Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

Appearances are deceiving. Goliath looks unconquerable, and the young shepherd boy who says thanks but no thanks to the king’s armor, is pretty confident that five smooth stones will be enough to change the world.

So it is that the Apostle Paul reminds us we don’t see anyone from a human view anymore. We see them through God’s eyes.

1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4, 11, 19-23) 32-49
We like underdogs, which is why we like the story of David and Goliath. About David’s improbable victory John Wesley wrote:

Thus does God often do great things for His people by the weak things of the world. (Commentary On the Bible, p.189)   

The world needs Davids — people who take on the powerful and the social consensus even if it does not seem that they have a chance. The playwright George Bernard Shaw explained why the world needs such people like David:

Contents
“A David and Goliath Story” by Peter Andrew Smith
“Re-crossing Galilee Lake” by David O. Bales
“Seminar: Working Together In Him” by David O. Bales

A David and Goliath Story
by Peter Andrew Smith
1 Samuel 17:(1a, 4-11, 19-23), 32-49

Laura took some vegetables out of the bag to chop. “So, I hear you are in a bit of trouble at school.”

“Who told you that, Auntie?” Joan asked.

“Your mother. She wanted me to see if there is anything I could do.”

The first thing Jack saw when he walked into church on the Sunday morning was a bright red octopus. It seemed an odd animal to be in church, but Jack's heart lifted in anticipation, for with an octopus in the offing and a bright red one at that, surely the preacher would have an exciting talk this morning.

Of course it was only a paper octopus, but nonetheless it filled Jack's mind with thoughts of the sea and strange sea creatures and coral reefs and snorkelling and all those things you never usually thought about in church.

Just a short time ago, a young homemaker and mother sat in my office telling me how she was feeling about her life. She said she felt she was adrift in a tiny boat in the middle of a great and surging ocean. How she had gotten into that boat and where she was going was a mystery to her. All she could see were the huge waves towering over her frail, little boat, threatening at any moment to swamp it and sink it, to swallow her up forever.

The United Methodists came out with their most recent hymnbook in 1989. Three years before that, while the hymnal committee was deciding which hymns from the previous book would be included in the new one and which would be deleted, they concluded that "Onward Christian Soldiers" should be omitted. The committee voted to delete it, feeling that the hymn was overly militaristic and thus was inconsistent with the church's goal of eradicating war and establishing world peace. The announcement of this decision, however, made in mid-May 1986, launched a great brouhaha in the church.

In the year 2000 Forbes Magazine featured a special edition on a single topic that it called "the biggest issue of our age -- time." The editors wrote, "We've beaten, or at least stymied, most of humanity's monsters: disease, climate, geography, and memory. But time still defeats us. Lately its victories seem more complete than ever. Those timesaving inventions of the last half-century have somehow turned on us. We now hold cell phone meetings in traffic jams, and 24-7 has become the most terrifying phrase in modern life."