Who is David?
Jesus or me?
Scripture Reading: 1 Samuel 17
In Luke 10:26 Jesus asked an important question. He was talking to a lawyer who had asked Jesus, “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus in turn asked him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” How do you read it? What a great question. How do you read the Bible?
A lot of people read the Bible with themselves as the main subject. They read it as mainly telling them how to live, what to do, who to imitate, etc. That is a common way people read the story of David and Goliath. Goliath is seen as some obstacle or problem. We are taught to think in terms of what is the giant we need to slay. We, then, become David. We are the hero in the story, or at least we are encouraged to aspire to be David the giant slayer.
In truth, we should be reading the Scriptures with a Christ-centered focus. We should be looking for Jesus (see Luke 24:27). David is not an example for us to follow. He is a type of Christ. Jesus comes and He defeats Satan. He is the hero in the story.
So you might reasonably ask whether we can see ourselves anywhere in the story of David and Goliath? Yes, I think we can, but not where we normally look. Don’t look on the battlefield. Go look over behind the rocks. Look at the brothers of Jesus, the Israelites cowered in fear and too weak to battle and defeat Goliath themselves. That’s us, dependent on our David to win the battle for us.
Good news! He did!
The story of David and Goliath is meant to be another burden on our backs to become something we are not. It is meant to point us to Christ who has done for us what we cannot.
