The Prophet Mandate for Samuel

Samuel was the son of Hannah. She was barren when the prophet gave her a word that she would have a child. She made a promise to God that she would bring him back to the temple to serve in the temple. It must have been a painful decision to make, as she did not have any children, but she had made a promise to God, so when she weened him, she brought him to the prophet Eli and left him in the temple to serve. God called Samuel to be a prophet in the place of Eli.

Eli’s failure to discipline his sons, led not only to a loss of credibility, but ultimately to his own downfall. Scripture says that people who are not faithful in dealing with their own households are not qualified to lead in wider arenas.

The Lord grants favor and authority to those who seek him, and in Samuel’s case, God honored him before the people as a bona fide prophet.

Obedience is described in Scripture in terms of both attitudes and actions. In the case of the prophet Samuel, he served faithfully in the house of God and became one of the greatest prophets that ever lived. Again and again Samuel encountered stressful situations in which he had to confront and rebuke others for failing to trust and obey the Lord (see also 12:1–19; 13:11–14; 15:14–29). He managed each of these confrontations with clarity, decisiveness and objectivity.

We too are required to walk in obedience to the call of God on our lives and use these stories of the men of old so we can learn how not to fall into the same trap.