The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Introduction to the Royal Kingdom (with Jeff Cavins) (2026)

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Welcome to the Royal Kingdom period! Jeff Cavins joins Fr. Mike to set the scene for this time period. They review the major players, and why the people of Israel asked for a king. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the great adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story. Today, we are once again joined by Jeff Kavins as we take our steps away from this last checkpoint we had, the first checkpoint, really, the messianic checkpoint of the Gospel of John. And now today we're taking that step into the royal kingdom.

that encompasses first and second Samuel, that encompasses the beginning of first kings, as well as the books of chronicles. And so I'm really excited to have Jeff here with us today as we take this next step in this next time period. I hope and pray that the Messianic checkpoint, those seven days we just experienced of the Gospel of John, was a massive blessing to you, that that sense of just being able to kind of pop your head up and say, okay, this is the fulfillment. Jesus is the fulfillment of everything that we've been hearing, everything, we've been reading everything. has been proclaimed to us. And now we're going back, back in time to 1st Samuel, 2nd Samuel, 1st Kings, and the books of Chronicles as we see, what's happened now that David unites

the tribes into one kingdom. So, Jeff, to orient us as we take these next steps, what do we need to know? Sure. Well, it's good to be with you once again. And thanks. It just told us what we need to know. Go. One, two, three. Well, you know, we're entering now, Father, a period, which on your Bible timeline chart is the purple period, and the purple stands for royalty, because we're going to make a major, major shift here. And that's one of the reasons we're doing this is we don't want people to get lost. We want them to know exactly where they are at. And as you mentioned, the narrative books are First and Second Samuel and Part of First Kings.

And in this period, as far as the big picture goes, we're going to see that Israel is going to ask for a king. talk about that. But they're going to ask for a king. And during this period, we're going to see three kings. We're going to see the first king, Saul. He's going to reign for roughly 40 years. And then David will be the second king, and he's going to reign for 40 years. And Solomon will be, his son, will be the third king. And he's going to reign for 40 years. And so we're going to be looking particularly at these three kings, but most importantly, David. And something has between God and David, namely a covenant, and that's going to give us some structure for the rest of the story. But I think it's really important, Father, for people to understand where we just

came from in the Green period, the conquest and judges. Yeah, definitely. You know, we have to ask ourselves, why would they want a king? You know, why would they want a king at this point? And if you remember, back in judges, we have that spiral where they go from sin to sin. servitude, to supplication, to salvation, and then silence, and then they continue it. And so in the book of judges, we see a ever spiraling out of control iniquity by the leaders of Israel. So in chapter 3 through 5, you have Athneal, Echad, and Deborah. They're pretty good. And then in chapters 6 through 9, we have Gideon. Not so good. Then chapters 10 through 12, we have bad, Jeff The, the very terrible story. And then we have in chapters 13 through 16, Samson,

it gets worse. And then chapters 17 and 18, Micah builds a private temple with his own priests and everything. And then chapters 19 through 21 of judges, it just gets plain ugly. Yeah. And it's at the end of this, after we have heard for four times in judges that Israel did not have a king and And everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Yeah, you know, it's so interesting because we did that, the intro to conquest and judges together and talked about, yeah, it's going to get bad. It's going to get dark. We talked about that cycle and that the devastation that people experienced and how

dark it would get. But I think a lot of people who have been journeying with us didn't realize until the last couple days that like, oh my gosh, yeah, you weren't kidding. And they might have actually even forgotten that we had kind of prepped and said, just, you know, heads up, warning. it gets horrible. I mean, it's absolutely devastating where God's people had fallen, how far they had fallen. And now that brings us to now. Yeah. So what we're doing now is we're going to pick up in First Samuel. And the very first thing that people are going to encounter

is that Samuel comes on the scene. He's a young boy. He grows up. And there is, in the background, a division in the country that is taking place because back in judges, a civil war really broke out. the tribes were against Benjamin because of what he did. And then we have Samuel being really the leader, or some would say the 13th judge. And the people come to Samuel in chapter 8 and they said, now appoint for us a king. They said this to Samuel, appoint for us a king to govern us like all other nations. And at that point, Samuel was very upset. It says that the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to govern us, and Samuel prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, no, listen, listen to their voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not

rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Now, I would have said, if I were God, I'd say, that's it, I'm done. I've tried, but God is saying, no, no, give them what they want, and they want a king like all the other nations. But there's a king, but there's, been some warnings about this. If, you know, way back when you were reading in Deuteronomy chapter 17, it actually said, and you read this, it said that when you come into the land, which the Lord your God gives you and you possess it, you're going to say, I want a king to rule over us. And he says that a king should not have many horses, a king should not have many wives,

and a king should not multiply silver and gold. And then when you read in 1st Samuel after they ask for a king, God gives them sort of a warning. Again, he says, well, if you want a king, I want you to know something. This is the way of a king. They're going to take your sons and appoint them to his chariots. They're going to take your daughters and your sons put them to work. They're going to take your fields. They're going to tax you.

And the people said, in Hebrew, bring it on. They said, whatever. Whatever. Sold. Whatever. We want a king. Yeah. And it doesn't matter.

Yeah, right. We want a king. And so they ended up with their first king who is Saul. And of all places, he is from the midst of the civil war. He is from the tribe of Benjamin. Yeah. And so he becomes the first king and he reigns for 40 years. Well, that's a remarkable too because of the fact that at the end of judges, what we heard was here's the horror of the tribe of Benjamin.

and that it was happening in the midst of the tribe of Benjamin in here. The first king is coming from that tribe. Now, when it comes to, you mentioned the three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon. I just need to say it. It's burning inside of me. Which one brought gold? Which one brought frankincense and which one brought mer? Is that those are the same king?

That's not the same three kings? Okay. Sorry, I just had to do it. I don't know. I just, it was there. Yeah, that kind of landed flat. Anyways. So, you know, it's remarkable that, that, even with that,

warning of here's what's going to happen. And then if we just see it, we see it play out in real time, not only with Saul, but also with David and with Solomon, even the highlight, you know, David being the prototype king for the Messiah. He even also has this tendency towards doing exactly what God said he didn't want to happen, but was going to happen. Right. Well, what happens, you know, is it looks like Saul is going to be the king. And you have to remember clear back in Genesis chapter 12. This seems like a long time ago now, doesn't it? Yeah. Where God promised three things. He said, he said, you're going to receive land. There's going to be a royal dynasty, and there's going to be worldwide blessing. Well, we're at the point now where they're in the land, first promise,

check, but now there's going to be a royal dynasty that it's going to be created. And it looks like it could be Saul, but it's not. Because Saul was disobedient a couple of times to the Lord, and it was literally ripped from him and given to this young David from Bethlehem. And the next key point in our reading here is going to be 2 Samuel chapter 7. Because 2 Samuel chapter 7 is where God is going to make a covenant with David. And David comes to the Lord and says, hey, you've been traveling around in this tent all this time. I want to make you a permanent, beautiful structure. And it's almost humorous how God says, did I say I wasn't doing okay in the tent?

Did I ask you to build this structure? And God says something interesting to David. He says, I'm going to make your name great, which is a way in Hebrew of saying, I'm starting a royal dynasty. And you know, Father, who ends up on that seat of David later on. Right, right. Jesus. Jesus. Yeah, sorry.

I always should fill it in. I was like, yeah, I do. Oh, we should say it out loud. Yeah, Solomon. No, wait, more to come after Solomon. You know, there is, with this royal kingdom, there's so much promise. And there is like, there is truly promise, as you mentioned, here's the three promises in that covenant with Abraham. And here's the fulfillment. Well, a partial fulfillment. Here's the land. Here's the beginning of this royal dynasty. And ultimately, again, through Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate Messiah, I know that we're mostly following First and Second Samuel and First Kings here. But also, would you mind just giving us a little taste or peek into Chronicles? And what, so here's what I mean is in Chronicles, I've been doing

some reading on this to kind of get brushed up on getting my lens right at that Chronicles written even after the Babylonian exile. And so Chronicles is pointing out, written by, you know, people say Ezra the scribe, that you would say, it's pointing out, here is David as the prototype Messiah or the prototype Anointed one we're waiting for to reestablish that kingdom as well as the role of temple worship because here is after

the Babylonian exile we need to recapture and remember our history and so yes we have first and second salmon we have kings but also here's Ezra saying okay let's go back and be reminded of the unfaithfulness and that could be us again

because that's why we were brought into exile in the first place and so here's recapitulation in some ways. I guess maybe my question would be two questions. One is, what's one way that people can read chronicles concurrently with Samuel and Kings and not be like, oh my gosh, this is the same story retold over again? And then secondly, what is, yeah, I guess the same question. What's a good way to approach what it seems redundant, but we know that it's not being redundant. It's telling us another layer of truth. Right. It's exactly right. And it's such a good question because it's something that we receive a lot, and that is, wait a minute, wait, whoa, whoa,

didn't we read this before? Yeah, you did, but it was a different version of it. Here's the easy way to remember it. You have first and second Samuel's and the first part of First Kings as the narrative of the United Kingdom. At the end of the United Kingdom, you're going to be taking readers through the divided kingdom. That's going to take place, that's the black period, where you're going to have a country called Israel to the north and Judah down in Jerusalem to the south. David will always be linked to the south in Jerusalem to Judah. So if you're going to read chronicles along with First and Second Samuel and Kings, you have to understand that it is a revisiting of history,

but it focuses on the southern kingdom of Judah, the kingdom that Jesus is going to be coming from. And the chronicler has a way of telling all of the really good stuff about, you know, David and the king. Because when you read first and second Samuel, you find the good and the bad about Saul, the good and the bad about David and the good and bad about Solomon. But Chronicles sticks to the south and gives you kind of another perspective, another camera shot at all that you're going through. in the south. Yeah, and so some of those elements in Samuel as well as beginning of First Kings that I do highlight the fact that even though these men are chosen by God, even though they are

anointed, they're not perfect. And we've seen that consistently. I mean, consistently, I mean, the whole story right now has demonstrated so consistently that a person can be anointed by God, they can be called by God, even the book of judges. Again, here is the Spirit of God upon Samson, who was not a good judge. Sorry, who was a good judge, it wasn't necessarily a good man. And yeah, is there any kind of thing

we can draw out from that when it comes to not just our own moral lives, but also be paying attention to that as an element of scripture, an element of God's story that we should be not forgetting, that we should remember.

Yeah. Well, I think that one thing our followers here in Bible in a year are realizing is that the Bible is not a candy-coated story. Yeah. It is telling it from every angle, the good, bad, and the ugly, and that is life. And if you took the United States right now in history,

and it's the greatest nation, some would argue in the history of the world, the richest, the most sophisticated, and so forth, well, we can tell you a lot of stories that are not so good. If you really want to know the whole history, and that's what you're getting when you look at the United Kingdom, you're seeing Saul for 40 years. And Saul's role was really to unite the tribes. and he actually did a good job. But he was disobedient twice, and God takes the kingdom, gives it to David, and David now is expanding the kingdom. He's a warrior, and he expands the kingdom, and God makes a covenant with him where they are one holy kingdom. They were a nation before that.

Now they are a kingdom made up of a larger, a bit of property and people. and then after that, Solomon is going to be the builder. So they all have different functions. We have a uniter in Saul. We have an expander in David with the covenant being made with David. A royal dynasty is established, meaning that someone from him, from his life, will be on the throne forever. And that means that Solomon is the next king.

One of Solomon's boys will be the next, the next, the next, the next, all the way to Jesus. And you can follow that in the genealogy. But every single one of these three kings had their downfalls, and Solomon perhaps was the worst. Because as he began his reign, what do we know Solomon for? We know him for his wisdom, yeah. You know, we have the, yeah, we have the Proverbs and the wisdom of Solomon and the Ecclesiastes and so many wonderful books that we're going to be going through.

But he disobeyed what was told earlier. that a king should not do. A king should not have many chariots, much gold and silver, and many wives. And all three of those things are related to foreign alliances. And what God is saying in this kingdom that is established is that the king of Israel should reflect how God rules and reigns. So you can read some of the Psalms here, and they are the kingly Psalms where God, is saying, this is the way a king should rule. Well, after David, Solomon takes the reins, and he is not ruling the way God would rule. And you can find all of this in First Kings chapter 10 and 11. We're going to see that the people have had it with Solomon, and they want some

reform. And they go to Solomon, they say, look, we've had it. This is not good. The 10 tribes to the North, they're going to say, this is not good for us at all. And we want to know, how are you going to rule? You know, they're going to say to Solomon's son, Rehoboam, are you going to rule like Solomon did? Because Solomon was a mean ruler at the end. And he had, you can read about this in First King's chapter 10 and chapter 11, says he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He had 1,400 chariots, and he had 666 talents of gold. All three things that a king should not do, he had all of them in spades.

And his wives, they turned his heart away from God into worshipping the gods of the Canaanites, the people in the land, bail and so forth. And the people had had it with him. And so that brings on the next period, the divided kingdom. And so as Solomon started out so well, he ended so bad. And that is going to lead to the next period where the kingdom is going to divide.

So in all three kings, you see the good, you see the bad and the consequences of it. You know, David, he was a great king. And probably we would consider him the prototype of a king until Jesus, who is called, interestingly enough, the son of David. Right? Yeah. But even David got into trouble with Bathsheba. And but, but here's the difference. Saul got into trouble and his heart was unrepentant. He basically said, okay, yeah, all right. The prophet called me on this. I did it. Let's not make a big deal out of it. No reason to put it on Facebook. Okay. And David, he got into trouble. And Nathan the prophet nailed him with a message in what was David's response?

Repentance. Exactly. Psalm 51. Yeah. Which is, by the way, a great. Psalm before you go to confession. Yeah, and after. And after. So many times. Yeah. Yeah. So you have, you have a tremendous display here of the struggle to rule and reign like God. And then eventually, Jesus is the one who completely does this. He is the king and the king of kings and the Lord, the Lord of Lords. Yeah. So it's an action-packed segment that you're going to be going through. and you just have to follow the narrative from Saul to David to Solomon. And then towards the end of it, right as you get to 1st Kings 10, 11, and 12, that's where you're going to see the next big change that you've got to get a hold of

if you're going to follow the narrative in the Bible. Yeah, it's so important, especially just recognizing that every one of these kings, the downfall in so many ways was disobedience, that here is Saul disobedient, He was David disobedient. Here was Solomon who's disobedient. And then we have Christ, right, who is fully made himself obedient. And by that was exalted, right, in that sense of that faithfulness and that faithful obedience to his father. Last thing, just kind of the last minute or two.

Jeff, what are some lenses or what some things we should be focusing on or paying attention to as we go through this next section on the royal kingdom? Sure. Well, I think one of the things, Father, that people can do is to be reminded once. again that all of the texts that they're going through right now, all of the books they're reading with you right now are Christocentric. And I would encourage people to continually read it and think about it through the lens of Jesus. And how would, you know, it's like that bracelet, you know, what would Jesus do? And to compare that constantly with Saul and David and Solomon. And then I think you will grow in appreciation for Jesus, the obedient son, and the king of kings. And you can get an

idea of how a king should not rule and how a king should rule. And I think you can translate that into everyday life, for example, how should you be a father today? How should you be a mother today who's a leader in your home? Or if you have a business, how do you conduct yourself as someone who is a leader and responsible for other people. And so we can learn so much from these three kings as far as what not to do and what to do, but I think also to keep track of those three things that were given in Genesis 12, the land, a royal dynasty, and a worldwide blessing. And God is showing you through these stories in First and Second Samuel and First Kings, he's showing you his heart. That's the second thing that I would encourage people to read with that lens that

God is showing you his fatherly heart and he is revealing his plan. And that plan will find its fulfillment in Jesus. But it's sort of like taking a vacation trip as a family. Everyone gets packed in the car. They're getting excited. They've got their books. They've got things to drink in the car. And they're just, oh, it's got to be so great. And they're going to go to that destination, whether it's Jellystone Park or Black Hills or the Grand Canyon. And everyone's in the car, ready to go. And three days later, they get there. But those three days were a little bit rocky.

I mean, they had some fights in the car. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. He took my book. They stopped. I need to stop at a gas stage. And they ended up getting there. But the journey there that they were so excited about did have its ups in town.

Yeah. Yeah. That's so, I mean, and that's the, I love as you even mentioned, not just that the journey, but also there's stuff in here about fatherhood. There's stuff in here about being a good parent. Again, here's the, here's the land, the dynasty, the worldwide blessing. But even the day to day decisions that these people had made, they affect ultimately the way the kingdom goes. They affect that blessing. They affect all these things. And we, I think sometimes we fail to see the ways in which some of like, oh, this is just my life. These are just my life. These are, my decisions, how those can affect God's ultimate efficacy in the world and the way that God wants to actually bless the people around us. Because as part of the church, we're part of that worldwide blessing that God wants to extend to the entire world through us and in us. And yeah, it's so good. Like you said, there are so many details that are not neat and are not clean, but are part of the story. And we're so grateful. I think some people have experience when they're growing up as like, okay, don't ask questions. When it comes to the Bible, when it comes to church, when it comes to God, we don't ask questions, and yet we want to encourage that because theology is faith-seeking

understanding, and we have to ask questions if we're going to seek understanding. So, so grateful for you. And also for this introduction to the royal kingdom, every single time we have this new time period, I know that every one of us who is joining the Bible in a year, we just are so blessed every time you walk alongside with us, Jeff, and so grateful. Well, it's a privilege to be with your father. You're doing a great job, and it's so fun to follow along with you and to hear the word of God And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So many people are being blessed. Yeah, so good.

And speaking of, we're praying for you all who are walking with us. And this is more than just a bunch of people listening to a podcast. This is a community of people who aren't just listening to God's word, but we're also praying with God's word. And we're praying for each other. So please keep that up. Keep praying for each other. I know you're praying for me and for Jeff.

We are praying for you. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.