Week 33 Discussion Guide: David's Anointing and Rise

Opening

Begin by reciting this week’s memory verse together:

“For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)

Think about a time you were overlooked – passed over for a role, left out of a conversation, forgotten when the invitations went out. What did that experience feel like in the moment? And looking back, can you see anything God was doing in the season when no one was looking at you? Hold that memory as we discuss a shepherd boy no one thought to bring inside.

Review: The Big Picture

This week we watched God dismantle the world’s criteria for leadership and replace them with his own. Samuel arrives in Bethlehem expecting a king who looks like a king. Seven sons pass. None is chosen. The forgotten boy – the one tending sheep while his brothers stand before the prophet – is summoned from the pasture and anointed with oil. The Spirit rushes upon David from that day forward, and the Spirit departs from Saul. One anointing creates a king. One departure creates a vacancy.

Then came the valley of Elah, where a nine-foot champion defied Israel’s armies for forty days and a boy with a sling asked the only question that mattered: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” David’s rise produced two responses that will define the rest of the narrative – Jonathan’s self-emptying love and Saul’s consuming jealousy. The rightful heir handed over his royal robes. The sitting king began hurling spears. The anointed one became a fugitive. The crown was his. The throne was not – not yet.

Discussion Questions

Day 1: The Anointing – “The LORD Looks on the Heart” (1 Samuel 16:1-23)

1. The Criteria God Uses. Samuel looks at Eliab – tall, impressive – and is certain he has found the next king. God corrects him: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.” The Hebrew levav – heart – is not sentiment but the seat of the will, the core orientation of a person. What does it mean practically that God evaluates by the heart rather than by appearance? How would your community look different if it adopted God’s criteria for recognizing leadership?

2. The Forgotten Son. Jesse does not think to bring David inside. Seven sons stand before the prophet, and the youngest is left in the pasture with the sheep. No one – not even his own father – considers him a candidate. Yet God says, “Arise, anoint him, for this is he.” What does David’s absence from the lineup reveal about the way God’s choices often contradict human expectations? Have you ever been in a season of obscurity that later proved to be preparation?

3. The Transfer of the Spirit. The Spirit rushes upon David “from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13), and in the very next verse, “the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul.” The transfer is simultaneous and irreversible. What does this juxtaposition reveal about the nature of divine calling? And what does it mean for Saul – for any leader – when God’s Spirit withdraws?

Day 2: David and Goliath – Five Stones, One Name (1 Samuel 17:1-58)

1. Seeing the Real Problem. The soldiers see a military crisis. David sees a theological one: “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26). David reads the valley of Elah with different eyes – eyes that see past the giant’s armor to the God the giant is defying. How does the way you frame a problem determine the resources you bring to it? Where in your life are you treating a theological problem as merely a practical one?

2. The Armor That Does Not Fit. Saul dresses David in royal armor. It does not fit – and the text is both literal and symbolic. David cannot fight in another man’s equipment. He goes out with a sling, five smooth stones, and the name of the LORD of hosts. What does it mean to face your own Goliath without borrowing someone else’s armor? How does the pressure to adopt the world’s methods and strategies hinder the work God has actually called you to do?

Day 3: Jonathan’s Covenant and Saul’s Jealousy (1 Samuel 18:1-30)

1. The Prince Who Gave Away a Kingdom. Jonathan strips off his robe, his armor, his sword, his bow, and his belt and gives them to David (1 Samuel 18:4). The act is a symbolic abdication – the prince handing his royal identity to the shepherd. What kind of love enables a person to surrender a kingdom? How does Jonathan’s self-emptying anticipate the one who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6)?

2. The Song That Destroyed a King. “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands.” A women’s song at a homecoming celebration becomes the catalyst for years of paranoid rage. Saul heard a comparison and could not recover from it. What does his reaction reveal about the connection between insecurity and jealousy? How does the need to be recognized as the greatest corrode a person’s capacity to lead – or to love?

Day 4: Saul Hunts David – Spears, Plots, and the Spirit (1 Samuel 19:1-24)

1. The Spear That Keeps Missing. Saul hurls spears at David repeatedly. David dodges. The text is almost darkly comic – the king of Israel cannot hit the man sleeping in his own house. Meanwhile, even Saul’s own messengers prophesy when they encounter the Spirit’s work. What does Saul’s inability to destroy David reveal about the futility of opposing what God has ordained? How does this pattern – human power throwing spears at divine purpose – recur throughout Scripture?

2. Living Between Anointing and Throne. David has been anointed king, but Saul still holds the throne. The gap between the promise and the fulfillment is filled with danger, flight, and uncertainty. David does not seize the throne. He waits. What does it cost to live in the space between God’s promise and its realization? Where are you currently living in that gap – and what is the temptation you face there?

Day 5: Jonathan and David – A Friendship That Costs a Throne (1 Samuel 20:1-42)

1. Covenant at Personal Cost. Jonathan and David make a covenant (berith) in the field, knowing it will cost Jonathan the throne. “The LORD is between me and you forever” (1 Samuel 20:42). This is not casual friendship. It is a binding commitment made in the presence of God. What distinguishes covenant friendship from ordinary affection? What does it cost to love someone whose calling requires your own diminishment?

2. Seeing with the Eyes of Faith. Jonathan recognizes God’s anointing on David when every outward circumstance says Saul still holds the throne. He stakes his future on what God has declared rather than what the world shows. How do you cultivate the ability to see God’s work when the visible evidence seems to contradict it? What does Jonathan’s example teach about the relationship between faith and sight?

Synthesis

1. The Bethlehem Pattern. David is anointed in Bethlehem – obscure, overlooked, the youngest son of an unremarkable family. A thousand years later, in the same town, another son will be born whom no one expects. The prophet Micah will name the place: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2). And Paul will articulate the logic: “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). How does the story of David’s anointing and rise prepare you to recognize God at work in the overlooked, the underestimated, and the seemingly insignificant?

Going Deeper: Connections Across the Week

• The Shepherd Who Becomes King. David comes to the throne from the pasture. He fights lions and bears before he fights giants. He protects sheep before he leads a nation. The skills of the shepherd – vigilance, courage, willingness to risk one’s own life for the flock – are God’s qualifications for kingship. When Jesus says “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11), he is not introducing a new metaphor. He is claiming an old one – the one that began with a boy in the hills of Bethlehem who would not let his sheep be taken. The good shepherd is not a New Testament invention. It is an Old Testament job description, and David is its first full portrait.

• Victory Through Inadequacy. David defeats Goliath with a sling and five smooth stones – the tool of a boy, not a warrior. The armor does not fit. The sword is borrowed after the battle. The victory comes through insufficient means wielded in the name of a sufficient God. This logic is consistent and relentless throughout Scripture: God’s power is made visible not through human strength but through human weakness placed in divine hands. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). The valley of Elah is the same logic as the cross – foolishness to those who are perishing, but the power of God to those who are being saved.

• Two Ways of Seeing. The entire week turns on the question of sight. God sees the heart; man sees the appearance. David sees a theological problem; the soldiers see a military one. Jonathan sees God’s anointing on a shepherd; Saul sees a rival. The same man, the same events, the same valley – interpreted through two radically different sets of eyes. Faith, in this week’s readings, is not the absence of evidence. It is the presence of a different kind of seeing – the kind God described to Samuel at the house of Jesse, the kind that looks past the outward to the heart of things.

Application

• Personal: God told Samuel, “The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” This week, ask God to show you where you have been evaluating yourself – or others – by outward criteria. Where have you dismissed someone because they did not look impressive? Where have you doubted your own calling because it came in an unremarkable package? Ask God to give you his eyes.

• Relational: Jonathan loved David at the cost of a throne. His friendship was not based on what David could offer him but on what God had placed in David. This week, examine your closest relationships. Are they transactional – built on mutual benefit – or covenantal – built on commitment that survives personal cost? Identify one relationship where you can move from self-interest toward the kind of self-emptying love Jonathan modeled.

• Formational: David spent years between his anointing and his throne – years of running, hiding, and waiting. The crown was his, but the timing was God’s. If you are in a season of waiting – where the promise has been spoken but the fulfillment has not yet arrived – resist the temptation to seize what God has not yet given. David did not take the throne by force. He received it from God’s hand. Practice the discipline of patient trust this week, and let the gap between promise and fulfillment become a place of formation rather than frustration.

Closing Prayer

Close your time together by praying through 1 Samuel 16:7. Ask God to free you from the tyranny of appearances – the need to look right, to impress, to be chosen by human standards. Thank him that he sees the heart, that he chooses the overlooked, that he builds his kingdom from Bethlehem rather than from the capitals of power. Pray for the faith of Jonathan – the ability to recognize God’s anointing on others even when it costs you something. Pray for the courage of David – the willingness to walk into the valley with nothing but a sling and a name. And thank God that the shepherd boy from Bethlehem was the first sketch of the Good Shepherd who would come from the same town, carry the same heart, and lay down his life for the sheep.

Looking Ahead

Next week David becomes a fugitive. Saul’s pursuit intensifies, and David lives in caves, deserts, and enemy territory. He will twice have the opportunity to kill Saul and twice refuse. He will make mistakes, deceive a priest, and act like a madman. But through it all, the psalms he writes in the wilderness will become some of the most honest prayers ever composed. The anointed king in exile will teach us what it means to trust God when the promise seems impossibly far away.