Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Bob Dylan's Warning For You | Historical Books | 1 Samuel 8

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Bob Dylan said, "You gotta serve somebody." Who do you serve? What are you worshiping? In today's episode, Jensen shares how 1 Samuel 8 encourages us to serve the Lord alone. If you're listening on Spotify, comment below one takeaway from today's episode! 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 8

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. In December of 2024, a complete unknown was released to rave reviews. It's a story of Bob Dylan's life, and in it, Timothy Shalamee plays the part of Dylan. Leading up to the release, Shalamay was in The Rolling Stone, wearing a shirt that read, Gotta Serve Somebody. It was a reference to Bob Dylan's 1979 classic. of the same title. The whole song is worth listening to, but you'll get the main idea right in the

first verse and chorus. You may be an ambassador to England or France. You may like to gamble. You might like to dance. You may be the heavyweight champion of the world. You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls. But you're going to have to serve somebody. Yes, indeed. You're going to have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody. He's saying that it doesn't matter who you are. We all serve someone or something. It might be ourselves. It might be money. It might be a child. It might be our health. It might be our reputation. It might be our comfort. But everyone serves something. And generally speaking, we serve that thing because we believe it will make us happy. Sometimes that can be counterintuitive. Maybe you don't think your job can make you happy,

but you know it's what you orient your whole life around, what you serve. Just dig deep and you'll see it. It may not be the job itself you're serving. Maybe you're serving your reputation that the job gives you, or maybe you're serving the dollars that the job earns you, or maybe you're serving the escape the job promises you from ordinary life. I don't know. What I do know is that we all got to serve somebody or something.

And the king we serve for the sake of happiness, be it self or stuff, is ultimately what we worship. David Foster Wallace, a professor and world famous author who tragically took his life in 2008, made a similar observation to Dylan during his commencement speech in 2005 at Kenyon College. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

He goes on later, if you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age starts showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. He goes on to say that we can worship power and intellect and just about anything. He points out that the trouble is,

that the things we worship create an insidious problem, not in his view because they're sinful, but because they're unconscious. In other words, Dylan may be right that we all got to serve somebody, but most bodies don't realize they're serving anyone at all. How does this unconscious slavery work its way into our minds unconsciously? Well, I think there are many ways, but I suspect much of what we worship is caught, not taught. In other, words, we see what other people want, what other people serve, what other people think will make them happy, what other people worship and unconsciously begin to assume that if everyone else wants X, then X must be what I want. It must be what will make me happy too. The mid-century philosopher

René Girard calls this Mimesis, the way we mirror each other's desires, and how this even creates conflict and envy when we desire the same things. In all of the of this happens unconsciously. No one taught you to want a big house, a nice car, an attractive body, a particular spouse, a popular reputation, or whatever it is you want. You caught it, because desires are contagious. And what we desire most always comes to rule us. But we don't need Gerard, Wallace, or Dylan to discover this insight. In 1 Samuel 8, we meet Samuel as an aged man. While Samuel wasn't a king, he was a leader. And now the people are wondering, what will happen to them next? So they come to Samuel and they make a strange demand,

certainly not a demand you'd probably make. First Samuel 8, verse 5, appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have. They ask for a king. They are saying the quiet part out loud. We all want a king. We all want to serve something and we all do, and that's why we can't miss the key part of this verse, such as all the other nations have. They don't just want any king. They want what the other nations have. They want what the other nation's desire. They don't want to be a holy nation set apart for God's purposes. They want to be just like their neighbors. Do you see the underlying truth? Desires are caught more than they're taught. We want what we want because other people want it. Now Samuel is offended and consults

with God who tells Samuel that they aren't rejecting him. They're rejecting God himself. Again, God understands that what we serve is what we worship. So if the people don't want to serve God as king, it's tantamount to saying they don't want to worship God. But you might be thinking, doesn't God eventually give them a good king in David? Didn't God allow them to have a king in Deuteronomy? Well, yes, he does. But that was a king explicitly not like the nations. He was a king who was banned from amassing chariots and weapons for war. He was a king who was banned from enslaving his fellow Israelites and forcing them into service. He was a king called to honor and obey God and lead others to serve God as well. But the people don't want that kind of king. They want a king like

the nations. And this becomes clear when God describes the kind of king they will get if they go forward with this. Verse 10. Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, this is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights. He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses and they will run in front of his chariots. Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of 50s and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendance.

He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendance. Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle and donkeys, he will take for his own use. He will take a tenth of your flocks and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day. But the people refuse to listen to Samuel. No, they said, we want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us

and to go out before us and fight our battles. The people want to serve and worship what the nations have, and even seeing the consequences they want it. Because, well, the heart wants what the heart wants, and desire is contagious. You got to serve someone. And if it's not Jesus, it turns out, it's always a tyrant. So choose wisely. Turn to Jesus from your false kings and false saviors.

Seek your happiness in Him. Worship Him. If you got to serve someone, there's no one better.