What Do You Allow?

An exposition of 1 Samuel 2:12-36

I wouldn’t eat strawberry ice cream but I’ll allow you to do so. I don’t like professional “wrestling.” But I’ll allow you to watch. Would you allow an unmarried couple of live together in your house?

In the law, there are sometimes when you can be held criminally responsible for what you allow.

We are held accountable for not only what we do, personally, but what we allow.

Listen:

Profaning (2:12-16)

When we allow what the culture allows, we profane worship. That sin is “very great in the sight of the Lord” (2:17.)

Ministering (2:18-21)

If you demand the minister be more to your tastes, don’t be surprised when you get Hophni and Phinehas instead of Samuel.

Willing (2:22-26)

God willed to kill them so He withheld from them the grace to repent and truly believe and so reform.

Honoring (2:27-36)

By permitting it, God says, Eli “honored your sons above Me.” What you permit, you participate in.

He rules whether you allow Him or not. His Lordship does not depend on your permission. If you allow Him it’s because it was the Lord’s will to give you grace.

John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022).