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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey. Family. Welcome to Day 350. Can you believe it? We are trekking through First Chronicles. You probably enjoyed today's reading. I know I did. Chapters 13, 14, and 15. What a familiar story. You've probably heard this story in Samuel, maybe not in Chronicles. And so we're going to highlight some of the differences between Samuel and Chronicles. And if you haven't done today's reading, you probably don't even know what I'm talking about. So if you have not done the assigned reading for today, how about you stop this video, pause the audio, and go get 1 Chronicles chapters 13, 14, and 15 read? It took me probably 10 minutes. I mean, it was quick reading today. I always. I also have my audio Bible set to like two times speed. So anyway, it never takes me a super, super long time, but I think that you should get the reading done with no further ado. Like every day we're going to jump into some context clues, some nerdy nuggets, and then we're going to end the episode with a timeless truth. So let's dive into our context clues for the day. I got a lot of things to say. Also going to wrap up some loose ends from some of the previous days that we were on, but got a lot of things today. Number one, this event, David bringing up the ark of God in a twofold process. He tries to do it the first time on a cart. It fails. Okay, A man actually dies. We're going to talk about that a lot on today's episode. And then the ark just stays at a guy's house. Obed Edom, just literally in his house, is flourishing. And so. And then they go to get it again and they bring it to Jerusalem and they finally do it successfully. Okay? This event of the Ark, of the Covenant being brought into Jerusalem, you may not realize this, but like, this story's a big deal. So number one, Ezra is the one who's writing Chronicles. Okay. Ezra is also the one compiling the Psalms and the number one theme that is sang about, sung about sang, sung, I don't know, celebrated and sung, sung, saying no, I don't know which one it is. The. The main event that is sung about in the Psalms is This moment of bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. Okay, so Psalm 24, Psalm 30, Psalm 68, Psalm 95, Psalm 96, Psalm 105, Psalm 106 and Psalm 132 are all Psalms singing about and celebrating the ascension of the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. So this moment's a big deal. It's also just a big deal for a priest like Ezra because who is it that's managing the Temple, which is where the Ark of the Covenant is going to be? That's right, priests, you're also going to see in this story everything that we're going to read today, the centrality of the Levites, the reason, the number one reason that the Ark, that David fails in bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem the first time, the reason that someone dies is because Levites were not involved. So Ezra the Levite is writing this. And Ezra is emphasizing the importance of Levites, which makes sense because Ezra's a Levite. Okay. And so Ezra wants his audience, his generation, to understand the importance of Levites. So he's using a story from the past to explain just how important Levites are. Okay, another just. It's. This is kind of a nerdy nugget, but we'll say it as context, as a context clue. The end of Chronicles. So if you read the last chapter of Chronicles, which I think we did yesterday or the day before, the last chapter of chronicles and the first chapter of Ezra, 100% go together. Okay. It's, it's almost as if it's low key, copied and pasted. Okay, so the sec. The last chapter of Second Chronicles. Okay, so the end of Second Chronicles or the end of Chronicles and the beginning of Ezra are almost like a latchkey with each other. They are, they are a hitch and a trailer hook. Like they, they, they fit perfectly with each other, which is the main reason that most people believe. Yeah, Ezra's behind all this stuff. Okay. All right, next I want to look at some of the key differences as it pertains to this story found in Samuel versus here in Chronicles. So just kind of, kind of give us a 30 foot thousand view. Okay, so this story is found in Samuel chapters five and six. In Samuel chapters five and six, there are four key events. The first is that David defeats the Philistines. The second is the ark's journey, Uzzah dying as he reaches out and touches the Ark. And then Obed Edom's house. Then third, the ark enters Jerusalem. And then fourth, David dances and his wife Michal despises Him because of the dancing. That's the events as described in Samuel, chapters five and six. When we get to Chronicles, this does not start with David defeating the Philistines, okay? Big, big, big difference, okay? In Chronicles, David bringing the ark to Jerusalem is the very, very, very first thing he does. Let's actually go to Chronicles, chapter 13. Okay? So I want you to begin to just see, like, just subtle, like, what's going on. Chronicles, chapter 13, verse 3 says, Let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we did not inquire of it during the reign of Saul. Well, who was Saul inquiring of? He was using the witch of Endor, and he was using an occult source to inquire of Samuel. Not even God. Okay? So the thing in Chronicles that actually gets Saul killed is the very thing that David is good at. So there's a natural juxtaposition in Chronicles for. For a religious reason for Saul's death and a religious reason for David's exaltation. Okay? So it's the same event with a different interpretation. So because Saul's problem is that he doesn't inquire of the Lord, the very first thing David does is let's go get the ark so that we can inquire of God. And it says this, verse 4. The whole assembly agreed to this because it seemed right to all the people. I want you to focus on whole assembly and all the people. I think it was maybe yesterday or the day before. Can't remember where. I told you that. In Chronicles, as opposed to Samuel, there is no discrepancy between whether or not Judah accepts David as king or all of Israel accepts David as king. And so this language, like whole assembly, all Israel, okay, is really communicating. David is the unanimous decision because he's Yahweh's decision. And all the people are going to agree. Okay? So we immediately start with the ark's journey. Uzzah dies because he touches the cart. The ark now goes to Obed Edom's house. Then chapter 14, we get into David's family, and we get into David's defeat of the Philistines. Okay? So this is flipped in Samuel, David defeats the Philistines, and that's what prompts him to go get the ark. In Chronicles, he just wants to go get the ark, as if defeating the Philistines has nothing to do with it, even though it's the Philistines that had captured the ark. But that's a whole nother story for a whole nother time. Okay? Then David defeats the Philistines, verse 15. Oh, sorry, chapter 15. The ark enters Jerusalem. And guess what? We have a lot more of. A lot more worship. Because the thing that David is going to do is he's going to go get singers, he's going to go get choirs, he's going to. He's gonna go get Levites, and David is gonna make sure that this has a way bigger emphasis and focus on worship. And Chronicles is going to highlight the worship emphasis, okay? Whereas Samuel. That's not what is being highlighted in the book of Samuel. And then David dances and McCall has an issue with it. In Samuel, the story ends with the focus being on the tension between David and McCall because of the procession of the ark. Whereas in Chronicles, this is just a footnote at the end of the major focus being worshiped during the procession of the ark. Okay? So these are the subtle differences. And as Bible nerds, we care about the nerdy little details. We don't believe the devil's in the details. We believe God's in the details. All right? It is important to note that David's very, very, very, very, very first act as king is to immediately think of Yahweh, the true king. And so the very first thing that we're going to get in Chronicles is David gets installed as king. And what does he do? He goes and gets Israel's real king. Israel's real king is never going to be David. And this is what makes David a man after God's own heart, is that David, although he's king, never sees himself as the king. He sees Yahweh as king. And that right there, that is something that Saul did not do. And that is what makes David, David. And Chronicles is making a point. As long as David worships and exalts Yahweh as king, there are some of these other moral issues that don't even get talked about. And that may make some people feel uncomfortable. You may feel uncomfortable with the fact that Chronicles and Samuel or Chronicles and Kings have like, differences or discrepancies. And I get that. I think for me, I had to come to the realization that I can't bring my modern expectations to the Bible. Like, why? What makes me Right, Right, like that. It's kind of like generationally arrogant to just assume that. That because I was born at a certain time, that I have a certain definition of truth or fact, factuality. And really, if I'm going to respect the cultural norms. Family, the wait 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 and 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 going to 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 of the people who wrote the Bible that actually I. I have to submit what I think is correct to actually just what is reality? And anyway. All right, let me dive into some nerdy nuggets. Okay, let's Talk through chapters 13, 14, and 15. This is obviously David's first act as king, which sets a precedent for what kind of king he's going to be. Okay, verse eight of chapter 13, it says this. David and all the Israelites were celebrating with all their might before God with songs and harps, lyres and timbrels, cymbals and trumpets. Okay? They're celebrating with all their might. This is. This is passionate worship. Okay? And I want you to emphasize that word, passion. When they came to the threshing floor of Kadan, Uzzah reached out his hand to say to the ark. Because the oxen stumbled, the Lord's anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God. Okay, let's, like, unpack that. Because, like, like David, that may make you angry. What does it say right here in verse 11? Then David was angry. There's a lot of things that we can take out of this. Number one, passion without protocols is a problem. Let me say that again. Passion without proper protocols is a problem. Okay, so David's angry. But then David has to realize, I'm the problem. I'm mad at God. But really, I, as a leader, created an unsafe environment for people to worship. And one of the things I had to learn really early on in youth ministry is that we don't just create a physically safe environment or an emotionally safe environment. We create a spiritually safe environment. And what I mean by spiritually safe, you know, we had a pop up here in Houston a couple of months ago, and kind of a random guy that is not on our serve team who has not gone through any of our launch team training or anything, was just kind of walking around giving prophetic words to people. And, like, we stopped him from doing that and then apologized to some of the, you know, people that he had given prophetic words to. Because I don't care if you have the gift of prophecy. My job as a leader is to create a spiritually safe environment. And the issue is not whether or not you're a true prophet or not. The issue is we don't know you. And there are protocols in place to keep people safe. Safe. And so if you're a leader, I get it. David just wants everybody to experience the presence of God, and he's passionate. But you cannot have zeal without wisdom. You cannot have the Holy Spirit without order. Okay? Paul says in Corinthians, he's like, hey, hey, hey. You can't have multiple prophetic words. Hey, let's limit it to three. And you know what? If someone's going to speak in tongues publicly, someone needs to interpret. And God's a God of order, so I'm never gonna be the kind of person to, like, try to quench passion. Passion's great. And if protocols makes the passion go away, then you didn't really have passion. Because let me tell you the definition of passion. Passion is your willingness to suffer for something that you're excited about. That's what passion is. That's why we call that last week of Jesus life. Him going to the cross, him going to gethsemane, him experiencing excruciating pain, the passion of the Christ. Passion is not just found in how excited I am. It's how much pain am I willing to go through in order to actually experience the thing that I'm excited about. And so if protocols can quench passion, then you're not really that passionate about what you said you were passionate about in the first place. Protocols and systems and procedures and policies. That's not just bureaucracy that keeps everybody safe because they're dancing before the Lord with all their might. They're celebrating. They got harps, liars, timbrels, cymbals, trumpets. And a dude dies, Uzzah dies. And David is angry, which also means this. God can be trusted with your anger. Okay, anger. Anger in and of itself is not unhealthy. But what are you gonna do with that anger? And what does David do with that anger? He repents. He changes. He goes and he finds some Levites. Okay, and what does he say, we'll kind of Skip through chapter 14. We'll go straight to chapter 15. It says this. I'll start reading in verse 11. Then David summoned Zadok and Abiatha the priest, and Uriel and Isaiah. Isaiah, I think Joel, Shimea, Eliel, and Amminadab, the Levites. So he went and got some Levites again, Ezra, okay? Of course, Ezra believes that Levites are the solution. He goes and gets some Levites. He said to them, you are the heads of the Levitical families. You and your fellow Levites are to consecrate yourselves and bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place. I've prepared for it. It was because you, the Levites did not bring it up the first time that the Lord our God broke out in anger against us. We did not inquire of him. So again, inquiring of him is a big issue. Okay. We did not inquire of him about how to do it in the prescribed way. So, you know, earlier I said, passion without protocols is a problem. I could easily say it, passion without a prescription, like, doing it the prescribed way is also a problem. There's a prescribed way to do things, and that shouldn't quench the spirit. The spirit's not sensitive to protocols. Sometimes people are like, we shouldn't quench the spirit. And it's like, actually there were no protocols here. And the issue is not that the spirit got quenched. It was that the spirit broke out and killed somebody. So we should have some proper protocols. Now, why does someone die? Someone dies because an unclean, unholy person touching the holy presence of God equals death. Which should help us reframe why God even kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden. He kicks them out not because he hates them, not because he's cursed them, but because he knows if they remain in the garden, they will die. Because unholy people around a holy God with no sacrificial atoning intermediary is going to mean that. That holiness is going to absolutely kill the person. I'll say it this way. If you bleach your white clothes and you make a mistake and put colored clothes in there, the bleach doesn't hate the colored clothes. It's that bleach is gone. Bleach. Bleach is going to do what bleach do. So holiness is going to do what holiness does. And holiness destroys sin. Holiness always is going to destroy sin. Just so happens that that sin is living in a host, and that host is a human being. Okay, so the Lord doesn't hate Uzzah. The Lord has no issue with Uzzah as a person. It's just that the holy we, David, created an unsafe scenario for the holy presence of God. Chapter 14, verse 14. We're going to see David inquire of the Lord again. I know I said we were going to skip chapter 14, but I just want to go back just for a second. 14, 14. He's in the process of defeating the Philistines. And it says this. So David inquired of the Lord again, and God answered him. And God gave him pretty, like, specific instructions for how to defeat the enemies of Israel. All right, so big theme is David's ability to inquire of the Lord. It's a massive juxtaposition to Saul, who did not inquire of the Lord and was reliant on Samuel to inquire of the Lord for him, and then proceeded to use an occult witch to a medium to get the spirit of Samuel present because of his own inability to hear from God for himself. Okay, lots and lots and lots and lots of themes going here, going here in First Chronicles chapters 13, 14, and 15. What's our timeless truth for the day? You could probably guess. It's that passion and zeal are amazing, but order, systems, rules, protocols, procedures, make things safe. That is our timeless truth. That's not just true for David. That's not just true for these Levites. That's not just true for Obed, Edom, or Uzzah. That's not just true for Ezra. No, no, no. That's true for you. That's true for me. That passion and zeal are awesome tools. Part of the reason why I waited until I was as close to 40 as possible to plant a church is because I wanted if. If there was a matrix between wisdom and energy, I wanted to get at the exact cross point. You know, at 25, I had a lot of energy, just didn't have enough wisdom to plant a church. And guess what? At 65, I'm going to have so much wisdom, but I won't still have the energy. So 25 tons of energy, no wisdom. 65, a lot of wisdom, no energy. So I thought to myself, 40 will be the moment where I've got peak energy and peak wisdom. Let's plant this church. And so my advice to a lot of people would be, hey, if you've got more passion than you've got understanding, if you got more zeal than you have knowledge, man, you may want to not calm down. But you may want to be really intentional about getting some systems and some protocols and some procedures and some knowledge in addition to the energy and the zeal and the passion that you have. No need to bring the passion down. Just got to match that passion with the required amount of wisdom. All right, tomorrow we've got day 351. We're going to be looking at first chronicles chapters 16, 17 and 18. I'm super, super excited to be trekking through Chronicles together. Love you guys. I'm proud of you, especially if you're on a streak. I'll see you right here tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.