Day 346: 1 Chronicles 1-3 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study & Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible Department podcast powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebaldapartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) - Family, welcome to day 346. We are in our final book of the Bible. That's right, chronicles, baby! It's our last book, that's right. You didn't hear me wrong, it's our last book of the Bible. That's because in the original Hebrew Bible, first and second chronicles are one book. And so of course, we're gonna look at them as two books, but in the same way that Luke and Acts are part one and part two of each other. In the same way that Samuel and Kings are not separated in the original Hebrew Bible, chronicles was not separated, okay? So we are in the final book of the Bible, first and second chronicles, which we are gonna affectionately refer to as chronicles. So I'm so excited. At this point, like, if you've been on a streak, you are probably gonna hit day 365, which means you have spent, or you're on the verge of spending a year in God's word, and I'm so, so, so, so proud of you. Now, I'll say this, I'll say this anything man, I say every day, if you have not read,

if you have not done the reading for today, then how about you stop the video, pause the audio, go get first chronicles one, two, and three read. Now here's the heads up, it's a genealogy, okay? And I know, I know, I know. I know most of us Westerners, we hate genealogies, but I'm gonna try my best to get you to appreciate this list of names, all right? And heads up the first nine chapters of chronicles. That's right, the first nine chapters are gonna all be genealogy, all right? And so our first three days of chronicles is really going to be, you know, focused on this genealogy that we have at the beginning of the book, which gets us immediately in the context clues, okay? There's a reason that chronicles get skipped. If you're a Christian, you know, there's certain books like some minor prophets and then books like chronicles that most of us skip, all right? And that's no shame, okay, no judgment zone. Most of us are gonna skip these books. And the reason is because in our English translations, chronicles is gonna come immediately after king. So in most of your Bibles, unless you have a Hebrew Bible, unless you have like a Tanakh running around here somewhere, all right, your Bible probably is gonna have first second Samuel, first second Kings, first second chronicles. And once you begin to start,

if you get through the genealogy, you then realize that a ton of the content that you just read in Samuel and Kings is here again in chronicles. And so it feels like a repeat. However, there's our big context clue for the day. It's not a repeat, like simple stuff. Like when chronicles talked about David, it is gonna completely omit the story of David murdering Uriah and taking Bathsheba to be his wife. It's going to omit a bunch of things that make David look bad, okay? So chronicles is gonna be very, very pro David. Whereas Samuel is going to actually tell you the truth about David, chronicles is gonna give you an angle on David that makes David what I would say David in the book of chronicles is gonna be the one who really like is even more so than Solomon is really responsible for building the temple. And that is because chronicles is written by our guy Ezra, okay? So if you've been rocking with us for the past couple of weeks, we've gone through Ezra, we've gone through Nehemiah, you know that Ezra is part of the process of God's people returning to Jerusalem after exile. So whereas Kings, Samuel and Kings has a perspective on historical moments that are going from the present linear into the future, Ezra has a perspective on these historical events that are also covered in Samuel and Kings, but it's looking back on the past.

So I'll read it for you. I'll kind of read it how it is in my notes. And this our big, big, big, big context clue for the day, okay? Ezra is writing his story, but he doesn't just tell Ezra is going to begin the story that he's telling with Zerubbabel's return and the rebuilding of the temple, okay? Because the temple is everything for Ezra. Then Ezra is going to tell his story. So he's going to tell the robo-able story, then he's going to tell his story. Then Ezra is going to tell Nehemiah's story, okay? So I want you to kind of track how Ezra's telling the story in his present time. He's going to couch his life in between Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, all right? And then Ezra tells their joint story, which ends with him teaching the people of the Torah and their history. It is in that context, the renewing of the festivals, the restoring of the temple, the organizing of the Levites, the choirs, the priests, the refocus on the Torah, the great reset that will lead the people into the second temple period, okay? Ezra is the leader ushering people into the second temple period. What was the first temple? Solomon's temple. What's the second temple? The temple that Jesus is going to actually walk in. And so when we think about the second temple period, when we think about the Judaism that Jesus actually engaged with, that is actually referred to as second temple Judaism, okay? It's an entire period of time, okay? It is then that he tells the people the story of the first temple. So first and second chronicles or chronicles is the story of how important the temple is, how important the line of David is, how important the Messiah is, how important the Davidic kingship is. And so if that's your point, then why would you include stories about Beth Chiba or David not being a good father or him killing Uriah? There's no need to have negative stories and chronicles. So for anyone who's kind of like, eh, I read Kings, I read Samuel, this stuff in chronicle seems like a repeat. It's not a repeat. First of all, it's not being told as if it's in the present marching towards the future. It's actually being told to a generation that is 600 years removed from the events being talked about. And we're looking back at

the past. And so what is Ezra's big point for writing chronicles? It's this, if we are going to steward this second temple well, then we need to learn how the first temple was lost. Okay, how can Ezra's generation and following in the generations that are going to follow? How can they learn from their mistakes that they made with the first temple and never lose the temple again? That's the point of chronicles, all right? Now, and like a good ancient, ancient Jewish book, that's going to start with a genealogy, all right? So let's get into our nerdy nuggets, okay? I want to help us to kind of wrap our minds around what is going on with these genealogies. Genealogies are about two things, okay? Number one, genealogies are about identity, identity. The second thing that genealogies are about are rights, okay? Genealogies are big on rights. Yes, it's their story, okay? But these lists or this list proves who they are and that the land, the city of Jerusalem, this temple, this priesthood, this covenant is theirs, okay? It's all right. It's funny because there's this church, maybe like 30 minutes away from, you know, where we're planting our church, the garden in Houston. And this church is like 158 or 159 years old. And this church was founded in the 1800s by former slaves, by people who had been formerly enslaved. And, you know, they built a church on two acres of land that they bought from the owner of the plantation. So they literally, the man who was a slave holding plantation owner sold two acres of his land, of his plantation, to these formerly enslaved people, they built a church. Well, guess what? 10 ancestors removed from those original freed enslaved people and the original plantation owner who sold in that property. By the way, they sold the property. They sold them two acres of land for $84. Well, today those acres that acre is worth almost over a million dollars per acre. And so the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson. Okay. The 10th ancestor removed has now sued this church. Okay. And because they've sold the whole plantation over the years, obviously no longer a plantation, they sold off the land to subdivisions and to developers and they built subdivisions all around it. And now this little church is a problem because we could sell this to acres and build more

homes on it. And the, it's funny, they literally went to court and it's like they are bringing a deed of sale from the 1800s to court. They're bringing court records to court like, like these are notarized papers from the 1800s. Why? Because genealogies don't just tell you a story, a genealogy tells you your rights. And of course, a judge here in Houston in the last couple of months just made a ruling that the church has rights to the acreage based on the deed that they signed in like 1860, whatever. So when you think about these genealogies, the genealogies that we have here in the book of chronicles is actually telling the people in Ezra's generation, the rights that they have to the land, the rights that they have to the building of the temple, their rights. This is not just about their identity or finding their story or couching their identity in the narrative. No, like this is a hundred percent connected to their rights. And honestly, I think that Christians can learn a lot from our Jewish brothers and sisters. Like because they're so connected to their history, they know their rights. And honestly, whether and I'm not trying to make a political statement, I promise you, whether you're pro-Israel or not pro-Israel, that's not my, that's not my place to dictate where you stand on the nation state of Israel. I don't care. Okay. That's just not what I'm here to do. I'm here to just teach the Bible. But I will say this, that Jews today, like Jewish people today, their whole argument for saying that they have a right to their land is based on genealogies like this in first chronicles. And so it is very, very, very powerful for a group of people to know, no, I know exactly who my father is. I know my grandfather is, I know my great-grandfather is, I know who my great-great-grandfather is.

I know who my tenth ancestor removed is. I know who my twentieth answer, like it doesn't just give me identity, it also gives me rights to begin to say, yeah, I know we haven't lived in this land for over a hundred years, but you know what, we, we believe we have the right to displace Palestinians because the covenant says that we have a right to this land. So if you just want to understand the psyche of what's even happening in Israel, it would be really, really important to understand why someone like Ezra would include super long genealogies in books like chronicles. And again, I'm not trying to get you to believe one thing or the other when it comes to current political issues. That's not my place, it's none of my business. My job is to give you nerdy facts so that you can understand the world around you, okay? And chronicles, when you read chronicles as a Western person and you just go, man, name after name after name after name after name after name, what you're really saying is you don't understand why these names are important. And these names don't just give people identity. These names give people the authority to fight for the rights that they have as Jewish people. All right, here we go, let me give you a couple more nerdy nuggets, okay? Chapter one of this genealogy is going to take you from Adam to Abraham, okay? Chapter two of this genealogy is going to focus on the tribe of Judah. Chapter three of this genealogy is all about the line of David to the rubble, all right? So you just kind of want to organize the genealogy. There's one, I'll say that again, chapter one is all about Adam to Abraham. Chapter two is going to focus on the tribe of Judah. And chapter three is going to be all about the line of David. Now, a couple more nuggets that I want to give you, and then we'll get into our timeless truth for the day. These genealogies are very important, and they're going to trace two specifically nieges. One, the line of the promised messianic king, okay?

The entirety of the Hebrew Bible, but for sure, Chronicles is to lead you and I and anyone to have a hope for the Messiah, okay? David is going to get set up as the ideal king, but really we're going to get down to the end of Chronicles and go, we need another king like David. Well, who's that king like David? That's right, the son of David, his name is Jesus. So the whole goal of Chronicles is to tear the messianic king, the son of David, and that's what the genealogies are doing. Number two, the descendants of Aaron, that's right, the priest, the priesthood. And that's the beautiful thing about Jesus, he's not just king, but he's also priest. And so these genealogies are going to focus on the kingly line from David, but also the priestly line from Aaron. If you want to know how Chronicles, first and second Chronicles, really map on to the books of Samuel and Kings, I'll give you this, okay? First Chronicles is going to be parallel in terms of the history that it covers to second Samuel, okay? So first Chronicles and second Samuel is covering the same story, the same narrative. Now, Chronicles is going to add things that second Samuel doesn't have, and Chronicles is going to omit things that second Samuel does have. So although they're covering the same story, which is AKA the life of David,

they are going to add things and omit things from one another. Second Chronicles then is going to cover the same period as both first and second Kings. But if you can remember when we studied first and second Kings, remember when we were in the first second Kings, we would look at the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the Southern Kingdom of Judah, north, south, north, south, north, south, there is going to be a focus on which one? That's right, the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Why? Because David is from the tribe of Judah, okay? And the Messiah will be the line of the tribe of Judah. And the temple is in Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is in Judah, okay? So Chronicles, where first and second Kings is going to focus on the Northern top of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, Chronicles is really, really, really going to emphasize what's happening in Judah, okay? All roads lead to Judah, all roads lead to Jerusalem. That's what the temple is, and that's where the rightful heir of the kingship is, not the Northern Kingdom of Israel, but the Southern Kingdom of Judah. All right, let's get into our timeless truth. Sambley, the weight is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally, today, I walked into a Barnes and Noble

and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So, you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble, or you can go to a books a million, or Amazon, or anywhere books are sold in grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life, I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. When we see this genealogy, most Westerners just see a list of names, but I actually want to propose that this is not just a list of names, but this is a great cloud of witnesses, that these are people that have gone before us. And we, Gentiles, have been grafted in to this lineage that really, when Paul says, who's the true Jew, that person who's circumcised outwardly, or the person who's been circumcised in their heart, I wanna let you know that until you, as a Christian, kind of begin to see like, no, no, no, the same way that this genealogy gives identity and rights to the Jewish people, as a believer,

it gives me spiritual identity and spiritual rights. I believe that I am the seed of Abraham. Come on, you remember, Sunday school, Father Abraham had many sons and many, I am one of them, and so are you. So we are connected to this story. We're connected to the story which gives us identity, but it also gives us rights. I don't just walk around believing that I'm not blessed. I believe I'm a blessed person, and I'm blessed not just because of who I am, but because of who my dad and grandfather and great-grandfather. And I know in the West, we tend to get identity from individual achievements. So like your job and your education, but in the Eastern world, your identity really does come from the family you come from, from the group. And I'm not saying one of those is good or bad, or right or wrong, you know, or good or evil. But I am saying is I actually think a healthy merge of both is really, really good. And you gotta see yourself as part of a bigger divine story. It's funny on Thanksgiving this past year, 2025, I ran a turkey trot. That's right, I ran a 10K for the first time. I did it in an hour and eight minutes. I'm pretty proud of myself actually. I would not consider myself a runner, but then I ran on Thanksgiving.

And the way that the turkey trot here in Houston works is that you literally just running straight down one long road and at the 3.2 mile mark, you just make a U-turn and run straight back the other way. It's just one long line down and a long line the other way. And so we were maybe at mile two, maybe one and a half running one way. And all of a sudden I start seeing people who are at the front of the line flying past me. At first I'm thinking to myself, they're running the wrong way. What are they doing? And then I realized, oh no, they are ahead of the line. Like I finished in an hour and eight minutes. These people are about to finish the entire race in like 30 minutes, like this is nuts. And you wanna know at first I began to see them and I was confused, maybe even discouraged. And then you wanna know what I realized? I started to get pumped up. So I began to realize, oh wow, you have been where I am right now. And you running past me means that you're ahead of me and you running past me means that what I'm doing is possible. And then I just began to see in the spirit that Abraham has gone before me. Oh man, that David has gone before me, that Moses has gone before me, that there have been Christians who have been martyred that have gone before me,

that John has gone before me, that Paul has gone before me, that Peter has gone before me, that I'm not the first person to take bold risks for God. I'm not the first person to try to do something crazy for God. I'm not the first person to experience any kind of social persecution for God. I'm not the first person to stand up for truth. No, no, no, no. I belong to a long lineage of spiritual ancestors who are fed to lions in the Colosseum. I belong to a long list of spiritual ancestors who have liked the freed slaves that were here in the 1800s got their freedom and got enough money to buy two acres of land to build God's church. I'm not doing something that's novel or new. Nope, I'm just building God's church. And guess what? I'm connected to a long line of people who have been building God's church. And you know what the enemy wants to tell you? You're by yourself. You're the first person who's ever done this. You're the first person who's ever broken generational curses. You're the first this, you're the first that. And you're not. You may be the first in your family, but actually you're connected to the family of God, which means you're not the first.

And if they've run the race, you can run the race. And as people started to fly past me, I started to run faster. I started to get excited because I began to see, you know what? These people who are running ahead of me have actually proven that there is nothing that's new under the sun. No temptation that has seized you, except that which is common to man. If they overcame, I can overcome. And that's not just true for Ezra. That's not just true for Nehemiah. That's not just true for David or any of the characters in the book of Chronicles. That's true for you. That's true for me. That's a timeless truth. I, family, tomorrow we got day 347. We're gonna be looking at first Chronicles chapters. Four, five and six. You know, I will tell you right now, I'm gonna give you a heads up. We got, you know, let's see, I'm gonna go to chapter four. We got more genealogy activity, but I hope that you can read these names and like be excited about the names that you're reading. Love you. So proud of you, especially if-

place. I'll see you right here. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebobaldapartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.