Text Messages

Text Messages

King David’s Imperfection, and Ours

posted by Patton Dodd | 9:54am Thursday January 1, 2009

A strangely inspiring quote from Eugene Peterson to begin the new year: 

From The Jesus Way, in a chapter where Peterson notes Christians’ odd tendency to idolize David–he of 8 wives and a harem of concubines, he who killed thousands (including a rival lover), he who was indifferent to his own progeny. To name but a few low points from David’s life. 
There is a lesson for us in all this, says Peterson, but it’s not the one we normally apply. Christians often regard David as a giant-slayer and great psalmist, but the truth of the Biblical story of David is much more complicated. So Peterson says:

The life of David is a labyrinth of ambiguities, not unlike our own. What we admire in David does not cancel out what we abhor, and what we abhor does not cancel out what we admire. David is not a model for imitation; David is not a candidate for a pedestal. The David story is an immersion in humanity…. The story of David is not a story of what God wants us to be but a story of God working with the raw material of our lives as he finds us. 



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jestrfyl

posted January 2, 2009 at 11:20 am


I Highly -HIGHLY – recommend finding a recording of Menken and Rice’s “King David” an oratorio produced by Disney. It had only a few performances, but it deserves a full production. It is very much in the musical vein of “Lion King” and “Aladin” and some of the other marvelous Disney animated musicals, but with an explicitly Biblical point of view. It is a very human David, with royal expectations.



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jesinrhineland

posted January 5, 2009 at 10:16 am


King David, King of Israel or manic depressive?
I think both.
And I also think there may have been so many other men in the Bible like him. Elijah, Saul, Moses and Jonah. Maybe more.
David showed the signs of a repressed artist. It seems he was never so happy as when he was tending sheep. In between shepherding and protecting them, he explored songwriting and his skills on the lyre. He had been focusing on the meditative quality of his work with his sheep and developing his level of performance before Saul. He had had a soul mate in Jonathan, someone with which he could honestly relate.
Jonathan died. Saul, King of Israel, was his adversary. It must have been an abrupt change for him. He was pulled out of his solitude and called to be king because of those leadership and warrior-like qualities. His only outlet thereafter, after all of this change occurred to his identity, seemed to be the Psalms.
The mantle of his king-calling must have put him on edge. Not having his solitude must have compressed him. No wonder he danced naked. He just wanted to be free. No wonder he took Bathsheeba. He had been stricken with grief…someone had been taken from him. His acquaintance with despair was very real. He acted out—not able to process fully the power he held as king. He made mistakes. He succumbed to his chemistry, his broken humanity, his irreconcilable differences with truth.
Who was this David? I see him in the men around me. All kings of great callings.



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