He's Big, I'm Little

So, I have mentioned before that ever since Hadleigh was born I have been reading a ton. It is kind of amazing because everyone said once she came I wouldn’t have time to read anymore. Well, at least at this point, they are wrong. Since I spend the majority of my day feeding her, I have found that time is a great time for us to read together. We continue to be up to our elbows in Horton’s book that I mentioned before. I also have time to work on the study that I am in PWOC, we are working through I and II Timothy, as well I usually have time to work on the study that Dave is leading in our Community Group. We are currently doing a study called Gospel and Heart which is written by a pastor named Tim Keller. Keller is the pastor of a large church in NYC called Redeemer. The former pastor of Intown (our church in Atlanta) used to work with Keller and thus the connection.

We are on week 9 of the study and have looked at things like “Why Did Jesus Have to Die?” and “What is Wrong with Us” (looking at sin), etc. Our study yesterday was called “How Do We Know about Jesus?” I was pretty skeptical and read the study…yea, yea, I thought I know all this already. The Bible is historical; it is true, etc, etc. I even told Dave, this will be a quick one, huh? I am sure he wanted to smack me for not completely getting it. The study ended up taking a turn that I never expected. One of the questions (that I Just sort of breezed over) was

“Think of the Biblical account of David and Goliath. a) If you look at the story in itself, apart from the rest of the Bible--then what is its main message or teaching to the reader? b) If you look at the story as part of the Bible's overall story--about how God saves us by grace through Christ--then what is its main message or teaching?”

I answered a) with the generic…little guy beats big guy, and someone started singing the Veggie Tales “He’s big…I’m little”. And then the also generic David trusted God and God delivered Goliath into David’s hand. You get the idea. I basically skimmed over question b) because I just didn’t really understand it, but it was this question that brought the biggest discussion and revelation for me. I don’t think that I can attempt to explain it as well as it was explained last night, but here were a couple of thoughts that came out.

Israel and the Philistines are at war. They decided to pick one person to represent them in a fight. These men would fight and if the rep for Israel won all the Philistines would become slaves for the Israelites and vice versa. All the Israelites are terrified to fight Goliath…in walks David, shepherd boy who has NOTHING to do with this battle. He fights Goliath representing Israel. He fought in the place of the people he was trying to deliver. David won the battle for the Israelites. The Israelites didn’t earn the victory or do anything to achieve the victory. Hmm…could David be a representation of Christ in the Old Testament? Christ took my place in a war that he didn’t belong in. Through his death and resurrection he achieved victory over sin and gave that victory to me. It is a victory I don’t deserve and did nothing to help win. It was through God’s grace that he delivered the Israelites out of the hands of the Philistines…not because of their faith or courage, but because of God’s goodness. In the same way, it is by God’s grace that he saved me, not because of my faith or courage, but because of God’s mercy and goodness. This was a fresh revelation of the gospel for me. I hope to continue to see the Old Testament stories as pointing to Christ and his grace, mercy and goodness, and I hope that I am able to teach Hadleigh these truths so that she will grow up knowing them.