Why David Is So Important Series

Part 1: Is David important?

Over the next few months, we’re going to have eight studies on David, the shepherd who became king. We could easily give David much more time than that – he’s such an important person in the Bible, but we can’t fit in more than eight studies between now and December when we start to think about Christmas.

As we work our way through these studies, we’ll look at different points in David’s life. We’ll look at David the anointed one and then the refugee. David the man of prayer. David the musician. David the warrior. David the king. David the judge. And finally, David, the religious leader.

But I don’t want to dive straight in. In this first study I want to say something about just HOW IMPORTANT David is in the Bible story and WHY he is so important. My goal is very limited! There won’t be a lot of immediate takeaways from this talk. But if, at the end of it, you have a sense of how important David is, and why he is so important, and as a result, you want to dig in and discover more about him, then that will be a great result.

I’m splitting today’s talk into two parts. In the first part I’m going to ask the question, is David important? In the second part, I’ll ask the question, why is he so important?

Is David important? Yes! One reason to believe he’s important is the amount the Bible contains about David. It’s a huge amount! The second half of 1 Samuel and the whole of 2 Samuel are about David. That’s 40 chapters. The second half of 1 Chronicles and a couple of chapters in 1 Kings are also about David. In all, about 61 chapters in the Old Testament are about David. For comparison, the four gospels, which are about Jesus, are 89 chapters. But in addition, David wrote about 75 of the psalms!

The Bible has more narrative about David than anyone except Jesus. Just because there’s a lot of material about someone doesn’t mean he’s important. But we believe that God inspired the Bible. God would certainly give more weight to subjects that are important. The sheer amount of material the Bible contains about David means that he MUST be important.

But there’s another reason to think that David is important.

Many years ago, when I was a student, I attended a church in London. I remember the minister there saying that to understand the Old Testament we should go to the New Testament. The New Testament helps us to understand the Old Testament. What does the New Testament have to say about Jesus? Does the New Testament think that David is important? It certainly does!

The very first verse in the New Testament, Matthew 1:1, mentions David: ‘This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham…’ [N.B., this is NIV, it has 'Jesus the Messiah.' The Greek is actually 'Jesus Christ'. But perhaps the NIV does well to use the word Messiah as it brings out the significance of what Matthew is saying.]

At the very start of his gospel, Matthew connects Jesus to David. Why? There was a time when God told David, ‘I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever’ [2 Samuel 7:12-13]. Who could this be, whose throne would last forever? For hundreds of years, Jews had been expecting God to send a Messiah, a Christ – and he would be someone in David’s line. As Matthew starts to introduce Jesus, the first thing he writes is ‘This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David.’ Matthew is saying, ‘Jesus is the one! He’s the Messiah, the son of David whom God promised, whom we’ve all been waiting for!’ This Jesus is ‘the divinely anointed Saviour, the fulfilment of prophecy and the rightful heir to the throne of David’ [Hendriksen].

Let’s go now to the end of the New Testament. Five verses from the end, we read this: ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star’ [Revelation 22:16]. This is Jesus speaking. These are Jesus’ very last words in the Bible! Now, in Jesus’ last words in the Bible, he says ‘I am the Root and the Offspring of David.’ This is important! In identifying who he is, Jesus is saying that he, God, had fulfilled what God had promised: to send a Messiah in the line of David.