Poor Eliab! All he got was the wooden spoon. We know him, if we know him at all, as the candidate God rejected. Very few would know his name. As brother of David he had at best a little reflected glory. ‘Yes, you know my brother,’ he might say. And then he would get on with his job amongst the animals or the standing crops. He perhaps figures in our memories as does the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, though we know less about him than that.
It was an embarrassing moment. Jesse had his sons lined up for inspection by Samuel. There was a cover story. Samuel was to say he had come to offer sacrifice. So Samuel looked over seven of Jesse’s sons and liked what he saw. The oldest, Eliab, made an immediate impression. ‘Steady on,’ said the Lord. Don’t get carried away. You’re taken up with his bearing and his stature. That’s not my way of seeing people.’ (I paraphrase.)
The KJV (King James version of the Bible) puts it in familiar words: ‘The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.’ (1 Samuel 16.7) Samuel got the nod from God and understood that David was the man of God’s choice. Jesse had not even included him in the line-up. Absent from the family pow-wow, he was the youngest and he was doing the job the youngest did: he was looking after the sheep. Samuel anointed him there and then and Saul’s days were numbered. David got a new day job – something more important that shepherding.
What was a commanding principle in the Old Testament is a commanding principle in the New. As he began his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, Paul reminded them that the Christian message did not originate amongst top people. Far from it. It was foolishness and weakness that opened the door for the Gospel (1 Corinthians 1.25-31)
This of course was not a commendation of stupidity or of getting things back to front. But it was a salutary rejoinder to those who enjoyed sophisticated banter and text-swapping. The clarity of the Gospel message makes it an easy target. But its clarity is its strength. It is the toughness of the man who was born blind and stuck to his guns, merely saying: ‘All I know is this: I was blind and now I can see.’ (John 9.25)
CAREY AND LIVINGSTONE
Two young men who might have been overlooked were William Carey (1761-1834) and David Livingstone (1813-1873. Carey was the oldest of five children born to the weavers who were his parents. His education ended at age 12 and he was left to his own devices – to such good effect that he was combining his apprenticeship as a shoemaker with self-education and learning to read the Bible in seven languages. He became a Baptist preacher and ignited the 19th century missionary movement after recalling the Church to its duty to declare the Gospel. In India he and his team translated the Bible into 44 local languages and he became Professor of Sanskrit and Bengali in Calcutta.
David Livingstone was the second of five children born to parents in Blantyre, Scotland. Aged 10, he was working a 12-hour day with, it is said, his Latin book propped up on the machine in the cotton mill. He became a missionary with the London Missionary Society and achieved fame as an explorer, anti-slavery campaigner and preacher. Remembered for his mantra ‘Gentlemen, I beg to direct your attention to Africa,’ he became the epitome of what the Victorian UK demanded in its heroes.
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