A Tale of Three Kings: A Study in Brokenness (1980) is an allegorical novel by Gene Edwards (1932-2022), a pastor, church planter, and evangelist. Edwards was a prominent voice in the “house church” movement in American evangelicalism and promoted the contemplative Christian spirituality of earlier figures like Madame Guyon and Watchman Nee. He is the author of numerous books, both fiction and nonfiction, of which A Tale of Three Kings and The Divine Romance are the most prominent. A Tale of Three Kings was originally released in 1980 by Edwards’s own publishing enterprise, and it attained a wide readership after its 1992 republication by Tyndale House Publishers. The novel deals with the biblical stories of the early monarchy of Israel—King Saul, King David, and David’s son Absalom—and highlights themes of authority, submission, and suffering. While it retells the biblical story, it is also designed to be read as an allegory of leadership conflicts in modern church life. It suggests that the Christian God selects “broken” individuals as leaders: those who have suffered so much that they will be humble and obedient to His will. The argument is that struggle makes strong leaders.

This study guide uses the 1992 Tyndale edition.

Content Warning: The narrator of this novel assumes all leaders are male, speaking only about kings and not female leaders. The novel enforces a patriarchal view of society.

Plot Summary

A Tale of Three Kings is divided into two main parts. The first part addresses the authority dynamic between King Saul and the rising prominence of David, and the second focuses on David later in life, when he is king of Israel and his reign is threatened by a coup from his son Absalom. The protagonist of the story is David himself, and both Saul and Absalom are antagonists who serve as foils to offer a character contrast with David. With only rare exceptions, then, the focus of the narrative is exclusively on David, and Saul and Absalom do not appear except in those instances where their stories touch on David’s.

The novel’s main action begins with David, who serves as a young shepherd in the hills outside Bethlehem. The story follows David as he is anointed by the prophet Samuel and ends up serving in King Saul’s own household. Once there, however, Saul becomes suspicious of David and resents his promising potential for leadership. The older king tries to kill David by throwing spears at him, which David simply dodges, evading Saul’s hostility without striking back. The book’s narrator adopts the image of “throwing spears” as an analogy for the personal attacks that can happen amid leadership struggles in religious communities, and advises the reader to follow David’s example and refuse to throw spears back at the instigator.

The plot continues to follow the main points of the biblical narrative of David, describing how the rising young leader was forced to flee from Saul, even though he had offered no resistance. David lives as an exile, wandering from cave to cave in the wilderness, suffering alone. This period in his life has a formative influence on his character, as it breaks his pride and self-reliance, allowing God to use that brokenness to grow the virtues of humility and patience in his heart. Eventually, other exiles and misfits attach themselves to David and follow him around, but David does not rule over them with a self-important sense of authority, but rather leads them, out of his devoted sense of submission, to the will of God. David’s submission to God’s will extends even to passing up a clear chance to kill Saul and thus do away with his tormenter; David prefers to let God give him the throne at some other time, if indeed that is God’s will.

Part 2 of the novel returns to David after he has become king, and it details the problems that have emerged in the kingdom of Israel. The narrator reminds the reader that no kingdom is perfect, and even though David is a wise and just ruler, the kingdom’s problems are nonetheless pointed out by critics. One of those critics is David’s own son Absalom, who gathers attention to himself by lending a sympathetic ear to the troubles of Israel’s citizens—not criticizing David outright but planting subtle seeds of doubt and dissatisfaction in the hearts of those he talks to. As people grow to appreciate the attention that Absalom shows them, they come to admire his leadership capacities and imagine favorably an Israel in which he, rather than David, is king. Absalom, whose heart has aimed for the throne from the beginning, does not resist this popular groundswell of support. He eventually goes to Hebron, an important city in southern Israel, and has himself proclaimed king, making ready to march on Jerusalem and seize the throne.

While those events are occurring, the main action of Part 2 is focused on David and his advisors, as they share a sequence of dialogues about the developing situation. David consults with Joab and Abishai, two of his military leaders, and then with Zadok the high priest, and in each conversation he maintains his resolve to offer no resistance to Absalom’s rise. Unlike Saul and his behavior against David, the latter refuses to seek the demise of his challenger. Instead, he decides to leave the fate of Israel’s throne in God’s hands. Rather than defend the crown, David makes ready to leave Jerusalem and let Absalom take the capital, so that if it is God’s will that David remain king, it will depend on God’s action alone. In the novel’s allegorical application, this means that a pastor or spiritual leader ought not to treat their own authority as something to be protected at all costs but as a gift that God might give or take at the discretion of God’s own divine prerogative.