as a man, you must be above your wife in these three things: age, knowledge and finances.
and as a woman, you must be above your husband in these four things: neatness, love, patience and planning.
and you both must be equal in these three things: understanding, tolerance and forgiveness.
A king consults a medium. A dead prophet appears. And the Bible never tells us how.
1 Samuel 28 is one of the eeriest chapters in Scripture.
King Saul is desperate. The Philistine army is camped at Shunem, and when he sees it, his heart trembles. He prays, but God is silent: “the LORD did not answer him, either by dreams, or by Urim, or by prophets” (v.6).
Samuel, the prophet who anointed him, is dead.
So Saul does the unthinkable. He had once expelled every medium from the land (v.3), obeying God’s law against consulting the dead (Deuteronomy 18:10–11). Now he disguises himself, slips out at night, and goes to a woman at Endor.
“Bring up Samuel for me.”
And then something happens that seems to shock even her:
“When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice.” (v.12)
She describes “an old man coming up, wrapped in a robe” (v.14). And Saul knows instantly. That robe. Years earlier, when Samuel turned to leave him, Saul grabbed the prophet’s robe, and it tore, and Samuel said: “The LORD has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day” (1 Samuel 15:27–28).
Now the same robe. The same prophet. The same message.
So did Samuel really come back?
Christians have answered in three ways:
1. It was really Samuel. God Himself intervened. The text calls him “Samuel” again and again, his words come true the very next day, and the medium’s terror suggests this was not what she expected to happen. This is the most common reading today, and an ancient Jewish one too.
2. It was a demon impersonating Samuel. Some early church writers held this view, unwilling to believe a medium could summon a saint.
3. It was a trick. The woman staged it, and Saul, in his panic, believed.
But notice what everyone agrees on: the Bible never approves of what Saul did. 1 Chronicles 10:13–14 says plainly that Saul died for his unfaithfulness, “because he consulted a medium, seeking guidance.”
And here’s the haunting part.
Saul went looking for a new word from beyond the grave. He got the old one. Samuel says nothing he hadn’t already said while he was alive. The kingdom was torn from you. You did not obey. Then the final line:
“Tomorrow you and your sons shall be with me.” (v.19)
The next day, Saul died on Mount Gilboa.
Jesus once told a story about a rich man who begged for someone to return from the dead to warn his brothers. The answer: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
A voice from the grave was never going to save Saul. He already had God’s word. He just didn’t want it.
But here’s the gospel in this dark chapter.
Someone has come back from the dead. Not summoned by a medium. Raised by God. And His last word isn’t the same as Samuel’s.
To Saul, the dead prophet said: “Tomorrow you will be with me” - in death.
To a dying thief on a cross, Jesus said: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).
Same words. Opposite ending.
You don’t need a voice from the grave. You need the One who walked out of it.
There are moments when words fail, and all you can do is worship through your tears. 😭❤️
Pastor Nath lifts “Wo Da So Ye Onyame” at NSPPD Prayer Conference in Ghana! 🇬🇭🔥🙌
#NSPPD#NSPPDGhana2026
I always say this is the same reason I hate it when peoples building are being demolished because of whatever reasons when the government literally gave them permit knowing the area is not profitable to build on in the first place.
The Headteacher of Sammo Senior High School has expressed displeasure over a first-year female student twerking on stage while an artiste was performing during the school’s Homecoming Artiste Night, describing the incident as misconduct that goes against the school’s values and child safeguarding standards.
[🎥: Sammo Senior High School]
Y’all will conclude without even knowing the situation! And yes! Her daughters come first! She is not obliged to dress the “maid” as her daughters. The entitlement some people get errr? Smh. I’m happy she is included in the family that’s enough!!
A LETTER TO MY SONS,
My dear sons, I want you to consider the possibility that the assignment of GOD upon your life may never make you famous. I also want you to consider that it may demand more from you than people will ever understand.
And after considering these things, I pray that you will still find sufficient reason to follow JESUS.
I also want you to Know That GOD does not owe you fame because you have agreed to serve HIM. You can be genuinely called, sincerely anointed, faithfully instructed, and yet never become the kind of minister whose name is mentioned in every gathering.
And there is nothing wrong with that.
Some of you are already troubled that nobody is inviting you to preach. You are worried that your contemporaries are becoming known while you are still labouring in places that appear insignificant.
You have begun to question your calling because the people who started after you now have larger platforms. But my sons, who told you that visibility was the evidence that GOD had sent a man?
Who told you that the progress of another man’s assignment was the standard by which yours should be measured? The LORD did not call you to compete with your brethren. HE called you to obey HIM.
And I fear that if you do not deal with this matter early, you may spend the better part of your ministerial life pursuing things that GOD never included in your assignment.
Listen to me carefully.
There are men who will spend thirty years faithfully shepherding a congregation of fifty people. They will bury the dead, comfort widows, raise disciples, defend the faith, and preach CHRIST with tears. Their names may never travel beyond the communities where GOD planted them.
And when they stand before the LORD, their labour will not be insignificant because the world never celebrated them. Do not despise such men.
Do not look upon their small congregations and conclude that they have wasted their lives. Some of the men you consider unsuccessful have preserved the testimony of JESUS in places where many of you would never agree to serve.
I want you to understand something about this calling.
The assignment is not an opportunity to become somebody. It is a summons to belong wholly to SOMEONE. And that SOMEONE is JESUS CHRIST.
If HE gives you a multitude, serve them faithfully. If HE entrusts a handful of souls to your care, do not punish those souls because you are disappointed with the size of your ministry. Do not turn the people of GOD into instruments for satisfying your personal ambitions. They are HIS sheep, not your evidence of success.
And please, do not allow social media to become the place where you receive your understanding of ministerial fruitfulness. A man can be trending and be spiritually empty. Another can be unknown to the public and yet be faithfully accomplishing the very work for which GOD sent him.
I am not against influence. I am not against growth. I am not against the LORD making a man’s ministry known. But I am against that ambition that makes a young minister feel that his life is being wasted because men have not started calling his name.
My sons, You must learn to serve where you are without constantly imagining where you ought to be.
You must learn to preach to twenty people with the same sincerity with which you would preach to twenty thousand.
Because if the souls before you are not precious enough to command your faithful labour, a larger congregation will not suddenly make you a faithful shepherd. And when the days of hardship come, as they sometimes will, do not immediately conclude that GOD has abandoned you.
Paul knew hunger. He knew imprisonment. He knew rejection. He knew what it meant to be misunderstood even by those for whom he had laboured.
Yet he could say: “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus.” Acts 20:24