1. Lets start by looking at Eli. Observe his interaction with Hannah in 1:12-17. What does this show you about his demeanor as a priest?
In 1:11 we are introduced to a new name of God. What does it mean?
Notice how Christ fulfilled it in Eph. 2:12,13.
Why might Hanna have appealed to God with this name?
Is there anything in your life going on where you need Jehovah Sabaoth?
What were Eli's sons doing? (2:12-17, 22)
What was Eli guilty of? (3:13 and 2:29)
Notice how he tried to address it in 2:22-25. Why was that not good enough?
Look at 2:29, 4:18. What does this imply about Eli?
2. Read 1Sam. 4:1-3. Why did the Israelites bring the ark to the battle?
Did it work?
Have you ever done some religious ritual, etc. thinking that it would gain favor with God?
Recount the episode and result;
3. Name 2 things that happened while the ark was in Philistine land?
What does this tell you about idols?
What does this tell you about lost people?
Read 6:14. What did God want instead of gold tumors and rats?
Read 6:19. Why were these people struck down?
4. Read 1Sam 8:19,20. What were the 3 reasons the Israelites wanted a king?
Why did God not want them to have a king? (See also Deut. 4:7,8)
Watch the following Andy Stanley clip. What were some of his thoughts about not having a king?
Read 1Sam. 8:7. What principle is God giving when we are rejected by the world? (See Luke 10:16, Acts 13:45,46 and 1Thes. 4:8)
Read 1Sam. 16:7. Compare this to 1Sam. 9:1,2. Then read 1Sam. 11:8 and compare to Judges 7:1-7. Why, with Saul, do you think God was doing things differently than He normally did?
Read 1Sam. 13:5-15. What was so bad about what Saul did?
Read 1Sam 15:12-28. What was so bad about what Saul did?
5. Read 1Sam. 9:19,20. What does this teach you about prayer?
Read 1Sam. 12:23. What does this teach you about prayer?
6. Read 1Sam. 14. What statement by Jonathan reveals he is a young man of faith?
Who does this remind you of?
Numbers 14:5-9, Josh. 14:12
Deut. 32:30
1Sam. 17:36
Note to teachers/students
1Samuel starts out with the birth of Samuel to a woman struggling with infertility. This is a recurring theme in the Bible. The name she calls God, Jehovah Sabaoth, gives some insight into why God uses this condition because Jehovah Sabaoth is who you call on when all else fails. He is our only hope. That way God gets all the credit as He did in the Gideon incident. They demonstrate what it takes to raise a Godly child, and that is surrendering the child to the Lord even prior to conception. Then keep your child in the Lord's presence continually (make your home a sanctuary) and teach your child the value of God's word. (never let one word drop) The opposite happened with Eli. He saw serving God as a burden or a job (as evidenced by his treatment of Hannah) His kids would have picked up on this and treated it the same way. When people would bring the fellowship offerings where the fat was offered to the Lord, they wanted their portion before the fat was offered making themselves more important than God and not worrying about other people's fellowship being thwarted. Due to Eli's obesity, I assume he took what his sons gave him and became complicit. His sons should have been stoned or the least, removed, but Eli chose not to address it head on.
Next we see a whole lot of religious activity. When the battle was being lost, they brought out the ark. Don't we do the same thing when we want God to act on our behalf? We go to church more, we give more, wear our cross, etc. in hopes to make God act in our favor. This religious icon did not work and it was taken into Philistine land and placed next to their god Dagon. Dagon proceeded to keep falling over and its "hands" even broke. You would think they would see that idols can't stand before the true God and anything that needs to be set in place by human hands probably isn't worth worshipping. And then, the result of this was that the worshippers of Dagon could never again touch the threshold because that was holy from Dagon falling on it. It just goes to show you how blinded peoples minds are made by the devil. (view my blog on Mormonism) Then to appease God they offer Him gold tumors and gold rats. Man's best efforts the Bible says are filthy rags and this exemplifies it. What God wants is the shedding of blood for sin which the Israelites realized as they sacrificed the oxen pulling the cart.
Where Eli erred in raising godly children, Samuel also did. His children didn't sin in the priestly duty but certainly sinned against their fellow man . We don't know what Samuel did or didn't to if anything, all we know is his kids didn't follow the Lord, precipitating the call for a king. God designed the Israelites to be governed by Himself which meant everyone was equal (1Sam 12:3 - see Samuel's claims) but now a king would rule over them. This would establish a heirarchy among people which God didn't intend. Plus they were to be different from other nations to show how great God is, but they didn't want that. Samuel took it personally but God reassured him saying "They are rejecting Me, not you". We need to remember that when we feel rejected by the world because of following Christ.
Saul was picked by God, in a relatively "human" way, I suppose just to show the people - this is what you want, this is what you will get. Saul started out relatively well but turned out to follow God partially- when it was convenient or made human sense. He ended his life trying to kill God's annointed, killing priests of God, and consulting a medium. I don't expect to see Saul in Heaven because it is not how you start but how you finish that matters. (Joash and Manasseh- Hezekiah's son- will be good illustrations of that in the future) Also, he came to God, like Cain, on his own terms offering a sacrifice his own way. God says there is one way to come to him, thru a mediator. In the old testament this was a priest. In the New Testament it is Christ. Saul violated a divine principle of salvation.
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