10/16 Reading (1 Samuel 25-27; 2 Corinthians 1)

1 Samuel 25: I find this chapter to be pretty interesting. First, it starts with the following statement: “Now Samuel died, and all Israel gathered to mourn for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah. David then left and went down to the Maon wilderness.” (CEB Study Bible, p. 459 OT; 1 Sam. 25.1) That’s it! Nothing else about Samuel, a key figure during this time of Israel. I’m kinda surprised by the lack of information about Samuel when he dies.

The remaining part of this chapter focuses on Abigail and David. Abigail was the wife of a bad guy, Nabal, who disrespected David and his men. David wanted to kill him, but Abigail intervened and was able to stop David from making a mistake. Nabal ends up dying of possibly natural causes (with God’s help) and David takes Abigail as his wife. He also takes another woman as his wife. Yet, we are reminded that he is already married to Saul’s younger daughter. But, Saul solves this problem by giving her to someone else. Kinda strange.

1 Samuel 26: David demonstrates how he is better than Saul again by sparing his life a second time. I’m a little confused because I thought Saul had agreed to stop pursing David in 1 Samuel 24, but the Bible indicates that Saul still pursued David. Um, ok.

1 Samuel 27: David leaves the area and goes to Philistine to get away from Saul. He takes his entire army with him and serves Achish, a King in Philistine. This chapter just focuses on some little raids that he did while living there, making Achish think David would serve him forever.

Introduction to 2 Corinthians: The introduction to this book in the CEB Study Bible version was interesting. Based on what I read, it sounds like this letter was meant to tell them what to do and the first letter was to answer questions. I found it interesting that apparently there was a letter between the first and second letters. The text refers to this as his “letter of tears.” Unfortunately this letter no longer exists. Bummer! Sounds like it was interesting.

2 Corinthians 1: The chapter is kinda all over the place. Paul feels the need to explain himself and why he changed his plans and came to Corinth before going to Macedonia. Obviously something bad happened when he visited, because he says that he didn’t want to visit again after Macedonia.