A Host of Witnesses: 1 Samuel 2:18-21
God can use the variety of people around us to mold us into the person He needs us to be. We start life by imitating parents. We then imitate other adult figures in our life. Soon we imitate friends, celebrities, athletes, and now social media icons. We are shaped by the people around us; the people upon whom we place our focus will tell what kind of person we become.
Life often brings contrasting views, contrasting opinions, and contrasting lifestyles. We’ve seen Eli’s spirituality, we’ve tasted Eli’s sons’ spirituality, and now we get a small perspective on Samuel. The witness for Samuel is in great contrast against Eli’s family.
Samuel ministered before the Lord. He’s a human, so the Bible isn’t trying to tell us he was perfect. But his youth focused upon the temple and the work there. He was walking with God, looking to please God, and learning what he was supposed to do.
This is one of the things I love about youth. Youth, especially pre-teen youth, don’t complicate things. They look at adult life and try to imitate its best qualities. They don’t always get it right because they may not understand the complexity of situations or they may not have the physical strength or dexterity to achieve the goal. But their goal is to learn the task and duplicate it. Youth are expert imitators; it can be fun to watch them grow into it.
It may seem a minor miracle Samuel developed as he did. Since the adults in his life were Eli and his sons, Samuel should be imitating bad examples. This is not true. Just as Elkanah, a Levite, rotated to Shiloh once a year to perform his duty, so did other Levites. There were also priests who rotated into the temple to handle the sacrifices.
There is absolute beauty in how the Lord took care of Samuel. Eli and his sons were not great spiritual influences, but that also meant they weren’t present at the temple unless they had to be. We heard how Eli’s sons would send servants to the temple to collect the meat.
These questionable examples in Samuel’s life were not significant because the rotation of priests and Levites made the difference. As the others came, Samuel would have looked up to them and realized who were the great examples.
Each year Hannah and Elkanah came to visit Samuel, Hannah would bring him a new set of clothing for ministry. Mentions of clothing in the Bible are often outward symbols of inward change. As Samuel received new clothing, it was a symbol of the inner spiritual growth happening within. Samuel was shaped by the multitude of leaders, the corpus of their experience, and the variety of techniques God set before him. God can use the variety of people around us to mold us into the person He needs us to be.
