Daily Devotional for Thursday, June 8

Eli’s Failed Attempt of Correction

“And he said unto them, Why do ye such things? for I hear of your evil dealings by all this people,” 1 Samuel 2:23.

God has placed a clear responsibility on parents to discipline their children.  Your child must know right from wrong.  Your child must come to understand that God’s word is the definitive authority on what is sin and what is not.  The way the apostle James approached this issue was to say, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, it is sin” (James 4:17).

God lays the responsibility for every person’s sin on that individual.  Eli and his sons had probably taught God’s viewpoint on this matter.  The law showed that a father was not responsible for the son’s sin, and neither was the son responsible for the father’s sin (Deuteronomy 24:16).  Eli’s focus seems wrong in this narrative. His concern about the report was that his sons were causing the people to sin.  Why wasn’t his concern for this situation directed toward the sin of his sons or even the realization of his own gross mismanagement of the tabernacle service?

Eli would have been wise to remember the zeal of his ancestor Phineas. Phineas saw sin and killed the Israelite man and a Moabite woman who committed it; thus, stopping the wrath of God (Numbers 25). Perhaps he should have considered that because one man sinned, Israel lost 3,000 fighting men at Ai (Joshua 7).

Even when we fail to correct what we should, God will do what is right.  Eli struggled to raise a next generation of godly priests, but God was raising up Samuel.  Eli’s family would soon lose the opportunity to minister for God altogether.  Samuel would go on to judge Israel for 40 years.

THOUGHT: Are you taking personal responsibility to correct the sin in your life and in the places that God has entrusted into your care?

David Thompson