What it takes to be loyal to God (1 Sam 20:24-42)
1 Sam 20:24-42 After a concert with a group from her church, a Christian classmate was walking home the same way as another girl who had recently joined her church. The girl, however, seemed a little confused and did not…
How to acknowledge our rightful king? (1 Sam 20:1-23)
1 Sam 20:1-23 In my gap year, when I was a volunteer in a youth hostel in Israel, I worked together with a girl my age who had come to faith not long before I arrived. She had a lot…
How God works behind the scenes (1 Samuel 19)
1 Sam 19:1-24 In secondary school, I had a teacher who seemed a bit slow on the uptake. After a particular incident, I made a mocking comment about her in the break, which was overheard by another teacher. He gave…
The deadly effects of jealousy and how to cure it (1 Samuel 18)
1 Sam 18:1-30 My father came from a well-to-do family and before World War II, his parents entertained in the grand style and lacked no luxury. Dad told me once that he was so spoilt as a young boy that…
How to resolve the tension in how David met Saul for the first time? (1 Sam 17:55-58)
1 Sam 17:55-58 Careful readers will note a strange discrepancy at the end of the Goliath incident (1 Sam 17:55-58), where Saul is seemingly unaware of David’s identity, even though the latter was introduced to him in the previous chapter.…
The testimony of God in the world (1 Sam 17:31-58)
1 Sam 17:31-58) When as a teenager I started going to a Bible study group, I was amazed at the stories I heard from others there. At prayer time, many shared personal experiences of what God was doing in their…
How to understand the sign of Jonah (Matt 12:38-42)
Matt 12:38-42 Knowing that I believed in God, a classmate in school challenged me, ‘Tell God to appear to me and I will believe in Him’. God, however, is not at our beck-and-call to come running, as if we were…
The challenge to see God’s perspective (1 Sam 17:1-30)
1 Sam 17:1-30 On the night before the comprehensive exams at the end of my secondary school education, I was terrified. Although I was generally a conscientious student, I was also in the first few years of being a Christian…
How God works out His plans (1 Sam 16:13-23)
1 Sam 16:13-23 Finishing my undergraduate studies in theology in the UK, I was wondering where God was leading me in the future. It occurred to me that lecturing may be a possibility since I had an affinity towards teaching,…
How to develop godly discernment (1 Sam 16:1-13)
1 Sam 16:1-13 In my gap year I worked as a volunteer in a hostel in Israel, and one of the guests we got to know started to come along to church with us. To our delight, he also came…