Crossroad Bible Study

I really enjoyed John’s narration of 1 Samual 4 yesterday evening. Its a chapter that has challenged me in the past to worship God alone and not any arks of covenants or modes or means of worship (ie the church, evangelism, Christian service, good deeds. etc) We are called to put our faith in God alone for our salvation and victory. The Israelites clearly didn’t do this and their role models in Eli, Hophni, and Phinehas left a lot to be desired. John didn’t mention that in 1 Samual 2 it tells us that Hophni and Phinehas  use to sleep with temple prostitutes in the Temple of God. They also use to take all the best parts of the sacrifices and eat them along with Eli. In chapter two God condemns Eli for “fattening himself on the choice cuts of meat from the sacrifices”. He then prophecises the family tragedy that will occur to Eli’s family because of His sins. This family tragedy takes place in chapter 4. When Eli heard the news that the ark of the covenant had been captured he fell off his chair and because he was heavy, he broke his neck and died. Why was he heavy? Because of his sinful activity of fattening himself on Gods sacrifices. Just another connection between Mankinds sins and God’s judgement.