Bible study on 1 Samuel 8:4-11,(12-15),16-20, (11:14-15)
This study can be used by a small group, a household or an individual.
See also our Guidelines for a weekly Bible study including suggestions for adapting it to your context.
Begin with an opening prayer
God of each day and each moment,
you call us to make choices:
choices about how we will live,
how we will use our time and resources,
who we will look out for,
and what we will commit to.
As we come before you now,
bless us with wise discernment and loving compassion,
that we may serve after the example of Jesus.
Amen.
Read the passage
Consider different ways to read the text. For example, hearing it in more than one version of the Bible.
In an online group, you could share parts between those present, or use/adapt this week’s Share the Word suggestion: Use the Jump to this week's menu on the right to go to Share the Word and scroll down to find the Gospel reading.
Explore and respond to the text
Start by reading the Bible notes below. You may want to read them more than once, or pause after each paragraph to reflect on what you have read.
Bible notes
Who was to be Israel’s king? During the period of the judges, the answer was God. The judges emerged as charismatic leaders, often in times of crisis, but their authority depended on God’s validation. God had called Israel to be a unique nation directly under his care, a community bound by covenant, a ‘priestly kingdom and a holy nation’ (Exodus 19:6). But now Israel was asking to move away from this model and be ruled by a king, ‘like other nations’ (v.5). They were rejecting the special status offered by God and wanted to adopt the pattern followed by their neighbours. It’s possible to identify social and political reasons for this choice. They were under pressure from the military threat presented by the Philistines, who had kings. Samuel was ageing and his sons were not suitable to take up his role. The elders of Israel recognised the possibility of a power vacuum and took steps to avoid it.
Samuel was clearly opposed to this move. God’s words to him reassured him that they were not rejecting his prophetic authority but God, setting this in the long history of ambivalent relationships between the Israelites and God. Samuel shared God’s words of warning: a king would build a new kind of economy where the land and its produce was held centrally, and the people would be forced into forms of employment that created luxury and glory for the king and his courtiers, but left the sons and daughters of Israel demeaned and unprotected in servile roles. Yet God opted to allow the Israelites to make the choice for kingship. However, God set up a way of king-making that ensured the king was God’s choice, not the people’s. It was Samuel who would have responsibility for identifying Israel’s king, and he would anoint him in line with God’s direction. Elsewhere too it’s clear that God kept control of the process – Deuteronomy 17:14-19 restricts the wealth and wives of the king, who is to be chosen by God. 1 Samuel 12:14 is explicit: the king must follow the Lord.
Though kingship is not God’s preferred option for governing Israel, this passage describes a compromise in which God responds to the people’s wishes in ways that ensure ultimate control remains where it belongs – with the Lord, with whom they are in covenant relationship.
See also: Scripture in context: Mission and teaching
Reflection
Spend a few moments thinking about what stands out for you from the Bible reading. This idea may help.
There is a difference between God making change and God enabling change. If God makes a change, it would be done and dusted, there would be no responsibility or relationship with us. If God enables change, it falls to us to put the change into being, to make it happen, perhaps to decide its direction and more and, in so doing, to form a relationship with the one who calls, who disturbs, who enables and supports us.
Questions for reflection
You may wish to use these questions and the picture to help you think about or discuss issues arising from this week’s Bible passage.
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- Can you think of an action you have taken that has caused big ripples?
- Where was God in the decision you took?
- Are you aware of situations in the news where big decisions must be made? How might you pray for the decision-makers?
A simple activity
Listening to God
- Throughout this Bible study, keep periods of silence. Start with – say, five seconds. Progressively make them longer – up to, say, 20 or 30 seconds, introducing them with: ‘Let us be still before God for a moment’.
- Near the end of your time together, introduce a more structured time of prayer with silence. Recap each of the elements from the very start, inviting people to think about what you did and why, then to pray in silence about that subject. Encourage people to speak to God in the silence; but also to spend as much time being silent before God – listening – as speaking. Make at least one of the silences a period of about two minutes. Conclude the prayer with words that will be familiar to all present (perhaps the Lord’s Prayer).
- Some may feel awkward or embarrassed by long silences, so you may wish to talk through people’s reactions to this worship activity.
Use the Jump to this week's menu on the right to go to more activities in Explore and respond.
Prayer
Adapt to your local context.
A prayer of thanksgiving
Lord God, we thank you that you have placed us in community.
Our lives are made up of clusters of different people; some we
have no choice about. But we thank you, Lord, that in you we
can always choose how we react. Today we choose your way of
showing love to all. We thank you, God of the people, that you are
our king. You can make us a community that is transformed by your
love and our actions.
Amen.
Use the Jump to this week's menu on the right to find more prayers,
including up-to-date intercessions.
A prayer to end the Bible study
May God give us eyes of faith to see God’s way
in the face of the many choices we face.
May God be in our choices and our plans.
May God bless us and all those we seek to serve.
Amen.
Go with God 24/7
Encourage everyone to put their faith into action.
Make a note of decisions and choices you make each day this week. In your prayer time, reflect on how the decisions, and especially their consequences, may have helped or hindered you or other people.
Encourage everyone to explore their faith this week with the Thrive resource.