This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Samuel 1-7” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 16, 1997.

We begin our Scripture reading this morning in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 1. This is the Word of God. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being by interpretation king of righteousness, and after that also king of Salem, which is king of peace, without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually.” Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. And verily, they that are of the sons of Levi, who received the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham. but he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction, the less is blessed of the better. And here men that die receive tithes, but there he received them of whom it is witnessed that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also who received who receiveth tithes, paid the tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.

If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken pertaineth to another tribe, of which no man gave attendance at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priesthood.

And it is yet far more evident, for that after the similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest, who is made not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. For there is verily a disannulling of the commandment going before, for the weakness and the unprofitableness thereof. made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did by the which we draw nigh unto God. And inasmuch as not without an oath he was made priest, for those priests were made without an oath, but this was with an oath by him that said unto him that the Lord swear and will not repeat thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” By so much was Jesus made the surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests, because they were not allowed to continue by reason of death.

But this man, because he continueth forever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost, to come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens. Who needeth not daily as those high priests who offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people’s? For this he did once when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity, but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the son who is consecrated.” forevermore.

Then from 1 Samuel 1, beginning at verse 1, Now there was a certain man of Remethiim Zophim, of Mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jehoram, the son of Eliyahu, the son of Tobu, the son of Zuth, an Ephrathite. And he had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, the name of the other was Penina, and Penina had children and Hannah had no children. And this man went up out of his city yearly to worship and to sacrifice unto the Lord of Hosts in Shiloh. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were priests of the Lord there.

Pray with me. Our Father, in the exaltation of your Son, we know, Lord, that the nations are gathered for him. Presently, O God, your word goes out. that your own from the nations might be assembled. We have been assembled because the word of the Lord has gone out. Lord, we ask that you will bless your word today for the conversion of sinners and the strengthening of your saints. Father, may we be concerned even for ourselves, that our faith may be strong, that we might stand before you according to that faith, and be a help to others in the strength that you give us.

We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. the opening of 1 Samuel will carry us through chapter 2 verse 11. That means that the opening portion set before us is this unit, chapter 1 verse 1 through chapter 2 verse 11. In this opening section, Hannah steps forward.

Beneath the Lord of Hosts himself, beneath his sovereign design, as a prominent figure. We can even organize the story that appears for us here by charting Hannah in her various connections with various individuals. First we have Elkanah, her husband. Next, Penina, Elkanah’s other wife and Hannah’s rival. Then we have Eli, the priest at Shiloh, and finally Samuel, Hannah’s miracle child. This morning we want to look more carefully at Elkanah, Hannah’s husband.

Now in dealing with this man, I’m saying right at the outset I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on the question about his multiple wives. I’m afraid that too many people, in approaching this passage, want to make that issue their central concern, as if resolving that question were the most pressing consideration for the passage. But I’m sure you’ve noticed The matter of fact way, the nonchalant manner in which Elkanah’s two wives are introduced, and this in keeping with the tone and temperament of the Old Testament as a whole. This presentation here is of a piece with what we find concerning other Old Testament personages, many of them exemplary blessed of God. This casual attitude here revealed with regard to this matter of multiple wives is, in fact, a divinely designed warning to you.

A warning to you. No, not to have more than one wife. A warning to every Bible student, to every devout believer in their faith. For you must not allow morality, you must not allow ethical considerations to become the primary, let alone the exhausted content of your faith. You must not stumble over this. If you want morality as the be-all and end-all of your religious faith, you don’t want the Bible, you want Immanuel Kant.

Now, one of the reasons why Elkanah has two wives is so that God himself, who is behind this word and behind Elkanah himself, might disabuse you of just such foolishness. This is not to say that our morality, our behavior, is immaterial for our confession. that our positive relationship to the law and its moral concern can be shelved, that our devotion to true biblical godliness as it devolves upon moral questions can be ignored, neither is it to say, heaven forbid, that polygamy is acceptable, or that Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and their polygamist cult The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormons, were right after all. Suffice it to say this morning, God’s original intention in the Garden of Eden was monogamy, one man, one woman. Jesus Christ himself affirms that in many texts, not the least of which is Matthew 19. And the Church, as echoed this, in its ethical and moral stand throughout the ages, and properly and rightly so. But the Old Testament practice of multiple wives convinces us of the limitations of the moral category, the limitations even of the law itself. but even beyond this, it convinces us of the propriety of the redemptive, historically progressive reading of the Scriptures, in which God and the gradual unveiling of his covenantal purposes for his people are supreme. Not my morality, not my behavior, not even the law, which might, in the thinking of some, rise to such a level that it eclipses God himself.

That, in fact, did happen among the Jews. We have, then, this man, Elkanah. His name means, The One Whom God Has Acquired. whom God has acquired or the one whom God has possessed. This name is especially appropriate for Elkanah, given the fact that he was a Levite.

His lineage is revealed for you in 1 Chronicles 6, verses 27 and 34, where we learn that he belonged to the line of the Koaphites. You haven’t been thinking recently about the Koaphites, I take it. If that confuses you, you may want to consult Exodus chapter 6, verses 16 through 20, and the account that we have there concerning Levi’s three sons. Kohath was the middle boy, and the high priesthood within Israel came through the line of Kohath and the family of Aaron, Moses’ brother. Alcanna is a Kohathite, although he is not in the high priestly line. Still, he is a Levite.

His name, then, meaning as it does, acquired or possessed of God, actually memorializes the significance of the Levites among the tribes of Israel. that the Levites were the one tribe to which the Lord laid special claims. As ministers in his sanctuary, they were uniquely set apart by him. In Numbers, chapter 3, verse 12, the Lord says, The Levites shall be mine. They, as a tribe, became the purchase price for the redemption of Israel as Israel was being brought out of Egypt. So, the Levites, as Elkanah’s name signifies, were acquired and purchased by God. but we have a problem, don’t we? Interestingly, our story in 1 Samuel is silent, is silent about this connection between Elkanah and the Levites. It doesn’t say a word about it. Elkanah is introduced to us as an Ephrathite, a man from the hill country of Ephraim.

Some of his lineage is given, but it’s not taken back to Levi. There is no hint that he is anything but another worshipper as he comes to the yearly feast at Shiloh that is described here. There is no hint in the text that he, by virtue of a Levitical identity, was fulfilling priestly duties at these feasts from time to time, as any Levite would do. Why is this? Why is Elkanah’s Levitical identity omitted from the story.

I ask you to call to mind another man, whose Levitical identity, except for the testimony of only one of the four Gospels, is kept very much in the background. Of course, I have in mind John the Baptist. One of the startling discoveries made by those who have majored in reading Matthew, Mark, and John is that with the Gospel of Luke, John’s identity is fully disclosed. His father, Zacharias, is a Levite, a priest, and John himself is of the tribe of Levi. But why the generous silence about John and his lineage in the other Gospels? Why the silence about Elkanah here in 1 Samuel?

The answer to these questions is one. The silence is meant to heighten the sense of transformation, change, of cataclysm overtaking the people of God at this time. God is going to do something new, something revolutionary. In the case of 1 Samuel, the change, the cataclysm, is from the period of the conquest under Joshua and the judges to the period of the Old Testament monarchy, which amounts to the Old Testament version of the coming of the kingdom, the appearance of the gospel itself. In the case of the gospels, the change is from the Old Testament as a whole, as it gives way to the arrival of the true, new, final, eternal kingdom in and through Jesus Christ, God’s own dear Son. And in this great change effected by God, He alone responsible for it, the old categories are superseded. They are relativized and even aggregated in the interests of the monumental transformation. as it breaks into the present.

The Levitical order and its ministries are about to come to a conclusion. Silence about John’s Levitical origins accentuates the point. the Levitical order and its ministries are about to come to a conclusion. But when we come to Luke’s Gospel, where much is made about John’s Levitical descent, the opposite angle of vision is at issue. Not just that the Levitical order and its ministries are about to become concluded, but that that order is finding its fulfillment in the cleansing rite apart from outside of the temple, namely in the baptism administered by this priest, this Levite, John, in the waters of the Jordan, that prepares a new people of God for entrance into the true temple through the Messiah. It is all deliberate.

Here, however, in 1 Samuel, the silence about Alcanna’s Levitical descent will register its most powerful and profound effect when we come to consider his son, Samuel. Yes, that silence in Alcanna’s case serves the purpose of introducing us to the change taking place, that is breaking in, Alcanna does stand on the brink of the kingdom in its Old Testament form, as John the Baptist stood on the brink of the kingdom in its conclusive manifestation. And at that brink, the Levitical order has not only fulfilled its purpose, it has become superfluous. The silence about Arcana’s descent registers most powerfully and most profoundly when we come to his son Samuel.

You see, where there is no hint of Arcana’s ministry as a priest in the tabernacle, we have no statement Therefore, here or later, about Samuel, his son’s right to be there. If the Levitical connection is omitted with regard to the father, by what right does the son have to stand in the tabernacle precincts?

He has not. Hasn’t it struck you in your reading of 1 Samuel that the writer nowhere offers to us any justification for Samuel’s presence in the tabernacle? There’s none. How is it that this boy gains entrance? And as the story goes on into the further and later chapters of 1 Samuel, the writer gives us no indication that this man Samuel has any legitimate claim upon the services that he performs. Think of it in the later life of Samuel. If Saul has no right to offer sacrifices at Gilgal, then what about Samuel himself? And if Samuel is portrayed as if lacking proper pedigree for priestly ministry, what about the type of ministry he performs?

It seems as if he is unconnected to the tabernacle and even from the Ark of the Covenant. To be sure, as you know, the sanctuary at Shiloh is decimated by the Philistine victory in which the Ark of the Covenant is captured and taken away, and we understand the disruption in Israel’s regular worship that that causes. Samuel has an itinerating ministry.

His home is in Ramah, but we find him now in Nisba, sacrificing, and then in Gilgal sacrificing. We even find him in Bethlehem sacrificing, and that by the express commandment of the Lord. What in the world is going on here? Sacrifices all over the place. Israel is often condemned for its promiscuous worship. Sacrificing now in this place, and then running over there, sacrificing there.

But Samuel seems to wander all over the place, and this is by the Lord’s direction, indeed, what is happening. Let me read to you two passages. The first is one of my favorites. is speaking to the woman at the well in Samaria, and he says to her, an hour is coming and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, John 4.23. What I am suggesting to you is this. In the circuitry of Samuel’s ministry, we are witnessing the anticipation of that very hour of which Jesus speaks. You are seeing it in preview. Samuel’s ministry previews Jesus’ ministry, a ministry appropriate for the conclusive kingdom in which worship will not be, indeed must not be, restricted to one geographical earthly The ubiquity of Jehovah’s worship in Israel under Samuel prepares us for the ubiquity of the Father’s worship throughout the entire world under the reign of Jesus. The second passage I want to read to you is from Hebrews 7. We’ve already read it once this morning. This is what it says.

For the one concerning whom these things about the priesthood are spoken belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord rose from Judah. a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. When the author of 1 Samuel leads us through his account, blind to Samuel’s ancestry, leaving us with no justification for Samuel’s priestly ministry before the law, he is preparing us for the coming final priestly ministry of Jesus Christ, who, according to the old order of the earthly administration, has no priesthood at all, but who now, according to the new order of the heavenly administration of God’s lasting kingdom, has an eternal priesthood. Indeed, as I have said, Silence about Alcanna’s descent registers most powerfully and most profoundly when we come to Samuel.

For just as Alcanna serves to announce the arrival of that new day and prepares the way for Samuel, even so John the Baptist serves to announce the arrival of the truly new day of the kingdom of heaven and prepares the way for Jesus Christ, the great final, last priest of God who transcends all the limitations and inadequacies of the Levites. It is this one, and only this one, by whom you draw nigh to God. It is this one, and only this one, who is able to save to the uttermost those who, according to his eternal priesthood, come to God by him. And it is this one and only this one, whom in the end, Hannah herself truly serves in all of her connections, beginning with her connection to her husband, Elkanah.

Amen. Dear God, keep us, Lord, from missing the point. We may want to make ourselves the most important. We may want to direct our attention to morality as if it were supreme. Lord, save us from these things that we might hear and understand the text. your word rightly, and see that even in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ is set forth, and that we, O God, are now being compelled by your Spirit to perceive his presence and influence though as yet in shadow form. Lord, may this help us in understanding the agreement of your word, the integrity of your word. The Father may it also help us to stand in the full radiance of the new day that was anticipated during the time of Elkanah. and Hannah, but which now has come. Lord, we are delighted to live in this day, and we thank you for the fullness of the ministry of our priest, the final priest, Jesus Christ.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.