Samuel's Story

The David Saga: Lessons 1-8

Hannah's Crisis (1 Samuel 1)

This lesson is about how one woman's personal crisis led to the birth of the person who would bring revival to a nation.

The Worthless Priests (1 Samuel 2)

Do you think God lets it slide when those who represent him become corrupt? You think wrong.

Before the Lamp of God Had Gone Out (1 Samuel 3)

It says that God called Samuel "before the lamp of God had gone out." There is more significance in that statement than you may think.

The Tragedy of Eli (1 Samuel 4)

The High Priest Eli could have and should have been a great leader of Israel. Instead he was a washout. But there was one thing he did right.

The Curse of the Captive Ark (1 Samuel 5)

It turns out that how the Philistines treated the Ark  of the Lord is not as important as how the Ark treated the Philistines.

The Ark Returns (1 Samuel 6)

The Ark miraculously returns to Israel from its Philistine captivity, but then a joyous occasion turns into a horrifying one. What went wrong and why?

The Great Israelite Revival (1 Samuel 7)

In their time of spiritual and social need, Israel turned to Samuel, who then turned them to the Lord. The result was a spiritual revival, followed by the greatest, most exciting and important military victory since the days of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan.

Israel Demands a King (1 Samuel 8)

Nothing lasts forever, and neither did the good times after the great victory and Samuel's triumph. Samuel is getting old, Israel's enemies are coming back, and the tribes get together to demand a king "like the other nations." But Samuel warns them that having a king may not be as wonderful as they  think it is.

The saga of David, King of Israel does not begin, oddly enough, with David or even his parents. It begins rather with a lengthy backstory going back two generations to describe the conditions that brought forth the man who became a legendary warrior-king, but also the type, the prophetic model of the Messiah who would bring in the kingdom of God.

First we need to be introduced to the man who was the last of the Israelite deliverer heroes called the judges, but was also the first of the great prophets after Moses.