Sunday School | David - 1 Samuel 21

We are working our way slowly but surely through the life of David. So we're in 1 Samuel. This morning, we're gonna be in particular in chapter 21. And what we're seeing, if you are getting the story arc of David's life, he's anointed king early on, and then a long time later, he actually becomes king. It's about a fifteen year period between the time that God says, "You shall be king," and Samuel anoints him, has this kind of ceremony to make it official, and the time that he takes his throne.

In that fifteen year period of time, what is the dominant feature of David's life? His running life. That's right. Under assault from whom in particular? Saul. For the most part. And so we're really ramping up. He's been working in Saul's house in the palace. Saul's tried to stick him to the wall with a spear—twice, three times—and what we saw last week is that he has fled.

Reading Scripture Christocentrically

Now, one of the things that we're trying to do in looking at David's life is using this as a template to talk about how we read the Bible, seeing Christ as the center of all things. This is one of the deep things that we're trying to impart here. Not just David's life, although that's great, but how does David's life point to Christ? How does the Old Testament point to Christ? How do we learn what kind of skills we can develop to read narrative, in particular, through this Christ-centered lens?

Kat very sweetly came up and said, "So I'm trying to do this when I'm just reading the Old Testament. I'm trying to read it and see how it points to Jesus, and it's hard, right?" And that's a pretty fair thing to say. And so she said, "You know, we're doing this every week, but this is really difficult. It's hard to do on your own."

So I want to recommend a couple of different things that you might consider if you're trying to do this.

First thing—do not be insulted by this, okay? Because this thing is golden. The best primer maybe that I've ever seen for how to read the Scriptures Christocentrically is a children's book. It's called The Jesus Storybook Bible. Is it fantastic for grown-ups? Isn't it brilliant? A woman named Sally Lloyd Jones wrote it. She used to go to church, maybe she still goes to church, at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City where Tim Keller's the pastor, and Keller is one of the modern day geniuses of this. So I'm sure she learned a lot from Keller, but her book is magnificent. I met her at a conference once. She's this little, tiny woman, and this book has just taken the world by storm. It's a brilliant treatise on how to read the Scriptures Christocentrically, but it's written for like five year olds. Don't let that discourage you from it. It's brilliant. So The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones. Just go on Amazon and pick it up.

If you want to go to the far other side of the spectrum, probably the best thing that I've seen in terms of teaching you how to do this is a teaching series that's available for free through iTunes University. Just look for Tim Keller and Ed Clowney. They have a class called something like Preaching Christ in a Postmodern Context. That is a seminary level course.

So we range from this is for fifth graders to this is for seminary guys. Those two resources are somewhere in there, and what this class is trying to be is in between—great things to help you embody this skill and grow in it.

But don't lose heart that it's hard. Everything's hard when you don't know how to do it, but it gets easier as you learn. So just be bad at it. That's okay. You're allowed to be bad at things. You're allowed to fall down when you're skiing. That's how you learn to ski.

Something in between maybe The Bible Project. They've got a million videos on it. Just go on YouTube and search for The Bible Project, or it's probably bibleproject.com or something. They do a great job. Their teaching is really solid, and they're gonna come from the same vantage point that we're trying to do.

So just a few things, if over Christmas break you want to try to get your head around some of this stuff, those guys could be helpful to you.

Alright, so we are in 1 Samuel 21. Does anybody remember where we left off last week?

What's going down in David's life as of 1 Samuel chapter 20? What was that about? He's running. And in particular, what's the big climactic moment there? Saying goodbye to Jonathan. What were you saying, Kat? Jonathan, saving him. Yep, that's right.

And so Jonathan does this whole thing where he launches arrows and says, "They're far away. Run, go away." And they have this very heartfelt, teary goodbye. And so David's on his own. He's been under assault, but at least in the context of community. Now it's time to go. And off he goes.

When you're on your own, when you're all alone, and when you're scared, you might make some weird decisions. You might even make some questionable decisions. We can talk a little bit about how we assess the way David goes, but this is where he goes, and he's off. And it's gonna be pretty yucky for him and for some others as well.

David at Nob

David went to Nob to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech trembled when he met him and asked, "Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?" — 1 Samuel 21:1

Why do you think Ahimelech is trembling? Seems like we understand why David would be trembling, but why is the priest freaked out by this? Do you have any sense from context of where we've been, what's going down? He's scared of the king.

What would he fear about the king, Kat, at this point in the story?

Ahimelech didn't want to go against the law. And why might he fear going against the law? What's the clue to him that something's amiss?

I think that's exactly right. Ahimelech does not know that Saul's been throwing spears, that Jonathan's launching arrows. He doesn't know any of those things. But he does know that David's basically in the king's bodyguard, that he should be with the military, that he should be doing his job, and instead he shows up—he just shows up. Now, he is alone in this moment, but maybe he's got other people somewhere else. There's actually a little bit of interesting take on whether David's truly alone, but whatever it is, it's not the ordinary circumstance.

So Ahimelech's like, "What are you doing here?" And also, David is a man of blood. David is a scary dude. He's like the Marines have showed up, but he doesn't have his unit, and he's not with his king, and so it's just weird. So Ahimelech doesn't know what's going down, but he might suspect that something's wonky.

David's Deception

David answered Ahimelech the priest, "The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, 'No one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.' As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread or whatever you can find." — 1 Samuel 21:2

Is that true? Did David tell the truth? No. Does anybody want to say yes? Commentators are actually a little bit split on this.

Why do you say that he's lying? Those who think he's lying—there could have been a motive to protect him from lying. So why do you think he's lying? What did he say that seems false? The king said. And what's implied there is the king of Israel sent him on a mission. So did King Saul send him on a mission? Absolutely not. No question, right? So if Ahimelech almost certainly is going to hear his words through that lens that King Saul sent him on a mission, that's not true. And you could very readily be under team like he's lying. I'm totally down with that.

So in the hierarchy of the kingdom, Jonathan could be considered as speaking with the king's voice. He's the prince, so not quite king, but the prince sent me on a mission to save your life. Although there's a translation effect from king to prince, that's actually an interesting take on it.

David could be considering himself king. The king's actions have set him off his court. The king himself did not verbally tell me to do it, but by his actions he has compelled me to do it.

There's one other quasi king we could possibly mention except the one that the commentators tend to suggest is the other framework. Kelly? The King of Kings, right? And so do you remember Jonathan says the Lord has sent you away in the previous chapter? There is a take. I don't think there's any question that David is being, at the very least, shady in his language, right? Because Ahimelech is absolutely going to hear, "Saul sent me on a mission," right? But you can make a case, and I don't really care if you agree with it or not, I'm not even sure if I agree with it, but there is a case to be made that he is on a mission from the Lord, right, and whom he is identifying as king, albeit in a way that might be a little bit unclear.

So somebody sent him away. Was it Yahweh? Was it Saul? Was it himself? Was it Jonathan? I don't know. But he is shading his language. He is being cautious, probably both to preserve his own life from Ahimelech, but also maybe to protect Ahimelech, giving Ahimelech a little bit of what we call plausible deniability.

Catherine? Yes. Well, so there is it—it could very well be that David is attempting to protect Ahimelech by limiting his knowledge. Now, we're going to find out next week that that is not going to work very well at all. We'll see that, but we'll get there. There's an ominous note that's about to come.

But one way or another, David's in this predicament. Now let's assume, just for the moment, that he's just lying. The king is King Saul. Certainly that's how Ahimelech hears it. What do you think about that? Is there ever a circumstance in which you're allowed to lie, or is this really the first moment, the first really vivid moment that we begin to see the cracks in David? Is he behaving righteously to protect Ahimelech's life and to save his own, or is he relying on deception in kind of a miscarriage of his own trust in the Lord? What do you guys think about it?

Robin? It reminds me of Abraham and the different times that he went in and lied about Sarah. And they were trying to—he was trying to protect himself. Try to protect himself. And sometimes things come out that you haven't really sat there and thought about what the ramifications of what I'm saying are going to be.

Yeah. And I think the parallel you draw—so in case you didn't hear, Robin is saying there's a parallel perhaps or it's reminiscent of Abraham. He was in a tricky situation. He lied about his wife being his sister, which frankly, that's so weird. Like, I cannot be like, "No, no, Kelly is my sister. Have her." Like, what? That is so odd. But there is something—it is reminiscent of that. Somebody's in a tricky situation and we lie to protect ourselves. All that's doing is moves it from David to Abraham. Is it okay? Is there ever a circumstance in which you're allowed to lie?

Yes. Okay, we've got a team. Who said yes? Fetzer. Fetzer, you liar. Okay, hang on. Jennifer? You're no. Jennifer's on team no. Okay, now let's go. Why is Andy an evil sinner? Okay. So Jesus never lies, and I think this is true. Andy, what's your retort to that?

Okay, but men do terrible things all the time. I know, I know. I'm just saying that you want me to defend? Well, is that your view? Yeah. I think it's okay for him to lie. Under what circumstance? Is there a paradigm of when we can and cannot lie? You're sitting next to an attorney, by the way.

Yes. You can. Yeah. There's definitely a spectrum of when we can and cannot lie. Is there a clear boundary for us? I do. Wife says, "Should I do I look fine in this?" Okay. Alright. I'm going to let you off the hook now. We're going to move.

So, Lily? I think it—here's a question of equivocation and also when someone asks you a question, you can discern what are they really asking. It's like that example of the Nazis saying, "Are there people in your home?" What they're really asking is, "Can we come in your home and kill your guests?" Right? Your wife is really asking, "Do you love me? Do you find my appearance acceptable?" Is that what you're then communicating in your answer? So I think it's applicable.

What's Ahimelech really asking? Yeah. Okay. So can you tell the truth to the question behind the question if you're deceiving with the front question? This is actually a very, very relevant question.

John and then Kelly. Your name on Ham's case is really an act of law. She was his sister, which is weird too. Yeah. Yes, that's a good point. Kelly? Act about ask acts for? Acts of war. It's wrong to murder. Except for war, you can murder. And so the acts of war, can you be lies? Yeah. Right? So war is filled with deception. There are feints. Like before we did the Normandy invasion, we had all sorts of false information that we put out there that the Germans would believe that our land incursion was going to take place somewhere else.

Sometimes you'll paint logs to look like cannons to overstate the size of your force. So deception is absolutely an act of war. When can we use that? When can we not? These are all pretty relevant big questions, which will blow up our entire day if it's all we do. But I just want to get you thinking.

Stuart, when is war murder?

Okay, killing in war is not murder. Great. I think that's a big point. So killing has different kinds—there's some kinds of killing that are murder, and there are some kinds of killing that are not murder. Then maybe you can think about the plot. Is it truth? Is it really why? I'm not trying to play both sides of the fence. I'm sure David had some ill intent because, like Seth's point, he was a man. He's an archetype of Jesus as well. But also, there was probably some of those. Yes, it isn't okay to lie, but in this instance, it was probably okay.

So you're coming down to the end of the day—you're okay with David having said something that wasn't really true to Ahimelech. Joel, what do you think?

I was gonna throw more fuel on the fire. One of the biggest failings of Israel in the book of Joshua is they don't kill enough people. This is true, I think. It feels a little uncomfortable. So I'm all about that there are clear right and wrong, but I do think that right and wrong can be situationally determined. We must do what is right in every situation, but sometimes what is right is not always super obvious to us.

So I'll give you a couple more. Teri?

If somebody comes to my door and is trying to hurt me or my family, and I've got little kids somewhere, I'm gonna lie to them. Is there anybody in there? Whatever. I would lie to protect my family.

Sure. Okay. So here's what's behind the way that Terry is framing it. There are a couple of different approaches. I'll just give you this in a high level view, and then we'll move on.

The Priority of Moral Obligations

You can choose which of these strikes you as more compelling. One way that people solve this dilemma is they say that ethical obligations and moral obligations are not all equivalent to one another, but they exist in a stacked priority. And so if they come into contact with each other, you go with the one that has the greater claim. So if it is more important to save a life than it is to deceive, then you are allowed to deceive in order to save life. The moral claims don't all have the same weight, and we can rank them relative to one another and choose the greater over the lesser concern.

There's a philosophical, ethical solution to this problem—that's what you're employing. You're saying saving a life is more important than telling the truth to a would-be murderer, and so I'm gonna go with the greater rather than the lesser. I think that's a legitimate approach. I'm not sure that is the solution, but it might be, and that's one way that frames it out.

Why don't we just call it embellishment?

Embellishment? Well, okay, yeah. We will often—I think the reason we call it embellishment is because we're uncomfortable calling it a lie. But if we go to that moral stacking or even if we use embellishment to label it, we've got to be careful. It is more important, and I think it's more important to save a life than to not deceive someone. I think that's true. But very often, a person could employ the "I'm allowed to deceive" over something that is less important than murder. It's more important that I don't get in trouble for coming to work late because I overslept, so I'm going to lie about that. And when we play that moral stacking game, sometimes we might be cheating the way we stack the deck.

The Absolutist Position

Here's one perspective: hang on. Here's the other side. The other side is that it's always wrong to lie because God never lies. This is kind of where you're going with this, Jennifer, right? There's a fascinating book called A Lie Never Justified, and I'll just give you the punch line for this, and you can consider it, then we're gonna move on with the story.

The guy that wrote the book A Lie Never Justified argued that there was never, ever, ever a circumstance where we are allowed to say untrue things because God Himself—not only does He not lie, but He cannot lie.

In Titus, it says God is called the Unliable God, the God who cannot lie — Titus

Whatever God accomplishes in the world, He will do only and always through the truth and never through deception. And this guy takes it so far that he's a Civil War POW, and it is his position that in order to escape from prison, he can kill a guard on the other side of the war because God can justly take life and He often does.

But he will not lie to him. So rather than create a deception to escape from prison, he would kill this guy in order to escape from prison. Because God takes life all the time, but he's never false. And so he would rank that moral stacking. There's something preeminent and supreme about faithfulness, that our words should always match reality. Okay? So those are your two endpoints of this debate as you kind of think it through.

So it reminds me of when the leader of the Assyrian armies is coming against Jerusalem, I suppose. And I guess it was with King Hezekiah and Isaiah, and God sent a deceiving spirit to the general, to Sennacherib, I guess. Is that right? Sennacherib would be the king. Yeah. And specifically put a rumor in his mind. And so I think that, along with a lot of other stories, gives absolutely foundation to God using deceiving.

Now we could—I would put the dude that has the whole lying spirit. Lily's right. It says that God sends a deceiving spirit, but I put that in the same category that He sends this injurious spirit upon Saul. Remember we saw that? That God is absolutely free, and He uses His freedom to move wicked players around the chessboard to accomplish a good end. Sometimes it's framed out that God can write straight with a crooked stick. So I don't think that I would not include that as an example that God is lying, but rather he is allowing sinful people, sinful characters to accomplish his good purposes.

So we're not gonna resolve it right now. I'll just confess, I'm on team truth. Like, I don't ever like anybody lying. I don't ever like saying things that are not true. I think in this situation, David blows it, and we're gonna see in the next chapter the humongous consequence, the oversized consequence of his lie. So though David is a template of a Messiah, he ain't the Messiah, and he's gonna screw up a whole bunch of stuff before the story's over. I might be wrong. I might be mistaken about that, but I'm on Team Truth for this.

The question in the context of the passage is why didn't David say Saul's trying to kill me, so I'm here. Yes, he had other options he could have pulled, other levers he could have pulled. This is what he did, and we'll see again next chapter. It's gonna go really, really badly. So let's just kind of let that sit. Sometimes in narrative, narrative doesn't always tell you if something was right or wrong, it just shows you what happened. And what happens from this is really, really ugly. So just bear that in mind.

The Consecrated Bread

Here's what's gonna happen now. Verse four: The priest answered David, apparently he believes him. Either he suspends disbelief or he just believes. And in verse four it says,

The priest answered David, "I don't have any ordinary bread on hand. However, there is some consecrated bread here, provided the men have kept themselves from women."

Anybody know what the heck he's talking about? Bread presents. Very good. Okay, you guys know about this a little bit. Okay? So if you want to flip back to it, it's Leviticus 24. The ceremonial structure, the sacrificial structure is set up. There's all kinds—it's a very elaborate system—but one of the things you can read about in Leviticus 24 is that every week, the priests were to bake a bunch of bread. Do you remember how many loaves of bread? Twelve. Why twelve? Twelve tribes. So we make twelve loaves of bread, and they set them out, and they sit there for a week. It's the bread of the presence of the Lord. And then at the end of the week, the priests eat the bread, and then they make twelve more loaves. And there's constantly bread there. They replace it, eat it, make more. Replace it, eat it, make more.

And this bread is somehow capturing something. The Bible doesn't really unpack all that's involved there. We could guess, though. Why would God—why bread? Why would there be the bread of his presence as opposed to any other thing? Jesus is the what's that? Jesus is the bread. Okay. So good. So God represents himself in Christ in particular as well. Why is Jesus the bread? What is bread? Life. It's sustenance, right? There's pleasure, there's community and fellowship. In some sense, God is saying meet me at the table, right? There's something about this food and this provision and this kindness and this—he's with us. He's here at the table, right? And we will pick up on that theme later on in the story of Christ. We're gonna see bread become another factor again.

But by whatever means, they make this bread. But it's kind of special bread. And so David says, You got any food? He's like, Well, I mean, we got the consecrated bread, but I don't know if I'm allowed to give you that.

And David's like, I'm pretty sure you are, and he takes the bread. Now, as he takes this bread, he eats and he's happy and he's content with it. That story, that very event that we're looking at in 1 Samuel 21, gets picked up in the New Testament. Does anybody know where? When does it show up? Becky, you got it? Yes, in the field. That's exactly right. And then who invokes the story? Jesus. It's really odd because it shows up in all the synoptics: Matthew 12, Mark 2, Luke 6. They all tell a story where Jesus and his guys are out in the field and they pick some grain and they're threshing the grain with their hand and they eat it. Then they come and give them a hard time for basically working on the Sabbath. And Jesus is like, Dude, relax. And he quotes this story.

Here's how he says it. Go to the Mark version. This is interesting. This is Mark 2:23. Here's how Jesus invokes the story. It's always interesting when the New Testament talks about the Old Testament, I want to know what they said because it's going to give insight. And if Jesus is the one talking about the Old Testament, then I really want to know what he says, because this gives us insight into this moment.

One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields, and as His disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to Him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" And here's Jesus' response: "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for the priests to eat, and he also gave some to his companions." And then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even of the Sabbath." — Mark 2:23-28

I think this is a little bit confusing because Jesus strikes me as being very dismissive of the question. Doesn't he seem like he's like, Big deal. Does that strike anybody else as weird that he seemingly holds these rules very, very lightly? What do you think? What is he saying there?

Jesus is not high church. Well, I think that's true, Bob. I don't know if we're allowed to say that out loud. But what do you mean by that? Well, he's always looking at the focus on what the heart of the matter is, not the rules that have been placed to do it. Yes. Did you hear that? Jesus is always going after: What is the core human issue? He's like, "Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." You Pharisees are constantly taking rules and super sizing them and restricting people, but God is providing bread for his people. God was providing bread for David. And so we ought not look askance at God's kindness and his graciousness and his provision. That's not all that he's saying, but it's absolutely part of what he is saying.

John? Yes. It's true. So Jesus tends to be very dismissive of man-made rules, not dismissive of the Lord's rules. But Jesus does acknowledge right here in Matthew 2:26, when He says, "In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat." Jesus is affirming that that rule was not a man-made Pharisaical rule, but that was actually a rule, and yet he was still willing to abrogate it. Why do you think? Do you have any other insights on what Jesus is doing there? Yeah, Catherine?

Jesus came to fulfill, and he said in there—I think you're right. So what happened with the Pharisees, and it's so fun to rip on the Pharisees because we're not them, right? But be wary, because we are, in fact, right? So the Pharisees get stuck on this external ceremonial observation of things. And what you see is the Old Testament moves into the New. You see this over and over in Jesus. You see it in Paul's writings. In a way that is a little bit startling, a little bit hard for us to maybe get our heads around: everything that is external in the Old Testament is presented there because we're just thick-headed and stupid, but the goal is that all of it would move internally, right?

So when the New Covenant is described, the law is written on tablets of stone. But under the new covenant, where is the law written? On your heart. That is an external moving to internal.

So stay with me on this. This is really important. The Sabbath laws were very externalized, but by the time Jesus shows up, the way he lives the Sabbath, the way that Paul writes about the Sabbath, it's very, very different. It's all moved inside. And Paul is not only dismissive, he's explicitly critical of an externalization of these rules.

Now there's one place in the New Testament where consecrated food is discussed. Does anybody know where the Bible teaches on the consecration of food in the New Testament? Corinthians. Robin, do you know? When Peter is at Cornelius' house. Great. Okay, now to the best of my knowledge, they didn't use the language of consecration there, but the idea is you can eat anything. And that's a story meant to say, "Welcome the Gentiles into the table. Let the Gentiles come." So there's a sense of meal eating and all of these things. That's all true. But the language of consecrated food, consecrated meals, is in 1 Timothy chapter four. Watch how this works. Look how non-religious this is. Look how non-fancy, ceremonial, Levitical this is.

Go to 1 Timothy 4. Now, this might take just a second to kind of unpack, but I think it'll be worth it when we get there. In 1 Timothy 4, Paul is dealing with people that come up with all these rules. They're all these jots and tittles—you can do this, you can't do that. It's very particular, very external. And Paul's got no time for any of that.

So in 1 Timothy, we'll pick it up in verse three:

They forbid people to marry, and they order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. — 1 Timothy 4:3

Listen to his phrasing. There's a two-step dance going on in verse three. Number one, God creates something. And then number two, we receive it with thanksgiving. God has a role. We have a role. God creates something that is good, and then we receive it. But when we receive it, we receive it in a particular way. And what is that particular way? With thanksgiving.

When in Mark, when Christ is talking about this, he does say David and his... Yes, I know he does. So we'll come back to that. Hang on. Don't want that to advance what we're trying to do in 1 Timothy 4. So hold that for a moment.

So number one, God creates. Number two, we receive with thanksgiving. That's in verse three. And it happens again in verse four:

For everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. — 1 Timothy 4:4

Two steps. God creates something good, we receive it with thanksgiving. God creates it good, we receive it with thanksgiving.

The third time, though, is going to change the language. Verse five:

Because it is consecrated by the Word of God and by prayer. — 1 Timothy 4:5

That's our term. That's what we're looking for. The Word of God—don't think Scripture there. That is God's creative Word. That God says, "Let there be light," and there is light. God creates by his word.

So how do things get consecrated? Well, step one is God creates it by his word, and then step two is by prayer. That is, prayer of thanksgiving. So the two-step dance is: God creates something good, we receive it gratefully. God creates it good, we receive it with thanksgiving. By the word of his power he makes, and we pray our offering of thanks, and that is what consecrates it. So things are set apart. Things are made whole.

In the New Testament, the way that we consecrate the bread—he makes it good, we receive it gratefully, and the circle is completed. Make sense? It's not a Levitical framing of things. This is how the New Testament is consistent: everything that once was external has moved internal. And we, it's we, are the consecrators. He makes it good, but we make it holy when we receive it with thanksgiving, when through our prayer we enter in and recognize this is a gift. All is gift, and we are invited into this dance, this partnership with him. He creates a good, we receive it with thanks, and it is holy. That's kind of beautiful.

And that's, I think, probably part of what's going on with Jesus' response—that David was gratefully receiving what God had made good, and it is intact.

Jennifer brought this up, and I think this is worth exploring. In the Old Testament, there's the temple, and we're apart from the temple. Only the priesthood could enter the holy place. But in the New Testament, we are the church, and it is definitely much more internalized. That's exactly it. It's so internalized that he internalizes himself into us. We become the temple. We are the place where he dwells.

And so the stand apartness, the holiness of God, which is never not true, has somehow been subsumed in the intimacy of God, that we would be one with him. It's bonkers. Crazy.

Well, we don't have to go into this too much, but can a non-priest then consecrate the bread and wine? That is more of a question that will be determined in individual church context, not in an Anglican context. The Anglican church can have a higher view of that. Some Christian traditions would say yes, of course, absolutely. And so there's a range of how different churches through the years have experienced and set up their own parameters within that.

But I would say that this text is framing out the broad invitation for the people of God to partner with him and gratefully receiving the good things he made. Make sense?

So David, with the grain—I mean, as with the bread, but also as with the tabernacle—he circumvented the law through his love of God. So this is kind of going back to what we were talking about: the hierarchy of truth and morality. The highest is the position of our hearts and love toward God, which is in part why David got away with so much because he was the man after God's own heart.

But the only thing I would maybe put an asterisk on is I don't know how much he got away with, because David makes a lot of missteps, and it has ruinous consequences in a thousand different ways. So there are things that he did that perhaps because his heart was right with the Lord, he was capturing the real heart of it, but there's other things he did that were just wrong and that he needed to be forgiven of and for which Christ died because it brought ruinous effects on the lives of many.

So certainly what Jesus is doing is not just saying in general nobody has to follow the rules, but Jesus is saying David had an anointing, there's something special going on there, and Jesus is saying, listen, if you're not gonna give David a hard time for eating the shewbread, why are you giving me a hard time for eating grain? For I am greater than David. His ultimate argument is that he is greater than David.

We're gonna keep going because I want to get through a couple more things.

Doeg the Edomite

Watch this, verse seven. It's supposed to be ominous, alright?

Now one of Saul's servants was there that day, detained before the Lord. He was Doeg the Edomite, Saul's head shepherd. — 1 Samuel 21:7

No comment, it's just there. But something bad's going to happen, okay? So David thinks he's being furtive. He thinks he's being secretive. He thinks he's getting away with it, but Doeg was there. And by the way, Doeg is an Edomite. We hiss at the Edomites. We don't like the Edomites. Edomites are bad guys. The Edomites are going to get blown up. Obadiah's going to describe the ruin of them. They're descendants of Esau. They're the bad guys. Saul's the bad guy. We're just stacking on bad guy, bad guy, bad guy. Something bad's gonna happen. That's what's going down in verse seven. And Doeg is gonna be—you're gonna like him even less next week. So read chapter 22.

David Receives the Sword of Goliath

So David asks Ahimelech, "Well, don't you have a sword or a spear?" And he says, "I haven't brought my sword or any weapon because the king's business was urgent." Again, another lie? Who knows, okay?

The priest replied, "The sword of Goliath, the Philistine, whom you killed in the Valley of Elah, is here. It's wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it. There's no sword here but that one." And David said, "There's none like it. Give it to me." — 1 Samuel 21:9

And so David has been provided for. He's got weapon, he's got food, and now he's on his way. And as mentioned, we don't see any companions here. He said that he had companions in the other place, which seems pretty shady, but Jesus affirmed that he shared his bread with his companions. So there's gotta be some companions. When he fled, he brings some guys.

We're gonna see he's gonna end up in the Cave of Adullam and he's gonna gather to himself this kind of band of men and a bunch of ruffians, essentially. So there are gonna be companions based on the fact that Jesus affirms that it's true. He actually tells the priests he vouches for them being pure. That's right.

Now, I don't trust anything David says. So who knows? That's the nature of a lie. Once you lie to me, I'm like, well, when does it stop? I don't know. Okay? So he's got his food, he's got his sword, and Ahimelech has been seen by Doeg. Dun dun dun.

David's Flight to Gath

Okay, then here's what's going to happen. Verse 10:

Then David fled from Saul, and he went to Achish the king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, "Is this David, the king of the land?" — 1 Samuel 21:10

Remember we're talking about, "Is David the king?" He's perceived as a king. Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances? "Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands." How does David feel when he gets identified? He's scared. So what does he do? He freaks out. Starts drooling.

David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish, king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence, and while he was in their hands, he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gates and letting saliva run down his beard. — 1 Samuel 21:12-13

That's weird. Achish said to his servants:

"Look at the man. He's insane. Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?" — 1 Samuel 21:14-15

That's a great line. You should use this with your subordinates. You don't have enough lunatics in this organization? Bring me one more. That's a great line.

A Question of Wisdom or Ungodliness

Okay, so again, is this a clever deception or is this a humiliating and ungodly strategy? How do you take this?

It's an ungodly strategy or it's brilliant. Who's on team brilliant? Who would come up with that? Is he shrewd? We're called to be innocent as doves and as shrewd as serpents. We have to walk in wisdom towards those around us without. We have to be wise.

Maybe the deception is shrewd. Maybe it's a lawful act in war, or maybe the fact that he's drooling all over himself is an indication that he's fallen into something, that his fear has gotten in the way. And the text—this is the nature of narrative. It's hard to say. It doesn't tell us. You just have to look at it and try to draw your conclusions.

Yeah, nobody dies, at least from this one. He just has to go take a shower. That's something.

I wonder if we've all done something as a pretense to get ourselves out of it. Everybody, right? So whether or not it's wrong, it doesn't mean that we don't do the same things because there's something wrong with us. But I do want you to see this one who is this glorious template of the king. I'm telling you, the luster is starting to come off. More is to come. The veneer is wearing thin on David, right? The very least.

Looking Ahead

So here's what I want you to do: read chapter 22. That's for next week. Read chapter 22, and then just go back and draw some lines from 21 to 22. We're gonna unpack a little bit what is the ultimate consequence? What happens? David's strategies—he's trying to be wise, he's trying to stay alive, he's doing the best he can. We're gonna see some of the fruit of that next week. Okay? Good enough? We'll see you next week.