Tag: Grace

Morning Musing: 2 Samuel 22:25

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“And the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in his sight.”  (ESV – Read the chapter) ‬‬

What David says right here reflects a pre-Jesus understanding of how God operates toward us that is rooted in the Mosaic Covenant. Under that system, if someone kept the Law or at least had offered the proper sacrifices, they could consider themselves clean before God. And God allowed this to be the case even though they weren’t totally right. Their sins had been covered, but they weren’t forgiven. Once Jesus came, He revealed David’s thinking to be right, but his confidence to be very much wrong. 

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Morning Musing: 2 Samuel 20:2

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“So all the men of Israel withdrew from David and followed Sheba the son of Bichri. But the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem.”  (ESV – Read the chapter) 

Unresolved issues become the fuel for future conflicts. There’s an old adage about conflict resolution that heralds time as a kind of universal problem-solver. Far from being true, though, this idea is nothing more than a dangerous fantasy. When we face a conflict or even a tension in a relationship, if things are not brought to a resolution, we should not consider the matter resolved. Time is no healer of wounds. Conflicts which are not resolved, but rather are simply left alone do not solve themselves. They become festering pools of bitterness that eventually threaten to poison everything around them and become the lens through which we view everything else in our lives. 

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Digging in Deeper: 2 Samuel 16:10-11

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“But the king said, ‘What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, “Curse David,” who then shall say, “Why have you done so?”’ And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, ‘Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)‬‬

How do you respond when you’ve been cursed? Let’s broaden that out: How do you respond to a perceived insult? Do you immediately seek to respond in kind? Do you nurse a grudge that eventually becomes a sullen hatred? Do you begin plotting how you will get your revenge at some point in the future? Being insulted is tough. It’s even tougher when the person insulting you is someone over whom you have some measure of authority. That’s what David experienced. What would you do? Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 2 Samuel 6:20-21

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“And David returned to bless his household. But Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David and said, ‘How the king of Israel honored himself today, uncovering himself today before the eyes of his servants’ female servants, as one of the vulgar fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!’ And David said to Michal, ‘It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord —and I will make merry before the Lord.’”  (ESV – Read the chapter) ‬‬

The Scriptures don’t give us a truly inside look at very many of the lives of the various characters who appear in it. We get even fewer inside looks into the marriages it presents. What we see here is a rare thing in the Scriptures. The tension between David and Michal here is thick. Emotions are running high. They both thought they were right and were upset at the other. If you’ve been married longer than, say, a week, this is no doubt a situation you have experienced in kind if not in detail. What should we make of it? Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 2 Samuel 11:4

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“So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned to her house.”  (ESV – Read the chapter) ‬‬

There are two things worth noting about this verse. Both speak rather directly to where our culture is today. One focuses on the sin and one moves past that to life afterwards. One is a reminder that the #MeToo moment is an important reckoning for our culture to have. The other grounds us in the fact that grace is big and one person’s #MeToo moment need not define the rest of his or her life. Read the rest…