David runs, and Pastor Adam argues it is the most competent thing he does in the whole account. He sends the ark back rather than use the presence of God as insurance, and answers betrayal with one sentence of prayer rather than a counter-plot.

Absalom stations himself at the gate, tells everyone with a complaint that their claim is valid and nobody is listening, then embraces them. Pastor Adam reads it against his father: one content as a shepherd boy, the other discontent as a king’s son.

Joab notices the king misses his son and engineers a reconciliation with a coached performance — pretend, act like, put words in her mouth. Pastor Adam builds on triangulation, and on manipulation that arrives with arguably good motives.

Two years pass and Absalom throws a party. Pastor Adam preaches on what anger does when given time and nothing else — that it cannot resolve itself, and that it is usually a secondary emotion sitting on top of something else.

The series works backwards into how the family got there, through the part most sermons skip. Pastor Adam names two failures — minimizing trauma, and the inability to communicate — then asks the room not to judge too fast, since David was a neglected son himself.

A series on Scripture’s most dysfunctional family opens at its end, with Absalom dead against David’s explicit order. Pastor Adam’s framing is blunt: an amazing son of God and a great king who was not great in regard to family.