9A Worship - The Ark Of God

Once we hear God’s voice and know his call to follow Jesus; what do we do? Well, we are called to follow him wholeheartedly, not just halfway. We are not called make use of God to simply ‘get ahead’, or to see our worship of God as a kind of “religious rabbits’ foot”. Or a way to ‘get ahead’—in effect trying to make our relationship with Jesus just one more tool in our toolbox of success.

The text for this week reflects Israel at war, using the Ark of God as a ‘religious rabbit's foot’ in effect. The text as we have is unclear about who started the war—it merely states that Philistines and Israelites are at war. Israel losses the first battle of this war and decides that if they bring the Ark of God out to the next battle they will win. What they fail to do is ask God to help them; they don’t even bother to consult Samuel. They, in a sense go through the motions without truly depending on God. So, the war depicted in this week’s text is God exercising his judgement on the evil sons of Eli who are killed in the second battle depicted in our text. The Philistines now have control of the Ark. Eli falls dead after he hears of the loss and his priestly line is over.