Readings:
1 Samuel 25-26
Psalm 126-130
Acts 12

1 Samuel 25-26

Samuel dies at the beginning of chapter 25 and is buried in his hometown, but curiously he will make another appearance after death a little further on in 1 Samuel. David is hanging out in the wilderness and has a run in with a sheep owner named Nabal, who is unimportant for the overarching narrative but is introduced to bring Abigail into the story.

Abigail is Nabal’s wife, and after he insults David’s messengers she has the good sense to go with gifts and make peace with David before their feud came to blows. Soon after his insulting dismissal of David’s men, Nabal drops dead and Abigail becomes David’s second wife.

Saul goes again to try and capture David that he might kill him. But David is cunning and knows the wilderness from his days as a shepherd, so he always keeps ahead of Saul and his army. Then one night David sneaks into the camp and steals Saul’s spear as a token to show he was standing over his sleeping enemy and didn’t kill him.

After a brief confrontation it seems like Saul has again been convinced that he’s wrong for trying to kill David, so he turns around and goes home.

Acts 12

Now there’s a slight jump in time, we don’t know how long, but historical records tell us that this Herod mentioned rules all Israel from approximately AD 40-44. So assuming the death of Stephen is very close to the date of the passion (traditionally dated in AD 33) then the persecutions or Saul went on for a year or two, that means we’re at least 5 years and as many as 9 years ahead in time.

Herod kills James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John the Beloved Apostle in AD 44 according to Christian tradition and he was the first to die in this second wave of persecutions that break out. Seeing how well this went over with the people in Jerusalem, Herod has Peter arrested and plans on killing him after Passover. But the church implores God and intercedes through prayer on behalf of Peter.

In the middle of the night, while sleeping between two guards and chained with two chains, and angel appears and frees Peter. He leads him out of the jail and even opens the locked gate before they make it out into the city. All this happening on Passover night, Peter being saved from bondage like the Jews of old were in the days of Moses.

When he realized it’s not a vision or dream, he kinda wakes up and heads to where he knows he’ll find some friendly faces but they can’t believe what they’re seeing. How could he be just standing there when he was being held in what was essentially a super max prison.

It was due to the prayers of the church that Peter was released and shows us the power that prayer has to change situations.

Tomorrow’s Readings:
1 Samuel 27-29
Psalm 131-134
Acts 13