Day 357: 2 Chronicles 5-8 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

We're a couple days away from the end of our reading plan, which means you're about to be a part of the 6% of Christians that have actually read the entire Bible cover to cover. So stay tuned until the very end of this episode to hear about something special that we have planned just for you. Bible nerds, let's dive in to today's episode. Hey, Emily, welcome to day 357 here on the Bible Department podcast. I'm pumped today. We are diving in a second chronicles, chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8, four simple chapters on the docket today. I hope that you've done the reading. If you have done the reading, you're going to understand everything I've got to say on today's episode. If you haven't done the reading, then this is my friendly, gentle invitation for you to stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done, and then come back. I've got context clues. I've got nerdy nuggets. And I've got a timeless truth just like every day. Can't believe we're already a day. 357 last book of the Bible. I'm pumped. Let's go. All right, context. We're actually going to look at second chronicles, chapter 5, verse 3. And I think it's really important. I think I've done a good job of reiterating at least every day, or maybe every other day, or every couple of days. Like, when we think about the context of this book, we can't think about its context in history.

We have to think about the context of who's writing it in their present scenario, OK? So Ezra, the priest, is writing this content. And so it's not-- it's a little bit like the Gospels, right? The events of the Gospels are happening in, let's say, 30 to 40 AD. But then the Gospels aren't being actually written like the Gospel of John isn't written until like 80 or 90, OK? So it's like 50 years have gone by since the events. And so even though John is using stories about Jesus, those stories about Jesus are designed to disciple John's audience, OK? So in every story that we find in the Gospels, we have to look at Jesus's audience, but also then John's audience, or Matthew's audience, Mark's audience. So there's an audience. Jesus has an audience of people who are these Pharisees, who are these Sadducees. So that's the historical audience. But then there's a present-day audience that the author has. And so the author is taking content and using that content to speak to their audience, OK? So we have to remember that in terms of the context clues, I know I keep bringing up Ezra, but Ezra has an audience, and he is molding, shaping, guiding source material so that that source material can speak to the relevant issues that his audience has. So we've got a big, big, big, big, big context clue, like a big glaring breadcrumb in 2 Chronicles 5 verse 3, OK? 2 Chronicles 5 verse 3. It is going to say, and I wonder if anybody saw it, OK? Before I say it, one of you saw this while you were doing the reading today, says this, 2 Chronicles 5 verse 3. And all the Israelites came together to the king at the time of the festival in the seventh month, OK?

In the time of the festival of the seventh month, all right? Let's go to Nehemiah chapter 8. If you go to Nehemiah chapter 8, what is happening, OK? I think we talked about this probably, I don't know, weeks ago at this point, Nehemiah chapter 8, we learned that the seventh month is really, really, really important, OK? So when the seventh month came and the Israelites has settled in their towns, all the people came together as one in the square before the Watergate. They told Ezra the teacher the law to bring out the book of the law, Moses, which the Lord had commanded for Israel, verse 2. So on the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all were able to understand. All right, so Ezra has an audience that needs to take the festivals of the seventh month, really seriously, because the big festival during the seventh month is a seven day festival called the festival or the Feast of Tabernacles. So what does Ezra make sure he includes in the book of Chronicles? That's right. Second Chronicles chapter 5, verse 3. The festival in the seventh month is the Feast of Tabernacles. And it is going to be the freaking best feast of Tabernacles like ever. I'll just read straight from my notes. If you recall from Nehemiah, Ezra reads the Torah to the people on the feast of tabernacles, where Ezra is deliberately connecting their new beginning, okay, the new beginning for his audience in Jerusalem after the exile with the temple and the tabernacle before it in history. He's connecting the present moment, his present context to the historical context. There was a continuity, is what Ezra's trying to communicate. There's a continuity between Moses's tabernacle, between Solomon's temple, and between this new temple that Zerubbabel has built. There's a continuity in these sanctuaries. These chapters then are the reason he reads on that month. These chapters are also probably one of the main reasons why chapter 7 is so associated with the temple or tabernacle, okay? Because the temple is dedicated on in the seventh month, okay?

So the number 7 is going to get associated with the temple, and remember from yesterday, the tent is going to get replaced, okay, by this house. So there's this link between tent and house, tent and house, tent and house. I personally read Genesis 1 as a temple text, okay? What we have in Genesis 1 is not just God creating the cosmos, but it's him creating the cosmos to function as a temple, okay? And Eden is the original temple, okay? So with that in mind, it's only fitting that the house that replaced you always tent should be commissioned in the feast that celebrated that tent in the time their ancestors camped around it, okay? makes total sense that when you replace a tent with a house, everyone should gather in tents and commemorate the fact that God used to be in a tent. Now he's going to be in a house, okay? This again is continuity. The tabernacle is the temple, and the temple is the tabernacle. There will be no more confusion, confusion between which tent is the real one. Because remember, there's been confusion. There's a tent in Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant in it, but there's a tabernacle out in Givian that doesn't have the Ark of the Covenant, and so what the text is actually doing is eliminating all this confusion. There's now a house, okay? There was a tent and now there's a house, and this also is a microcosm of the temple that is creation, and it's a new Eden. All these themes are coming together as one. Converge this house is the real tent. We have also mentioned before that all seven connections that flow out from these chapters, okay? So, all right, that's our context clue. Context clues, really. For the day, I've got a bunch of nerdy nuggets for you, and I don't have a ton of time on the clock. So, let's go. Chapter 5 verse 1. Chapter 5 verse 1 says this, "When all the work Solomon had done for the temple of the Lord was finished." That word finished. That should make you think of creation. That's right. Creation multiple times says that when the work that the Lord had done was finished or completed, okay, and what is Jesus going to say on the cross of Calvary? He's going to say it is finished, okay? So, there's continuity. Continuity from creation to the foundation of the temple, and the finished work of Calvary, okay, finished, finished. Chapter 8 verse 16 is actually going to bring that idea back. Okay? Chapter 8 verse 16 says this, "All Solomon's work was carried out from the day the foundation of the temple of the Lord was laid until its completion, so the temple of the Lord was finished." All right.

So, why do we get this emphasis on finished? First, the temple being built is one level of it being finished, but then the sacrifices that happened, and the fire that consumes those sacrifices is almost like the consummation of that work being finished. And this is where I'm going to introduce a theological thought. It's not the first time I've introduced this, but it's a difference in ontology, okay? Ontology. When do things actually begin? This is important, especially as we read books like Genesis, but now that you've had 357 days of Boba reading under your belt, this may be like a concept. It's easier to understand. Most Western people are so concerned with material ontology that they think that the creation of the world began when God created the matter, so the material. As long as it has material, that is what we mean by creation. Whereas in the ancient world, material ontology is not the primary way that people would understand that something that So, as long as Solomon has built the temple, but it is not functioning, or it's not doing what it was designed to do, then it is not in existence yet. Okay? It has not been built. It's been built, but it's not functioning. This is the difference between functional ontology, right? The function of something being its start versus material ontology. The materials being built being the start. The classic example that scholar John Walton uses in his books on Genesis, like the Lost World of his Lost World series, is imagine you build a college, you build a university. When is the school started? Is it when all the buildings are built, or is it when kids move into the dorms and classes actually start when students are actually matriculating, when classes are being taught, when professors are doing what professors are doing, like, is it, has it begun? If a school is sitting there, buildings built, but it's vacant, no functionality, has it been built? I mean, yes, in a technical sense, the construction's over, but its function hasn't started, okay? And so what we see in the temple is that the glory of the Lord doesn't feel it until the

first offerings are put on the altar, because the Bible is about to use the word function to describe functional ontology, which you shouldn't use the word to define the word. So the Bible operates from more of a functional ontology perspective than a material ontology perspective. Genesis is really, really helpful when trying to understand how do we as Christians who are intelligent, thoughtful, you know, educated people reconcile evolution and science with what we read in Genesis. And really, the big thing that I tell people is that Genesis chapter one, two, three, Genesis as a whole is more concerned with functional ontology than material ontology. What God is trying to communicate throughout the book of Genesis is what is the function of the things that I've made, because that actually gives us practical implications on how to live our lives, knowing that God has made everything doesn't tell us how to live in the world that he's made, but knowing the function for marriage, the function for sex, the function for money, the function for prayer, the function, knowing the function, that actually helps us to navigate life. And so a lot of times people will get distracted by carbon dating and moon dust and all these arguments to try to debunk evolution and really miss the whole point, because the point of creation is not material ontology, it's functional ontology. And the whole point of church planting isn't material ontology, it's functional ontology. The point of anything is not the material ontology, the functional ontology. I can make this into autonomous truth immediately. I said to my wife the day before we got married, this is 12 years ago, said no matter what goes wrong tomorrow, we're still walking away married, because my focus was more on the marriage than the wedding. I don't care if the DJ doesn't show up, I don't care if the cake is wrong. There's a lot of things that I don't really care about. Things that have to do with material ontology, we got married on such a such a date. I care about the functional ontology. We made covenant vows to each other and we have an entire life to dedicate to our marriage. I know a lot of people who care more about their wedding than their marriage, those people

and the divorced and the debt, because they spend a whole lot of money on a day instead of spending a lot of time and attention on a relationship. So spiritually, the same rules apply. I know a lot of people who get really worked up on all kinds of debates, but they don't have repair life, they don't operate in faith. They're deconstructing, but while they're deconstructing, they're also just like losing out on the functional reality of what it means to be an amazing relationship with God and with others. Okay. So there's multiple levels of finished and I want to bring to light this idea of material ontology versus functional ontology, and you see it right here in psychochronicles, that the fire doesn't come down and consume the burn offering until what until functional ontology. This is the beginning. Now the temple is up and running. puts offerings there, nothing has actually happened. All right, maybe some ordinary nuggets. I've talked about that long enough. Chapter seven says this is like the dopest feast ever, okay? What follows is the rest of the Feast of Tabernacles, but this was the greatest Feast of Tabernacles ever had, 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep are sacrificed. We're not told that these are burnt offerings. So we can assume that the meat from these animals were shared between Yahweh, the priests, the Levites and the people, okay? So this is a massive barbecue. This is incredible. So much where so many animals were sacrificed, 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep, okay, were sacrificed and shared. They had to consecrate a temporary altar, a secondary altar, because the bronze altar couldn't handle so many offerings.

I wonder if you saw that right there in the text, okay? This was a feast. This was a week-long barbecue, beef and lamb being roasted all week long. The people eating and celebrating together, sharing the seven-day feast with Yahweh to celebrate his new home. Talk about a homecoming. This is basically the greatest barbecue and homecoming party ever combined in history, and it's in Tabernacles. So it was also a camping holiday. This is amazing, man. Like literally, I wish I could teleport back in time and be a part of this. First of all, you had me a beef and you got me a lamb and you definitely got me a barbecue. You may have lost me with the camping, but I'm down. If God's involved, I'm in fire from heaven, falling down, consuming the offerings. This is amazing. This is absolutely incredible. I met and remember Ezra is giving a vision to his audience who celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles for the first time in a long time, and he's given them a vision of what the Feast of Tabernacles is actually supposed to be like. Don't skip, don't skip! Hey, if you are in the home stretch of reading your Bible, first of all, I'm so proud of you. Second, you probably know this, but you're my kind of people. I really enjoy hanging out with Bible nerds, so I've got exciting news for you, and it's called the 6% Club. For anyone that has finished their entire Bible in a calendar year, we have exclusive content, newsletters, giveaways, live events, oh yeah, live events, baby, and more all throughout the year. You can find out about all of that. If you go to the bibledepartment.com/club to officially join the 6% Club, why don't we

call it the 6% Club, because only 6% of Christians have actually read their entire Bible cover to cover. And every year, Bible nerds like you finish our Bible reading plan and we get asked, what's next? Well, we've got an answer, and you don't want to miss out. So head over to the bibledepartment.com/club or click the link in the description to get access. We'll see you in the club. Let's go! Chapter eight, there are some clues here that Solomon has kind of gotten off the beaten path. We got some slave labor. We also have, he's married to Pharaoh's daughter, but it's almost like in the same way that Bathsheba's not really talked about in Chronicles versus the account in Samuel. This stuff where Solomon is pretty much going to be condemned in books like Kings, the book is not thrown at him in the same way in Chronicles. Why? Because he prioritizes the temple. As far as Ezra's concerned, Ezra's kind of like, "Look, bro, as long as you do right by the temple, we're good." Like Ezra is just like, "I am focused," okay? Solomon may have some foreign wives, but as far as priests are concerned, they're a fan. The priests are a fan, okay? So we just have to remember that Chronicles is from the perspective of a priest. This leads us to our timeless truth. One of the things that I'm kind of shocked by is that Solomon, it's almost like he like admits. Like I know that the Lord can't be contained in this temple that I've built. Like not even the highest heavens can contain God. Like there's this acknowledgement that there's an omnipresent God that can't be controlled

or contained, or that definitely can't be housed in anything that human hands can build. But that is to stop him from still building a house for the Lord. So you have this tension. Like we know that God can't be housed, but we still create a house for him. And to be honest, our realities are no different. the church? Right? We're no different than Solomon. And I think that Solomon understands a couple of things. He understands that humans are humans and that although God is omnipresent, like people need a gathering place for the presence of Almighty God and building buildings is important. It's important because humans need a connection point. This can even be found in like the prophets where they'll say, like, we know that the blood of bulls and goats can't atone for sin. We know that, then why are we doing it? Because humans need it. Humans need it more than God needs it. Like, this is also like can be found in the tension of the conversation between David and Yahweh. David's like, I want to build your house. And God's like, I don't need a house. But then God's like, but your son could build me a house. It's like, I don't need it, but I understand that you need it. And since you need it, I'm down. I want to dwell with you and you need handles for this thing called my presence. And so let's make it accessible, right? When I give people handles as a pastor, I understand that like man carrying this stuff can be difficult. But if I put it in a bag with some handles, then carrying, it's easy. I could just say, hey, read your Bible every day.

Or we could give a podcast and give someone some handles. So there's this tension that you can feel. You can feel it in the text. You can feel it in the prophets when they're like, we know that the blood of bulls and goats don't atone for sin. You can feel it with David when David is like, I want to build your house. And God's just like, I don't need a house. You can fill it with Solomon. Solomon's like, the highest heavens can't contain God. He's like, here we are building him a house. And I think there's a tension there. Yes, we can meet God anywhere. Yes, the spirit is with us. We are temples of the Holy Spirit. We are a sanctuary regardless of the building, but we are still human, Solomon knew that David knew that. So we need our buildings, but as always, it's not about the buildings because it is the spirit that makes a sanctuary. And when the people who have got spirit gather together into a building and they consecrate themselves, and that building becomes holy, that building becomes consecrated. And so buildings are important. They're tools, but they in and of themselves are never the point. And if the building ever becomes an idol, if the building stops becoming a tool and actually becomes the object of worship and not a tool for worship, we've lost our way. And as my wife likes to say, it means we've lost the plot. That's not just true for Solomon or for David or for the prophets. That's true for you. It's true for me. I think it's timelessly true. As long as we worship in buildings, which is how we'll worship on this side of heaven.

That's our timeless truth for the day. That's our episode. I'm super, super excited to jump in tomorrow, day 358. We got 2 Chronicles 9, 10, 11, and 12, 4 chapters tomorrow. I'll see you right here. Same time, same place. Love you. Pride of you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible department podcast. Hey, we're almost there. I bet you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We're towards the end of the year and I'm so proud of you. If this episode and this year of reading through the Bible was helpful, how about you invite a friend to join you on the journey next year? To learn more about the show, head to the Bible department.com and to learn more about the 6% club, make sure you go to the Bible department.com/club. We'll see you right back here tomorrow.