There are two topics that people are generally told not to discuss in order to avoid arguments and undue bickering: Politics and Religion. Gene Edwards has in a short 98 pages crossed the Rubicon into both regions simultaneously, and let it be know that there may not be a book more appropriate for the modern American climate than the product of this venture, A Tale of Three Kings.
Saul is in your bloodstream, in the marrow of your bones. He makes up the very flesh and muscle of your heart. He is mixed into your soul. He inhabits the nuclei of your atoms. King Saul is one with you. You are King Saul!
The book is written as though it were an interactive play. The reader, sometimes taking a position on stage seeing through the eyes of one of the characters, sees a premise portrayed well-into the story that is simple enough and yet profound at the same time. There are three types of kings in this world and they are represented by their archetypes in the Bible: Saul, David, Absalom.
King Saul (of course our Sunday School teachers would expect us to recall) was the first chosen King of Israel upon their demand to have one. God sent Samuel to anoint him and make him king, and that he did. He was head and shoulders taller than everyone else, and he was a successful warrior king - much like David to come after him. However, Saul also had a huge flaw that Edwards points out in his Game of Thrones-esque language as he refers to Saul as "the Mad King".
Edwards takes great lengths to point out that it was not that Saul was a good king and became a mad king, but that he was a mad king that revealed his madness at the first sign of threat. There is no lack of time spent examining the fact that this is equally true of world leaders today - that their truest person is not revealed until they are given the total power that world leadership grants. Yet, Edwards would argue, it is not the power that corrupts them. They were corrupt before they ever got the power. The power is simply a revealing - a light on the darkest spot in their soul.
Does this mean that God chose a wicked vessel? Yes, says Edwards. But why? "God wanted a broken vessel." Usher in David. There is much time spent talking about the preparation of David in the fields as a shepherd, even humorously speaking of the origin of some psalms. One such occasion presents David killing the bear that attacked his flock before holding one of the lambs and whispering, "I am your shepherd, and God is mine." This broken vessel that David provided was only broken by the wicked King Saul. Therefore, God had chosen to raise up Saul in order to produce a David.
Then comes Edwards' most striking blow of "Act 1". He, like Nathan, points the finger at the last person we expected. He says to the reader, "You are King Saul." As Matt Chandler would echo years later, he shouts to the masses, "You're not David!" Edwards leaves no room for the vilification of our leaders without self-reflection on our own depravity.
Such men as Absalom can envision no problems in their own future kingdoms. Yet, what will Absalom do when people stop following him willingly?
Moving into the next part of David's life, we find his engagement with his son Absalom pictured. In this, the presuming-heir takes the throne before it is given, and effectively runs David out of his kingdom. The depiction here by Edwards enlightening and vivifying to a story that is often so overshadowed by incomplete assumptions. The depiction of David actively choosing to leave the throne because he recalls his engagement with Saul, and his depiction as doing everything he can not to become a "King like Saul" is so wonderful. This second half of the book is truly worth the cost of the whole.
There are wonderful notes that teach about socio-political movements, as well as church splits. One particular note talks about how that rebels are never content to go and achieve their utopian dreams elsewhere where they could freely begin and construct - they are only content to absorb or destroy what others have built. That was a very good point that speaks of an experienced mind.
More than anything, however, there is something very Biblical about this book. If there is any criticism of the book at all, it is that it lifts David to a point where he is more like Christ than we may expect him to have been. For example, he is perfectly willing (as all should be) to "be defeated, even killed" as opposed to "learn the ways of a Saul or the ways of an Absalom." His reasoning is superhuman; God-like; "The kingdom is not that valuable. Let him have it, if that be the Lord's will. I did not lift a finger to be made king. Nor shall I do so to preserve a kingdom. Even the kingdom of God! God put me here. It is not my responsibility to take, or keep, authority. Do you not realize, it may be his will for these things to take place? If he chooses, God can protect and keep the kingdom even now. After all, it is his kingdom. Perhaps in God's eyes I am no longer worthy to rule. Perhaps he is through with me. Perhaps it is his will for Absalom to rule. I honestly don't know. And if this is his will, I want it. God may be finished with me."
Quite honestly, nothing truer could be written without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - in my opinion.
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