Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Wearing a Mask? | Historical Books | 1 Samuel 22:6-23

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Wearing a mask doesn't just hide you; it destroys you. Is sin masking you right now? Are you hiding who you truly are from God? In today's episode, Jeff shares how 1 Samuel 22:6-23 encourages us to take off our masks and confess our sins to God to find his forgiveness. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Samuel 22:6-23

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. In one way or another, all of us tend to go through our day-to-day lives, wearing a mask, pretending to be people we aren't, playing the role of actors, hiding one part of our lives while projecting a distorted sense of self. We can wear masks in our jobs, in our online lives, even more. among those closest to us. Some of us wear those masks to feed our arrogance, while others of us use

them as a form of protection to hide something out of fear or shame. Whether we're rolling with a sense of projecting our pride or protecting ourselves from shame or some mixture of both, what we often don't see is that the masks we wear don't just disguise us. They also destroy us. The writer John Updike captured this so well when he wrote about the masks that people wear in relation to celebrity. Here's what he said. Celebrity, even the modest sort that comes to writers, is an unhelpful exercise in self-consciousness. Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody to be watched and listened to with extra interest,

input ceases and the performer goes blind and death in his over-animation. The successful writer acquires a film over his eyes. His eyes get fat. Self-importance is a thickened, occluding form of self-consciousness. The binge, the fling, the trip, all attempt to shake the film and get back under the dining room table with a child's beautifully clear eyes. Those are some powerful words from Updike. Now, for me as an imperfect, in-process follower of Jesus, I can't help but recognize how Updike's description of celebrity closely aligns with how the Bible describes the power of sin in our lives.

Sin is like a mask that doesn't just disguise us. It also destroys us and the people around us. Sin is like a mask that eats into the face. It puts a film over our eyes so that we're less in touch with reality when it comes to how we see, how we live, and who we're becoming. Thinking of sin as a mask that eats into the face serves as a fitting metaphor for the deterioration. of King Saul in the book of First Samuel, a man whose celebrity and self-absorption and sin absolutely corrupt his life and his reign and therefore the people around him as well. The events of First Samuel, chapter 22 versus 6 through 23, are like cold water on the face for all of us, revealing how the mask of sin isn't just something that you wear around.

it's also something that causes you to waste away. Now as we approach God's word together, let's pause and ask for His grace to move through our time that we have. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of life and breath in this new day. We thank you for your word. We bring before you every part of our lives

our experiences, all of our feelings, our emotions, all of it, our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety, our excitement. our calendars with the things that are planned, but also our contingencies and the things that aren't planned. God, would you meet us in this special space? Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in 1st Samuel.

And as we read these words of yours, let these words read us and restore us. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's set up. up a little context that helps make sense of the events in our passage for today. So back in chapter 21, a priest in the city of Nob named Ahimelech helped David while he was fleeing from Saul. Ahimelech gave David bread to eat and the sword of Goliath for protection. Now, after receiving that help from the priest Ahimelech, David headed for the city of Gath to seek refuge from Saul. He's still on the

run. So we come into First Samuel with that context at play. But another key detail from chapter 21 sets up our scene for our time together now. In verse 7 of chapter 21, we met Doeg the Edomite, a servant of Saul. Now he's mentioned in what feels like a passing comment in chapter 21, but his name is dropped to set up an important cliffhanger pressing into our text for today. because Doeg the Edomite proves to be the key witness of Himalek giving aid to David. And he's going to make sure that his master, Saul, finds out about it. More to come on that in just a moment. Now, chapter 22 returns to the narrative of David running from Saul, along with his loyal men and his family.

And verse 6 brings us back to the corrupted king of Israel, Saul. So we encounter Saul here standing under a tree surrounded by his servants, yet at the same time lamenting how he hasn't received the support he feels like he deserves. He says this in verse 8. No one tells me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is concerned about me or tells me that my son has incited my servant to lie and wait for me as he does today. All right, so Saul is having quite a day here, right? I mean, he comes off as insecure and paranoid. It's like the celebrity of his kingship has caused him to have a film over his eyes to only see himself.

But then in verse 9, we hear from our buddy Doeg the Edomite, or as I like to call him, Doeag the Eavesdropper, who was mentioned back in Chapter 21. Here's what happened in verse 9 here in chapter 22. But Doeg the Edomite, who is standing with Saul's officials, said, I saw the son of Jesse, come to Ahimelech, the son of a heatube at Nob. A him inquired of the Lord for him. He also gave him provisions in the sword of Goliath, the Philistine. You know here that Doeg the eavesdropper has just been chomping at the bit to get some approval from his buddy Saul.

In a way, it's like he's also wearing his own mask. of greatness in trying to appease his capricious king, Saul. He plays the tattletail. And from here on, things go very, very badly, not just for Ahimelech, but also for Doeag. As the passage continues, we see how Saul summons Ahimelech, the priest, along with his family and the other priests with him at Nob. After an exchange of accusations, we see Saul totally unhinged in verse 16. Here's what we read. But the king, Saul, said, you will surely die, Heimelech, you and your whole family. Then the king ordered the guards at his side,

turn and kill the priests of the Lord, because they too have sided with David. They knew he was fleeing, yet they did not tell me. But the king's officials were unwilling to raise a hand to strike the priests of the Lord. Now just a quick sidebar here. You know that the king of Israel has fallen, really, really far when his own guards feel like his orders are too brutal. But Saul still has his

man, Doeg the eavesdropper. And here's what we read in verse 18. The king then ordered Doeg, you turn and strike down the priests. So Doeag the Edomite turned and struck them down. That day he killed 85 men who wore the linen effod. He also put to the sword, Nob, the town of the priests with its men and women, its children, and infants, and its cattle, donkeys, and sheep. This is awful. This passage ends with a horrible inversion of what the King of Israel was meant to do, who the King of Israel was meant to be. He was meant to listen to God, to love God, to love God's people. But here, he only listens to himself. He only loves himself. And therefore, he lays waste. to God's people. Instead of defending the kingdom, Saul is destroying it. His sin isn't just something

that disguises him. It's destroying him and it's destroying all the people around him, including his accomplice, Doeg, who he himself is being dehumanized in carrying out these dehumanizing acts. The king is consuming the kingdom and is taking down his people with him. The tragic unraveling of Saul's involves a series of decisions and events that proceed without any sincere confession of sin. The mask just keeps eating into the face. Sin keeps destroying him. Now, if you're like me, it's easy for me to treat sin as just this concept that I consider, but not really as a reality that I need to confess.

See, it's just one thing to bring up sin as a conversation topic as something that we intellectually engage with. It's quite another thing to bring it to God as a part of me that needs healing. With that in mind, let's respond to this passage with a time of confession, with some prompts that will help us come before God with the fullness of how sin has not only disguised us

but also destroyed us. God, I confess the ways that I have sinned against you, the ways that I have put on my own mask of self-importance, the ways that I've trusted myself instead of trusting you. God, I confess these things, you see me in my sin. Would you take off the mask? God, I confess the ways that I've sinned against others, the ways that I've failed to love them with my actions,

with my thoughts, with my affections. I confess the ways that the mask of my sin has blocked my view of people made in your image. God, you see me in all of my sin. Would you take off the mask by your grace? And God, I also bring before you the effects of sin that elude our agency and our power. I bring before you the ways

that I and other people I know have been sinned against by other people. or the ways that we suffer in a world that's marred by the shadow of sin, the ways that our world is just not the way it's supposed to be. God, you see us, right where we are, would you free us from the mask of shame and fear? God, we come before you because you, in your love, take off the mask of sin.

You see us as we really are. And in the death, resurrection, and reign of Jesus, You don't just see us. You pursue us. You make us new. God, take off the film over our eyes so that we can see you as you really are and see others around us. God, would you take off the mask so that we can see you and know who we really are? That we are your beloved.

Help us live before you and everything you have for us today, all by your grace, for your glory in your story. In Jesus' name, amen.