A Tale of Three Kings: A Study of Brokenness

The narrator leaves the story of David and Saul to underscore some of the spiritual principles at work in their situation. He focuses on Saul’s calling, gifting, and anointing by God as a leader for Israel. Although the reader might be tempted to dismiss Saul as a failed leader, the narrator makes the case that such a judgment is not the whole truth: “Look at the facts. Saul was one of the greatest figures of human history. […] It was Saul who took these people and welded them into a united kingdom” (39-40). Saul was granted authority by God for his role as Israel’s first king, and he was good at many of the tasks that kingship required. The difficulty, however, is that his inner character was not conformed to God’s ways, and he allowed vices like pride and jealousy to fester in his soul.

The narrator insists this does not negate the fact that Saul was God’s anointed king, pointing out that the same mixed dynamic is unfortunately true of many spiritual leaders in churches today who are called and gifted by God for ministry but who inwardly are not willing to conform themselves to the hard road of sacrifice and suffering by which true virtues grow: “There is a vast difference between the outward clothing of the Spirit’s power and the inward filling of the Spirit’s life” (41).