Monday, July 11, 2011

1 Samuel 17:20-33

20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. 21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

25 Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family line from taxes in Israel.”

26 David asked those standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

27 They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are little more than a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

Questions to consider:

  • Where is David coming from?
  • Who is David checking on?
  • What does David think about Goliath?
  • How does David's older brother respond to David's presence at the battle camp?
  • When David returns to Saul, what does he tell him?

Possibilities for prayer:

In this passage we see David at the ready to defend his nation and his God. David, who has been little more than a shepherd or musician until this point, offers to take on the challenger daily shouting out insults to the people of Israel--the man who is later described as a giant, and who was feared by all the Israelite soldiers. David is clearly a man of great courage, an attribute we have been spending a great deal of time talking about and thinking about over the past weeks at ECV. Let's ask today that God would give us the courage to do something a little bit crazy for him--maybe you have an idea of what that is, or maybe you need to ask God what that "crazy" thing is that God is calling you into.