Tag: 2 Samuel

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The House God Desires

Scripture Focus: 2 Samuel 7.12-14
I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands.

2 Corinthians 1.20
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.

Reflection: The House God Desires
By John Tillman

Building a “house” for God can be interpreted as an immature understanding of God. Through the prophet Isaiah, God says:

“Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
    Where will my resting place be?”

However, God often bears with our immaturity and limited understandings. God accepts the immature like children and leads toward growth and maturity those who will listen. He led immature slaves across the desert. He used imperfect and flawed leaders to guide an imperfect and flawed people. 

At the time of David’s request to build a house for the Lord, God is bearing with the immaturity of a nation that refused to be led by God and yearned for a king to be placed over them. Saul was a king in their own image. He was selfish, driven by anger and jealousy, unspiritual, untruthful, and ignorant of how to follow God.

Nathan’s prophecy in response to David’s proposal to build a “house for God” is multifaceted. It touches the immediate future and our future in eternity with Christ simultaneously. The son Nathan refers to is not only Solomon, but all the kings of Israel ending ultimately with the King of Kings, Christ himself. 

Despite Israel’s weakness, God chose to show his strength in them.
Despite rebellious immaturity, God chose to set over them (and us) a better king—one in his image.
Despite childish thoughts of God needing a house, God stooped to enter Solomon’s Temple.
Despite the sinfulness of David’s line of descendants, Christ lowered himself to be born the Son of David.

It is in Christ, Paul tells us, that all of God’s promises are, “Yes” and “Amen.” We, like Israel and David, are loved and used by God despite our immaturity and are called toward growth and development of greater faith.

The house we must build for God is in our own hearts.
We build it in hope, with humility and obedience, with repentance and faith.
He stands at the door and knocks.
When we make room for God in our hearts and lives, he will enter.
And when our lives are over, we will awake in the house of God.

For Christ, the true son of David, is building the house that God desires—a house with rooms for all his children. And he has prepared a place for us.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Truly, his salvation is very near to those who fear him, that his glory may dwell in our land. — Psalm 85.9

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 7 (Listen – 4:26)
2 Corinthians 1 (Listen – 3:52)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about Slavery to Maturity
Paul describes a liberated nation of Israel who gained political freedom, yet were morally and spiritually fragile.

Slavery to Maturity

Read more about Christ: Temple, River, and City
Just because God’s city and temple have only been seen by visionaries and prophets, doesn’t mean they aren’t real or accessible to us today.

Christ: Temple, River, and City
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Undignified Weeping and Dancing

Scripture Focus: 2 Samuel 6.21-22
I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.

“As long as you notice, and have to count the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance.” — C.S. Lewis

Reflection: Undignified Weeping and Dancing
By John Tillman

There are places in the Bible in which we see people rightly critique the worship practices of others. In our recent readings of 1 Corinthians, Paul critiqued the way the Corinthians exuberance and lack of discipline or order was harming church members rather than helping them.

But there are other, less pure and less nobly intended worship critiques. Two, which bear similarities to each other, are of the weeping of Hannah and the dancing of David.

Whenever we begin to feel our spirit desire to critique a fellow worshiper for their response to the presence of God, we need to pause and investigate our hearts, motives, and prejudices. Otherwise, we may follow in the path of Eli and in the path of Michal.

Hannah carried the weight of her grief to God’s presence and broke open her heart with shameless weeping. She was so physically incapacitated by her grief that Eli falsely accused her of drunkenness.

David was lifted by the wings of gratefulness and joy in God’s presence and broke into shameless, exuberant dancing. He was so physically swept up in celebration that Mical falsely accused him of lustfully showing off to attract the attention of younger women. 

David’s audience was not in the crowd of other worshipers. His joy was given to the Lord in humility.
Hannah was not drowning her sorrows in alcohol, but draining them into the palms of a waiting and loving God who heard her cries.

When we witness undignified worship, we would be wise to train our hearts to see and expect the best possible motives from others rather than the worst. 

Scripture tells us that Mical had no children following her condemnation of David. But it is silent as to the cause.

Scripture does tell us that Eli, after his initial error heard Hannah’s prayer and prayed for her. This made Eli able to take part in the fruit of this blessing as he trained and raised Hannah’s son, Samuel—a redemption for his failed effort to raise his own sons. 

May we not be barren critics of others’ exuberance or sorrow. May we, instead, learn from our prejudices how to pray with others.
May we be so undignified as to worship God, uncaring of what others might think.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. — Psalm 84.9

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 6 (Listen – 3:34)
1 Corinthians 16 (Listen – 2:54)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about Room For Hannah
At times, we do a better job of accepting the exuberant dancing of King David than the distraught expressions of Hannah.

Room For Hannah

Read more about Prayers of Woe and Weeping
If prayer is relationship then when God weeps, we should join. What friend would weep, whom we would not join in weeping?

Prayers of Woe and Weeping :: Guided Prayer
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Pie In The Sky and Strange Fruit

Scripture Focus: 1 Corinthians 15.19
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Reflection: Pie In The Sky and Strange Fruit
By John Tillman

The hope of the resurrection is not just for some far off “Day of the Lord.” It is also for the here and now.

The Corinthians struggled with false teachings regarding Heaven and resurrection. Prevailing Greek philosophy taught that bodies were evil and spirit was the ultimate existence. With this belief, bodily resurrection seemed like a punishment, rather than freedom. 

Confusion about the resurrection and about Heaven are nothing new. 

There have been times when those in power misused theology about the resurrection and Heaven. Preachers at times described Heaven as a pie-in-the-sky compensation for starving masses while they themselves sat with the powerful at supper, gorging on pie in the here and now. Some pastors partnered with the powerful, holding Heaven like a carrot in front of the mules, while cruel masters wielded a whip behind. 

This kind of pie-in-the-sky teaching relied on the same un-Christian philosophies about spirit and body that Paul worked to debunk. It told the oppressed that the suffering of their bodies was acceptable, even desirable so that their souls could be saved. This twists Paul’s words in order to theologically defend keeping people in bondage and ignoring cries for justice. 

Christ enters our sufferings with us. But our suffering is not salvific and our hope is not just for after this life.

It is by Christ’s stripes we are healed, not our own. It is by Christ’s lynching, being hung on a tree, that we are saved, not our own. Christ hung on the cross is “strange fruit” from which comes the seed of the gospel. 

Paul teaches us that the resurrection steals the sting of earthly death and suffering. Amen. All will ultimately be set right. Amen. Righteousness will flow like a mighty stream. Amen. The trees in the kingdom of God will bear fruit that heals the nation, redeeming the “strange fruit” of oppression and hate.

But the existence of ultimate justice does not allow us to ignore calls for justice now. In every community he visited and worked in, Paul encouraged the church to work for the good of their community and to spread the gospel. Nowhere did he counsel them to sit idly to wait on the heavenly city.

The power that raised Christ from the grave is available to us through the Holy Spirit. Seeking his guidance, may we act as representatives of God’s justice, and distribute the crop of healing for the nations.

*Strange Fruit – the story behind “The Song of the Century”, by The Salt Project and WFYI

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
For who is God, but the Lord? Who is the Rock, except our God: — Psalm 18.32

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 4-5 (Listen – 6:10)
1 Corinthians 15 (Listen – 8:06)

Thank You!
Thank you to our donors who support our readers by making it possible to continue The Park Forum devotionals. This year, The Park Forum audiences opened 200,000 free, and ad-free, devotional content. Follow this link to join our donors with a one-time or a monthly gift.

Read more about Chastened Towards Freedom
Christ will give an absolute and perfect restoration of all these things when Jesus comes. But in the present life, there is to be a substantial healing.

Chastened Towards Freedom

Read more about The Importance of Resurrection
If there is no resurrection, neither is there any God nor Providence, but all things are driven and borne along of themselves.

The Importance of Resurrection :: Throwback Thursday
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The Slavery of Plenty

Scripture: Galatians 4:6-7
Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Reflection: The Slavery of Plenty
By Jon Polk

Paul’s insinuation that we are slaves to forces outside ourselves is met with resistance by modern readers. We like to think of ourselves as independent beings in control of our own destinies.

We may acknowledge that those who live in countries around the world with oppressive political systems are in a form of bondage, as are those trapped by addictions to drugs or alcohol. But many who live comfortably, with good jobs, happy families and spacious homes, are reluctant to identify with the slave metaphor Paul uses to describe our fallen state.

However, although we may not recognize it, we are far too easily enslaved by our possessions, our comfortable way of life, or our status and authority.

Christians can find it difficult to resist the temptation to return to our old selfish ways. Paul is concerned for the Galatians because they “are turning back to those weak and miserable forces” (v. 9).

In his commentary on Galatians, Martin Luther acknowledges this difficulty, referring to our old nature as slaves to the Law.

If it thrusts its nose into the business of justification we must talk harshly to the Law to keep it in its place. The conscience ought not to be on speaking terms with the Law. The conscience ought to know only Christ. To say this is easy, but in times of trial, when the conscience writhes in the presence of God, it is not so easy to do.

The Holy Spirit living in us reminds us that we are daughters and sons of God through the sacrifice of Christ, who was sent by God to set us free. We are no longer slaves to our selfish nature or to the cultural forces of materialism and security that seek to draw our attention away from God. Luther encourages us,

If we could be fully persuaded that we are in the good grace of God, that our sins are forgiven, that we have the Spirit of Christ, that we are the beloved children of God, we would be ever so happy and grateful to God.

As we begin to grasp the depth of what God has done for us through Christ, we find ourselves on the road to freedom, discovering our true satisfaction in God alone.

A Request for Presence
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him. — Psalm 62:6

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 24 (Listen – 4:48)
Galatians 4 (Listen – 4:13)

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Love, Suffering, and the Struggle for Racial Equality

Scripture: Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Reflection: Love, Suffering, and the Struggle for Racial Equality
By John Tillman

Racism was not “solved” in the 60s during the civil rights era. As we read from Dr. Hayashida’s remarks from forty years ago, we see clearly the struggle was still ongoing in 1978, and we must acknowledge that it is still ongoing today.

I believe ethnic minority Christians need encouragement. For although they are Christians, the biting reality remains that they are still ethnic minorities, people who continue to contest for equality in all phases of American society….

Laws are changing. But laws and societal restructuring represent mere surface modifications. Many living in American society are experiencing no great transformation of racial attitudes. It’s easier to melt steel than it is to soften the rigid sinews of a warped heart. Because of slow-changing racial attitudes, then, I feel ethnic minority Christians must be encouraged to understand their spiritual identity in Christ Jesus.

Dr. Hayashida goes on to encourage minority Christians to study 1 Corinthians 13 and to embody the “suffering” verbs in the King James translation: suffereth, beareth, believeth, hopeth, and endureth.

It is this bountiful love of God that powers an individual to endure his hurts.

I’m not suggesting that Christians stand idly by while evil and injustice run rampant. But a Christian is asked to endure while actively working for justice, which I recognize is often slow in coming. We must suffer for Christ’s sake—a task for the strong, not the weak.

Racism must never be thought of by Christians as a problem solved by some previous era or some significant historical event. History has taught us that racism springs to life anew in each generation. In the current racial struggles that our world is facing, denial equals complicity.

When we work for racial equality we are not doing political work—we are doing God’s work. We must struggle and suffer together with God as we engage in his work of bringing freedom and equality to every people. As we do, God suffers and works with us.

The Bible reveals a God who shares in the travails of his people…I know of no other religion that makes such ado about a transcendent God who grieves for and with his people (the saints) and all people (non-believers, as Jesus weeping for the stiff-necked city of Jerusalem).

As God suffers for mankind, learn to share his sensitivities. God truly identifies in your sorrows. You are not alone. God is with you. May we be with him.

A Reading
…Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me. Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. — Matthew 10:38-39

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
2 Samuel 23 (Listen – 5:38)
Galatians 3 (Listen – 4:39)