We can be thankful that the Bible is brutally honest about the people whose stories it tells. Because of this, we are able to see the power of God at work in the lives of very human people. What’s more, if this were not the case and instead the Bible whitewashed its personalities, we would begin to wonder whether it seriously addressed the very real brokenness and moral failures that can mark all our lives.
No question about it, the story of David and Bathsheba is an exceedingly human story. It easily qualifies as biblical soap opera. Alter it but slightly, and what it describes goes on all the time. When these circumstances are replayed in the life of a public official, we are apt to hear all the lurid details for days in the press. And when they are replayed in the life of a public religi…