Passage Read: 1 Samuel 5-8
Meditation Verses: 8:18-20
Thought
Granting the people a king, as they ask, is a punishment that He intended to turn to good. They reject God as king, but God will one day be king, in the promised Messiah. But first they will experience what it is to have a king who is not God and who does not walk in God's ways. They'll experience kings that seek the Lord and give a glimpse of what things can be like when ask the people follow the Lord, and they'll get kings who lead them into grief and trouble. The only advantage over the judges will be knowing who comes next to lead. Otherwise, everything will be the same: periods of blessing when the people do right and periods of trouble when they do wrong. But on top of that will be taxes and conscription and corruption and everything else that comes with a formal government. Life would be so much better if they simply followed God's Law, trusted Him and cared for one another as He intended. They would be free just to live and enjoy life and worship the Lord, celebrating His goodness to them. Instead, they'd rather have a formalized government and a fallible man to rule over them. Though he might add to their financial burdens, that fallible king would give them more space to be lackadaisical in their obedience to God, and still have to protect them.
Application
What a warning! On the surface, this is about having an orderly society and the security of knowing who's in charge, generation after generation. But looking a little deeper, it's as much about easing the pressure of a holy God from off their backs. Another buffer layer between them and God, besides priest and prophet. As if the king would have power to defend them, even if they as a whole didn't honor God. I do the same thing when I don't take personal responsibility for knowing God's expectations on me and doing them, when I give that responsibility to others, to pastors and teachers and scholars and scribes, rather than reading the Word of God for myself, seeing what it says and doing it. I think I can shift the blame for my misunderstanding and incomplete obedience to the people charged with telling me the truth, as if they could see and know me and all the things I don't know. I'm responsible for my understanding and obedience; the only grace God will grant me is if I'm incapable of reading or hearing God's Word, or if little of it has come to me. I have no such excuses. "To whom much is given, much will be required." I have no excuse, so I'd better make knowing His Word personally and as completely as possible, and doing it as fully as possible, my highest priority in life.