An Old Testament KnoWhy relating to the reading assignment for Gospel Doctrine Lesson 21: “God Will Honor Those Who Honor Him” (1 Samuel 2-3; 8) (JBOTL21A)
Question: Within the short space of one chapter, the boy prophet Samuel speaks the phrase “Here am I” five times. Is there something more than meets the eye in his repeated reply?
Summary: Yes, when spoken in a spirit of meekness in response to a call from the Lord, it is not a simple assertion of availability but rather of humility and moral readiness. In this article, we will review a few instances of the phrase “Here am I” in scripture. With the these examples in mind, we will examine the story of Samuel’s call verse-by-verse — and its implications for our own responses to God’s invitations to serve. Modern photographs and descriptions of the ancient site of Shiloh, where the building housing the Tabernacle once stood, are included at the end of the article.
Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, Cognitive Science, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida. His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_M._Bradshaw; www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw).
Jeff serves as a vice president for The Interpreter Foundation and is on the Advisory Board for the Academy for Temple Studies. He has lectured at BYU Campus Education Week and the Sidney B. Sperry Symposium and has presented at FairMormon meetings in the United States, Germany, and France. His articles on temple studies and the ancient Near East have appeared in Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, Element: A Journal of Mormon Philosophy and Theology, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, Meridian Magazine, and BYU Studies. Jeff has written detailed commentaries on the book of Moses and Genesis 1-11 and on temple themes in the scriptures. For LDS-related publications, see www.TempleThemes.net.
Jeff was a missionary in France and Belgium from 1975–1977, and his family has returned twice to live in France: once from 1993–1994 as a Fulbright Scholar and a second time from 2005–2006 as an unexpected “sabbatical” in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. Jeff has served twice as a bishop and twice as a counselor in the stake presidency of the Pensacola Florida Stake. He and his wife, Kathleen, are the parents of four children and eleven grandchildren. In July 2016, they began two years of service in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa Mission.
