Contemplative Bible Reading

1 Samuel 2:12, 22 (New Living Translation)

12 Now the sons of Eli were scoundrels who had no respect for the Lord

22 Now Eli was very old, but he was aware of what his sons were doing to the people of Israel. He knew, for instance, that his sons were seducing the young women who assisted at the entrance of the Tabernacle.

This is near the beginning of the (hi)story of the prophet Samuel who played a large role in the life of David the King. As a boy, Samuel lived and served with the Priest Eli at the Tabernacle. Eli had two sons who were scoundrels.

We don’t use the work scoundrel much anymore. Since a scoundrel is “a dishonest or unscrupulous person; a rogue,” we have plenty of scoundrels around, but we call them something else or other. Still, here were the sons of God’s priest, and they were scoundrels. Look at some of the unscrupulous things they did per verse 22.

Verse 22 sure is a damning one. Verse 12 is as well: these sons had no respect for the LORD. It seems that this lack of respect in verse 12 led to the actions in verse 22. Yes, these are related. If I don’t respect the LORD, I do all sorts of things that the instructions given by the LORD note as wrong.

Hmm, disobeying God, not respecting God, doing what God says is wrong. All seems to go together. Seducing young women, wrong. Well, there are lots of others things God told the people were wrong. I won’t go into the list. One reason is there are lots of things politicians and the media praise as progressive and on “the right side of history” or some such nonsense. Ouch. You mean all those old things still hold? Yikes. Why, most of the world isn’t respecting God.

Sigh. How does God tolerate us? Unfailing grace. Thank you God. Help me in my unbelief.