Reader's Version
- Scandalous Scripture
- Part 12: Like All the Nations
- Sermon by Gene Simco — Reader’s Version
- What If Israel Had LinkedIn?
- I wonder how many people went home and watched Star Wars after I mentioned it in last week’s sermon. Now, how many went home and read the Bible? I have a terrible suspicion that more people watched Star Wars, which means that part of the sermon may have been a mistake.
- Speaking of mistakes, I have learned that we should embrace them. So I recently tried to encourage my wife with that wisdom. I told her, “You should embrace your mistakes too.”
- She gave me a hug.
- Speaking of mistakes, Judges ended with everyone doing what was right in their own eyes. Now Israel begins looking outward. They do not merely want a king; they want “a king like all the nations.” Israel begins measuring leadership, strength, and success by what looks right in everybody else’s eyes, and God is going to have to teach them a very different way of seeing: people look at outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.
- Imagine for a moment that ancient Israel had LinkedIn and posted a job opening: King Wanted. Qualifications: handsome, tall, looks good leading an army, impressive presence, preferably head and shoulders above everybody else. Saul applies. His résumé looks excellent. Appearance: excellent. Height: outstanding. Recent experience: looking for his father’s missing donkeys. Israel looks at the application and says, “Perfect. Hired.”
- Years later, Samuel goes to Jesse’s house looking for another king. Jesse’s son Eliab walks into the room, and Samuel essentially thinks, There he is. He looks right. He has the presence. He apparently has the résumé. But God tells Samuel to stop looking at his appearance and his height. Eventually they bring David in, and David’s résumé looks very different: youngest brother, shepherd, and apparently not important enough to be invited to the interview in the first place. God, it seems, does not use the same hiring agency we do.
- And that is exactly where the biblical story has been taking us.
- Where Judges Left Us
- Last week Judges ended with its final diagnosis: “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25). We ended by saying that the answer to Israel’s problem is not simply, Try harder. Israel needs righteous rule. They need a righteous king.
- But we have already watched Israel experiment with kingship. Gideon tells the people, “I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The LORD will rule over you!” (Judges 8:23). That sounds exactly right, but Gideon increasingly begins living like a king anyway. Then comes his son Abimelech, whose name can carry the sense “my father is king.” Abimelech murders his brothers and makes himself king. Judges 9 then gives us Jotham’s parable of the bramble, in which the worthless bramble is the one eager to rule.
- So Judges has already taught us something important: wanting a king does not automatically mean you want the right king. First Samuel is about to take that problem much deeper.
- Before we get there, however, Scripture gives us Ruth.
- Ruth — A Quiet Story in the Middle of Judges
- Ruth begins with an important line: “In the days when the judges ruled…” (Ruth 1:1). This is the same world and the same period. While Judges is showing us idolatry, civil war, sexual violence, tribal corruption, and people doing whatever seems right in their own eyes, something much quieter is happening in Bethlehem.
- Ruth is generally part of the Bible we do read in church, so we are not going to park there for long in a series called Scandalous Scripture. But Ruth matters because it becomes the bridge between Judges and the story of Israel’s kings.
- A famine drives Elimelech and Naomi from Bethlehem into Moab. Their sons, Mahlon and Chilion, marry Moabite women. Then the men die, and Naomi eventually decides to return home to Bethlehem. Ruth refuses to leave her and gives Naomi one of the most memorable declarations in Scripture: “Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God” (Ruth 1:16).
- Hold on to that.
- Ruth is from another nation. While Israel is repeatedly becoming more and more like the nations around them, a woman from the nations is leaving that world behind and attaching herself to Israel’s God. We saw something similar with Rahab in Joshua. Rahab stood outside Israel and believed. Now Ruth stands outside Israel and believes. Sometimes the outsider sees what God’s own people are missing.
- Ruth eventually meets Boaz, who becomes her kinsman-redeemer, the Hebrew גֹּאֵל (go’el), a family redeemer who acts to preserve the family line and inheritance. Their family line continues, and then the book ends somewhere surprising: Obed, then Jesse, then David.
- That ending matters. Judges keeps repeating, “There was no king.” Ruth quietly ends with David.
- God is already preparing something Israel cannot yet see.
- And here is the irony we need to carry with us into 1 Samuel: Israel will soon say, “We want to be like the nations.” Meanwhile, God has already brought a woman from the nations into Bethlehem by faith and is using her to build the family line of the king He intends to use.
- Israel is looking around.
- God is already looking ahead.
- Ruth is not where we are parking today. This is Scandalous Scripture, and 1 Samuel gets scandalous very quickly.
- The Priesthood Is Already in Trouble
- As we enter 1 Samuel, the priesthood is already in trouble. The book begins with Hannah, a woman who is barren and brokenhearted. She goes to the Tabernacle and pours herself out before God in prayer. She is praying silently; her lips are moving, but no sound is coming out. Eli, the priest, watches her and assumes she is drunk. There is already some painful irony here: the priest has trouble recognizing prayer while his own household is spiritually collapsing. Hannah explains herself, Eli blesses her, God answers her prayer, and Samuel is born. Hannah then fulfills the promise she had made and dedicates Samuel to the LORD.
- Hannah’s prayer in 1 Samuel 2 becomes one of the great theological songs of Scripture, and its language echoes forward into Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1. Hannah praises the God who overturns human expectations: the strong are brought low, the weak are strengthened, the hungry are filled, the barren woman bears children, the poor are lifted from the dust, and the LORD raises the lowly to places of honor. Mary’s song follows the same theological movement. She praises God for scattering the proud, bringing rulers down from their thrones, lifting the humble, filling the hungry, and sending the rich away empty. In both songs, God reverses the measurements human beings naturally trust. Hannah sings this as Samuel enters Israel’s story; Mary sings it as Jesus enters the world. The connection matters because 1 Samuel will repeatedly ask us whether we are impressed by the same things God is impressed by. Hannah’s prayer already gives us the answer: God has a long history of bringing down what looks powerful and raising what the world overlooks.
- From there, the story turns toward Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, and the contrast could hardly be stronger. First Samuel 2:12 tells us, “Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels who had no respect for the LORD or for their duties as priests.” These are not outsiders attacking Israel. These men are priests. They exploit the sacrifices, take what belongs to God, intimidate worshipers, and use their religious office for themselves. First Samuel 2:22 also reports sexual misconduct involving the women who served at the entrance to the Tabernacle. The corruption is happening inside the priesthood.
- Eli knows what his sons are doing. He confronts them verbally, but he does not actually stop them. That distinction matters. Eli is not ignorant of the problem, and he does not approve of their behavior, but neither does he exercise the authority necessary to remove the corruption from the priesthood. Eventually God announces that judgment is coming upon Eli’s house, and Scripture gives us a haunting description of the spiritual condition of the time: “In those days messages from the LORD were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon” (1 Samuel 3:1).
- Then God calls Samuel. At first Eli does not recognize what is happening. Samuel hears his name and assumes Eli is calling him, but eventually Eli realizes that God is speaking to the boy and tells Samuel how to respond. Samuel’s first major prophetic message is not exactly a pleasant assignment. God tells him that judgment is coming upon Eli’s household. The old religious system is collapsing, and God is raising a new prophetic voice.
- The Ark Is Not a Lucky Charm
- The next major account centers on the Ark of the Covenant. Israel goes to war against the Philistines and loses. The leaders ask an important question: Why did the LORD allow us to be defeated? Unfortunately, instead of humbling themselves before God and asking what is wrong, somebody comes up with a religious strategy: bring the Ark.
- This should call us back to Micah in Judges. Micah constructed religion around himself and eventually concluded, in effect, Now the LORD will bless me. Israel is now making the same mistake on a national scale. They begin acting as though the Ark itself guarantees God’s cooperation. If they bring the Ark into battle, God will have to give them victory.
- The Ark arrives, and Israel shouts so loudly that the ground shakes. The Philistines hear the noise and panic when they discover that the Ark has entered Israel’s camp. They know the stories. They know what Israel’s God did in Egypt. Then the battle begins.
- And Israel loses again.
- Badly.
- Hophni dies. Phinehas dies. Thousands of Israelites are killed. The Ark is captured. God will not be manipulated by religious objects, even objects He Himself commanded Israel to make. Possessing something associated with God does not place God under our control.
- The news eventually reaches Eli. First Samuel 4:13–18 tells the scene in full: “Eli was waiting beside the road to hear the news about the battle, for his heart trembled for the safety of the Ark of God. When the messenger arrived and told what had happened, an outcry resounded throughout the town. ‘What is all the noise about?’ Eli asked. The messenger rushed over to Eli, who was ninety-eight years old and blind. He said to Eli, ‘I have just come from the battlefield—I was there this very day.’ ‘What happened, my son?’ Eli demanded. ‘Israel has been defeated by the Philistines,’ the messenger replied. ‘The people have been slaughtered, and your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were also killed. And the Ark of God has been captured.’ When the messenger mentioned what had happened to the Ark of God, Eli fell backward from his seat beside the gate. He broke his neck and died, for he was old and overweight. He had been Israel’s judge for forty years.”
- The order of the report is striking. Israel has been defeated. Eli’s sons are dead. But when Eli hears that the Ark has been captured, he falls backward from his seat beside the gate, breaks his neck, and dies. Scandalous Scripture. The priesthood is collapsing. Hophni is dead. Phinehas is dead. Eli is dead. The Ark is gone.
- Then Phinehas’s pregnant wife hears the news. She goes into labor, and as she is dying, she names the child Ichabod. Most people hear Ichabod and immediately think of Ichabod Crane and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Samuel got there first. The Hebrew name אִי־כָבוֹד (’î-kāḇôḏ) is commonly understood along the lines of “Where is the glory?” or “No glory,” and the text itself explains the theological meaning: “The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured” (1 Samuel 4:22).
- Where is the glory? From Israel’s perspective, everything looks catastrophic. The priesthood is shattered, the army has been defeated, and the Ark is in Philistine hands. It looks as though Israel’s God has lost.
- Except God has not lost anything.
- Dagon Meets the Ark
- The Philistines take the captured Ark to Ashdod and place it inside the temple of Dagon, one of their major deities. Popular artwork sometimes portrays Dagon as some kind of half-man, half-fish creature because of the similarity between his name and the Hebrew word dāg, “fish,” but that identification is historically uncertain. Dagon, or Dagan, was an ancient Semitic deity whose worship predates the Philistines by centuries, and scholars have more often connected him with fertility, grain, or agricultural abundance. The precise iconography is less important than the point of the story: the Philistines have placed the Ark in Dagon’s temple as though Israel’s God has been defeated and set before the victorious god of the Philistines.
- The next morning they enter the temple and find Dagon lying face-down on the ground before the Ark. So they pick Dagon up and put their god back where he belongs. The following morning they return and find Dagon on the floor again, only this time his head and hands have been broken off. There is a very simple theological principle here: if you have to pick your god up off the floor, you may have the wrong god.
- Israel lost the battle. God did not. No Israelite army comes to rescue Him. No priest sneaks into Dagon’s temple during the night. God needs no assistance proving who actually holds authority. The Ark may have been captured, but the LORD has not been captured.
- Then judgment begins falling upon the Philistines. The Ark is moved from city to city because nobody wants it. The five major Philistine cities—Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron—are represented by their five rulers, and when the Philistines finally decide to send the Ark back, they include five golden tumors and five golden rats as guilt offerings corresponding to those rulers and cities.
- Yes, that is actually in the Bible. Golden tumors and golden rats. Again, Scandalous Scripture: The Bible We Don’t Usually Read in Church.
- But underneath the strange details is a serious point. Israel lost the battle; God did not lose His authority. He does not need Israel to defend Him. He does not need Dagon’s permission. And He certainly will not become a religious lucky charm Israel can carry into battle whenever they want Him to endorse their plans.
- Ebenezer — God Has Already Been Their Help
- Eventually Samuel calls Israel to repentance. The people put away their idols and return to the LORD. This time the movement is entirely different. Israel is not carrying a religious object into battle and assuming God must cooperate with their agenda. They are turning back to God Himself, and God delivers them.
- After the victory Samuel takes a stone and sets it up as a memorial. He calls it Ebenezer. Most people hear Ebenezer and think of Ebenezer Scrooge, but Charles Dickens did not invent the word. The Hebrew is אֶבֶן הָעֵזֶר (’eḇen hā-ʿēzer), literally “stone of help.” Samuel explains the name himself: “Up to this point the LORD has helped us!” (1 Samuel 7:12).
- Think about the timing. Israel has just raised a memorial declaring, God is our help. One chapter later, they are about to ask for somebody else.
- Samuel has grown old, and his sons have become judges. Unfortunately, they do not follow his example. They take bribes and pervert justice, so Israel has a legitimate problem. Something is genuinely wrong.
- But the question is not whether Israel has a problem.
- The question is what solution they demand.
- Give Us a King Like All the Nations
- By the time we reach 1 Samuel 8, Samuel has grown old and has appointed his sons, Joel and Abijah, to serve as judges over Israel. Unfortunately, they are not like their father. They are greedy for money, accept bribes, and pervert justice. Israel therefore has a legitimate problem, and eventually the elders gather at Ramah to bring it to Samuel. “Look,” they tell him, “you are now old, and your sons are not like you. Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have” (1 Samuel 8:1–5).
- There it is. They do not simply ask Samuel to deal with his corrupt sons or to provide righteous leadership. Their solution is, Make us like everybody else. We should be precise here because Deuteronomy 17 had already anticipated and regulated the possibility of Israel having a king. The Bible is not surprised by monarchy, and monarchy itself is not the sin. The problem is revealed by Israel’s motive and by God’s own interpretation of their request. Samuel is displeased and goes to the LORD for guidance, and God answers, “Do everything they say to you… for they are rejecting Me, not you. They don’t want Me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt, they have continually abandoned Me and followed other gods. And now they are giving you the same treatment. Do as they ask, but solemnly warn them about the way a king will rule over them” (1 Samuel 8:6–9).
- God says plainly that they are rejecting Him. That settles the question. Whatever legitimate concerns Israel may have about Samuel’s sons, this particular demand is rebellion. Judges repeatedly told us that there was no king in Israel, but 1 Samuel now reveals the deeper truth: Israel already had a King. Their problem was not simply the absence of a human throne; their problem was the rejection of divine rule. Now they want the kind of ruler everyone else has.
- Samuel therefore warns them about exactly what such a king will do, and the repeated language of the chapter is striking. He will take their sons, take their daughters, take their fields, take their vineyards, take their olive groves, take their servants, and take their flocks. Again and again, the warning is that he will take. Yet the people refuse to listen. “Even so, we still want a king,” they insist. “We want to be like the nations around us. Our king will judge us and lead us into battle” (1 Samuel 8:19–20).
- That is the heart of this message. Last week Judges showed us a people doing what was right in their own eyes. Now Israel moves into the next stage of the same disease: they want to look right in the world’s eyes.
- Saul — The King Who Looked Right
- Then we meet Saul. First Samuel 9:2 describes him as handsome and impressive, taller than anyone else in Israel. When he is publicly presented in chapter 10, Scripture emphasizes the same thing again: “So they found him and brought him out, and he stood head and shoulders above anyone else. Then Samuel said to all the people, ‘This is the man the LORD has chosen as your king. No one in all Israel is like him!’ And all the people shouted, ‘Long live the king!’” (1 Samuel 10:23–24). Visually, Saul is almost perfect. He looks exactly like the kind of king the nations would admire.
- That does not mean Saul begins as a cartoon villain. At first he appears humble, God empowers him, and he wins battles. There are moments when he looks very much like the king Israel hoped for. But the cracks begin to show quickly.
- Earlier, Samuel had instructed Saul to wait seven days at Gilgal until Samuel arrived to offer sacrifices and give him further instructions. By 1 Samuel 13, the Philistine pressure is increasing, Saul’s soldiers are scattering, and Samuel has not arrived when Saul expects him. Saul becomes impatient and offers the burnt offering himself. The military pressure is real, but the crisis exposes the deeper problem: Saul cannot trust God enough to wait. He chooses expedience over obedience, and Samuel makes clear that this failure will have consequences for his kingship.
- The next chapter gives us a deliberate contrast through Saul’s son Jonathan. Jonathan looks at the Philistine position and tells his armor bearer that nothing can hinder the LORD; God can save with many warriors or with few. Jonathan trusts God. Saul, meanwhile, makes a reckless oath that none of the soldiers may eat until he has taken vengeance on his enemies. Jonathan does not know about the oath and eats some honey, and Saul becomes prepared to let his own son die because of the rash vow he himself created. The people have to intervene and rescue Jonathan. The king who looks right is increasingly proving that he does not judge wisely.
- Then 1 Samuel 15 becomes the major turning point. God gives Saul clear instructions concerning Amalek, but Saul spares King Agag and preserves the best of the livestock. When Samuel finally finds him, Saul greets him cheerfully: “May the LORD bless you. I have carried out the LORD’s command!” (1 Samuel 15:13). The scene is almost darkly funny because Saul is announcing his obedience while the evidence of his disobedience is literally making noise around him. Samuel answers, “Then what is all the bleating of sheep and goats and the lowing of cattle I hear?”
- Saul does not immediately repent; he explains. He rationalizes. He insists that he did obey and that the livestock was preserved so that it could be sacrificed to God. Samuel responds with the famous words: “What is more pleasing to the LORD: your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to His voice? Listen! Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering the fat of rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft, and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. So because you have rejected the command of the LORD, He has rejected you as king” (1 Samuel 15:22–23).
- Saul eventually admits that he has sinned, but even then something else remains important to him. He pleads with Samuel, “Please, at least honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel” (1 Samuel 15:30). Last week we talked about the exhaustion of managing appearances and protecting reputation, and Saul gives us another example. Even after his disobedience has been exposed and his kingship rejected, he is still worried about how he looks in front of the people. We are not going to park there today, but the larger point is becoming clear: the king who looked right was not right.
- God Corrects the Measurement
- After rejecting Saul, God sends Samuel to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse. Jesse should immediately sound familiar because Ruth’s story has now come back into the room. Ruth and Boaz had Obed, Obed had Jesse, and Jesse is the father of David.
- Jesse brings out his sons, and the first one Samuel sees is Eliab. Samuel looks at him and immediately thinks, Surely this is the LORD’s anointed. Even Samuel does it. He sees a man who looks like a king and makes a judgment based on what he can see. God corrects him: “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The LORD doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
- Notice that God specifically mentions height. Who has been repeatedly identified by his height? Saul. God is correcting the measurement. Israel looked at Saul and saw what a king should be. Now Samuel looks at Eliab and almost makes the same mistake.
- One son after another passes before Samuel, but none is chosen. Finally Samuel asks Jesse whether there are any more sons. There is still the youngest, Jesse explains, but he is out watching the sheep. David was not even brought into the interview, and that is the one God chooses.
- There is an important clarification here because the text will also tell us that David is handsome. The lesson is not that God has some preference for unattractive people, as though good looks are themselves a spiritual problem. The point is that appearance is not God’s criterion. Human beings naturally make judgments from what they can see—height, presence, charisma, confidence, the things that immediately look impressive. God sees deeper.
- Israel looked at Saul and saw what a king should be. Samuel looked at Eliab and made the same mistake. God’s answer is simple: you are measuring the wrong thing.
- And that is where we will leave the Old Testament story for now.
- The World Still Measures Power Wrong
- The New Testament does not abandon this theme; it sharpens it. Jesus tells His disciples in Mark 10:42–45 that the rulers of this world “lord it over” their people and flaunt their authority over those beneath them. Then He says, in effect, not among you. The world has one definition of power; the Kingdom of God has another. Greatness in Christ’s Kingdom is expressed through service, because even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life for others.
- That is the direct opposite of what Israel is asking for in 1 Samuel. Israel says, Make us like the nations around us. Paul later tells Christians in Romans 12:2, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” The problem is not merely that the world sometimes gives us bad examples. The deeper danger is allowing the world to provide our measurements—our definitions of strength, leadership, success, intelligence, and importance. Paul says that God must change the way we think.
- We have already seen this in our earlier look at 1 Corinthians. The Corinthian church was impressed by personalities, eloquence, status, and prominent teachers. Some preferred Paul, others Apollos, others Peter, and Paul attacks that way of thinking directly. Apollos appears to have been an unusually gifted speaker; Paul, by his own description, was not especially impressive in public speaking. Yet the Corinthians were measuring spiritual leadership with the same kinds of standards their surrounding culture admired.
- Paul asks, Where is the scholar? Where is the great debater of this age? God has made the wisdom of the world look foolish. He deliberately chooses what the world considers foolish, weak, and insignificant so that no one can boast before Him. That was one of the major lessons of Part 10, and we do not need to preach that entire message again here. But it matters because Israel is now making the same mistake on the level of kingship: they are impressed by what looks impressive.
- The Gospels themselves expose how deeply this instinct runs. In John 7:15, people listen to Jesus and ask how He knows so much when He has never received the formal training they expected. Think about the irony for a moment. They are questioning the education of Jesus. Apparently even God incarnate could have difficulty getting through some modern church search committees.
- Acts gives us the same contrast. Peter and John stand before the religious authorities, and Acts 4:13 describes them as ordinary men without the kind of formal religious training those leaders expected. Yet the authorities notice something else about them: they had been with Jesus. That should force us to ask an uncomfortable question. How did we get to a place in the church where “he has been with Jesus” can sound less impressive than “he went to the right school”?
- What Does Christian Leadership Actually Look Like?
- That brings us naturally to Timothy. Where did Timothy go to school? Scripture does not build his authority around an institutional pedigree. Instead, it tells us that he knew the Scriptures from childhood, that he was discipled and trained personally by Paul, that he traveled in ministry, served alongside experienced believers, was tested, received spiritual gifting, and had both his life and doctrine examined. Timothy was formed through Scripture, discipleship, ministry, and the Holy Spirit.
- Then Paul tells that Timothy what to look for in church leadership.
- First Timothy 3:1–7 says that if someone aspires to church leadership, he desires an honorable work. But notice the qualifications Paul gives. The leader must be above reproach, faithful to his wife, self-controlled, wise, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not controlled by alcohol, not violent, gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, faithful in the management of his household, spiritually mature, and respected even by people outside the church.
- Now notice what is missing.
- Paul does not say tall, handsome, charismatic, influential, famous, wealthy, politically connected, or impressive. He does not require a large platform, an elite résumé, or the ability to motivate a crowd. His qualifications are overwhelmingly about character.
- That becomes even more striking when we compare Paul’s list with the way churches sometimes advertise for pastors today. Imagine two “Help Wanted” notices sitting side by side. One asks for an advanced degree, years of executive experience, large-church experience, proven organizational growth, strong public-speaking skills, staff-management experience, an impressive résumé, and institutional pedigree. The other asks for someone who is above reproach, self-controlled, hospitable, able to teach, gentle, not quarrelsome, not controlled by money, faithful at home, spiritually mature, and respected by those who actually know him.
- Those are two very different résumés.
- To be clear, education can be useful. Training can be useful. Experience can be useful. The question is not whether those things have any value. The question is much more basic: Which list did the Holy Spirit inspire? The problem begins when the things God never required become more important to us than the things He did.
- Paul himself should make that uncomfortable for us. In Philippians 3 he lists his own pedigree, religious status, and credentials, then compares all of it with knowing Christ and calls it loss—something he refuses to boast in. Paul actually had the résumé, and he deliberately refused to let the résumé become the basis of his identity or authority. In light of that, we should ask how the church ever became so impressed by the very measurements Paul repeatedly dismantles.
- The King the World Would Never Design
- All of this brings us back to Jesus, because He is not merely the One who teaches a different definition of leadership. He embodies it.
- We already looked in Part 10 at how the cross overturns the world’s definition of strength, so there is no need to repeat that entire argument. But notice what the same theology means for kingship. Philippians 2:5–11 tells believers to adopt the attitude of Christ Jesus, who existed in the form of God yet did not regard equality with God as something to exploit for His own advantage. Instead, He emptied Himself by taking the form of a slave, humbled Himself, and became obedient even to death on a cross. Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name, so that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
- Jesus possesses divine status, yet He does not use power for self-advancement. He does not climb over people to establish His greatness. He humbles Himself, serves, obeys, gives Himself, and then God exalts Him.
- The world says power is something you use to raise yourself above everybody else.
- Jesus uses power to serve.
- Israel wanted a king who looked like the kings of the nations. The Gospel gives us a King the nations would never have designed.
- Whose Measurements Are We Using?
- Israel says, Give us a king like the other nations. Jesus says, in effect, among you it will be different. Unlike Saul, Jesus is obedient. In Acts 13, Paul traces the story of Israel along exactly this path. Israel asked for a king, God gave them Saul, God removed Saul and raised up David, and then from David’s descendants God brought Israel a Savior—Jesus. The Bible itself takes us down that road: Saul, David, Jesus. That is where the story has been going.
- So the question becomes very practical: whose measurements are we using? This is an intentional extension of what we looked at in Part 10. There we asked whether we were measuring strength the way the world measures strength. Now we need to take that one step further. Are we measuring leadership, success, and even church the way the world does? What impresses us? Money, visibility, followers, celebrity, charisma, political influence, a large church, confidence, or a powerful personality? Saul checked the visible boxes, and those boxes told Israel almost nothing about his heart. We need to ask whether we are impressed because Scripture tells us something is valuable, or because the world taught us to value it.
- That means we also need to be careful about what we ask Christianity to become. Israel said, “Make us like the nations around us.” That temptation did not disappear. Churches can begin believing that Christianity will finally succeed if we gain enough influence, power, money, celebrity, political access, cultural approval, entertainment value, or spectacle. But why would we ask the church to borrow the world’s measurements for success?
- Those of you who have been here for a while know that I really could stand up and read the Bible to you for an hour, and many of you would probably say, “The Word of God is better than any show a person could put on.” Yet when we look around Christianity today, is that really what we see? Do we actually choose Scripture over spectacle, or do we say that while still being impressed by the spectacle?
- We dealt with the distinction between earthly kingdoms and the Kingdom of God in Part 8, so we do not need to repeat all of that here. The next question is simply this: if Jesus said worldly rulers use power one way, but “among you it will be different,” why would the church deliberately copy the world’s definition of successful leadership?
- A couple of weeks ago, I made this personal. I talked about people asking me where I went to school, and my answer is essentially that the Holy Spirit taught me through Scripture, discipleship, ministry, and years of walking this out. Somehow, however, that answer is no longer impressive enough. People want the institution. They want the credential. They want to know where the piece of paper came from.
- How did we get here? How did we get to a place in Christianity where saying that God taught someone through His Word, His Spirit, discipleship, and years of ministry sounds less legitimate than naming the right institution?
- That was the inward question: why did I ever think I needed the world’s credentials before God could use me? Now we need to turn the same question outward. Why are we demanding those credentials from the people we expect God to use? How did we get to a place where the church asks first about degrees, titles, institutional credentials, years in the right organizations, large platforms, proven followings, professional polish, and executive leadership experience before asking whether a person actually knows Scripture, has been with Jesus, is led by the Spirit, and displays the character the Spirit produces?
- After everything we have just read, that should sound strange. How did we get to a place where the work of the Holy Spirit is not enough to impress us? Are we in danger of doing what Israel did—rejecting God’s measurements because we prefer the measurements everyone else uses?
- This is not biblical Christianity.
- Before being impressed by a title, a platform, a following, a famous name, a confident personality, a degree, or an institution, ask what Scripture asks. Is this person faithful? Self-controlled? Gentle? Not quarrelsome? Not controlled by money? Faithful at home? Able to teach? Respected by the people who actually know them? Do they know the Word? Do they live it? Have they been with Jesus? What has the Holy Spirit actually produced in this person?
- The New Testament repeatedly shows us people formed by God, Scripture, discipleship, ministry, and the Holy Spirit, and somehow we keep asking for the university.
- That should force an even harder question: how did we get to a place where we, the church, are more impressed by what a worldly institution says about a person than by what the Holy Spirit has produced in that person?
- Saul would have gotten the interview. He was tall, impressive, and had a powerful presence. He looked like a leader. He appeared to be everything Israel thought a king should be. David was not even invited into the room, and God had to tell Samuel that he was looking at the wrong thing. Israel wanted a leader who looked right in the world’s eyes, and the church can make exactly the same mistake.
- Character before charisma. Faithfulness before fame. Biblical qualification before public image.
- Saul looked like a king. God looked at the heart.
- What Kind of King Do We Actually Want?
- That brings us to a more personal question: what kind of King do we want Jesus to be?
- It is possible to say that we want Jesus while really wanting only a version of Jesus who serves what we already desire—a Jesus who guarantees prosperity, political victory, cultural influence, validation for my tribe, or approval for my preferences. Micah built a religion around himself and concluded, Now the LORD will bless me. We can do essentially the same thing with Jesus if we are not careful.
- The question is not, How can Jesus become the King I want? The question is whether I am willing to submit to the King Jesus actually is.
- We need to let the King rule.
- Judges ended with everyone doing what was right in his own eyes. Samuel shows Israel saying, We want what everybody else has. Both problems eventually come down to the same question: Who gets to rule?
- It is not enough merely to say, I believe Jesus is King. We need to ask where He is actually allowed to be King in our lives. Does He rule my relationships, my sexuality, my ambitions, my career, my politics, my time, my church, my definition of success, my idea of strength, and my plans? Because a king who is never permitted to overrule me is not really ruling me.
- That is the issue beneath all of this. Israel wanted God, but they also wanted the world’s king. We can want Jesus while still reserving entire areas of our lives where His authority is not allowed to interfere. But Christianity does not invite Jesus to become a consultant. He is King.
- The King We Actually Needed
- Now we can return to where we started.
- Ruth came from the nations. Israel will soon say, “We want to be like the nations,” but Ruth had already said, “Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.” Israel is looking outward, wanting the world’s model. Ruth comes inward by faith, and God uses this woman from the nations to produce Obed, then Jesse, then David.
- Matthew deliberately preserves Ruth in the genealogy of Jesus. While Israel was looking at the nations and trying to decide what a king should look like, God was quietly bringing a woman from the nations into the family line of the King they actually needed. Israel was looking around. God was looking ahead.
- Judges said there was no king. Ruth quietly whispered that David was coming. Israel said, Give us a king like everybody else. Saul looked right. David was chosen. But even David was not enough. The promise kept moving until Jesus.
- Gabriel eventually announces that God will give Jesus the throne of His ancestor David and that His Kingdom will never end. There is the King Judges was waiting for, the King Ruth’s story was moving toward, the King Saul could never become, and the King David could only point toward.
- And here is the good news: we do not have to build the right King, and we do not have to find the right King. God has already given Him. Jesus does not need to fit our measurements; He changes ours. He does not need our approval; He is King.
- So let Him rule. Let Him correct you. Let Him lead you. Let Him redefine what strength, success, leadership, and faithfulness actually look like. The answer to “There was no king in Israel” was never finally Saul, and it was not finally David.
- The King we needed was Jesus.
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- ©️Copyright 2026 Gene Simco Most Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scriptures in brackets reflect the original Biblical languages.