The Prophet Samuel
“For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition which I asked of Him. Therefore I also have lent him to the LORD; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the LORD.” So they worshiped the LORD there.” 1 Samuel 1:27-28
Samuel was a faithful prophet of God. He was born at a spiritual low point in Israel’s history when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25) God, in His grace, saw to it that Samuel had godly parents. Every year his father, Elkanah, took the whole family to Shiloh where he would worship and sacrifice to the Lord at the tabernacle. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, had been unable to have children. She asked God to let her have a son. If He would, she promised to dedicate her son to a life of service to Him. God gave Elkanah and Hannah a son, Samuel. They brought him up learning God’s Word and learning about the promised Savior. After a few years his parents took him to Shiloh where they presented him to the Lord.
Scripture admonishes fathers, “Bring [your children] up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4) Moses told God’s people, “These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) Through regular church and Sunday School attendance, family devotions, and talking to their children, parents are responsible for their children learning God’s Word and learning about their salvation in Jesus.
How many of us came to know Jesus as our Savior because our parents brought us to church and Sunday School and talked to us about Him? What a blessing God gave Samuel in his godly parents. What a blessing God gives in our godly parents.
Oh, blest the house, whate’er befall,
Where Jesus Christ is all in all!
Yea, if He were not dwelling there,
How dark and poor and void it were!
Blest such a house, it prospers well,
In peace and joy the parents dwell,
And in their children’s lot is shown
How richly God can bless His own.
The Lutheran Hymnal 625:1, 4