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Full confession and apology

I just wanted to confess that I did something rather dumb this past Sunday. 

Normally I am pretty conscious of making sure that I place the sermon I am preaching within the cultural and historical context of the time in which the passage is written.

This Sunday, however, I failed. 

Failed rather spectacularly. 

Many may not have noticed, though that may reveal something about our critical abilities in general, but I made a major blunder. See, I was preaching on the passage in 1 Samuel where Samuel is sent to anoint David. So, Samuel goes to Bethlehem, invites Jesse (David's dad) to a sacrifice, and anoints David as the next king of Israel, after a bit of a snafu when Jesse forgets to bring David as one of his sons to the feast. 

During this sermon I mentioned that they had most likely held that sacrifice in Jerusalem at the temple. 

There's a couple problems with that, however, first; the temple hadn't been built yet (that didn't happen until Solomon's time, and Solomon was David's son)

Second, Israel didn't even control Jerusalem at this point in history. That happened later, when David conquered the city. 

With those clarifications, it is obvious the sacrifice that Samuel invited Jesse to would NOT have been at the temple in Jerusalem. 

I guess this is why it is important to always check our gut reactions to a particular text, because those first snap assessments may be (and often are) wrong. 

Sorry. :)