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Editor’s Note: We continue our series of blogs for those who are reading the Bible with us cover-to-cover this year. Interspersed with our thoughts on our daily reading, we want to provide some tips about reading the Bible in general.
1 Chronicles: The Spiritual Life of David (about 40 years)
Remember that in this book we see the victories of King David. Missing are most of the failures we are more familiar with. Clearly the author intended for the reader to comprehend the cause-and-effect relationships between David’s spiritual lifestyle and his successes. We are breaking the book into six sections. Let’s look at section four today …
The Victories of David (1 Chronicles 18-20)
Be careful to note the implied causal link between David’s transference of the Ark of the Presence of the Lord to Jerusalem and his effectiveness against his enemies. Read these words with great import …
“After this David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Gath and its villages out of the hand of the Philistines. ” (1 Chronicles 18:1, ESV, Emphasis added)
It is clear that the Bible is making the connection between success and God’s presence in one’s life.
Also note the last paragraph in this section, 1 Chronicles 10:4-8. You will note that there are four giants here mentioned. Some have speculated that these four were standing with Goliath on the day of David’s infamous victory over the giant. If so, this would add new meaning to the fact that David picked up 5 smooth stones before he went on the attack so long ago (1 Samuel 17:40). While we cannot be certain of that, the Bible wants us to see that even the giants in our lives can be defeated when we are with God!
In this section we can see:
- The conquest of many peoples. (1 Chronicles 18-19)
- The conquest of great giants. (1 Chronicles 20)
A powerful lesson from this section of God’s Word Is: No matter how many or how powerful your enemies are, walking with God allows Him to shield you from harm and bring His favor to your life.
It is our hope that this background information helps a bit as you read on in the Bible.
For daily insights into the passage we are reading together each day, you can follow Dr. Smith on Twitter and on Facebook.
You can obtain more help from the FREE Bible reading schedule on our resource page. In His Image is a daily devotional that also follows our reading schedule and expresses the Biblical truth: “God Created You to Love You.” You can find this resource on the side bar of our website.
Check out Dr. Smith’s review of Larry Osborne’s book, Sticky Teams!
Sticky Teams is a must read for pastors and church leaders who want their board, staff and church to function well in the long-term. Larry Osborne is a veteran pastor who has enjoyed a long-term pastoral relationship with North Coast Church in Northern San Diego County.
Sticky Teams aims to shore up the foundation of a healthy team, “because even the clearest vision, greatest innovations, and most stellar programs won’t make much of an eternal difference if our ministry and leadership teams are mired in the deep weeds of disunity and conflicting agendas.”
You can read the whole review here.
