Drink the Gospel

Here's an example of something I mentioned in the last post, "Drink." To drink in the Scripture, we learn to "look for Christ on every page." Jesus told us that the Scriptures bear witness to Him. Here's how I found the Scripture bearing witness to Christ in my devotion this morning. This story is in 1 Samuel 2:12-36.

Worthless Men

This story starts with the phrase "Now the sons of Eli were worthless men." Why? They didn't know the LORD, and they were supposed to be priests, making things right between God and the people. But instead, they were just stealing from the sacrifices that people brought. They were entitled, as priests, to eat portions of the sacrifices, but they were taking more than their share. So God calls them out on this.

A New Priest

God sends a messenger to Eli to tell him that his sons are not fit to serve as priests. He says in 1 Samuel 2:35 that "I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind." Here, God has a double meaning: He is about to replace Eli's sons and put another man in their spot. But He is also sending us a prophecy about who Jesus will be: a high priest who will do exactly what God wants Him to, not stealing from His people. He says "I will build him a sure house," and the New Testament tells us that we (as Christians) are being built into a temple for Jesus. He says "he shall go in and out before my anointed forever," and in the New Testament we're told that Jesus will serve as a high priest for all of eternity.

Begging for Priesthood

In 1 Samuel 2:36 we're told that everyone who is left will beg to be made a priest, because they won't have food of their own and they know that priests get fed from the sacrifices brought to the temple. They will say "Please put me in one of the priests' places, that I may eat a morsel of bread." This is sweet, because this is exactly what we beg Jesus for when we ask Him to save us. We see that we have no bread of our own, but that priests get bread. We know we don't deserve to be priests, but we beg Jesus to make us priests just so that we can live.

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus has made us priests (1 Peter 2:9) and He has given us bread to eat (Matthew 26:26), which is His body. We do not deserve this, but we beg for it (just as God told Eli we would) and He has given it to us. This is good news.

This is how we learn to read the Word of God in a way that brings spirit and life. Here, in 1 Samuel 2, Jesus can make our hearts burn with the knowledge of who He is and what He does for us.