  Who knows.  Either way, Eli welcomed the boy on board with him and taught him all there was to know about the priesthood.  The great thing, was that this boy was organically raised up out of the tribe of Levi adopted by Eli, raised up by the Lord for the express purpose of getting His people back on the road to righteousness and sanctity.  The Lord stops at nothing and will use a lazy old high priest to raise up a holy, set apart man or woman of God to accomplish his purposes.}  

^{Your thoughts???} 

Ahh, back to the Scriptures. There are few things I enjoy as much as a serious study of God’s word.  Now that things have started to settle back down, I am going to be giving some time to the continuance of the narrative of 1 Samuel, since much of what it says applies directly to us.  Here is the text (NKJV) of 3:1, which is all I could get through tonight.  More tomorrow. 

Verse 1
 ¹ Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.

The unusual thing to us here is that Samuel is ministering to a God he does not know (Verse 7) before a priest who equally does not know the Lord.  The difference, though, between Eli and Samuel is this. 

On one hand, Eli should know better, not only because he is the priest ordained to stand before the Lord and hear His voince, but also because he has heard the word of the Lord, especially as given in chapter 2.  The issue for Eli is that he refuses to act on the word he has been given, as shown in the previous chapter.  James 1:22 commands the reader to be a doer of the word and not merely a hearer.  Eli is doing just that, hearing but not doing. In not doing what we have heard, we choose to subject ourselves to deception.  We ask the enemy to come in and to deceive us.


On the other hand, Samuel hears the word of the Lord, and does the only thing he knows to do, talk to Eli.  He is acting in ignorance and without a lick of wisdom.  But he is not at fault because Eli never taught him how to properly respond before, because Eli would not know how to properly respond, something completely alien to him, because he has chosen all of his years the response rooted in rebellion.  He is old, and probably blinded in his attitude and hardness of heart and is incapable of teaching the lad how to hear the voice of God and then how to do the will of God.  Samuel shows here that He is willing to DO SOMETHING with what he has been given.  Blessed are those who act in ignorance moreso than those who do not act even with all the understanding in the world. 

Also beyond this, we see a potential reason for widespread inaction among the preists and people:  the word of the Lord was rare in those days, and there was no widespread revelation.  People did not move and act because the Lord was not speaking to them frequently in those days.  This begs the question, “how did the word of the Lord get to be so rare in those days?”  The book of Judges clues us in to what was wrong.  “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his or her own eyes.”  

Two things are evident from that verse.  First of all, everyone was so busy self-gratifying and self-caring, that they took no interest in anything else, an attitude that was fostered all the way back to the Exodus, and through the conquest of the promised land, when Israel repeatedly rebelled, refused, and rejected the message of God.  It was not that people did not obey because God did not communicate clearly and frequently enough.  It was that God’s people rejected the word of the Lord and as a result, God quit speaking.  It might be unjust to characterize God’s mercy this way, but consider this.  If I ignore my wife’s request to clean up the house or pick up after myself or to have a conversation with her, or if I refuse to respond to her when she speaks to me, pretty soon she is going to lessen her communication with me and cease altogether.  Same thing with God’s relationship with Israel.  God’s people kept ignoring, refusing, and rebelling against him, which caused Him to speak less and less.  


Second of all, there was no king in Israel.  Consider the next time a king was mentioned, it was when Israel was rejecting the Lord as their king (1 Sam 8:7).  The sad thing is that 1 Samuel 8 was not when Israel’s rejection of the Lord as their king began.  This attitude began to be fostered and seeded throughout the book of Judges.  Now I am not one to allegorically interpret the scripture, but I would in this case like to submit that a possible idea that the author of  Judges is communicating in 21:25 that Israel is leaderless, and no one is listening to any leaders, whether physical king, or divine King.  This statement may be communicating that Israel neither followed a human authority, or their heavenly Authority, the Lord of heaven and earth.  And because “everyone chose to do what was right in his or her own eyes,” the Lord saw fit to stop speaking and allow His children to reap the consequences of their actions.


The real question is, 


Are we doing the same?  Are we hearing and heeding the counsel of the Lord, or are we doing what is right in our own eyes?  Are our actions causing the voice of the Lord and the inner witness of the Spirit to be quenched in our own life, or are they causing His voice to increase and our communication with Him to become easier.


Consider this and let us examine ourselves…

You want the man of Christ, here it is. You want the God of Christ. Here again. Pound is the best at this. This poem has the attitude of Psalm 2 nailed. Without a doubt this captures our Lord’s attitude toward His enemies.

Ballad of the Goodly Fere
Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.
When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.
Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.
Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company,
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere
But a man o’ men was he.
I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.
They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book I think
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.
If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”
“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead,” says he,
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
‘Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”
A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.
He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free,
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue
But never a cry cried he.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee,
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the grey o’ the sea,
Like the sea that brooks no voyaging
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke’ suddently.
A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea,
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.
I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.
Ezra Pound