Theology of Andrew: 1 Samuel (pt. 1)

Monday, October 27, 2008

1 Samuel (pt. 1)

"Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us." - Charles Spurgeon

I'll say it, outside of reading for class and RCIA I haven't read the bible (until tonight) for weeks. I am afraid of what I have become. I'm so worned out with everything in life, I'm too afraid to go forth anymore. I feel extremely guilty about life and I read this passage tonight.

"There was a certain man ... whose name was Elkanah... He had two wives; the name of one was Hannah, and the name of the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children. Now this man used to go up year by year from his town to worship and to sacrifice to the Lord of hosts at Shiloh... On the day when Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb. Her rival used to provoke her severely, to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb." - 1 Samuel 1:1-6 NRSV

I was thinking about Hannah and how in her world she was probably seen as cursed by God. She had no sons, and in that world this meant she was shamed and had basically nothing - except her husband. The woman she has to compete with as wife also criticizes her. It says something hear that I always seem to gloss over when I read the bible. "year by year", or year after year. This was going on for years.

Years....

I'm only 20 years old and I have very few problems and stresses which have lasted for years, nothing this bad for sure.

I also like that Elkanah gives her a double portion. At this point in the story Hannah has not talked to God and did not know why she was in this predicament, and in all likelihood felt absolutely abandonned. But her husband gives her a double portion... because he loved her. I bet after all that time she ended up hating herself as well, and that her husband was the one who reminded her of her value and great worth. I think maybe, Hannah, was her own worst enemy.

In some small incomparable way, I feel alot like her.

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Quotes For Thought

"If baptism is the beginning of my life, and the day of regeneration is the first of days, it is obvious that the words spoken when I received the grace of adoption are more honorable than any spoken since....Through this confession I was made a child of God, I, who was His enemy for so long because of my sins. May I pass from this life to the Lord with this confession on my lips." - St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, par. 26.

"To know Jesus and Jesus crucified is the sum total of my philosophy." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"Oh the extraordinary goodness of God toward man? The just of the Old Testament thank God in the weariness of long years; but that which they obtained, by means of a long and heroic service pleasing to God, Jesus gives to you in the brief time span of an hour. Indeed, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the lord, and that God had raised him from the dead, you will be saved and you will be introduced into heaven by the same one who introduced the good thief." - St. Cyril of Jerusalem

"He made us to believe in Christ, who made for us a Christ on whom we believe. He makes in men the beginning and the completion of the faith in Jesus who made the man Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith" - St. Augustine

"Nor must we trust in holiness of origin, in forefathers, or in
the gifts of God which we enjoy. We must look to the Word alone and judge thereby. Those alone who truly embrace the Word will be as immovable forever as Mount Zion. They may be few in number and thoroughly despised by the world, as were Noah and his children. But God, through these few, preserved to man the truth of that promised mastery when he had not even room to set his foot upon the earth." - Bl. Martin Luther "Commentary on Genesis"