Like Everyone Else

This post is part of our Of Kings and Men Series, in which we are going through the book of 1 Samuel.

We pick up the story in 1 Samuel 8.

Setting the scene

Samuel has been a good judge. He has united all of Israel, and they have enjoyed peace all the years that Samuel has been a judge (1 Samuel 7:13). But Samuel is now old and he runs into a problem we have seen before. Samuel’s sons do not walk in his ways (1 Samuel 8:3). But this is not a new problem. Gideon’s sons failed to lead Israel (Judges 9), Eli’s sons were corrupt (1 Samuel 2:12), and likewise Samuel’s sons are unfit to lead the nation (1 Samuel 8:3).

Solution?

All the elders of Israel decide to gather and come to speak to Samuel. After all, they are facing a crisis as a nation. Samuel is a national figure (arguably the first judge to minister to all Israel (1 Samuel 7:15-17) and now that he is old and his sons are unfit to succeed him the elders fear for the future of Israel as a nation. Their solution to this problem? They want a king!

Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
- 1 Samuel 8:4-5 NKJV

Of course, it makes perfect sense that if none of the great Judges of Israel had sons who were qualified to lead the answer would be to get a kind. Right!? Of course, that would be different from Samuel having kids who were unfit to lead, or Eli, or all the judges before them. I hope you realize the fault with the reasoning of the leaders of Israel. What guarantee is there that the sons of a king would be different from the sons of the judges?

Like all the nations

…Israel was to be fundamentally different from all the other nations; the Lord was to be their king, with the nation set apart for service to their divine monarch.
- Bergen, Robert D. The New American Commentary. Broadman & Holman, 1996. page 113

There is a danger whenever a change is sought due to the desire to become more similar to neighbors who do not worship the same God. God’s people are to be agents of change, and the more they become like their neighbors the weaker their testimony becomes. I am not arguing for God’s people to be weird for the sake of being different, but to be unique due to their faithfulness to God and His will for their lives. But being unique comes at a cost. We are constantly pressured to behave like those around us. I guess that is why we have fashion.

Samuel is not happy about this, and he has the perfect approach to this problem. Samuel turns to God.

But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” So Samuel prayed to the Lord. 
- 1 Samuel 8:6 NKJV

(sorry that the blog is not finished, but you can listen to the audio)