Does God accept worship from some unbelievers?

The way I read it, I Samuel 1:28 was only specifying that Samuel worshipped. The passage doesn’t say anything at all about whether God accepted it or not.

The question I have about Lydia is how you would define “unbeliever ” in her case. The commentators describe her as a proselyte to the Jewish faith. So she was believing in God and worshipping God in the same way that a faithful Jew would before Christ came to earth. Would we call a faithful Jew in the Old Testament an unbeliever?

God at synagogue (except in her case there was no formal synagogue so they met by the river). This was not unheard of. I would not call it common, but it happened a lot. Paul commonly had success preaching to these Gentiles about Jesus.

I do not think it is fair to call her an “unbeliever.” Rather, she is similar to the followers of John the Baptist. They did not have complete information.

I have no idea what you mean.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

The way I read it, I Samuel 1:28 was only specifying that Samuel worshipped. The passage doesn’t say anything at all about whether God accepted it or not.

The question I have about Lydia is how you would define “unbeliever ” in her case. The commentators describe her as a proselyte to the Jewish faith. So she was believing in God and worshipping God in the same way that a faithful Jew would before Christ came to earth. Would we call a faithful Jew in the Old Testament an unbeliever?

That’s interesting that you think the Spirit merely mentioned that Samuel was doing something but did not intend for us to understand one way or the other about God’s accepting his worship. Why do you think that He even mentions that information if we are not supposed to know anything more than it just happened?

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

The way I read it, I Samuel 1:28 was only specifying that Samuel worshipped. The passage doesn’t say anything at all about whether God accepted it or not.

The question I have about Lydia is how you would define “unbeliever ” in her case. The commentators describe her as a proselyte to the Jewish faith. So she was believing in God and worshipping God in the same way that a faithful Jew would before Christ came to earth. Would we call a faithful Jew in the Old Testament an unbeliever?

1 Samuel 3:1 And the child Samuel ministered unto the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was precious in those days; there was no open vision.

Samuel was worshiping the Lord (1:28) and ministering to Him (3:1) before he came to know the Lord (3:7). The clear implication of 1:28 combined especially with 3:1 is that he was worshiping the Lord and ministering acceptably to Him even before he knew Him.

I think I Samuel 2:25 is much clearer in regards to whether Samuel was ministering acceptably before God. It says, ” And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men.” To me, the clear implication in this verse is that Samuel had a faith relationship with God rather than being an unbeliever. How could he be described as being in favor with the Lord if he was an unbeliever?

I think the concept of “not knowing the Lord” as related in 3:7 is referring to Samuel not yet having had any direct revelation from God. Barnes Notes on the Bible has this explanation - “Did not yet know the Lord - i. e. in His supernatural communication, as follows at the end of the verse.” Matthew Poole’s Commentary explains the verse this way - “Either, first, He was not acquainted with God in that extraordinary or prophetical way. Or rather, secondly, He did not yet understand, any more than before, that it was not Eli, but God, who spake to him.” Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges says, “This verse explains why Samuel failed to recognise the Voice. ‘Knowing the Lord’ here denotes not the general religious knowledge of a pious Israelite, but the special knowledge communicated by a personal revelation.”

I think it’s a mistake to assume that I Samuel 3:7 is telling us Samuel was still an unbeliever as he was getting a direct prophetic revelation from God.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

Why do you think there has to be “anything more?’ There is a lot of narration in the Bible. Are we supposed to look at every aspect of the narration and try to figure out if “something more” is meant by the inclusion of that narration? That certainly IS a valuable way to meditate on the Word, but we can’t make any definitive statements about some “deeper meaning” to the narration if the narration doesn’t supply us with such definitive information. Consider the narration in I Samuel 1:24-25 “And when she had weaned him, she took him up with her, with three bullocks, and one ephah of flour, and a bottle of wine, and brought him unto the house of the Lord in Shiloh: and the child was young. And they slew a bullock, and brought the child to Eli.” Can we make any definitive statements about why the narration tells us “three bullocks” were brought but only one was sacrificed? Some versions say it was a three year old bullock instead of three bullocks. If those translations are correct, then what is God’s purpose in telling us the age? Sometimes narration is just narration.

Narration may be just narration, but when a statement explicitly speaks of something with reference to or pertaining to God, we do well not to just treat it as narration.

This is why I specifically said that thinking about such matters “certainly IS a valuable way to meditate on the Word,” We certainly need to look at the passage and the surrounding context to see if we can determine whether more is involved than just narration. We don’t want to just be making things up without Scriptural evidence.

If she took three bullocks and only sacrificed one, it may have been because only one could be sacrificed at a time.

Regardless, I do not believe that any statement in the Bible about someone worshiping God is ever merely narration.

So do you then believe that every statement describing someone worshiping would also be telling us whether God accepted or rejected that worship? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying.

[RajeshG]

You say, “How could he be described as being in favor with the Lord if he was an unbeliever?” Since examining that possibility is a major point of this thread, we cannot assume something cannot be true because we cannot see how it could be true and then use that to say that it could not be true. That would be circular reasoning, I think.

I wasn’t trying to assume anything. I was simply asking, since you described Samuel as an unbeliever, if you personally had any Scriptural indication from any other passages that an unbeliever’s life could be described as “in favor with the Lord.”

Finding favor with God and man, I believe, does not require saving knowledge for a very young child such as Samuel was. If Samuel was doing what was right and pleasing before God and man, he would be enjoying favor with both.

Proverbs 3:1-4 does not seem to emphasize (at least explicitly) that having faith is a condition aside from which obedience to God’s law is worthless:

Proverbs 3:1 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: 2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: 4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

I do not find it convincing to say that 3:7 pertains to his not knowing the Lord in the sense of receiving a prophetic call or having prophetic revelation given to him from God.

Adam Clarke Commentary - “Samuel did not yet know the Lord - He had not been accustomed to receive any revelation from him. He knew and worshipped the God of Israel; but he did not know him as communicating especial revelation of His will.”

Wesley’s Explanatory Notes - “Did not know — He was not acquainted with God in that extraordinary or prophetical way. And this ignorance of Samuel’s served God’s design, that his simplicity might give Eli the better assurance of the truth of God’s call, and message to Samuel.

John Trapp Complete Commentary - “Ver. 7. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord,] i.e., He knew him not in that way peculiar to prophets: for otherwise he knew the Lord a far deal better than Eli’s two sons did, [1 Samuel 2:12] and yet he and they had all one tutor.

Thomas Coke Commentary on the Whole Bible - “1 Samuel 3:7. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord— The second clause in this verse explains the first: Samuel was not yet instructed in the will of GOD as a prophet; he had not yet received any immediate revelation from him.”

[RajeshG]

When I said only one could be sacrificed at a time, I did not mean that it was physically impossible for more than one to be sacrificed simultaneously. As far as I can recall, the passages that speak of a bullock being offered for an ordinary individual person on a regular occasion never speak of that person’s providing more than one at a time on a specific occasion to be offered for him.

Thinking about it further, I question whether there were any instances of more than one bullock being offered at a time on a given altar. For more than one to be offered simultaneously, there would have to be multiple altars. I do not recall any ordinary occasions where multiple offerings were offered simultaneously for the same person by offering them on more than one altar.

[RajeshG]

This is your main point?

I answered, “Why do you think there has to be “anything more?’ There is a lot of narration in the Bible. Are we supposed to look at every aspect of the narration and try to figure out if “something more” is meant by the inclusion of that narration? That certainly IS a valuable way to meditate on the Word, but we can’t make any definitive statements about some “deeper meaning” to the narration if the narration doesn’t supply us with such definitive information.”

It was this point I was referring to when I just said “So this bring me back to my main point. Are we able to determine from the passage whether there is “anything more” we need to understand about worship from the fact that three bullocks were brought?”

Anyway, this is not just narration. It shows the godliness of Hannah after she had chosen not to go up to offer the yearly sacrifice until she had weaned Samuel (1 Sam. 1:21-22). When she did finally take him to the house of the Lord, she brought the yearly sacrifice not just for that year but also for the previous years that she had not done so.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

So are you able to determine from the passage that these bullocks were to take the place of the yearly sacrifices that she missed? Does the Bible give any indication in any of the sacrificial instructions that “make-up” sacrifices can be offered to replace ones that were skipped? The passage does tells us she missed some sacrifices, but the passage doesn’t give us any indication that Hannah’s godliness was being illustrated by bringing three bullocks instead of just one. You can’t just make things up to prove that “anything more” is intended to be conveyed by the narration.

I provided a reasonable explanation. You cannot prove that the passage is mere narration and not intended to teach us anything more than that. That is just your assumption.

To use your methodology, we can only know what we are to profit from in any passage if God says something explicitly, which is something with which I vehemently disagree.

I think that we have reached the point that further discussion of this specific point will not be profitable. Let’s leave it here.

But this point is rather foundational to the entire thread, isn’t it? We are trying to figure out what the passage teaches. Some passages teach deep applicational meanings and some passages just teach that certain events happened. Both teachings are valuable.

My methodology in this thread is certainly NOT to just look for explicit statements. I’ve acknowledged that looking for “anything more” is a valid way to meditate on the passage. Your explanation about the animals is, of course, as reasonable a guess as any other guess regarding why three bullocks were brought. It’s also valid to consider that the passage might be saying “a bullock of three years old” instead, and we could make all sorts of guesses as to why a three-year-old bull was brought instead of a 2 or 4 year old one.

I’m rather surprised that you are so dead set against any assumption that this might be narration when your own opinion that “something more” is being taught is, itself, just an assumption as well. This is why I’m trying to get you to explain, from the passage, why you think we can determine whether God accepted or rejected Samuel’s worship.

[RajeshG]

People did not just get to do whatever they wanted in the house of the Lord because they were curious or wanted to try it out or whatever. In other words, there is no basis for holding that Eli was just allowing Samuel to do things in the house of the Lord “for kicks.” Had Samuel’s worship not been acceptable to God, Eli would have been sinning in allowing him to do whatever he was doing in the house of the Lord.

The strong contrast between what is said about what Samuel was doing (1 Sam. 2:18-21) versus the wickedness of Eli’s sons (1 Sam. 2:12-17) also points to divine acceptance of Samuel’s worship.

Furthermore, comparing the explicit statements that use exactly the same verb and construction about Eli’s sons not knowing the Lord (2:12) and Samuel’s not knowing the Lord (3:7) shows that Samuel was an unbeliever, even as they were:

Or, it could also be used as “knowing” the Lord in one particular way in regards to Eli’s sons and “knowing” the Lord in a different way in regards to Samuel. The context of 3:7 lets us see that Samuel’s “not knowing” the Lord had to do with a prophetic word from the Lord, and the context of 2:12 is clear that the “not knowing” had to do with rebellion. This is why we look so closely at the context to find the meaning God wants us to have.

[RajeshG]

I think that you have misunderstood what I am saying. We are not given any information that Eli was sinful in any respect concerning what he allowed Samuel to do in the house of the Lord.

In other words, what I am saying is that had Samuel’s worship and ministry in the house of the Lord not been acceptable to the Lord, Eli would have been sinning in that additional way and God would have judged him for that as well. Because Eli was not judged for allowing Samuel to worship and minister in an unacceptable way, we can be confident that Samuel’s worship and ministry were acceptable to the Lord.

[RajeshG]

You are mistaken in asserting that we cannot know anything about the nature of Samuel’s worship and ministry. We absolutely can know that what he was doing was pleasing to God. In fact, the Spirit says so explicitly by speaking of His being in favor with God and men (2:26). That statement would have been impossible to make had Samuel’s worship and ministry been unacceptable to God.

You presented 1:28 and 3:1 as showing acceptable worship, and I said 2:26 ” is much clearer in regards to whether Samuel was ministering acceptably before God.” Verse 1:28 and 3:1 don’t really tell us that his worship was acceptable, as that information isn’t included within those verses, but I pointed out that 2:26 clearly does tell us that.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

How can you be sure that if Eli had sinned in regards ot Samuel’s worship, that God would have included it in this particular judgment against Eli? I’m confident that Eli’s failure with his sons was not the only sin Eli had ever committed. Therefore, this judgment would not be a full accounting of every sin and would not necessarily include potential failures or sins regarding any other people Eli was teaching or ministering to.

The Spirit highlights explicitly and profoundly the contrast between Samuel’s activities and those of Eli’s sons. Had what Samuel been doing been unacceptable to God, God would have stated that He was judging Eli both for what he had allowed Samuel to do and for what he had allowed his sons to do.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

Just repeating your earlier comment doesn’t tell me how you can be so confident this is true. Are you actually claiming that Eli’s failure with his children is the only sin Eli had committed in his life?

I think you can answer that question yourself. If you cannot understand what I have said, I am not going to try to explain it any further.

[RajeshG]

Unlike the cases of Samuel and Lydia, whose spiritual states in the passages discussed above have been disputed, Acts 10 informs us about a Gentile whose spiritual status we can know with certainty.

Acts 10:1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, 2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway. 3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. 4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

God sent an angel to Cornelius to inform him that God had taken note of his prayers and alms. The angel also informed Cornelius what he needed to do:

Acts 11:13 And he shewed us how he had seen an angel in his house, which stood and said unto him, Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter; 14 Who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved.

Cornelius and his entire household had to hear words from Peter by which they all would be saved. Indisputably, therefore, Cornelius was an unbeliever whose prayers God heard and whose alms God took note of.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

Cornelius certainly is an applicable example, since he doesn’t seem to be actually saved until Peter visited him. It brings up an interesting question. Do the prayers and giving of alms by an unsaved person count as true worship, or are they indications of a desire to engage in true worship?

God heard his prayer and remembered his alms: Acts 10:31 And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.

He was rewarded in part for the good that he had done to God’s people: “gave much alms to the people” (Acts 10:2). Those alms were not just a desire to engage in true worship; they were true worship.

Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” Cornelius had the beginning of knowledge, but he was in need of extra information that Peter could give him. I see a progression involving the fear of the Lord in Psalm 40:3 “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.” Cornelius must have seen other people who were followers of God, and he himself then chose to fear God, but he needed further revelation about Christ to be able to put his faith in Christ.

Consider also what Jesus taught: Matthew 10:42 And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.

Anyone who does this will be rewarded for what he has done. It seems that this applies for both lost people and saved people who do this.

[RajeshG]

After thinking more about this, I think that we can say that it does show her godliness. Bullocks were not cheap. On the trip that she took to leave Samuel with Eli for good, she would only have had to take one bullock. If she did not take the other two because she felt that she had to make up for the previous years that she missed, her taking the extra bullocks would be an even stronger indication of her piety because she was going above and beyond what was required and freely chose to offer additional bullocks for the years that she missed even though she was not required to do so.

[RajeshG]

Kevin Miller wrote:

Okay, that’s a reasonable understanding if the correct translation is “three bullocks.” However, if the correct translation is “a three year old bull” as used by the NIV, NLT, ESV, NASB, and others, would the age of the bull be “just narration,” or would there be “anything more” to that age information that we would need to be understanding?

I would have to do a lot more research to answer this question further because the Bible gives a lot of information about the ages of the animals that were offered. There might be something of significance. Regardless, the Spirit revealed that information for some reason.

More importantly, continuing discussion along this line is peripheral to the point of this thread.