Theological Commentary: Click Here
Discipleship Focus: Character
- Character: Having the interior life that is necessary to support the work that God sets before a person. It is hearing from God and obeying. It is doing the right thing when nobody is looking.
The last time that we looked at character was when we were talking
about Saul and him becoming king over the Hebrew people. As we transition to more and more stories
about David, it is also appropriate to examine this idea of character from time
to time.
There are two stories in this chapter, both of which lift up the
questionable side of David’s character.
First, David lies to the priest about why he is away from the king’s
palace. Rather than tell the priest that
he is on the run from Saul, David says that he is on a mission from the
king. Here is a terrible lie, and we’ll
see the effects tomorrow.
In the second story, we see David go to Gath and lies some
more. He pretends to be insane so that
the king of Gath won’t pay any attention to him. What he is really doing is trying to use the
Philistines to protect him from Saul without telling them the danger of having
David so close at hand. I’ve got to be
honest here. In these two stories I’m
not impressed with David’s character.
Not that I’m in any place to judge, mind you. I’ve got my own flaws.
However, I do want to say one thing about David. In this story we do get a sense of why God
can be so forgiving to David. David
shows his character flaws when he is talking about human politics. But when it comes to the things of God – the holiness
of the men with respect to the bread of the presence – David doesn’t mess
around. David takes the purity of the
men very seriously. So while David is
certainly flawed and more than willing to lie about human affairs to get his
way, David does take holiness seriously.
He is a flawed human being, but he is a flawed human being in a genuine
relationship with God.
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