The Message Remix (125 page)

INTRODUCTION 01//02CHRONICLES

 

There is always more than one way to tell a story. The story of Israel’s kings is first narrated in the books of Samuel and Kings. Here is another telling of the same story, a hundred or so years later, by another voice and from another perspective: Chronicles.
Some of the earlier narrative is omitted and there are substantial additions but it is recognizably the same story. But Israel’s fortunes have changed considerably since the earlier authoritative writing (Genesis through Kings); God’s people are in danger of losing touch with what made them God’s people in the first place.
In retrospect, from the low point in their history in which they now find themselves, it looks very much like a succession of world powers; Assyria and Egypt, Babylon and Persia, have been calling all the shots. The People of Israel are swamped by alien influences; they are also, it seems, mired in internal religious pettiness; will they be obliterated?

A new writer (it may have been Ezra) took it in hand to tell the old and by now familiar story but with a new slant. His task was to recover and restore Israel’s confidence and obedience as God’s people. Remarkably—and improbably, considering the political and cultural conditions of the time—this writer insisted, with very little “hometown” support, on the core identity of Israel as a worshiping people in the Davidic tradition. And he did it all by writing the book you are about to read. Israel did not finally disappear into the ancient Near East melting pot of violence and sex and religion.

Names launch this story, hundreds and hundreds of names, lists of names, page after page of names,
personal
names. There is no true storytelling without names, and this immersion in names calls attention to the individual, the unique, the personal, which is inherent in all spirituality. Name lists (genealogies) occur in other places in Scripture (Genesis, Numbers, Matthew, Luke) but none as extravagantly copious as here. Holy history is not constructed from impersonal forces or abstract ideas; it is woven from names—persons, each one unique. Chronicles erects a solid defense against depersonalized religion.

And Chronicles provides a witness to the essential and primary place of accurate worship in human life. The narrative backbone of Chronicles is worship—the place of worship (the Jerusalem Temple), the ministers of worship (the priests and Levites), the musical components of worship (both vocal and instrumental), and the authoritative role of King David, the master of worship, who maintains faithfulness and integrity in worship.

In the way this story of Israel’s past is told, nothing takes precedence over worship in nurturing and protecting our identity as a people of God—not politics, not economics, not family life, not art. And nothing in the preparation for and conduct of worship is too small to be left to whim or chance—nothing in architecture, personnel, music, or theology.

Earlier threats to Israel’s identity and survival as a people of God frequently came in the form of hostile outsiders—Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Amalekites, and others; but in this assessment of what matters, right and faithful worship turns out to be what counts most of all. The people of God are not primarily a political entity or a military force or an economic power; they are a holy congregation diligent in worship. To lose touch with the Davidic (and Moses-based) life of worship is to disintegrate as a holy people. To be seduced by the popular pagan worship of the surrounding culture is to be obliterated as a holy people.

Not many readers of this text will find their names in the lists of names in this book. Few worshiping congregations will recognize architectural continuities between The Temple and their local church sanctuaries. Not many communities have access to a pool of Levites from which to recruit choirs and appoint leaders of worship. So, what’s left?

Well, worship is left—and names. Accurate worship, defined and fed by the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ. And personal names that add up to a people of God, a holy congregation. Christians have characteristically read and prayed themselves into Chronicles in order to stay alert to the irreducibly personal in all matters of faith and practice, and to maintain a critical awareness that the worship of God is the indispensable foundation for living whole and redeemed lives.

 

 

From:
His passion for the minutia of worship suggests that the author was a priest (perhaps Ezra). He made the harrowing journey from Babylon back to the rubble of Jerusalem with the dream of rebuilding its temple and worshiping God in the ancient ways.

 

To:
The Persians who now ruled the Middle East let a few thousand Jews return to their burned-out land to rebuild whatever they could. They could barely feed their families, and the Persians were still in charge, so if their identity depended on economic or political power, they were nothing. They could, however, build a modest temple and center their lives on worship of God and kinship with one another. The culture around them said heritage meant nothing—all that mattered was making a living now—but they clung to the conviction that they were part of a story that reached back into the past, lived in the present, and promised a future.

 

Re:
About 1000-586 B.C. Of the sixteen prophets who wrote books of the Bible, 1-2 Chronicles mentions Isaiah and Jeremiah.

In far away China, worship mirrored that society’s human relationships. The rulers of the Zhou Dynasty set up a feudal system in which families owed loyalty to nobles and nobles owed loyalty to the rulers. They banned human sacrifice and emphasized the worship of the sun and stars. Some of the popular gods from the previous dynasty remained as lesser gods, serving as the heaven-god’s feudal nobles.