Let's look for hidden pearls (10 mins.)
1Sa 15:24. What does Saul's mistake teach us about compassion? (it-1 517 para. 1).
It teaches us that Jehovah is a just Judge and knows when compassion should not be shown. The time had come for Jehovah to punish the Amalekites, since they had attacked the Israelites unprovoked after their departure from Egypt. The order given to Saul was that he should not have mercy on them, but he relented the pressure and did not fully comply with Jehovah's mandate, which brought him consequences, God rejected him from being king. So let us cultivate a deep appreciation for the righteousness of Jehovah's ways and put loyalty to Him first, this can prevent us from erring like Saul and losing his approval.
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS
Giving in to pressure to be compassionate when it is contrary to God's will can have serious consequences. What happened to King Saul is sobering. The time had come for the execution of divine judgment against the Amalekites, the first people who had attacked the Israelites unprovoked after their departure from Egypt. Saul was commanded not to show mercy to them, but he yielded to the pressure of his subjects and did not fully carry out Jehovah's command. As a consequence, Jehovah rejected him from being king. Cultivating a deep appreciation for the uprightness of Jehovah's ways and putting loyalty to him first can prevent him from erring like Saul and losing divine approval.
We know that compassion is a very important quality, but when showing it will lead us to do something contrary to what Jehovah wants, we must not give in, since in the war against the Amalekites, Saul gave in to the pressure of his subjects and did not He fully complied with Jehovah's mandate, which brought him serious consequences, because for that reason Jehovah rejected him from being king.
It teaches us that, although we must be compassionate, we must not give in to the pressure to be compassionate when it is contrary to the divine will, it can lead to serious consequences such as losing divine approval.
Saul was commanded not to show mercy to the Amalekites, but he yielded to the pressure of his subjects and did not fully carry out Jehovah's command, thus showing that Saul did not have a deep appreciation for the uprightness of Jehovah's ways.
What spiritual gems have you found about Jehovah, the ministry, and other topics in this week's Bible reading?
1 Samuel 14:1. It shows that Jonatan wanted to do something for the people, so when he made this decision we could say that, so to speak, he stepped out of his comfort zone, this makes me think that, because we don't do an honest self-examination and see if it is that we can do more in our service to Jehovah, such as pioneering serving in another congregation.
1 Samuel 14:4,13. It was not easy for Jonathan and his armor bearer to climb with "hands and feet" until they reached the Philistine troop that was in the Micmash gorge, but that difficulty did not stop them and with Jehovah's help they achieved their goal . This teaches me: that sometimes obstacles and difficulties are like mountain passes that make it difficult for us to serve Jehovah, but let us not forget that our enemies are mere human beings, «but Jehovah is with us to help us and to fight our battles”, this guarantees us that we can win and reach our goal, which is: eternal life.
1 Samuel 14:6. It is clear that Jonathan was a man of very strong faith. He knew that for "Jehovah there is nothing that prevents him from saving, whether he uses the many or the few." This teaches me: that Jehovah is the Almighty God who does not depend on the number of soldiers or the weapons that man has to defeat his enemies and save his people. Since the great tribulation is so close, we want to have the same kind of faith that Jonathan had, so let's strive to make our faith stronger every day. Thus, we will see if we will be witnesses that "there is nothing that prevents Jehovah from saving his servants."
1 Samuel 14:6. Jonatán tenía fe en Jehová, aunque sólo era él y su ayudante, él confiaba en que Jehová podía usarlos a ellos para obtener una victoria, de forma parecida, nosotros tenemos fe en Dios, que aunque sólo seamos nosotros y nuestro compañero de servicio podremos realizar plenamente nuestro ministerio, e incluso encontrar estudios bíblicos progresivos.
1 Samuel 14:6. Unlike his father who had turned away from Jehovah, Jonathan fought for justice and when he did he recognized that it is always necessary to seek divine guidance for victory, obviously we do not fight in wars, but we can continue to recognize that we need God's guidance. Jehovah to be able to carry out all activities that are related to his worship, and especially with important decisions.
1 Samuel 14:8-10. Antes de atacar a los filisteos, Jonathan buscó «una señal» o prueba de la aprobación de Jehová. Sus palabras muestran que confiaba por completo en su Dios Salvador y no en su fuerza humana. Esto me enseña: que confiar en Jehová es: un sentimiento que parte de nuestro corazón y que se evidencia con nuestros actos. Así que, al afrontar las dificultades de la vida, confiemos por completo en Jehová y no en nuestras propias fuerzas. Cuando veamos los buenos resultados de confiar en Él, más convencidos estaremos de que realmente, cuida y protege a su pueblo.
1 Samuel 14:15. The Philistines must have imagined that behind those two Israelite warriors there were many more, but then they began to feel a strong tremor, but this tremor was special since it was caused by Jehovah. It caused such confusion among the Philistines that it caused great confusion in them. such as this encourage us to trust that Jehovah will intervene for his servants when the final attack of his enemies occurs.
1 Samuel 14:23. Jehovah teaches us that he is a very loving and merciful God who is always aware of the needs of his loyal ones and what is more, we can be sure that when we are in trouble he will save us.
1 Samuel 14:24. Saul had become selfish and placed an unreasonable restriction on the Israelite warriors: he forbade them to taste food. He forgot that Jehovah's justice was more important than his thirst for revenge and conquest. This teaches me: that if we are not careful we can be tempted to impose unreasonable and personal restrictions on our brothers, which are not in accordance with the word of God. Let us remember that Jehovah wants his servants “to go no further than what is written” and that we recognize that his “righteous decrees of his” are always more important and better than our personal ideas.
1 Samuel 14:24-28. Although Jonathan disobeyed a command from his father not to eat anything, it does not seem that this act brought him divine disapproval since he was not aware of what his father had said and it may also be that the oath was motivated by a false zeal or a wrong view of royal power, what we can learn is that although Jonathan was willing to accept the consequences for raping him, his life was spared.
1 Samuel 14:34. This experience shows that an emergency is no excuse to disregard divine law. It should also help us to see the importance of thinking carefully before taking an oath, since an unthinking vote can harm us personally and cause problems for other people. Even if we are in the habit of imposing personal rules on others we could put them in trouble, instead we want to train our conscience and not go beyond what is written.
1 Samuel 14:45. Saul hastily pronounced a curse on any soldier who ate food before the battle had been fully won, and when Saul heard that Jonathan had eaten, he ordered his execution, though after listening to the people he retracted that decision, we must learn not to make hasty decisions because later we may have to regret having made them.
1 Samuel 15:6. The Kenites were sons of the father-in-law of Moses, they helped the Israelites after they left Mount Sinai, in the land of Canaan, the Kenites also lived for some time with the children of Judah and although later they resided among the Amalekites and various peoples Moreover, they maintained good relations with Israel, it is for all reasons that Saul spared the lives of the Kenites.
1 Samuel 15:11. He mentions that “God felt sorry”, that God felt sorrow because of Saul's deviation does not mean that his choice as king was a mistake or that Jehovah repented of his action. God must have felt sorrow that Saul, though he had free will, did not properly take advantage of the magnificent privilege he had bestowed upon him and the opportunity it afforded him, and furthermore, the change in Saul's behavior brought about a change in his behavior. How did God treat him?
1 Samuel 15:11,35. "The Lord was sorry," not because he had been wrong in choosing Saul as king of Israel, but because of his infidelity and disobedience. This teaches me: that God does not predetermine the actions of men. It makes no sense for him to express himself in that way if he knew in advance how Saul would act. Jehovah does not predetermine or in any way predestine the individual future of each of us. Our future depends on our own actions, we are free to choose which of the two paths we want to follow: obedience that results in life or disobedience that results in death.
1 Samuel 15:13,24. It shows that when the prophet Samuel called Saul's attention, he did not admit his mistake, but tried to justify himself by blaming others, this caused Jehovah to reject him, so in our case we can learn from this example, and self Examining ourselves, we can ask ourselves questions like: “Am I looking for excuses not to put into practice the advice I read in the Bible? Do I downplay the consequences of disobeying? Do I blame others for what I do?
1 Samuel 15:15. The tendency to make excuses and blame others became a habit of Saul to justify his disobedience, Adam and Eve did something similar, we see that they did not recognize that they had sinned, this undoubtedly shows the lack of repentance, if we have committed a error it is good that we reflect on what our reaction was, we recognized our fault and accepted the consequences or we made excuses and even blamed others, it is undoubtedly a good self-examination.
1 Samuel 15:15. To try to justify himself, Saul said that the men left the best sheep and cows alive to sacrifice them to Jehovah your God even though he had received the clear order to destroy absolutely everything, this way of acting shows that Saul no longer thought in the same way. who liked Jehovah and at the same time that he no longer trusted him, but was letting himself be carried away by his own criteria.
1 Samuel 15:16. Samuel "executes justice" was not afraid to give firm advice to Saul even though he was the king of Israel. This teaches me: that in the congregation it is the same, the overseers "do justice" and are not afraid to give firm advice to any Christian who is developing bad conduct. In addition, they are careful not to be permissive and show misguided sinful kindness that could jeopardize the spirituality of the congregation. They know that zeal for justice and true goodness is not blind to words and actions that violate divine standards.
1 Samuel 15:22. To be fully pleasing to God, we have to obey Him in all spheres of life. Let us never delude ourselves into thinking that we can take certain liberties with respect to his standards as long as we worship him in other ways. For example, someone may be deluded into believing that he can commit immorality or other serious sin and get away with the consequences if he complies with some of the formal aspects of worship. That would be a big mistake.
1 Samuel 15:24,30. We see that Saul commits a serious sin and recognizes his fault, but what concerned him most was his position in Israel, and not Jehovah's forgiveness, this teaches us that if we commit a sin and want to obtain God's forgiveness, we should never have Saul's attitude, because what Jehovah sees to show us mercy is heartfelt repentance.
1 Samuel 15:25,30. He says that Jonatan, being exhausted, found a honeycomb in the forest dripping with honey; he put his rod in and ate a little, and immediately regained his energy, so this biblical story reveals one of the properties of honey that benefits man, and an interesting fact is that, in theory, a bee could turn the world with only the energy provided by 30 grams of honey, with all this we see once again the great wisdom of our creators, Jehovah.
1 Samuel 15:30. Saul was apparently more concerned with his own reputation or position in the eyes of others than with Jehovah's approval. Such an attitude resulted in God not forgiving him. This teaches me: that Christians should be alert to the danger of being more concerned about our reputation with others than having Jehovah's approval. If we want to obtain divine forgiveness, it is essential to show sincere repentance, this implies a sincere change of attitude, a feeling of regret for the wrongs committed. Let's not forget that: it is better than worrying about how Jehovah sees us and having his approval.
1 Samuel 15:35. Jehovah said that he was sorry for having made Saul king over Israel, since God is perfect, this passage cannot indicate that he made a mistake when he chose Saul as the first king of Israel, rather, what they undoubtedly mean is that God felt sorry for Saul's infidelity and disobedience, and besides, it would not make sense for God to express himself in that way if he had known in advance how Saul would act.
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