Overview:
1 Samuel 3:1–18
Most of us can remember the pictures that hung on the walls of our Sunday school classrooms when we were children. They were usually portraits of biblical figures at crucial moments in their lives: Daniel in the lions’ den, David and Goliath, blind Samson standing between the temple pillars, Moses leading the Hebrews across the Red Sea, Jonah being thrown into the stormy seas, and other familiar scenes. Almost without exception, there was another . . . perhaps the most familiar of all: the boy Samuel as he heard God’s voice in the middle of the night. Have you ever wondered why God spoke to the lad? Or what He said to him that night? The scene may be familiar, but what it represents is not. Too bad. It’s a message as relevant today as it was when the Lord first spoke it.
