Saul can’t seem to do anything right, can he? At first he was too reluctant to perform his royal duties, hiding from the crowd that wanted to make him king (10:22), and then lingering on his farm when he needed to take the initiative to protect his people from foreign…

“I’ve really blown it this time. How can the Lord ever forgive me for this?” Maybe you’ve experienced that sort of crushing guilt. And maybe you’ve drifted away from worship or Bible study or even from prayer as a result. The people of Israel would certainly understand. They had to…

It looks like Saul showed them. At the end of chapter 10, some malcontents had grumbled, “How can this one deliver us?” But by the end of chapter 11, Saul was victorious over the Ammonites, the descendants of Abraham’s nephew Lot who lived east of God’s people. Saul had cleverly…

Could anyone have a clearer calling? After all, everyone knew that Samuel was a prophet of the Lord (3:20), and that he had been judging Israel for years (7:15). And Samuel had not only told Saul, “the Lord anointed you a ruler over His inheritance” (10:1). He had also added,…

Let’s say you wake up tomorrow and discover that you are the President of the United States. What would you do? How would you handle the responsibility? Would your fear of messing things up lead you to paralysis? Or in pride and arrogance would you lash out at those who…

Yes, Saul thought he had it all figured out. He would find a “seer,” a prophet of God, who would tell him the location of his father’s wandering donkeys, and he would then take them home. Instead, Saul learned that the donkeys had already been found (verse 20), so his…

For what qualities should we look in a leader? Should he have business experience, or is it better for her to have spent time working in different levels of government? Should we prefer military veterans, or those who have pursued advanced degrees? Is zeal more important than honesty? As we…

We want a king to “judge us and go out before us and fight our battles” (8:20)! That’s what the ancient Israelites said, but they weren’t the only nation to have such a desire, were they? In the wake of disastrous civil wars, the citizens of the Roman Republic made…

So, why were the Lord’s people victorious over the Philistines in chapter 7 when they had lost so badly to them back in chapter 4? Well, we know that the Israelites didn’t pray and they didn’t give God any offerings before the first battle as Samuel did in 7:9. But…

“If I could just get some undeniable, scientific proof of God’s existence and power, I’d believe in Him!” Maybe you’ve heard people say that, or maybe you’ve said that yourself. Well, what happened when the ancient Philistines got exactly that kind of proof? After all, when they captured the Ark…