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Prepare

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:14:00 UTC +0100

Is God not picking up the other end of the phone? Listen with your ears, mind and heart open to his answer.

1 Samuel 28:3–25

‘When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets.’

1 Samuel 28:3–25

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:13:00 UTC +0100

Saul and the Medium at Endor

³ Now Samuel was dead, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in his own town of Ramah. Saul had expelled the mediums and spiritists from the land.

⁴ The Philistines assembled and came and set up camp at Shunem, while Saul gathered all Israel and set up camp at Gilboa. ⁵ When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart. ⁶ He inquired of the LORD, but the LORD did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. ⁷ Saul then said to his attendants, "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her."
"There is one in Endor," they said.

⁸ So Saul disguised himself, putting on other clothes, and at night he and two men went to the woman. "Consult a spirit for me," he said, "and bring up for me the one I name."

⁹ But the woman said to him, "Surely you know what Saul has done. He has cut off the mediums and spiritists from the land. Why have you set a trap for my life to bring about my death?"

¹⁰ Saul swore to her by the LORD, "As surely as the LORD lives, you will not be punished for this."

¹¹ Then the woman asked, "Whom shall I bring up for you?"
"Bring up Samuel," he said.

¹² When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice and said to Saul, "Why have you deceived me? You are Saul!"

¹³ The king said to her, "Don't be afraid. What do you see?"
The woman said, "I see a ghostly figure coming up out of the earth."

    ¹⁴ "What does he look like?" he asked.
       "An old man wearing a robe is coming up," she said.
       Then Saul knew it was Samuel, and he bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

¹⁵ Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?"
"I am in great distress," Saul said. "The Philistines are fighting against me, and God has departed from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you to tell me what to do."

¹⁶ Samuel said, "Why do you consult me, now that the LORD has departed from you and become your enemy? ¹⁷ The LORD has done what he predicted through me. The LORD has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. ¹⁸ Because you did not obey the LORD or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the LORD has done this to you today. ¹⁹ The LORD will deliver both Israel and you into the hands of the Philistines, and tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The LORD will also give the army of Israel into the hands of the Philistines."

²⁰ Immediately Saul fell full length on the ground, filled with fear because of Samuel's words. His strength was gone, for he had eaten nothing all that day and all that night.

²¹ When the woman came to Saul and saw that he was greatly shaken, she said, "Look, your servant has obeyed you. I took my life in my hands and did what you told me to do. ²² Now please listen to your servant and let me give you some food so you may eat and have the strength to go on your way."

²³ He refused and said, "I will not eat."
But his men joined the woman in urging him, and he listened to them. He got up from the ground and sat on the couch.

²⁴ The woman had a fattened calf at the house, which she butchered at once. She took some flour, kneaded it and baked bread without yeast. ²⁵ Then she set it before Saul and his men, and they ate. That same night they got up and left.

Main point: Gathering clouds

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:12:00 UTC +0100

Crisis point

I am sometimes relieved when the young people I work with reach a crisis. A crisis can arrest slow decline. Failing life props can be abandoned and new possibilities considered. In a crisis, intervention comes running and things change.

Saul and Israel have reached such a crisis. Times are grim. The Philistines gather like ominous grey clouds. A sense of doom prevails over Saul’s desperate search for help.

Bad news

He seeks God too late. Samuel is dead. No message of consolation through dreams or prophets. Finally, through the very mediums he previously banished, Saul hears the bad news. The end of his dynasty looms.

Whether by trickery or sorcery, the woman’s vision of Samuel is unnerving. With God unreachable, Saul crosses a line that leaves him at the mercy of dark forces (v 8). No wonder Saul loses zest for living! Finally, through the crisis, God intervenes and a new and faithful king is anointed.

Look to God

We live with crises. New threats of conflict, disease, disasters and greed cloud our future. People are scrambling, grabbing on to wealth, leaders, medical breakthroughs, new age spirituality and even the stock exchange for security. People in crisis always look to something.

This passage is a warning. Many today have largely rejected God. God’s faithful people must be praying for our world: that through crisis God will intervene and call people to reconsider their life and come to know him; that faith will not lie in godless leaders and personal empires, but with the Lord Jesus.

Glenda Trist

Respond

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:11:00 UTC +0100

Lay your life before God. Allow the Spirit to search you and point out anything which grieves him. Then resolve with his help to deal with it.

Deeper study: Saul consults a medium

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:10:00 UTC +0100

This is a puzzling and gripping story. It is the only story in the Bible involving a medium.

Saul’s desperation
Faced with the Philistine army at Shunem, Saul is now scared, very scared. He desperately wants to know what will happen, but all the means available to him had been silenced, mostly by his own actions. God no longer spoke to him because he would not listen.

Samuel was dead. He had killed the priests at Nob. The other diviners he had put to death. In desperation he finally found a medium. There was a woman at Endor who could converse with the dead (a medium, or necromancer, not a ‘witch’).

Common practice
It was common in the ancient Mediterranean for people to try to contact the dead. They used a variety of means to do so. (The most elaborate story outside of the Bible is that of the hero Aeneas visiting the dead in Book VI of Vergil’s Aeneid.) What Saul is doing, though perhaps strange to us, was very common in the pagan culture all around him.

However, these practices were forbidden to the people of God (see Leviticus 19:31; Deuteronomy 18:11). The point is that God’s people must turn to him alone. In the Old Testament this would normally be done through a prophet: someone who spent their time listening to God.

No different
Saul is not condemned here for contacting the woman at Endor. However, all he hears from Samuel is what he had heard before. Indeed, Samuel seems surprised that Saul thought it would be anything different.

● Can we detect something of ourselves here? In times of crisis where do we turn? When the situation is bleak, and especially if it is something we have brought on ourselves, can we honestly say that we have not desperately sought to find a promise of something good?

● How do we handle God’s judgement on our sin? Like Saul here, or like David (2 Samuel 12:13–25)?

● How seriously do we take God’s words of judgement on our own actions? Do they lead us to repentance, or do we tune them out, hoping they will go away?

Annabel Robinson

Background: Magic and witchcraft

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:09:00 UTC +0100

The woman whom Saul consulted is described as a medium. She falls under the prohibition of several occult practices in Deuteronomy 18:9–12. Despite the prohibition these practices were found in Israel, sometimes with royal approval (2 Kings 9:22; 2 Chronicles 33:6; Isaiah 8:19).

What’s involved?

● Common to all these activities is the desire to discover information or exercise control through invoking some spiritual power.

● It may involve spells, incantations or sacrifice.

● Practitioners may go into a trance.

● They may bring some oracle for the benefit of the individual or community.

● They may aim to bring healing or harm.

What’s wrong with it?

● It is about the manipulation of spiritual powers for the benefit of individuals or particular communities.

● There is no sense of worship or submission to God.

● There is little sense of morality.

● It is about self gratification, not about service.

● It is the ancient sin of humans thinking that they know better than God.

● It moves us away from God.

● Much is based on deception.

● In many cases it is not just the human practitioners who are exercising power. There is often an element of demonic activity, a real contact with spiritual forces which disrupt the lives of those concerned.

Is it still around?

Yes, although it takes many different forms. We can see a primitive form in the shamanism of animistic tribes. It is there in a more subtle form in the spiritualist séances, in the reinvention of paganism and the adoption of certain elements of eastern religion.

And when Christians try to use their faith for their own purposes rather than the worship of God they show the same sort of attitude.

John Grayston

Bible in a year

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:08:00 UTC +0100

Read the Bible in a year. Today's readings are:

Song of Songs 7,8

Psalms 99–101