Year 7, Day 289: 1 Samuel 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I other blogs posts on this chapter, I have focused on Samuel and his faithfulness.  To be sure, that is absolutely the main point of this chapter.  This chapter is first and foremost about God’s understanding that He needs to raise up a final judge to lead the Hebrew people.  Samuel is a faithful young man and has lived – as much as humanly possible – up to the expectations of human faithfulness.

Today I am going to focus on Eli.  For the most part, Eli has been a great priest of God.  He has done well in raising Samuel in the ways of the Lord.  He has served before God well and respected God’s ways.  Certainly, he’s not perfect.  Yet, as far as his own life is concerned, Eli has succeeded.

In this passage, though, God gives a bit of a critique about what Eli could have done better.  While God knows that he cannot hold Eli accountable for his sons’ actions, God can hold Eli accountable for not speaking out against his sons.  God holds Eli accountable for allowing them to continue to serve in spite of their rampant and unrepentant sin.  God blames Eli for not standing against them and preventing them from being religious role models when he knew full well about their sin.  Eli cannot force his children to behave, but Eli can decide whether or not they are capable of leading God’s people.

Here is a profound point.  We all know the famous cliché: you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink.  Parents cannot be responsible when their children become adults and make poor choices, so long as they did their best to raise them up in God’s ways.  However, Parents can be held accountable for not continuing to hold their children accountable when they see unrepentant sin in their lives.  Parents can be held responsible when they stand idly by and do not intervene when sin is affecting the lives of their children.

For the record, I think this lesson applies to all people who are positions of leadership, not just parents.

God wants us to live a life that reflects His ways.  He wants us to encourage others to do the same.  He knows that we cannot force others to do the same.  He doesn’t want us to stand idly by approving while others live in unrepentant sin.

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