Eli: The Priest Who Neglected To Be a Father

Turn with me to 1 Samuel 1, and this morning we're going to look at the miserable end of the life of Eli. Eli was the high priest of Israel at the end of the era of the Judges. This was that checkered period of Israel's history when "there was no king in Israel[ and] everyone did what was right in his own eyes." It was a time of backsliding and apostasy—and even some of the heros of that era were deeply flawed, including Samson and Jepthah (both of them judges). The same thing goes with Eli. He was a believer and a priest and a judge over Israel. But he was a man whose inconsistencies and failures ultimately marred his testimony, spoiled his legacy, and brought his own family to ruin. His life is a tragic cautionary tale.

Back in the late '80s, early 90s—before I began teaching in Gracelife—I spent a few years teaching in the junior boys' department, and during those years we did repeated surveys of 1 Samuel.

Of course, in the Junior division you are more or less confined by the curriculum they give you, and whoever wrote the curriculum we were using in those days covered the opening chapters of 1 Samuel without saying very much about Eli. The focus was on the boy Samuel, and how his mother prayed for him, and she dedicated him to God, and made a little priest costume for him, and all of that. Eli, the old priest who trained Samuel, was relegated to the background and the Sunday-school curriculum didn't have a lot to say about him. He was just mentioned as the priest who took Samuel in and trained him, and then when we studied the part where Samuel heard the voice of God in the night...

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