A Difficult Scripture

(Today's Reading - 1 Samuel 19-21; Luke 15:11-32)

I prefer easy to understand scriptures. You know... don't steal, don't kill, don't lie... the ones that I can read and say "ok, got it". The ones that make me scratch my head and wonder what God was thinking when He wrote it down are the ones I had rather just skip over. But, He must want us to dig and search and really want to get His meaning sometimes. Maybe it is a test. Maybe He wants to see if we are paying attention. Whatever it is, today we encounter just such a verse...

Then a harmful spirit from the Lord came upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand. (1 Samuel 19:9) A harmful spirit from the LORD? Did God send a bad spirit into Saul? Does He do that? Let's put in plain English... did the just God of the universe send a spirit into Saul that overwhelmed his ability to make a decision for himself? Does God do that sort of thing?

Because of all the other scriptures in the Bible that would teach very clearly that God allows man to have a free will and choose to be obedient or disobedient, something else must be in play here. We know scripture cannot contradict itself, so there must be another answer. Three thoughts...

First, the Bible frequently refers to acts of deserved punishment that God has inflicted upon people throughout history. Time after time, we read of people who receive what they deserve. Think of the flood. God is not considered unjust for dealing with the sinfulness of humans. So, one possibility is that Saul was afflicted with “an evil spirit” as a punishment for his disobedience of God’s will. He had committed flagrant violation of God’s commands on two previous occasions (1 Samuel 13:13-14; 15:11,19). His persistence in this lifelong pattern of disobedient behavior certainly deserved direct punishment from God. One possibility.

Second, I think we should consider what the phrase "from the LORD" could mean based upon the usage of the phrase at the time it was written. Sometimes words change. A phrase written in 1700 sometimes has a completely different meaning in 2013. It frequently was the case that “active verbs were used by the Hebrews to express, not the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do” (Bullinger, 1898, p. 823, emp. in orig.; cf. MacKnight, 1954, p. 29). So, the idea here is that the phrase doesn't require that God sent the evil spirit, rather He allowed the evil spirit to come on Saul. George Williams commented: “What God permits He is stated in the Bible to perform” (1960, p. 127).

A third consideration regarding the “evil spirit” that came upon Saul is the fact that the term “spirit” (ruach) has a wide range of meanings: air (i.e., breath or wind); the vital principle of life or animating force; the rational mind where thinking and decision-making occurs; the Holy Spirit of God (Gesenius, 1847, pp. 760-761), and even disposition of mind or attitude (Harris, et al., 1980, 2:836). Additionally, the word translated "evil" can also mean "bad", "sad" or "sad of heart or mind". If you accept that idea, then it was Saul's own bad attitude or state of mind that is view here. Often, we can be our own worst enemies and Saul is a great example of this.

He demonstrated repeatedly his desire to rebel against God's will. His own choices are in view here. God allowed Saul to choose his attitude of heart and by doing so, He allowed an evil spirit to come upon him. In fact, all people ultimately choose to allow Satan to rule them by their surrender to their own sinful inclinations, desires, and decisions. The question for us is will we stay there? God provides a way out of this mindset. His will is that we follow Him, that we make Him the ruler in our lives... but in the end, the choice is ours. Choose wisely.

For more thougths on this topic, check out http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1278

Love God, Love People

Dale