Week Sixteen Reading Assignment:
1 Chronicles 8 - 2 Chronicles 1

"When we speak of the canon of scripture, the word 'canon' has a simple meaning. It means the list of books contained in scripture, the list of books recognized as worthy to be included in the sacred writings of a worshiping community... 

"The word 'canon' has come into our language (through Latin) from the Greek word kanon.  In Greek it meant a rod, especially a straight rod used as a rule; from this usage comes the other meaning which the word commonly bears in English -- 'rule' or 'standard.'...

"Before the word 'canon' came to be used in the sense of 'list,' it was used in another sense by the church -- in the phrase 'the rule of faith' or 'the rule of truth.'...

"The 'canon' of scripture is understood to be the list of books which are acknowledged to be, in a unique sense, the rule of belief and practice."

(F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture)

This Week's Teaching Video: Time Lapse Monarchy

The video above endeavors to provide a brief and graphic depiction of the history we read in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.  

The era of the "united monarchy" is straightforward enough: three consecutive kings ruling over all twelve tribes of Israel -- Saul, David, and then Solomon.  After Solomon's son, Rehoboam, takes the throne, however, the nation divides into two kingdoms, and we find ourselves tracing two sets of kings at the same time.
The scrolling names of the kings of Israel and Judah is meant to reflect the length and coincidence of their reigns.  

Scholars debate the exact dates of certain kings, and the biblical record is not always entirely clear. Different resources might depict the years and reigns somewhat differently than what you will see here.  The dates employed in this video represent the chronology published by the American Bible Society in the Good News Bible (c) 1976.  

Good Book Review:
Back to the Future

The title song in the 1973 movie The Way We Were reflects on how we human being tend to remember times and loves gone by.  The song includes this candid line:  “What’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget.” 

Chronicles may read that way.  

Having just finished the books of Kings, we are freshly familiar with the B.C. history of God’s people.  But then the Chronicler repeats it.  He covers again the same material we just read. 

Yet he writes from a later date, and his memory seems sketchy.  It appears that he has forgotten “what’s too painful to remember.” 

The Chronicler does, indeed, focus on the brighter side of the history of God’s people.  He does not fabricate history, but he does seem to airbrush out of the history so many of the blemishes of its characters.  David’s treachery and Solomon’s apostasy, for example, go unreported, and Israel’s demise is largely ignored, along with the worst of Judah’s kings. 

Is the writer of Chronicles a dishonest and unreliable historian?  No, for he does not really aspire to be a historian.  He tells about the past, to be sure, but his real interest is in the future.

The Chronicler writes for a post-exilic audience that is looking forward.  God’s good future, you see, for His people doesn't resemble and reflect past sins, but rather glory and promise.  And so, in the past, this writer finds hope and a continuity of God’s will and providence for the people’s future.    
"Faith is the most important ingredient in Bible study. Someone said, 'If you don't believe, you won't understand.'"

(Augustine)

An Unexpected Star

It's easy to look back at any period of biblical history and identify the men and women who were the stars of the show.  We think of Abraham or Joseph; of Moses or Joshua.  The era of the Judges brings to mind Deborah, Gideon, and Samson.  Then we come to notables like Samuel and David.  And even the mostly troubled period of the divided monarchy has its stars: Asa, Jehoshaphat, Elijah, Elisha, Hezekiah, and Josiah among them.  

Now the Chronicler takes us back and invites us to review the earlier centuries of Old Testament history about which we had already read.  But as he retells the story, a new star emerges.  It is perhaps an unlikely leading character in the story inasmuch as it is not a person.  It is the Temple in Jerusalem.  

The Chronicler's contemporaries are a generation that seeks to reestablish life back in Judah and Jerusalem after the era of the Babylonian exile.  And a critical part of that process -- as we will see evidence of in the later books of Ezra, Haggai, and Zechariah -- is the Temple.  Solomon's Temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians.  The post-exilic Jews, therefore, needed to rebuild certain structures -- first, the physical structure of the Temple; then, the organizational structure of the priests and Levites with their roles and rituals; and, most importantly, the spiritual structure of the people of God.   
To that end, when the Chronicler recalls the story of Judah's earlier (pre-exilic) history, he is especially careful to track the Temple in that story.  The prepara-tions for it, the construction of it, and the organization of it are all recorded.  Also, the writer is attentive to what happens to the Temple -- both good and bad -- through the era of the divided monarchy.  And, in the end, even the very return of the Jews to their homeland after the exile is intimately tied to the Temple: "This is the command of Cyrus, Emperor of Persia.  The Lord, the God of heaven, has made me ruler over the whole world and has given me the responsibility of building a temple for him in Jerusalem in Judah.  Now, all of you who are God's people, go there, and may the Lord your God be with you" (the final verse of the Chronicles -- 2 Chronicles 36:23 TEV).   

Is My Name Written There
​(Part 2)

The early chapters of 1 Chronicles are devoted to names.  Hundreds of names. Most of them are unknown to us, many of them challenge our pronunciation, and we generally wonder why we have to read this sort of stuff.

The Books of 1 and 2 Chronicles were written by the post-exilic Jews.  These were folks who were returning to the land of Judah and the city of Jerusalem after decades of exile in Babylon.  But the land to which they return is not vacant.  Others have been living there.  And not all of those new neighbors are either family or friends.

Careful genealogical records were very important to those post-exilic Jews, for it was essential to be able to trace who was "one of us" and who was not.  Also, we remember that land, the priesthood, and the throne were all matters of lineage in ancient Israel.  Keeping careful genealogical records, you see, was no trivial hobby.  

As we read these names, therefore, we should recognize it as a privileged list. That's not to say that these people were either powerful or prosperous.  But to have your name listed was to belong. And that imagery is pertinent to us, for we are told of a "book of life" (e.g., Philippians 4:3; Revelation 20:15; see also Luke 10:20) in which our names are written or are not.  

In the late 1800s, Mary Kidder wrote a song about that book.  In the refrain she sang, "Is my name written there, on the page white and fair? In the book of Thy kingdom, is my name written there?"  The lists of names in Chronicles help us to anticipate the significance, the excite-ment, and the privilege of having our names in that book, and to be assured that we belong there!
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