Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Seeing the Bigger Picture | The Writings | 1 Chronicles 21

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

How often do you take a step bag and look at the full picture of the Bible? What story is God telling? How do all the smaller stories fit together? In today's episode, Jeff studies 1 Chronicles 21 and discusses it's place in God's bigger story. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Chronicles 21

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Imagine that you're looking at a jagged piece of glass. It's misshaped, misplaced, and rough. Now, imagine yourself stepping back from that jagged piece of glass and seeing its place in a bigger picture. As you step back, you see that that misshaped, odd, rough, misplaced piece of glass is

actually one meaningful part of a vast stained glass mosaic that is far more beautiful than you could have imagined if you stayed zoomed in on that one piece in isolation. If you never step back to see its place in the masterpiece, you'll miss its intentionality, its purpose. Some parts of the Bible can be like that jagged piece of glass. Up close in isolation, they seem misshaped and misplaced and rough. They don't make sense. Yet when we zoom out and see their place in the bigger picture of the biblical story, we realize that they serve a purpose that lands in our lives today. First Chronicles 21 is like one of those pieces of glass. We're going to acknowledge some of the jagged edges of this chapter, yet we'll also zoom out and see how this portion of First Chronicles is intentionally placed for God's people.

Now let me just acknowledge out of the gate, I really want to cover every aspect of this chapter, but then this would become a one-hour Bible talk, and nobody wants that. So since we can't cover all of this chapter, I want to explore three ways that we can step back from this narrative, see how it's connected to the bigger picture of God's kingdom movement, and better understand it and appreciate it. With that in mind, I really recommend digging into this further with a friend or a family member with a study Bible at hand, there's so much for us to think about and so much to form us as God's people in this chapter. And frankly, this chapter reminds me why I love studying the Bible. It's so

rich, so cool. Before we dig into our passage, let's pray for God's presence to orient our hearts and minds. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life and breath. And thank you for your word. Jesus, help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in First Chronicles 21. As we read these words, let these words read us and restore us in Jesus' name. Amen. So out of the gate, First Chronicles 21 hits us with a jagged edge that needs to be addressed. First Chronicles says that Satan stood against Israel and drove David to take a census. But Second Samuel, the source that the chronicler would have referred to,

it says that the anger of the Lord drove David to take the census. So which is it? Is it God? Or is it God's enemy? Now, there are two additional questions that most readers have here. We find out that David taking the census was a great sin. That's something we'll unpack in a bit. But we wonder if God is somehow complicit in causing David to sin. And if that wasn't perplexing enough, we need to wrestle with why there's a distinction between 2nd Samuel and 1st Chronicles in the first place. Is this a discrepancy in scripture that should cause us to question the trustworthiness of the Bible? Man, talk about a jagged edge. Let's keep going. Biblical scholars address the different persons acting in 1st Chronicles, Satan, and 2nd Samuel, the Lord,

by recognizing that both figures are involved in this historical, real moment in David's life, but they're involved in different ways. The Lord allows Satan to provoke David to sinfully take the sentence. Now, this aligns with two really big, really important theological truths. The first one is this. God is sovereign. Nothing happens outside of his sovereign rule as the king of the universe. The other truth is that God himself is not the source of sin or evil.

Other biblical passages back that claim up, including the Joseph narrative in Genesis 50, or the account of God allowing Satan to test Job. So within this perspective, both First Chronicles and Second Samuel are describing the same event, with Second Samuel focusing on God's sovereign will, and First Chronicles focusing on Satan's action. and provoking David. So how should we think about the fact that there are differences between First Chronicles 21 and Second Samuel 24?

When you zoom out, you can see that First Chronicles offers a distinct perspective on what happened in Second Samuel. But that distinctiveness doesn't make it a discrepancy. This is not the Bible being contradictory, but being complimentary, displaying the reality that what's happening here is about more than just David, sinful choice. God's enemy is also working behind the scenes. So First Chronicles is enriching our

perspective of what we read in Second Samuel. So here's the good news. We can still trust the Bible. And if anything, this actually, I think, increases our appreciation of how amazing and rich the biblical narrative is. The chronicler is sharing another layer of this important historical scene, highlighting actions in the spiritual realm that corresponded with David's sinful choices. So far, we've zoomed out and noticed how the apparent jagged edges and First Chronicles are really distinct details that provide emphasis. There's a serious spiritual battle happening around David's sin. But why is the sin here so egregious? This chapter doesn't tell us explicitly why that's the case. and that only heightens the stakes of the question because taking a census seems like it wouldn't be that big of a deal

we might feel the same way about this sin of David as we feel about the first rebellion in the Garden of Eden how can eating a piece of fruit be so bad what's so wrong with taking a census zooming out on this question actually shows us how the census of David and the fruit in the garden are closely related let's step back for a second time and make some connections. If we go back to the Pentateuch, we can get a clue as to why David's census is not a small misstep. In Exodus 30, right in the midst of God giving Israel instructions about the tabernacle and its

functions, God tells Moses how a census should be taken. He says this in Exodus 30, verses 11 through 13. The Lord said to Moses, when you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. So here's what we learned from Exodus. The census offering was a way of remembering that the source of Israel's strength was not in themselves or in their numbers, but in God himself. It prevents the consequence of a plague, and at a heart level it prevents the problem of pride. So when David takes the census in First Chronicles 21,

without collecting the offering as God commanded in Exodus. It's as if he's saying, I'm going to employ my own judgment, my own definition of right and wrong. I'm going to advance my kingdom, my way. This is like a replaying of the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve take the fruit and define good and evil on their own terms.

Both instances are an inversion of the trust in love. loyalty toward God that humanity was made to experience. And in addition to that, both First Chronicles and Genesis 3 portray the spiritual realm at play in sins corruption. In both moments, the adversary provokes God's covenant partners. So the point here is really clear. Neither the fruit nor the census are minor faux paws. Their acts of covenant betrayal. And so we read in first, Chronicles 21, that there is a pestilence on Israel, and God's judgment is carried out just as Exodus 30 said it would be. This second occasion to zoom out has escalated our sense of how sin has so horribly distorted the image of God. David is reenacting and continuing the same pattern of covenant rebellion

that played out in Eden. So as God's people are reading this and hearing this while they're living in exile, they are humbled and sobered and mourning the severity of their sin. And our response should be the same. We've seen how First Chronicles 21 is connected to the tabernacle in Exodus and the garden in Genesis. Yet there's another way that this chapter intersects with those important moments in the biblical story. This is the third and final move we'll make in stepping back from chapter 21 to see its connections to the bigger mosaic. In verses 16 and 17, David mourns his sin and takes on the guilt of his actions. This is a sign of real repentance that presses into the final portion of chapter 21, where God commands David to buy a threshing floor and build an altar on it. In verse 26,

David presents offerings on the altar and calls on the Lord, and then something astounding happens. the Lord answered him with fire from heaven upon the altar of burnt offering. Now, for an ancient Israelite, this is a huge, momentous occasion. Because the same thing happens in Leviticus 924, after those same offerings are made to atone for the sin of God's people and establish his communion with them at the tabernacle. So let's note this. There are biblical connections, hyperlinks to the tabernacle, both in Exodus and Leviticus, happening here in First Chronicles 21.

Why does this matter? Well, let's remember that the tabernacle is like a mini garden of Eden. It's the place where heaven and earth meet, where God's special presence is with His covenant people. It's the only way that they can keep going in his mission to bless the nations through them, because he is with them. This site where David makes these sacrifices is the same place where his son Solomon will build the temple. And after that temple is built and it's dedicated in 2 Chronicle 7-1, fire comes down from heaven again and the glory of the Lord fills the temple.

And the response of God's people in that moment in 2nd Chronicle 7 is so fitting as a fulfillment of this story with David. So after the temples completed, the people of God bow their heads and worship saying, For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. So the narrative of First Chronicles 21 has been ratcheting up the tension and severity of sin, making connections with the tabernacle in the Garden of Eden, and it ends with the place where the temple will be established, the place where God's steadfast love shows up for his people.

the place that ultimately points to Jesus, God with us. So when we zoom out, when we step back and see this chapter, we see that it really highlights the power of sin. Our sin is deadly serious and we should adopt the posture of David toward it. Confession, mourning, and repentance. Yet in addition to that, the fuller mosaic that we see in this story is the masterful presentation of God's steadfast love for his people. The Lord is absolutely relentless in keeping his covenant promises.

I mean, just imagine this as an Israelite, living in captivity, living in oppression and exile, hearing this story from First Chronicles 21. It's so clearly names the reality that things aren't the way they're supposed to be. Things are really bad. and yet it names the persistent truth that God isn't done. The adversary is not in control of the story. Our sin, as powerful as bad as it is, it does not drive the plot. From the garden to the tabernacle to the temple,

this narrative gives God's people a radical hope and the one who will never give up on his promise to make all things new in Jesus. We need to zoom out of this passage to step back to really see its meaningful and beautiful place in the biblical story. And at the same time, that movement of stepping back to see the whole mosaic, that's the kind of move that this passage creates not just as we examine the Bible, but as we examine our lives. It is so easy to zoom in on one moment or season of suffering, of prolonged doubt, of habitual sin, and let that jasmine.

experience define our identity, to let it define our status before God. But First Chronicles 21 helps us find our place and the bigger mosaic. When we're painfully aware of the reality that our lives and our world aren't the way they're meant to be, God's gracious presence is there. The misshaped, misplaced, and rough places of life don't sit in isolation. They are being arranged and redeemed by the Lord who loves us, who's with us, and who never gives up on us. From the garden to the new creation, this is his story and his glory.

Step back and see his masterpiece. His steadfast love endures forever. Amen.