2 Samuel

Covers 2 Samuel 3

Abner's admission in 2 Samuel 3 that he long knew God had sworn the throne to David yet only acts when it suits him — revealing that most Israelites, far from cherishing God's word, knew it and simply did not care, and asking whether Christians today are any different.

Covers 2 Samuel 5

David, already a master tactician, still asks God before each Philistine battle in 2 Samuel 5 — and is told to wait for God to go ahead of him, showing how competence tempts us toward self-reliance and can cause us to miss the greater work God intends.

Covers 2 Samuel 6

Uzzah's death in 2 Samuel 6 read against the transport rules of Numbers 4 — far from senseless, it is the last straw after David moves the ark on a cart in open defiance of God's instructions, a warning that we do not get to choose how God is worshipped.

Covers 2 Samuel 7

The contrast between God striking down Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6 and gently redirecting David from building the temple in 2 Samuel 7 — reassurance that when believers step out in good faith on a godly choice, God leads rather than punishes, unlike willful disobedience.

Covers 2 Samuel 11

Drawing on Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes to argue that David and Bathsheba was not a secret affair but brazen, public adultery a king could take openly — recasting Uriah's refusal to go home as a pointed refusal to play along.

Covers 2 Samuel 13

David's failure to protect Tamar or punish Amnon in 2 Samuel 13 as a cautionary tale that faithfulness to God in one calling does not excuse faithlessness in another — and the challenge of balancing ministry with being a present husband and father.

Covers 2 Samuel 15

David sending the ark back to Jerusalem as he flees Absalom shows a maturing faith that no longer treats it as a good-luck charm, as in 2 Samuel 6 — and a wider point that biblical figures were not omniscient but grew as God revealed himself progressively.

Covers 2 Samuel 17

Absalom favoring Hushai's counsel over Ahithophel's against his own self-interest as a rare glimpse of how God works his sovereignty — not by angelic armies but by quietly nudging human choices to protect David and fulfill the judgment of 2 Samuel 12.

Covers 2 Samuel 21

Why the three-year famine in 2 Samuel 21 was legitimate ground for David to seek God's verdict given the covenant promises to Israel in the land — though that pattern cannot be used to read disasters as judgment elsewhere — plus a look at why Saul's whole house shared the Gibeonite bloodguilt.

Covers 2 Samuel 22

David's song in 2 Samuel 22 as a model of biblical humility that owns his accomplishments while crediting God's power behind them — and the self-reinforcing cycle in which trusting God and stepping out in faith deepens faith and yields still more.

Covers 2 Samuel 23

Asking where David's mighty men were when Goliath defied Israel, and arguing that 2 Samuel 23 shows David's contagious faith spreading to a once-faithless crowd over years in the wilderness — a picture of how one person's trust in God shapes everyone around them.

Covers 2 Samuel 24

Wrestling with the uncomfortable claim that God incited David's census in 2 Samuel 24 — arguing from David's later guilt that this was not a direct command but God removing his restraint and letting David act on a sinful desire he already held, much like Pharaoh's hardened heart.