Do you know the great Israelite king and distant relative of Jesus, David? Great great grandson of Ruth and Boaz, defeater of Goliath, and writer of beautiful Psalms.
We can easily put David up on a pedestal as one we should strive to imitate. He lived the American dream before there was even an America — little shepherd left behind and left out to great warrior and king with many riches and many wives!
NO ONE IS PERFECT
But you know that’s not the whole story. How easy it is to focus on the good, because he is called a man after God’s own heart. But here’s what I’ve learned: no one is perfect. Not even the “heroes of faith” listed in Hebrews 11 are without blemish.
Every single one of us needs Jesus. We should never idolize anyone, not even our favorite Bible hero. And especially not our friendly neighbors with the perfect lawns, our teachers with so much knowledge, or our leaders with their confidence. Not even the great king and psalmist David with so much of everything.
No one is either all good or all bad; we have the abilities to make good choices and the weaknesses that lead us to bad choices.
Except God. And his son, Jesus – the only person to have walked this earth and leave it without sinning. Jesus is the one whom we should imitate. “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). And Jesus is our closest example of what that could look like, in earthly terms.
WHY STUDY DAVID?
So, why study David, or any other person in the Bible? Because then we can see what can be accomplished with great faith, or what can be destroyed by the consequences of sin.
Because in the Bible we can read the good and the bad about so many people, does that prove its authenticity? If the Bible only gave us perfect images of what it’s like to be human, we definitely could not believe it. But by seeing the light and the darkness of humankind all throughout its pages, we can see that to struggle is to be human.
DAVID’S STORY POINTS TO JESUS
More importantly, as we read the story of David, we see Jesus. David is anointed with oil; Jesus is the anointed one. David is blessed by a covenant with God, that his throne will reign forever; Jesus is the descendant of David who reigns eternally. And this verse from 2 Samuel, is a new favorite of mine:
All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him (14:14 NLT).
Right there in the Old Testament, another verse alluding to Jesus! That’s why we read these stories, to see Jesus. But also, we learn about ourselves and about God.
“In David, we…find a reflection of ourselves. In him, we see the best we can be — the fruit of a Spirit-filled life, intimacy with God, love, forgiveness, triumphant good in the face of evil. In him, we see the worst that we are — a struggling parent, an unfaithful spouse, a disquieted heart mired in sin and frustrated by indecision. Through David, through all the glory and all the struggles, we see God — loving, forgiving, blessing, disciplining.”
–Casandra Martin, Echoing His Heartbeat, The Life of David
For this series on the life of David, you can look forward to these posts:
The Character of David, The Good
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