God's providence is the engine of Saul's coronation, not Saul's character — and that's not a footnote, that's the whole point of the story.
Central Image
Lost donkeys: the most un-epic entry to a coronation in history, and the hinge on which everything turns — representing how God arranges the whole path before the person on it has any idea where they're going.
The Turn
We keep asking who Saul is — good man or weak one, Gaston or Forrest Gump — and the text keeps refusing to answer, because that's the wrong question. The story isn't about who Saul is. It's about who God is.
Outline
The Wrong Question
Opened with the lemonade stand: going to God and demanding grapes. Israel's frustration, Samuel's frustration, God's frustration — everybody locked into their question, nobody getting what they wanted. The setup for the whole text: when you come with the wrong question, the right answer looks like silence.
How Does Revival Happen?
Fasting, preaching, music — all the theories people have built dissertations on. And then Ray Stevens: a half-crazed Mississippi squirrel loose in the First Self-Righteous Church of Pascagoula. Toby's theological approval: those people weren't looking for revival, grace came in a form nobody planned, and it worked. The lever that moves the world turns out to be grace — and grace doesn't always announce itself.
The Ambiguous Saul (1 Samuel 9:1–10:13)
Walked through the text with a running refusal to answer the questions commentators fight over. Is Kish a man of noble character or just landed gentry? Is Saul fine-looking or a good person? Does he give up on the donkeys too fast, or does he know his father? The text won't say. Gaston or Forrest Gump — can't prove it either way. The text is doing this on purpose.
The Hero's Journey Parody
Saul is supposed to be King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. Instead he's been wandering through the wilderness looking for livestock. He doesn't solve a riddle. He doesn't crack the code on a tomb. Samuel lays out exactly what's going to happen — easier than Dora the Explorer — and Saul just walks through it. Samuel is the first Yoda: the wise old man Saul doesn't recognize at the gate. The spirit of God rushes on Saul not because he was fasting or praying but because he walked into a group of prophets. Nothing about Saul's hero's journey depends on Saul.
Providence Is the Whole Story
God told Samuel the day before. The time of year put Samuel in the right town. The women at the well were there because it was drawing time. The donkeys got lost when they needed to. The finger of God's providence is on every sentence. And this is the answer to the revival question too: God acts in kindness even when Israel is walking on His fighting side. Even in their rebellion, He sees their need and moves.
God's Ride
You're on God's roller coaster. Not in a way that erases your choices, but your free will is not absolute — you can't choose by an act of will to be a Pakistani woman, Toby can't. There's a narrow band of choices within who you are. The rest is God's ride. Saul, from the second those donkeys went missing, was clicking up the tracks. And when God does that, you can either white-knuckle it or put your hands up.
The Landing
You cannot make it rain — pray, fast, ask, live faithfully, take the bread when it's handed to you. But the rain is God's. Chill out, and enjoy the ride.
Questions to Think About
- Toby opened with going to God and asking for grapes at the lemonade stand. When's the last time you walked away from God frustrated, and in hindsight realized the frustration was with your question, not with His answer?
- Walk back through what actually happens to Saul from the moment the donkeys go missing to the moment Samuel pours oil on his head. What does Saul do to earn any of it?
- Toby called this a parody of the hero's journey — Saul isn't Perseus or King Arthur, he's Forrest Gump. What's the actual difference between a story where the hero earns it and a story where God arranges it?
- Where in your life have you been hunting for the right lever — the right spiritual discipline, the right approach, the right formula — that would finally guarantee the result you want from God?
- Toby said flat out: I cannot make it rain. Where are you still trying to make it rain?
- The text never resolves who Saul is — noble character or entitled gentry, genuinely humble or chronically insecure, good king or tragic one. Toby's argument is that doesn't matter because this story isn't about who Saul is. Does that actually satisfy you, or does the ambiguity bother you — and why?
- Toby said we should live so that if God decided in His providence to bring revival here, it would make sense to bring it here. What would need to be true about this church for that to be the case?
- Toby's line: take the two loaves of bread from the guy when the guy gives you the bread. What's one thing right in front of you this week that you've been overthinking, waiting for a sign, when God may just be saying — take it?