Someone should have kept the spears away from Saul or
everyone should have refused to be in his presence if he had one. Here, he becomes angry with Jonathan and
treats him as though he and David were indeed the same person. His anger with David is transferred to his
own son since Jonathan pleads for David’s life to what Saul perceives is his
own detriment, his kingdom will not be established so long as David lives. In reality, the Lord has already told Saul
the kingdom has been torn from his hands and will be given to another. Saul is trying to circumvent the Lord and
establish the kingdom anyway. Isn’t this
a beautiful sentence, “And they kissed one another and wept with one another,
David weeping the most”? Heretofore we
have seen Jonathan’s love for David on display but here we see David’s love for
Jonathan. He knows he will no longer be
able to be in the household of Saul or among his people. He knows this is farewell and David weeps the
most.
“The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with
the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.”
What a shocking statement to read here in the third chapter of the
Gospel. It is truly surprising in the
context of plucking grain and healing a man with a withered hand on the
Sabbath. Both these stories in the
Gospel reading today take place on the Sabbath and in both the Pharisees
challenge Jesus for what they perceive to be violations of the prohibition
against work on the Sabbath. He responds
in the first instance by pointing to what David did when he and his men were
running from Saul and ate the bread of the presence because they were
famished. This was part of the lore of
Israel and because it was David and the bread was given him by the priest it
was deemed acceptable. In the second
instance there was a relaxation of the law if your animal were in distress and
Jesus applies that to the situation with this man. Why would these minor skirmishes result in a
desire to destroy Him?
The church at Antioch had others there besides Paul and
Barnabas who were spiritual leaders.
Luke tells us that there were prophets and teachers that included three
men besides the two missionaries sent by the Jerusalem church. These together were fasting and praying and
they discerned the Spirit saying to set apart Paul and Barnabas to go forth as
missionaries. We need more than one
leader in the church who is hearing from God, we need teams of people fasting
and praying together to seek God’s will.
One leader can make for a prideful situation or a situation where the
others abandon the seeking of the Lord to that leader. As painful as it must have been, the church sent
these two out to preach the Gospel. The
power of God in the Holy Spirit that was with the apostles from Jerusalem
manifests itself through Paul in striking the false prophet and magician
Elymas, blind. The demonstration of
power brings about the conversion of the proconsul. Allowing God to do what only He can do makes
possible the kingdom breaking in and breaking out, but we have to realize our
limitations and our need for more in order to see that power.
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