Lo, it has been nearly two months since I wrote anything about the Ancient Christian Commentary. I began this project eager to interact with these ancient Christians about 1^st and 2^nd Samuel. Since I wrote on Augustine, however, I have not spent much time with them nor have I found much to interact with. In order not to let this project die completely, this installment will address this disappointment.

Following Hannah’s Song we have numerous rich pericopes: the decline and fall of Eli and his sons; the call of Samuel; the capture of the Ark and its sojourn in Philistia. In almost none of them, however, did I find good exegesis. These stories appear as illustrations for sermons. Gregory the Great seemed close in his analysis of the afflictions of the Philistines (1 Samuel 5-6), but, in the end, he used it as an illustration of dying to sin.

This is a trend that holds true even today. Pastors (thankfully not my pastor) seem to avoid preaching from the Old Testament. 2 Timothy 3:16 might seem to be interpreted “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable as illustrations while you are teaching, reproving, correcting, or training others in righteousness.” Direct preaching of the Old Testament is somewhat rare. (Charlie and Sam, you are not representative of the norm.)

It is simpler to translate Paul’s commands to 1^st century believers into applications for our congregations. The stories in the Hebrew Scriptures require more work before we have the confidence to say, “This is what this passage means.” or “This is how it applies to your life.”

Based on the LXX, Gregory the Great said,

It is said that each one died when he went out to purge his bowels and was bitten in the inner part of his buttocks by mice. Now this would is shown here in literal fashion, but it is united with an allegorical exposition…In giving the passage its spiritual meaning, however, we recognize two kinds of deaths: the first kind of death is that by which sinners die to righteousness when they sin; the second kind of death is that by which the righteous deliver themselves from the sins in which they had lived and repent of them. (Six Books on I Kings 3.78)

I am sure that this preached well and would preach well today. I hope that you aren’t too frustrated that I left out how Gregory the Great actually tied these ideas together. This is an illustration of the pastoral infatuation with application that I wrote of in “Theology on Rocky Ground.” Without Gregory the Great’s explanation of his connection between the Philistines and the two deaths, you may be hard pressed to duplicate the same explanation. Good exegesis, on the other hand, does not require access to someone else’s sermon notes. Scripture itself provides all the clues necessary to its own meaning. We are required to bring a right understanding of how Scripture communicates and everything else that provides for a right handling of Scripture. Nevertheless, these tools ought bring forth consistent exegesis even in the hands of different men. Were this not so, we would find little common ground except by accident. Lifting stories from the Old Testament to illustrate a New Testament teaching may be a useful technique, but it doesn’t satisfy 2 Timothy 3:16.

Theodoret of Cyr offers a better interpretation of the Philistine’s experience with the Ark of the Covenant.

For he selected this one nation to teach the knowledge of God to all the others…The Philistines also testified to this. They feared the presence of the ark and said to one another, “This is the God who struck Egypt. Woe to us Philistines.” Then God gave the ark to the Philistines to convict his people of transgressing the law. (On Divine Providence 10.49-50)

Theodoret of Cyr’s interpretation holds closer to the text. It may lack the creativity the Gregory the great demonstrated, but he puts forth a theme that holds true in any context. You find it in this pericope. You find it throughout 1^st and 2^nd Samuel and entire Hebrew Scriptures. You even find it in the New Testament. More importantly though: even if you did not find this interpretation in 1^st Samuel 5-6 before you read Theodoret of Cyr’s interpretation, you will, without trying, be able to notice it in the future. And even forgetting Theodoret of Cyr, you will be able to duplicate that interpretation. It comes from the text, not the mind of any man.