DAVID ALWAYS BEATS GOLIATH:

David had no armor of his own, and he felt awkward and uncomfortable in what the Israelite leader, Saul, offered him for the battle. He decided to face Goliath armed only with the slingshot he used to defend his sheep from wild beasts, confident that his skill and his pure faith in God would preserve him.

Those of lesser faith despaired. Their best hope was that it would be over quickly, at which point the Israelites would become slaves to the Philistines. But then a miracle happened. As Goliath approached his prey, the young man steadied himself, aimed his slingshot, and stunned the giant with a single stone to the forehead. The enormous warrior tumbled to the ground. David took Goliath's sword and cut off his head. The Israelites were victorious.

David went on to become a great king and to found a royal house that would eventually produce Jesus Christ. But his youthful contest with the giant has long stood as a parable for the remarkable power of combining faith in the divine with human ingenuity. David's sling was more than a primitive weapon; it was the crucial advantage that enabled the shepherd to win the day.

Throughout history, various kinds of metaphorical slings have enabled individuals and societies to rise like David above seemingly insurmountable difficulties and reach impressive heights of achievement. One of the more consequential of these was devised on a rocky outcropping on the Greek Peloponnesus some five hundred years after the famous confrontation between David and Goliath--albeit by a group of men who had little interest in either of them. What the Athenians invented on their citadel was a new political system of free, self-governing people. They called it demokratia.

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