When I first started studying how to study the Bible I learned three main things from a book entitled Living by the Book by the well-known Howard Hendricks.
1. Observation
2. Interpretation
3. Application
These three sporadically pop up in my mind as I'm reading and studying different passages in Scripture. What these guiding principles have shown me (if completed in order) is how to truly interpret the meaning of the passage of Scripture at hand. I've gone on a tangent... this is not the point I'm trying to make today.
There are passages of Scripture that I've never really done this with because they are stories that I already know. For instance, the story of David and Goliath.
In first grade, when it's time for David and Goliath, I do a dramatic retelling of this story trying to conjure up the feelings that may have been floating around in David's head as he goes into battle... but what I did was completely ignore some of what Scripture says he actually did when he went into battle against the giant. I skipped observation. You see I had been teaching my students to apply this story by trusting in the Lord when they come up against giants in their lives. This is not the correct application of this story. There are some things that I have missed because I jumped straight to trying to apply this to my life and my students' lives.
Here is what 1 Samuel 17 says:
The Philistines gathered their troops for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah. Saul and the Israelite army assembled and camped in the valley of Elah, where they arranged their battle lines to fight against the Philistines. The Philistines were standing on one hill, and the Israelites on another hill, with the valley between them.
Then a champion came out from the camp of the Philistines. His name was Goliath; he was from Gath. He was close to seven feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and was wearing scale body armor. The weight of his bronze body armor was five thousand shekels. He had bronze shin guards on his legs, and a bronze javelin was slung over his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the iron point of his spear weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer was walking before him.
Goliath stood and called to Israel’s troops, “Why do you come out to prepare for battle? Am I not the Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose for yourselves a man so he may come down to me! If he is able to fight with me and strike me down, we will become your servants. But if I prevail against him and strike him down, you will become our servants and will serve us.” Then the Philistine said, “I defy Israel’s troops this day! Give me a man so we can fight each other!” When Saul and all the Israelites heard these words of the Philistine, they were upset and very afraid.NET
So this first part of the story is pretty hard to mis-understand. There is a battle between the Philistines and the Israelites, and the Philistines have a giant that is taunting Israel. The Israelites are afraid. The ESV version uses the word dismayed. They are quite upset about the possibility of becoming the Philistines' slaves.
So this is where David enters the text of this story. David's three older brothers are fighting in Saul's army. He is spending his time traveling back and forth to feed his father's sheep and check in on his brothers. David comes on this battle scene just in time to watch Goliath taunt the Israelite army. Verse 24 tells us that the Israelites were greatly afraid and fled from him. David's response to their fear is the key to interpreting this story with accuracy.
The next verse says:
David asked the men who were standing near him, “What will be done for the man who strikes down this Philistine and frees Israel from this humiliation? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he defies the armies of the living God?”NET
David doesn't fear this giant. His trust in God is un-compromised despite the circumstances. We all know the rest of the story of David's defeat of Goliath and Saul's army chasing the Philistines out of the Elah valley.
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| The settlement pictured is located at the top of the Elah Valley. This may have been the place where David found the Israelites encamped as they spent each day dismayed and afraid of Goliath. |
But how I am teaching this story to future students has changed. David's trust in God's ability to deliver Israel from the Philistines in this battle is based upon his knowledge that God had a plan for his people. In the previous chapter of the Bible, David was anointed to be the next king of Israel. "Who can defy the armies of the living God?" David knew his God had a plan. He had a promise from the Lord in his heart that kept him from wavering in trusting God to deliver his people.
How does this apply to me: I don't have a promise that I will be the next king of Israel. And I'm not going into a battle against a massive man. However, I do have other promises from God's word that are applicable to my life today. My favorite two come from Psalm 84:11 and Matthew 6:25-34. I can walk around this life with these promises bound up in my heart and rely on them just like David relied on the promise of being the future king of Israel. So when I face challenges in my life, I can go back to the promises that are in my heart from the Lord, and my trust in God's fulfillment of these promises means that I don't have to waver. "Who can defy the armies of the living God?"
I used to tell students to not be afraid of the Giants in their lives. Now I'm going to show them passages of Scripture that offer them hope and truth. And I'm going to tell them to remember these promises as life unfolds. They too can have the trust that David had in the God of the Universe. This story means so much more to me now!
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