God Killed Saul?

Here's where I was wrestling with God this morning:

So Saul died because he was unfaithful to Yahweh. He failed to obey Yahweh's command, and he even consulted a medium instead of asking Yahweh for guidance. So Yahweh killed him and turned his kingdom over to David son of Jesse. - 1 Chronicles 10:13-14

What? God killed Saul? Just because he disobeyed (well, there was that medium thing too)? Then I know quite a few people who should be very nervous (including myself)! And what about evil people who seem to flourish? Many of them live long lives. Now I know this is scripture, so that's why I was wrestling with God about it all.

Here's what I think is going on: The Israelites misunderstood God. Sure they had the best take on him out of all the ancient world, but they still were like little children, learning about who this God really was. It took God quite a long time to get us to understand the truth about himself- uh, in fact, we're still working on it!

The Israelites thought God was like them. They thought he acted like them. They thought he felt like them. But the truth is God is so far above us, we have a lot of trouble making any kind of sense of him.

God began the process of teaching us about himself from the very beginning of time. Look at the story of Job. Job sat in the middle of some friends who totally "got God wrong." God said so. He was not like they assumed he would be, punishing Job because he had sinned. We got a sneak peek behind the scenes to see the real culprit.

Jesus taught the truth about his Father- God was not like an earthly man; he was not like the ancient world believed (or some of us to this day). When his disciples asked if they should call fire down from heaven (how we would have handled those bums!), Jesus showed them the truth. When his disciples tried to shoo away the little children because they thought they were bothering Jesus, he corrected them. "Things are not as you think they are," he told them.

They were taught these things through their culture. But culture is not the end-all; culture is not "right" or "wrong;" culture is just how different people learn to interact with the world around them. And the Israelites culture (though learning) taught some inaccurate things about God.

Would these things have shown up in scripture? Yes. What about each illustration I mentioned above? There are many more we could find if we took the time.

So if Jesus had to correct their view of God, can we assume there are other places in scripture where we find inaccurate depictions of God and/or what he was doing? I think so. And I think so, without watering down the importance and place of scripture. It's just how they understood God back then. Today it's just how we understand God as well.

I don't think "God" killed Saul. I think that's how the Israelites interpreted what happened to their leader. After all, it makes sense to us, right? But remember, God is not like us.

I think Saul walked out from under God's "umbrella" and while out from under God's "protection," he got hit by the enemy. God was certainly not pleased with Saul, but I don't think he reached down and smote Saul because he was angry with him. Again, we'd find a lot more smoking corpses lying around if that were the case!

This is an issue to this day as we wonder "why God allowed (caused?) 9/11 or New Orleans, etc." He did not cause these events as punishment on humankind. The enemy caused these events! Why would we pin culpability on God for what Satan does?

True, God is also a God of judgment, but we still have time to repent and change our ways before he chooses to judge humanity. That day will come, but it is not today.

I praise God he is not like me and he is well above my limited understanding! There are a lot of things I wrestle with in scripture, but I also praise God His Spirit is still available for interpretation and revelation.