Inspired by former NFL quarterback Colin
Kapernick, several NFL players elected to protest police brutality and systemic racism by kneeling during the national anthem. President Donald J. Trump said:
In fairness to the president, this is not the
first time a national leader went all potty-mouth in public.
Read 1 Samuel chapter 20.
Saul, the first king of Israel, had been
chosen by God (1 Samuel 9:15-17), anointed by the prophet-priest Samuel (1
Samuel 10:1), and publicly selected in a national election in which the outcome was predetermined (1 Samuel 10:20-22).
In the first year of his administration, the
new king solidified a fiercely loyal and enthusiastic base.
So all the people shouted and said, “Long
live the king!” (1 Samuel 10:24)
He inspired an opposition movement that
questioned his qualifications for the office.
But some rebels said, “How can this man save
us?” So they despised him, and brought him no presents. But he held his peace.
(1 Samuel 10:27)
And his supporters took violent action against their leader’s critics, which Saul actually, definitively condemned.
Then the people said to Samuel, “Who is he who said, ‘Shall Saul reign over
us?’ Bring the men, that we may put them to death.”
But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to
death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished salvation in Israel” (1
Samuel 11: 12,13).
They had high hopes for King Saul until he started saying stupid stuff and
issuing cool-sounding orders that made no sense. Like, in 1 Samuel 14, when Saul cancelled all
meals for the army and threatened to execute anyone who ate or even drank water. And this was while the army was in the middle of major combat (1 Samuel 24). The king appointed David to his staff, but then he got mad because David was doing his job right, so he turned on David
and tried to destroy him (1 Samuel 18; 19).
Around this time Saul
contracted potty mouth. Suspecting that
his son and 2nd in command, Jonathan, was not sufficiently
enthusiastic about having his best friend and colleague David murdered, 1
Samuel 20:3-33, explains: Then Saul’s anger was aroused against Jonathan, and
he said to him, “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman! Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to
your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?
“You son of a perverse, rebellious woman!” Translation, You, son of a b****!
The “shame of your mother’s nakedness” is
either a reference to Jonathan’s birth, or a callback to the euphemism “uncover
the nakedness of” in Leviticus 18. It's a euphemism for "have sex with." The former interpretation means Saul said
Jonathan had been a disappointment since the day he was born.
The second interpretation, which I think is
correct, means Saul said: “Jonathan, you son of a b****! I knew you’d chose
that mother-f**** David over me!”
Now, where was I going with this?
Oh, yeah.
Three points:
1) There’s going to be a lot more yelling, and cursing, and twitter-spear throwing before this term is over.
After all that cussing, Saul continued to be king.
After all that cussing, Saul continued to be king.
People asked David to remove Saul from
office, but nope.
Look, this day your eyes have seen that the
LORD delivered you today into my hand in the cave, and someone urged me to kill
you. But my eye spared you, and I said, ‘I will not stretch out my hand against
my lord, for he is the LORD’s anointed’ (1 Samuel 24:10).
The cussin’ king had a long, full term as
leader of the nation. For 4 decades, he decided military action, tax policy,
immigration law. During that time the
political climate was characterized by infighting, betrayal, military resources
wasted on strategically pointless personal vendettas and a steep degree of
moral and psychological decline so bad that Samuel literally came back as a
ghost to tell Saul that he was an idiot (1 Samuel 28:13-19).
But he was in office for a long, long, long
time.
2) A verbally filthy leader indicates a spiritually unprotected nation.
Unrestrained speech shows that the spirit of the leader is unrepentant and un-redeemeed. Oh, the king/ president can go up to the temple and make the sacrifices/ take the communion and say all the right churchy words, but if he can't control his mouth,the Bible says that his faith is powerless at best, and insincere at worst.
Unrestrained speech shows that the spirit of the leader is unrepentant and un-redeemeed. Oh, the king/ president can go up to the temple and make the sacrifices/ take the communion and say all the right churchy words, but if he can't control his mouth,the Bible says that his faith is powerless at best, and insincere at worst.
Read 1 Samuel 15.
Saul’s unraveled, public profanity came after God had withdrawn His favor on the anointed, elected leader.
Saul’s unraveled, public profanity came after God had withdrawn His favor on the anointed, elected leader.
Samuel said to Saul,
“I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and
the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:26).
The next major military action led by Saul
ended in humiliating defeat for his nation and a series of murder suicides that
decimated the royal family (1 Samuel 31:1-13).
When a proclaimed Christian acts without
restraint, it means that God had stopped restraining him/her. If God has withdrawn His restraint, then God
has also withdrawn His FAVOR (Acts 7:42-43; Romans 1:24-25).
A nation outside of God's favor that thinks it's still God's chosen people, a spiritually unprotected people whose think they're still the America that God shed his grace on ----- that's a nation about to have a very unpleasant surprise.
A nation outside of God's favor that thinks it's still God's chosen people, a spiritually unprotected people whose think they're still the America that God shed his grace on ----- that's a nation about to have a very unpleasant surprise.
---Anderson T.
Graves II is a
writer, community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor of Miles
Chapel CME Church in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization (SAYNO);
and director of rural leadership development for the National Institute for
Human Development (NIHD).
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