THE LORD SPOKE (June 12)

Daily Reflections from Scripture:

Old Testament: I Chronicles 8-9

That the author of Chronicles was a priest in Jerusalem is nowhere more evident than in this chapter. Though the theory of priestly perspective has been over-worked and, in some cases, abused (e.g. "deuteronomistic history"), it goes a long way to explain some of the inclusions and exclusions we find in the Chronicles. Jewish tradition attributes the book to Ezra and this chapter contains one strong hint that the final form of the book did come in the fifth century B.C. (vs. 2 - "now the first to resettle on their own property in their own towns were some Israelites, priests, Levites and temple servants").

Notice the joyful return of the priests, Levites, and temple servants to their tasks in Jerusalem:

• I Chron. 9:11 - "in charge of the house of God"
• I Chron. 9:13 - "responsible for ministering in the house of God"
• I Chron. 9:19 - "gatekeepers...responsible for guarding the thresholds of the Tent just as their fathers had been responsible for guarding the entrance to the dwelling of God"
• I Chron. 9:26 - "entrusted with the responsibility for the rooms and treasuries in the house of God"
• I Chron. 9:28 - "in charge of the articles used in the temple service"
• I Chron. 9:29 - "assigned to take care of the furnishings and all the other articles of the sanctuary"
• I Chron. 9:30 - "took care of mixing the spices"
• I Chron. 9:31 - "entrusted with the responsibility for baking the offering bread"
• I Chron. 9:32 - "in charge of preparing for every Sabbath"
• I Chron. 9:33 - "musicians...responsible for the work day and night"

And all of these had been "assigned to their positions of trust by David and Samuel the seer" (vs. 22) over five hundred years before! Indeed, one of their number had much earlier written:

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may have her young - a place near your altar,
O Lord Almighty, my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you....
Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
Psalm 84:1-4, 10

Are you dwelling in the shadow of The Most High?


New Testament: Galatians 1

Paul is bull-dogmatic about the gospel of divine accomplishment vs. the gospel of human achievement. It was the opposite of what the Judaizers were pushing and he’d come out of just that mind-set. He says he was “extremely zealous” in that former pursuit. Tradition can do that to you!

The Judaizers were Jewish believers who taught that ceremonial practices of the Old Covenant were still binding. Worse, their teaching inevitably led to the substitution of legalistic works for faith-based justification. Rather than being “by grace, through faith” alone, salvation was conditioned upon keeping certain legal requirements, especially circumcision.

Paul, on the other hand, had broken with “the traditions of my fathers” (Gal. 1:14) - that religious system that had developed between the Old Testament and the New Testament. It had come about by generations of oral transmission of rabbinic teachings. By its very nature, it had grown increasingly complex and cumbersome. Paul had been steeped in that tradition at the feet of no less than Gamaliel (Acts 22:3).

That’s what makes his conversion so striking. Judaism is a tight system and its appeal to tradition is very attractive. Paul had advanced well and was set for a major position within Judaism. When God got a hold of him, his turn-around was absolute. He spent the next three years on the back-side of the desert (Gal. 1:17-18) retooling his theology to New Covenant thinking. When he did finally come out the other side, he was a powerhouse preacher of “justification by faith”, plus nothing. This letter to the Galatians and his magnum opus - the Epistle to the Romans - was the result.

He made the choice very clear - either you follow the ways of God or you follow the ways of men (Gal. 1:10). There are no other categories. The gospel came by direct revelation from God (Gal. 1:11-12) and was not something made up by man. Nor can man add anything to it for then it becomes “no gospel at all”.

We can be - yea, must be - bull-dogmatic about this point. Salvation is by grace, through faith alone. There is absolutely no other requirement and any attempt to do so nullifies God’s work.