Daily Devotional for Tuesday 28th November
Saul orders the murder of a priest
Today’s reading continues on events happening in Saul’s camp, and it doesn’t get any better. After the foreigner Doeg, dropped Ahimilek in it over the meeting between him and David, the priest is now summoned to face Saul. With hardly a chance to say anything in his defence, Saul issues the order to kill Ahimelek and his family.
What we are seeing here is a horrifying violent act that has been repeated down the centuries, where an angry, frustrated, and unbalanced leader who is unable to kill his rival takes out his fury on the innocent. Clearly killing an innocent priest meant more to Saul’s guards than it did to Saul. It must have come as a shock that his guards refused to obey his orders, but to their credit, they appear to show some morality. Not so Saul’s hit man, the foreigner Doeg, who seems to be a nasty piece of work and has no compunction about killing not just Ahimelek, but his family and every living thing in the town of Nob.
Saul now seems not just content with ignoring God, he seems intent on destroying any opportunity for God to have any influence on his life. This of course is what happened to Jesus. The Jewish leaders felt their authority was being undermined to such an extent that in the end, they felt they had to silence Jesus. It didn’t work for Saul or the Jewish leaders.
We may wish that God had intervened to do something about this mindless madness and the wars that are going on around the world. However, the hard truth of human freedom is that He allows us to make our own decisions for good or evil.
Time to reflect…
There are bound to be times when we are angry and cross. At times like these, what’s the best way of avoiding making decisions that we will later come to regret? If we are feeling oppressed by others around us, remember that’s what happened to David, Jesus, and many others.
Pause to pray…
Heavenly Father, we pray for our political leaders and those of the United Nations as they seek to respond to the violent hot spots around the world. Give them the grace not to respond with vengeance, but with wisdom and self-control as they seek for justice and peace in a messy world. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen
