“And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds. He struck down two ariels of Moab. He also went down and struck down a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen. And he struck down an Egyptian, a handsome man. The Egyptian had a spear in his hand, but Benaiah went down to him with a staff and snatched the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with his own spear. These things did Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and won a name beside the three mighty men. He was renowned among the thirty, but he did not attain to the three. And David set him over his bodyguard” (2 Samuel 23:20-23). (ESV)
Benaiah was one of David’s mighty men. He was called valiant and esteemed worthy enough to be the captain of David’s bodyguard. We can assume that he is an important person because he is mentioned by name in the Bible. I did not know about Benaiah until about four months ago when I was talking to a friend and he felt like he needed to tell me to kill some lions. He told me about Benaiah and how Benaiah’s reputation is valiant because he was a doer of good deeds. There’s no explanation of his personality or attitude except that when he was supposed to do something, he did it without hesitation. There are no reasons for his deeds because the emphasis is on his active response. Benaiah killed a lion because that’s what needed to be done. Consider this a World-Wide-Web altar call: are there lions in your life that you need to kill? My friend had no idea what was going on my life right then, but God knew; he used my friend to get the message through because I obviously wasn’t listening to any other cues! An interesting cross reference about lions is found in the well-known passage about Satan.
1 Peter 5:8 “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
Got lions?
Karyn Pugh
Tennessee
Pray Together: Tomorrow begins the PreThanksgiving Week of Prayer for FWB Home Missions. Ask God to raise up a multitude of intercessors for this ministry.
