As the ark of the LORD was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the LORD, she despised him in her heart. – 2 Samuel 6:16

Today's Scripture Reading (July 7, 2025): 2 Samuel 6

When I was much younger, I worked in the parts department of a car dealership. One day, one of the mechanics was installing a high-end sound system into one of the new cars. In that day, that meant a high-quality cassette deck, CDs hadn't been invented yet, with an elaborate equalizer system and good-quality speakers. The mechanic installing the system wanted to test the unit he had just installed, so he came up to the parts desk, wondering if there was a cassette lying around that he could use to test the unit. On that day, all I had with me was a cassette by the Christian rock band "Petra." So, I gave it to him, telling him it was a Christian Band. The mechanic responded that it was probably a good thing because he needed a little culture. It was perhaps the first and last time that I heard the words "Petra" and "culture" mentioned in the same sentence.

Somehow, Christianity has become, at least in some circles, synonymous with culture. I think the most disturbing place where this has happened is inside of the Christian Church itself. We have somehow started to believe that we are to be cultured and that there is a level of respectability in being a Christian. So, we run our lives with this expectation of respectability. It was the subject of a conversation I had with a church member several years ago. She was trying to make a case for the kind of service she thought the church should produce. She believed that because the church was labeled as a "First Church," the service needed to be based on hymns with piano and organ, as that was the kind of cultured service people expected at a "First Church." We needed a service where people wore their "Sunday Best" and spoke in hushed tones because that was what was expected.

That was also what Michal expected of her husband David, that he would be respectable, especially in front of the people. But David had a different idea. David believed that when he came into the presence of God, there was no difference between the king and the slave girl. They were both servants of the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And when David looked at himself in that light, there was no expectation of respectability; he was nothing more than a servant.

I believe that a church that is concerned with being respectable in the eyes of the world will always be as barren as Michal was because we, too, will be focussing on the wrong thing. Instead, we need to focus on God and worship Him with abandon, even if that borders on being undignified; we need to worship just as David did.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 15

See also 1 Chronicles 15:29