Books of Samuel
Key Learnings from Sunday School
April 2026 - Present
Sunday School (Samuel)
The Books of Samuel tell how God led Israel from the judges to the monarchy, showing His sovereignty, mercy, and guidance through human sin and failure. God raises Samuel as a faithful prophet, grants Hannah’s prayer, and anoints David as king, emphasizing that God chooses the humble and obedient over worldly strength. Saul’s troubled reign warns against trusting in human power, while David’s faith and reliance on God point forward to Christ, the true righteous King. Throughout, God’s Law reveals our sin, and His grace through His promises offers salvation and hope.
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⁃ Outward appearance - Saul looked the part, checking all the worldly boxes
• Yet God still choose him
• God guides imperfect people
⁃ That donkey search…
• God guiding events to advance His plan
• God using circumstance to His purpose
⁃ Saul’s Character
• limited perseverance
• lack of initiative/leadership
• pragmatism/worldliness
• Lack of preparedness
• limited spiritual insight
⁃ Open question; Was Saul destined to fail or could his kingship succeeded?
⁃ Two Kingdoms
• Realm: Law | Gospel
• Purpose : Order & Civil Peace | Salvation
• Power: Coercion | faith
• Moorings: Civil righteousness | Christ’s righteousness
⁃ Kingdom confusion; the left is prone to corrupt the right
⁃ People pressure Samuel for a king instead of inquiring of God
• Seeking a solution without God
⁃ Kingship
• Deuteronomy 17:14-20 God-centered, limited monarch
• 1Samuel 8 man-centered, oppressive monarchy
• The institution is either a burden or blessing depending on the heart behind it
⁃ Eleazar’s care of the Ark: Faithful stewardship
⁃ That water ritual
• symbolic expression of self-denial, contrition, dependance on God
• No comparable comparisons can be made
⁃ Ebenezer stone
• Remembrance of God’s help and His faithfulness
• Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing; remembrance of God’s sustaining grace
• Scrooge’s name: need for remembrance and change, turning from selfishness to redemption (echoing the stone’s meaning in 1Samuel 7)
⁃ Samuel’s circuit
• Bethel - Location of Jacob’s Ladder Dream
• Gilgal - Location of the first passover in land after the Exodus
• Mizpah - Renewed commitment to God
• Ramah - Hope and spiritual recovery under Samuel
- Robert Robinson (1735-1790)
• Wild Youth (wrong crowd, reckless living)
• Hymn written (at age 23) for a Pentecost Sunday Sermon
• Drifted away from his faith
• Later encounter with a women who convicts him with his own hymn; He repents and returns
⁃ Do not to teat what is holy with irreverence and casual familiarity
⁃ Dagon (Philistine’s chief deity, often linked to fertility, grain, or a fish-man figure)
- Ark = God’s presence among His people
• Day 1 Dagon’s statue found in submission
• Day 2 head and hands broken off on the threshold = no wisdom, no power
• Whether human-made idols or spiritual powers behind them we are to worship God alone.
⁃ Emanuel = God with us
⁃ Plaque of Rats and Tumors
• Judgment on the futility of false gods and superstition
• May have been the bubonic plaque or whatever. Regardless, it came from God
⁃ Return of the Ark
• God does not need human strength or trained instruments.
• God works through humble, ordinary, or even resistant means (like untrained cows) to accomplish His purposes.
• The Ark will never return to Shiloh
⁃ Everyone in this chapter treats the Ark as a relic, as an object of worship
⁃ Word of God no longer rare and yet no inquires of it
⁃ Philistine perspective; outsiders who put little faith into the relic
⁃ Benjaminite, perhaps a redemption from the events in Judges 19-21
⁃ Eli described as old and heavy
• Heavy mirrors the spiritual burden he had
• Thrown from his seat as judge
⁃ Ichabod “No Glory” or “The glory has departed”
⁃ Spiritual dark times
• Rarity of God’s Word; widespread apostasy and spiritual famine in Israel.
• Physical blindness mirrors his (and Israel’s) spiritual blindness.
• Confusion & toleration of sin; failure of the high priest
⁃ Hearing God: Requires openness, mentorship, persistence, and faithfulness
• God initiates by speaking from the Ark of the Covenant.
• A theophanic moment follows (“the Lord came and stood”).
• God’s persistence in calling Samuel reveals His grace and pursuit of relationship.
⁃ Judgment
• “Tingling ears” is an idiom for shocking, horrifying news.
• Eli faces temporal punishment for his cowardice and failure to confront sin in his vocation
• Eli’s resigned acceptance
Cravenness; contemptibly lacking in courage; cowardly: a craven abdication of his moral duty
⁃ Hannah’s Song themes
• Praise and holiness of God
• Reverse of fortunes
• Deliverance, mercy and faithfulness
• God’s rule and victory
⁃ The Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55); bridges Hannah’s song with the new era of salvation in Christ
⁃ Apostasy & Sacrilege: Abuse of power, religious corruption or both
• Cravenness of Eli himself
• Faithless of Eli's sons
• Contempt of the people’s offerings
• Bedding the temple women
⁃ Faithfulness
• Unknown prophet (1Samuel 2:27)
• A faithful priest (1Samuel 2:35) - ultimately Christ
• Samuel
⁃ Another account of a barren favorite wife
⁃ Grace Alone, Faith Alone
• Peace offering highlights fellowship with God in the midst of suffering
• God works through weakness (Theology of the Cross)
• God’s Word of promise brings peace
⁃ People:
• Elkanah - Devout husband, loves Hannah
• Peninnah - Hannah’s rival
• Hannah - Barren, Elkanah’s favorite wife
• Eli - Priest at the tabernacle in Shiloh
• Hophni - son of Eli
• Phinehas - son of Eli
• Samuel - son of Hannah and Elkanah