Hello! Thank you for joining me for this new eight-week study! I’m doing something a little different this time, studying three excerpts from 1 Samuel 17 about David’s battle with Goliath and focusing on the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel (1 Sam 17:45).

This is the second study in my new series, God Who?, and my goal for this series is to learn as much as I can about the many names of God found in Scripture. I can’t wait to see what the Holy Spirit has planned for me to discover in the next eight weeks. 

Let’s Study 1 Samuel 17! 

This week, I’ll begin by praying and surveying 1 Samuel 17. If you want to study on your own with me, here’s what I recommend you have ready:

1. A copy of 1 Samuel 17.
   I like to refer often to the text I’m studying and sometimes make notes on it, so I copy the passage from blueletterbible.org, paste it into a word processing program like Google docs or MS Word, change the formatting to suit my preferences, and print it out. If you want to use the ESV translation, here’s a pdf of my Scripture study sheet with lots of room for doodles and notes.
   NOTE: My study sheet does NOT contain the whole chapter, it’s verses 19-27, 31-37, and 40-51, limiting our focus to the specific aspects of the battle in those verses. If this is your first time studying this story, be sure to read the entire chapter at least a few times so you don’t take anything out of context (we’ll discuss this more in Week Six).
2. A study journal.
   We’ll spend the next seven weeks immersed in and learning about 1 Samuel 17. Since the work we’ll do each week builds on what came before, plan to record at least some highlights from your work over the coming weeks. I’m old-school and like the pen-and-paper method for journaling my studies, but it’s okay if that doesn’t work for you. If you don’t have time to write out or type your notes, consider dictating them into a notes app, or recording audio files, instead.

Or, you may decide to just read the entries posted here, and that’s great, too. You’ll get familiar with the process and see how the Spirit speaks to my situation. Either way, I appreciate you checking in with me, even if you can’t dig into 1 Samuel 17 yourself this time.

Dig-In Challenges

So, here’s how I’ll be studying this week:

1. PRAY: I’ll be creating a prayer with which I’ll start each of my weekly study sessions. If you’ve studied with me before, you know I usually just adapt a previous prayer. Though I’ve pretty much memorized my prayer, I still write it in my study journal as a reminder to pray each time I start studying.
2. SURVEY: Then I’ll read my excerpts from 1 Samuel 17, noting anything that makes me say, “huh?” (as in, “I wonder what that means?”) or “wow” (as in, “that is so awesome!”). I’ll record these and later ask the Spirit to direct me to the one I should dig into right now.

If you’d like more information about these steps, check out this printable summary of the process I’ll be using here. Or, you can always reach out to me with your questions through my contact page or at [email protected].

I’m looking forward to sharing what I discover in this process with you, and I hope you’ll make a habit of checking in with me each week!

GO TO WEEK 2 >