Chapter 2
Hannah's prayer of thanksgiving and victory to the Lord.
2024 - I noticed this:
This verse is from Hannah's Song of Thanksgiving after Samuel was born: 3 Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. [1Sa 2:3 ESV]. This is the answer to a question. It answers the supposedly irrefutable argument that there can be no God. The question goes like this: "How could there be a God who would let such evil happen in the world?", or in statement form "If God lets things like that happen in the world, then I want nothing to do with him!" Apparently that argument was old already when Samuel was born. It seems to me that if the argument was correct, no one would be talking about God anymore. But here we all are...so what is wrong with this argument? This is called a straw man argument and here is how it works: First, it says "Here is what God SHOULD be like", and then second, it says "A God like that would never...". Third, we get an example that such things DO happen, and the conclusion is that therefore, god does not exist. And we should all agree completely. Because that god you just defined is NOT the God that is in the Bible. That is your idea of some straw god that you just made up. That one definitely does not exist except in your imagination. Your idea of God does not exist, but the God in the Bible still does - and the fact that we are still arguing about Him proves that He does. And this verse answers the question "How can a loving God allow...?" with "by him actions are weighed". I think this says that without the God of the Bible things would be MUCH WORSE. Through His people, through believers, God continually injects what is good and right into a world that prefers evil and injustice. God weighed all the evil man embraces - past present and future - and God hated that evil. So with His infinite wisdom and knowledge He determined that it could be mitigated in only one way - it wold cost the life of His only Son, on a cross, at the hands of those who loved evil more than good. In that balance, so far beyond what any man can comprehend, the good always wins. And just because we can't see it or understand it does not mean it isn't so.
FB Post, finally, for 5/30/24.
Eli's sons were "worthless men" (ESV). though they were priests:
12 Now the sons of Eli were worthless men. They did not know the LORD. [1Sa 2:12 ESV]
No matter what service you are performing, no matter how much of your life is spent in service, it is not service that saves. It is a personal relationship that saves. Though holding the office of priests, they were stealing the meat sacrificed to God. My bet is they were reselling it for profit. The Bible says they treated the offering of the Lord with contempt.
Hannah has three sons and two daughters besides Samuel.
Eli hears the stories about the abuses of his sons. He confronts them, they ignore him. But Samuel grows in the Lord.
God sends a man to tell Eli what will happen. God is fed up with Eli's family though they are descended from Aaron, and his descendants will no longer serve as priests. Worse, there will never again be an old man in the family. All will die young, all will die poor, all will die hungry. Because he did nothing to stop Hophni and Phinehas, but let them continue though he knew they were ignoring his warning, Eli is included in God's anger. (MSB says that it was Eli and his sons that forfeited the Aaronic priesthood. It was not that the Aaronic line stopped completely. It was just removed from this one family.