David fasted and prayed so long as there was hope but after
the child died he went back to living. It
is incredibly realistic to take such an attitude but it doesn’t fit with anyone’s
expectations or experience. David’s
words explaining himself, particularly the last sentence, seem painful, “But
now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to
him, but he will not return to me.” After
David comforts Bathsheba and she bears him another child, Solomon, his time of
being away from the army needs to come to an end. His private life has kept him from his other,
royal, duties and Joab summons him to come to Rabbah lest Joab take the city
without David and history be repeated. Remember
that David’s victory over the Philistines became a point of jealousy for
Saul. David now resumes his kingly
responsibilities. Can you imagine a
crown that weighs 75 pounds like the one they took from the king at Rabbah.
No one, not even the disciples, understood death and resurrection
three days later. they believed in the
resurrection of the dead but not with respect to Messiah and not the idea of
three days. Isn’t it completely ludicrous
that they were arguing which of them was the greatest as they traveled with Jesus? Does it really matter who is the greatest
when you have Jesus among you? No one
compares to Him and certainly the three that went up the mountain couldn’t have
so quickly forgotten what they had seen and heard and those who were incapable
of healing the boy and saw Jesus heal him couldn’t have forgotten could
they? Of course they could have
forgotten such things, we do it all the time.
When God uses us in ministry we easily forget our place in the grand
scheme. Humility is a great and rare
virtue.
Luke gives a detailed travelogue. He was part of the group at this time, note
the use of the pronoun “we” throughout this passage. These are events to which he is providing
eyewitness testimony. While at Troas, Paul
speaks well into the night to the believers and a young man, Eutychus, falls
deeply asleep and while Paul talks still longer he fell from a third story
window and is “taken up dead.” Paul is
used by the Lord to raise the young man back to life and then it seems Paul
spent the remainder of the night talking to them. I would bet that this event charged the group
and re-vivified all who were there.
Paul, unlike David, lived after the resurrection of Jesus and knew that
death wasn’t always the final answer.
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