Preparing for Sunday - 1 Samuel 31

This Sunday we finish 1 Samuel. Twenty-two weeks ago we opened this book with a woman praying so hard at Shiloh that the old priest took her for a drunk, and it closes on a hill called Gilboa with the first king of Israel dead in a pile with his sons. Read 1 Samuel 31 before you come, slowly, and watch the two words the whole chapter turns on: his own.
A word before you read. Verse 4 is a man taking his own life, and some of you have lost somebody that way. What this chapter is doing is telling us how Saul's reign ended, after a long and settled refusal of God that started decades before this hill. It says nothing about where your mom or your brother or your son stands. If reading it is hard this week, come find me or one of our shepherds. We'll sit with you.

Critically Think

1. Read 31:1-2. The whole battle gets one verse. What does the narrator tell you about how Israel fought, and whose name does he put first among the sons who fell (31:2)? Now go back to 18:4 and see what Jonathan had already done with his own sword.
2. Read 31:3-4. Saul asks his armor-bearer for one thing and gets refused. Look closely at what he actually asks for, because "thrust me through" shows up twice in the same verse. What is the only thing Saul is trying to change about the way his life ends?
3. Read 31:4 again next to 13:8-13, 15:20-21, and 28:6-7. What pattern do you see in what Saul reaches for every time God's help doesn't come on his schedule?
4. Read 31:6 slowly and count who dies "on the same day together." What does it tell you about Saul's reign that this is the one time his household is ever described as together?
5. Read 31:7-10 and list everything the Philistines take from him. Then read 9:2 and ask why they went for the head, and read 17:51 and 21:9 and ask which direction the trophies used to travel.
6. Read 31:9 once more. The phrase the ESV gives you is "to carry the good news." Who are those runners going out for, and what counts as good news to them?
7. Read 31:11-13. Why would men from a town risk an all-night march into occupied country for this body (see 11:1-11)? And where do they finally lay his bones (31:13), compared with where Saul was sitting back in 22:6?

Prayerfully Meditate
Saul died a man who would not be helped. That isn't villainy, it's capability taken all the way to the end of the line. He handled the sacrifice himself in chapter 13, handled the explanation himself in chapter 15, went and got himself a word in the dark in chapter 28, and the last help he ever asked for was refused. What have you been handling alone that God has already sent somebody to help you carry?
Look at what Saul was really after in verse 4. He wasn't asking not to be run through. He was asking for a different hand on the sword. And the Philistines came and did it to him anyway, and hung what was left of him at a crossroads where everybody walking to market could see. You cannot outrun your shame with your own hand. Where have you been spending your strength managing how the story gets told instead of bringing it into the light?
There are two kings of Israel in this Bible who were stripped and hung up in public where everybody could see. The crowd at the foot of the cross said it themselves: "He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel." One of them got up there because he could not save himself. The other one got up there because He would not. God did not spare His own Son, so that no one could ever take you out of His hand. If that is true of you this morning, what fear loses its grip before Sunday?
Then there's Jabesh-gilead. Those men are the best people in the chapter, they went all night, it could have cost them their lives, and God saw every step of it. And all their love could do was dig him a grave. Loyal hands took Jesus down too, and wrapped Him, and laid Him in a tomb, and on the third day they came back with the spices and the body was gone. So where is your hope actually resting this week, on what good people can do for you, or on the King who walked out?

Intentionally Act

1. Read all thirteen verses of 1 Samuel 31 before Sunday, and every time you hit the words "his own," stop and let them land.
2. Name the one thing you've been carrying by yourself. Say it out loud to God this week, then say it to one person you trust, and let them carry part of it.
3. Read Romans 8:31-39 and John 10:27-30 alongside the chapter, so you walk in Sunday already holding the promise this text lands on.
4. Be Jabesh-gilead for somebody. Do the loyal, unthanked thing this week for a person who can't pay you back, and do it knowing God isn't blind to it.
5. Learn the songs below before we gather, so that on Sunday you can sing about the King who handed it all over on purpose.

Sunday Songs
The Lord Almighty Reigns 
All I Have is Christ
King of Kings
O Praise the Name