Learning from God's Presence and Provision: A Devotional on the David and Goliath Narrative

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey everyone, and welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. Today is our weekly devotional and we're gonna be looking at 1 Samuel 17. Now, while we normally refer to 1 Samuel 17 as the David and Goliath narrative, we shouldn't ignore the contrast that's being made between Saul, the Israelite army, including some of David's brothers, and David himself. And the difference between David and the rest of the Israelites highlights a couple of the major lessons in this narrative. So, 1 Samuel 17 is gonna begin with a piece of background information. In your Bible, background information is often signaled by the presence of something like now at the beginning of a line. You would think of maybe Genesis 3.1, Now the serpent was the craftiest or shrewdest of all the animals that God had made. It's giving you some level of background information. And while the Old Testament doesn't provide a great deal of detail, the background information actually sets the stage. So here we find that the Philistines are gathered for war on one side of a valley, while Saul and his men come out to guard against Philistine invasion on the other side of the valley. And this setting may be significant. In the ancient Near East, geographic features like mountains were pretty important. From a military perspective, fighting uphill was generally not the best idea. And because both armies are set up on these mountains, it would have been disadvantageous for either side to initiate a battle. They were in something of a stalemate. Unless both sides were willing to abandon their strategic position on the hills to meet in the middle of the valley, it would be unlikely that one side would opt across the valley and begin an attack on the enemy in a tactically superior position. So, now you have Goliath. Goliath is described as being, you know, coming out and challenging the Israelite armies. He's six cubits tall, which if we take a cubit to be roughly 18 inches, Goliath would have been somewhere around 9 feet tall. And so Goliath's size and stature would have been intimidating, even to Saul, who is described as, you know, being taller than any of the people of Israel in 1 Samuel 9-2. Goliath, though, issues this challenge that if someone comes out to beat him in single combat, the Philistines will serve Israel. But if the Israelite champion is defeated, Israel will serve the Philistines. Now, the fact that there were no takers isn't particularly remarkable in my mind. As noted, you know, the Israelites were in a strong position to defend themselves as long as they didn't abandon that position. What is remarkable, however, is the reason no one went out to face Goliath. It isn't that they saw Goliath's challenge as some sort of cheap ploy to goad Israel into making an unnecessary risk in battle. Instead, verse 11 tells us that when Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. So it isn't that they saw this as, like I said, some sort of cheap ploy to get them to come down and take an unnecessary risk. What they're seeing it as is something fearful. They're afraid of it. They're scared of Goliath when they really have very little reason to be. Yes, Goliath's big. He's impressive. But ultimately, there's a rather significant separation between the two armies. Goliath is even at 9 feet tall, isn't going to come running up the mountain and defeat all the Israelites. All they really have to do is be smart, defend their position, and they're probably going to be okay. But the narrative tells us that they were afraid and dismayed. And so this then gives us an entree into what's going to happen when David comes in. And when David comes to deliver the things that his father... Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. 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So after this brief interchange with his brother Eliab where he's trying to silence David and sort of diminishing David in the eyes of everyone, trying to keep David quiet, he doesn't want David to maybe show him up, or he doesn't want David to think that, you know, rile up the Israelites or something. Maybe it's out of fear. We don't really know exactly why Eliab is addressing his brother David the way he is. Anyway, after this brief interchange with Eliab, David expresses his outrage at what is happening and volunteers to go fight Goliath. And at this point, we can begin to see one of the differences between David and the rest of the Israelites. The Israelites, including Saul, are fearful, as we've seen. David is offended. He's not afraid. He's offended. He's frustrated. He's angry. While the rest of Israel see the size and strength of Goliath as this impossibility that can't be overcome, David sees an uncircumcised Philistine with no connection to Israel or God who is shaming God's armies. So on some level, David sees Goliath as a fool. And he's a fool who doesn't know who God is. He doesn't understand who the God of Israel is and what he's capable of. And so Goliath is overestimating his own military prowess. He's sort of puffed up and proud. He thinks that this is going to go better for him than it actually is. And so Goliath is characterized as defaming the name of the Lord by humiliating Israel. That's 1726. And this idea of humiliating Israel or defaming in the name of the Lord, what we have is this sort of understanding between God and Israel that Israel is God's people. And so when you're coming against the Israelites as the Philistines, you have your gods and they have theirs. Now in the New Testament era, in our era, we generally don't think in terms of polytheism. But in the Old Testament, in the ancient Near East, what was happening was you'd have gods over certain territories. And so when one nation would conquer another, their gods had beaten your gods. And in this case, what is happening is Goliath is not just saying you Israelites are weak and puny and I could take you. What he's saying is the Philistine gods are superior to the Israelite gods. The Philistines are surely going to win. There's no one who can beat me. And so our gods are going to subdue your gods in defeating Israel. The underlying sort of theological assumptions here are that God is no longer sovereign. God is no longer in control. And so as David hears Goliath saying these things, he's obviously frustrated. But when he talks to Goliath before he goes and, you know, they're lining up to battle David and Goliath, and here's what one of the things David says to him. He says, you come to me, Goliath, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied. And he's going to go on to say that the Lord will absolutely give him victory and that David will display then all the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hand. So here what we see is that David is actually understanding something about God that the rest of the Israelites and Goliath certainly missed. It's that he's not coming out to fight with power or with might or with physical strength. Instead, what he's doing is he's coming out in the name of the Lord and he's trusting that God is going to give him the victory. That defying God is a bad move. Right? Defying God is a bad move. So David goes out, but he doesn't stop there. He sees his victory not as something that's going to bring him glory, but as something that is going to point to and glorify the God of Israel. So the Philistines, once they're defeated, are going to serve as a sign that there is a God in Israel. And it's not only going to serve as a sign to those outside of Israel, to, you

Throughout, if we look at the life of David, aside from the David and Bathsheba incident, which is a little bit different, I won't go into that right now, but maybe in a later devotional we talk about that passage. But for the most part, when David is going out and he's running away from Saul, he's been anointed king, Saul knows that he's going to lose the throne. He starts to pursue David. David is either stopped from or restrains himself from doing anything that would suggest that he has taken the Israelite throne through political and military means. In other words, he's going to wait for God to give it to him as opposed to recognizing that he is anointed and going and taking it for himself. And this narrative where he's fighting Goliath and saying these things that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, this is an encapsulation of really much of what happens in the rest of David's life, where he refuses to come up against Saul and fight for the throne of Israel. He's waiting for God to deliver it to him, not with sword and spear. So it's a really important line, but it also illustrates here that David is making this choice. He's going down to challenge the Philistines, not for some innate hatred of the Philistines, but because he has a zeal for the Lord's name and he wants Israel to understand something that evidently they don't. And that is that the battle is the Lord's and he will give it into your hand, that all of the counting of the military, the size and strength of your warriors, the number of weapons you have are inconsequential when the Lord is fighting for you. So David's zeal for the Lord's name and understanding that the Lord will act to protect it differentiates him from the rest of the Israelites. And as we've seen in previous instances, Saul tends to depend on the strength of his armies rather than on the Lord. For instance, in 1 Samuel 13, Saul makes an unlawful sacrifice. He's waiting for Samuel. Samuel doesn't come when Saul thinks he should. Saul goes ahead and sacrifices and because he sees all his troops dispersing, the Philistines are coming against him. His troops are running away. Saul feels like he needs to do something. And though he claims that he was seeking to honor the Lord prior to going into battle, the narrative suggests that he's also seeking to retain as many men as possible as he goes into battle. And so the incident ultimately costs Saul his throne. David, on the other hand, really doesn't depend on how many soldiers he's got or the sword and spear. He's going to depend on the Lord. Now, David is not an experienced soldier. However, Goliath is not his first challenge. So after volunteering to fight Goliath, Saul questions David's ability to defeat Goliath. And again, I think we have to put this in context. Think about what's happened so far. You've got Israel on one side of a valley, Philistines on the other. They're in this bit of a stalemate. And Saul is faced with this problem. Does he send David down into the valley? Is David a good bet, in other words? And so Saul has to, at some point, be won over by what David says. So he's going to ask him, why is it that you think you can do this? What does this look like for you to go down and defeat Goliath? And David responds by referring to his experience as a shepherd. And he says this, your servant has struck down lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them. For he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. And so again, David looks back on his experience as a shepherd and he highlights this idea that the Lord is going to deliver him just as he's delivered him from these larger animals that David has slayed as he, in the course of protecting the sheep. And so David has experienced the presence and provision of the Lord in his struggles against the lion and the bear. And he argues that he will experience that same presence and provision now when he goes down to face Goliath. Now, interestingly, Saul has had similar experiences with God. It isn't as if God has completely forsaken Saul. God had, for instance, given him victories over the Ammonites in the past. You know, when Saul was anointed king, Saul had victories. God was not left alone or Saul was not left alone. But Saul has tended not to recognize the work of the Lord in his own life. In other words, Saul doesn't seem to have attributed his victories to the work of the Lord. He seems to have attributed them to his own military skill or might. And so now, faced with a superior force and a superior warrior, Saul shrinks because he doesn't understand that he has experienced the presence and provision of the Lord in his other battles. And because he doesn't recognize that, he can't understand how it would ever work out to send someone down to fight Goliath.

and he has the skills to defeat Goliath, he's not thinking in his head and going through the math and going, nope, I get hit him in the head with a rock and then we're done. I think what David is doing is he's saying, I'm not 100% sure how this plays out, but I know that I win. I know that depending on the Lord will bring this victory in this moment because I know that God will protect his own reputation. He will not allow it to appear that the Philistines have defeated Israel and that the Philistine gods are greater than him. He just won't let it appear that way. And so in that moment, and this is different in different points in scripture, but in that moment where David is going to be ultimately shown to be the Israelite king, that's going to replace Saul, the message that he is conveying is that his kingship will be very different from that of King Saul. Simply because his kingship is going to ride on the dependence on the Lord, not on dependence of armies, nations, might, wealth, all of these other things. That's the orientation that we need to go into life with. And that's what I'd like to encourage you with this week. So let's pray and then we'll close out this episode. Lord, thanks for this wonderful story of David. Thanks for including this narrative in your word. We just pray, Lord, that we would learn to depend on you, that we would look back at our past experiences and begin to recognize you in them, to see your presence and your provision in our lives. It's so crucial because when we don't see it, we can't learn to act on it. We know you're there. We know you're present. We believe you're present. Now, Lord, just give us the faithfulness, the conviction, the perspective that we need to make choices that reflect your ongoing presence in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. And if you've liked this devotional, we just ask you to go to usefultogod.com. We've launched several new courses and they're available for you. We're also going to be having some great downloads for you to look at coming up. We've got one that's been wildly popular so far, which is Becoming Useful to God. It's based on eight characteristics in the life of D.L. Moody. I've also written a book called Useful to God, Eight Lessons from the Life of D.L. Moody. If you'd like to check that out. As always, Serpents and Doves is available. If you're struggling with some of our political conversations today, I'd just encourage you to get Serpents and Doves, Christians, politics, and the art of bearing witness. And it is my treatment of some of the things that are going on in the political world, not from a who to vote for sort of a perspective, but how should Christians posture themselves, orient themselves to the political environment to make sure that they are bearing witness to Christ, that they are pointing to and glorifying the triune God. And so just encourage you to visit usefultogod.com for those resources. Give us a subscribe on the Thinking Christian podcast if you're so inclined. And if you'd like to leave a review, please do so. That as well. That helps us out a tremendous amount and we will catch you on the next episode of Thinking Christian. Thanks, everybody. I just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Brought to you by Life Audio and biblestudytools.com, Your Nightly Scripture, a calming scripture-centered devotional podcast created to help you end your day with peace, reflection, and rest in God's presence. This 260-day Bible reading journey features carefully selected passages from across scripture paired with slow, reflective devotionals and gentle evening prayers. Whether you're ending a stressful day, struggling to quiet anxious thoughts, or simply longing to fall asleep focused on God's truth, Your Nightly Scripture is here to guide you into a more peaceful night. You can listen to Your Nightly Scripture on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.