Q: I’ve been reading 1 Samuel and got to the part in chapter 15 where Saul is disobeying God. Samuel says to him that submission and obedience is better than sacrifice. I’m confused, because I feel like sacrifice IS obedience and submission. I never considered the hierarchy or that God prefers one over the other. What then would you say is the difference? What is it about obedience and submission that God desires more than sacrifice? Is it a heart condition? What is God truly after?
1 Samuel 15 is a really interesting chapter, for many reasons. God had unequivocally told Saul what to do, via Samuel the prophet. God’s instructions were to kill the Amalekites along with all their belongings and possessions. Saul did not obey. Instead, he preserved the best sheep of the livestock and then reported to Samuel that the purpose was for sacrificing to God. Maybe Saul was lying about that. Maybe Saul was telling the truth. We don’t know. Samuel’s point in reply is that God does not take pleasure in the killing of animals for the sake of killing animals. God takes delight in us heeding His voice. Saul had his priorities mixed up. In the end, he didn’t care very much about doing what God asked him to do. And that’s why God rejected him as king. Saul rejected the “word of Yahweh.” Therefore, Yahweh rejected him from being king.
I wonder if the actual words “sacrifice” and “obedience” themselves are confusing the issue here. Maybe think about the word “ritual” instead of the word “sacrifice.” In reality, that’s what the sacrificial system was for the Israelites. It was a series of elaborate religious rituals that reminded the people that the animals they were sacrificing were taking their place in receiving the judgment of Yahweh on account of sin…for one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year, etc., until Messiah could come and take the judgment permanently. If you replaced the word “sacrifice” with “ritual”, would you still be as inclined to say that “ritual IS obedience and submission.”
Think of your own religious rituals. We all have them. The Eucharist, for example. If you took the Eucharist (or perhaps you call it “communion”) faithfully, every day, but then murdered someone once a week, what would be the moral value of your religious ritual? Jesus commands us to celebrate the Eucharist. You’re “obeying”, but only in a manner of speaking. By murdering, you would be disobeying on a much grander scale, so much so that it would make your celebration of the Eucharist next to meaningless, if not wholly meaningless. Granted, it’s an extreme analogy, but I did that on purpose to make the point.
In short, God desires that we do His will in the world. God does not desire that we kill animals just for the sake of killing animals, or ingest some bread and wine just for the sake of ingesting bread and wine.
Reading the Old Testament 