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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 354 here on the Bible department. I'm super, super excited to jump into First Chronicles chapters 25 to 27. Really, really, really good reading today. Now, on the, like, front end, today's reading may feel a little like, are we back in the first nine chapters? Like, a lot of names, a lot of lists. It can feel like a genealogy. I promise you, there are no genealogies in this section, but it can feel like a genealogy, right? There's a lot of named and who their sons are and who their families are. Armies. There's another census. We're going to talk about that on the episode. So today's reading may not have felt the most fun, but my job on today's episode is to kind of bring it to life, okay? So that you can appreciate 1 Chronicles chapters 25, 26 and 27. So if you haven't done the reading, how about you go do the reading? I'm just going to give you a heads up. The reading is just a little. It's a little bit more difficult today than than yesterday or the days prior. However, incredible content, incredible nuggets. Even before I was doing research for today's episode, I just listened to it and read through it in my Bible and was highlighting things. A lot of verses jumped off the page to me. So I think the reading is gonna edify you, build you up spiritually. So make sure you get the reading done with no further ado. Let's jump into context clues and then nerdy nuggets and then our timeless truth for the day context is these three chapters focus on two things. Two T's, Double T. Okay? A preparation for the temple. Everything that we're gonna discuss today are preparations that King David is making for the temple. Remember, King David is not allowed to build the temple, but my man is gonna do everything but lay a brick down, okay? He is going to make extensive preparations for the temple and then preparations for transition. Okay? He is preparing for his Solomon to take over and build the temple. Okay? So again, massive temple focus because there's a massive priest focus, because this book is written by a priest named Ezra. So we get an actual time context, okay? Like a Historical context. Anchor in 1 Chronicles, chapter 26, verse 31. Okay, it says this of the Hebronites, Jerijah was chief of the Hebronites of whatever genealogy or father's house in the 40th year of David's reign. Search was made of men of great ability. Among them were found at Jazzar in Gilead. Okay, so that's the 40th year of David's reign. So that's a historical anchor point. Okay, the 40th year of David's reign. We know from kings that David ruled for 40 years. Okay, so his entire kingship lasts 40 years. So what we get in today's reading is all happening in the final year of David's life. What we do not know, of course, is when exactly the temple plan was first made. So we don't know that. Okay, so we don't know how long David's been preparing. But what we do know is that when David first starts preparing, Solomon is a boy. Like, the person who he's making these preparations for is young, inexperienced, and it's kind of communicated about as if they're a boy. And now, like, if we're in the last year of David's life, Solomon is months away probably from actually being the king over Israel. So there may be a slightly different context in terms of like, just time has moved on, but David is still doing the same thing. He's making preparations for the temple. So in terms of like, circumstances, same context. In terms of like exact date, slightly different context. Okay. And that's all the context. I think we need to dive into the nerdy nuggets for today. I'll try to break this up by chapter. So first chronicles, chapter 25 is all preparation for worship. Preparation for worship. I'll read some of the things that stood out to me from chapter 25. Okay. We can just actually start right up at the top. And I just want you to put this into context that David is a king over an entire country. And you know, as a leader in any area, whether you're the leader of a church or the leader of a nonprofit or the leader of a business, you know, it doesn't matter what you're leading. You have to dictate and decide what deserves my energy, because everything can't get my focus and attention. Okay? There are some things that I should delegate. There's some things that, you know, just cannot get a level of detail oriented attention from me as the leader. That doesn't mean that they're not important. It means that somebody else who's Competent needs to get placed there to, to provide oversight. So anytime the leader, especially of a country, of a nation is using their time, their focus, their attention, their know how, their expertise to give detail oriented like, like direction, we know that that thing has to be insanely important. Okay, so chapter 25, David, together with the commanders of the army. Okay, David. And the top command, these are the top leaders in the entire country. What do they think is important? Set apart some of the sons of Asaph. We've talked about Asaph before, especially when we were looking at the psalms, because there are several psalms written by this homie right here. Asaph, okay? We called him Asaph Rocky back when we were filming psalms. Okay? Asaph, Heman and Jedithan for the ministry of prophesying. Okay, I want you to circle that word prophesying for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres and cymbals. Here is the list of men who performed this service. Okay? So then we're going to get a list of men who actually did that. And then at the end of chapter, verse three, okay, six in all, under the supervision of their father Jedithan, who prophesied using the harp and thanking and praising the Lord. And then we get all the way down. God gave Heman 14 sons and three daughters. That's the end of verse five. A couple things that I want to highlight there. You can circle the word daughters, okay, because this is intentional. Our theology of women being in ministry does not just come from the New Testament, but we have an Old Testament example in a male dominated society. The ancient near east is a male dominated society. It says that Heman's 14 sons and 3 daughters. Next verse, verse 6. All these men were under the supervision of their father for the music of the temple of the Lord with cymbals, lyres and harps for the ministry at the House of God. Now there are some scholars who are going to debate and say no, only the men were doing the ministry. Okay? And there's some scholars. If you start at verse 5, all these were sons of Heman, the King Seer. They were given him through the promises of God to exalt him. God gave Heman 14 sons and three daughters. They're like, are we sure that these three daughters were not involved, like in leading worship or in the choir? So that's a split. Anytime scholarship is split, I always like to tell you, you know, I'm not trying to preach something or teach something. That's just my opinion. You know, I believe in women in ministry. Therefore I'm going to read it a certain way because of my lens. All right. Asaph, Jedithan and Heman were under the supervision of the King. So the worship leaders who are also prophesying and who are playing harp, lyre, cymbal, are under the direct supervision of the King, along with their relatives, all of them trained and skilled in music for the lord. They number 288. So we got 288 staff people just dedicated to music, creativity, vocals, like leading choirs and prophesying. Like, if you just want to know, what does David care about? He cares about this temple, and he cares about the temple being a place of joy, a place of worship, a place of song, a place of songwriting, a place of prophecy. We're in the middle of launching a church right now. And I always love to tell worship leaders, your job is not just to plan. Your job is to be prepared. There's a difference between planning and preparing. Planning and preparing are not the same thing. Okay? Planning means I've chosen some songs. You know, I know the songs that are on the set list. Prepared means I'm prepared to go spontaneous at any point. I am prepared to prophesy, I am prepared to exhort. I am prepared to do what the moment requires. I'm prepared to minister to the humans in this room. There are people who plan and they're so married to the plan that they forget that the goal of ministry is not to be planned, it's to be prepared. So when I'm, you know, traveling on the road or I'm at a church and I'm on the front row and I've got five minutes before I gotta preach and the Holy Spirit changes my sermon at that moment. It doesn't matter how much I've planned. I've already given the media team slides. We've already given the media team verses we've planned. But when the Holy Spirit changes the plan, the question are, are you prepared? And we had a worship night for our team last night. And I could watch our team, you know, my wife and another girl on our team, Amanda, and another guy who was singing with us, his name is Sterling. I watched them make game time decisions because they weren't just planned, they were prepared. And part of what helps you to be prepared, part of what helps you to flow spontaneously is realizing that the gift to lead worship is a prophetic ministry. So I want you to. I had you circle the word prophecy, okay? And I have these prophetic gifts. What is the Bible saying? Verse 1. Asaph, Heman and Jedithan for the ministry of prophesying, accompanied by harps, lyres, and cymbals. So wait a minute. Are they musicians or are they prophets? Yes, yes, yes. And if the worship leaders and the musicians don't understand that they are functioning prophetically, then they'll just sing the song like it is on the recording. And it's like, our job's not to sing the songs like it is on the recording. Our job is to minister to God's people, which means spontaneous worship is something that should be normal. Spontaneous worship should be. You know, there was a moment, literally just last night, we had a worship gathering just for our launch team. And I'm hearing, you know, Amanda, who's on our team, singing words that are nowhere to be found on a lyric sheet because she's ministering to the Lord, totally spontaneous from her heart. Because she wasn't just had a. She didn't just have a plan. She was prepared. And part of being prepared is making sure that your heart's in the right place. Part of being prepared. You know, I say this a lot, even with preaching. A guy on our team, his name is jp, he said to me, I've just never seen you worried or nervous before. You gotta speak. I said, yeah, because I prepare the minister, not the message. It's easy to write notes down on a piece of paper. What's hard is to make sure that, have I forgiven people in my life? Is there sin in my life? Do I need to repent of anything? Do I need to confess? I said to jp, good trees produce good fruit. Bad trees produce bad fruit. A sermon is fruit. Out of the abundance of my heart, my mouth speaks. My only job is to make sure that my heart is good, to make sure that my tree is good. If this tree is healthy, it'll produce good fruit. I don't have to worry about what I'm gonna say because I've done the work before. I ever get to the platform of preparing my soul, preparing my heart, preparing my mind. Lord, do I have clean hands? Do I have a pure heart? If I do that, then I can pretty much ensure that the things that come out of my mouth are gonna be anointed, they're gonna be godly, they're gonna be biblical because I'm prepared. Okay? And that whether it's spontaneous preaching or spontaneous singing, like, that's a prophetic function. And so we can see right here in 1 Chronicles 25, how deeply rooted prophetic ministry is in music ministry. These things go together. Leading worship, singing, playing instruments, these are prophetic ministries. All right, let's keep going. It's also important because as preachers, teachers, pastors, evangelists, and prophets, it's fivefold ministry gifts. We can all look at scripture and clearly see where our callings have originated. But these lists right here means that worship leaders in any role, be it leading singing, worship, leading, singing in a choir or playing an instrument, or writing worship songs, or even setting up the sound of practice being a part of the production, all can look to Chronicles to see the origin of your calling. And you can see how ancient a calling it is that 3,000 years ago, there were men and women doing the exact same thing that you do week in and week out at church, and how it has always been so closely connected to the presence of God on earth and how his worshipers ascend to his presence, ascend to the spirit of the living God. Within this list, we see another important detail. All these were sons of Heman, the King Seer, according to the promise of of God to exalt him. For God had given Heman 14 sons and three daughters. Okay? Heman's children, 14 sons, three daughters, who were all under his direction, playing music in the house of Yahweh. These were women as well as men in these choirs, in these musical bands. Okay? This is really, really important. Ancient Judaism was a different world than the rest of the ancient near east. And that women were involved, and they weren't just temple prostitutes like the rest of the ancient Near East. They were women set apart by God for. For ministry. And I know that's not gonna be every single Bible teacher's interpretation of this, but it's definitely mine. And I just wanna let you know, like, there are other scholars or people that are gonna interpret these passages differently. All right, let's go to chapter 26, 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 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. Not only does David prepare the temple for worship leaders, prophets, and musicians, but he's also going to prepare the temple for gatekeepers. Okay. And we are going to. I got to let you know what a gatekeeper even is, because maybe in our modern church world, you think that's like an usher or like the people who open the doors to the sanctuary. These. The. Chapter 26 is going to deal with the gatekeepers of the temple. This is a very important role that the Levites played. If you remember back to the Torah. All right. In the original camp in the wilderness, the Levites camped on all sides of the tabernacle. Okay. They functioned literally like a barrier between the people and the tabernacle. So the people were encamped, and then the Levites were encamped, and then the tabernacle was in the center. You had to come through the camps of the Levites and the priests if you were going to access the tabernacle. This control was very important, as Yahweh in the Tabernacle is where he lived in was holy. So only those who were holy or clean could have access to the tabernacle. And if anyone unclean entered it, then the best case scenario. Best case, okay, best case scenario. Would be that they would die. The worst case would be that the uncleanness would spread, causing more damage and even plague among the people. There were incidents in numbers, for example, when the Levites, this is Korah's rebellion, failed in their duty. And so the holiness of Yahweh broke out and many died in their uncleanness. In the camp, the Levites control protected the people. Without them, the people would never be safe in their natural uncleanness and even more so in sin, which is unnatural uncleanness. The Bible has two categories, natural uncleanness and unnatural uncleanness. I can't get into the details on that in this episode. I've probably covered it in the past, though. Natural uncleanness would be a woman on her period. That's natural. Unnatural uncleanness would be a woman on her period who failed to do what was necessary by the law to make herself clean after her period was over. Okay, so natural uncleanness, unnatural uncleanness. One is sin, one is not. Okay, next. But now that they were in the land they no longer need, they were no longer camped around the tabernacle, but still had that duty to protect the people by being a barrier between them. And Yahweh gatekeepers then are the Levites that control access to the tabernacle and soon to be temple. They protect the people by making sure that no one unclean can enter and that the holiness of Yahweh doesn't break out. So they control people coming in and stop Yahweh coming out in a way that would cause harm to the people. This role was arguably the Levites most important. And if you look at this list, you'll see the same names as many of the musicians acquires. For example, the sons of Asaph were famous musicians, singers, choir masters, songwriters. Asaph being the writer of many of the psalms. So worship leaders like having some form of like fame or celebrity. Not a new thing. Not a new thing at all. Okay. People liked Asaph's music more than other people's music. So this whole like movement in church to like, we can't have like Christian celebrity. It's like, ah, I hear you, but that argument's ridiculous. Anyway, anyway, anyway, I don't have time to go down that rabbit hole. Asaph being the writer of many of the psalms, but their main role was not just to lead worship, but to keep the gates of the tabernacle and the temple so that God's holiness didn't break out and kill people. One name sticks out and I love this nerdy nugget. It's Obed Edom. He was another gatekeeper. You can see his name here in verse 15 of chapter 26. Okay, you can see OB. Obed Edom's name, verse 15. The lot for the south gate fell to Obed Edom and the lot for the storehouse fell to his sons. Do you remember Obed Edom? He's most famous for this story in 1st Chronicles 13 where Uzzah goes to steady the Ark and dies. Okay, this is David's first attempt to bring the Ark to Jerusalem, which meant that he was a Levite. And so then they bring it to Obed Edom's house and you're kind of like, dang, they just brought the Ark of God to some random dude's house. Well, he's not really a random dude. He's a Levite. And it means that the Ark of the Covenant wasn't just put at the nearest house, but into the house of a leading Levite gatekeeper. So Obed Edom was just doing his job, controlling access to the presence of Yahweh. Uzzah's death had just reminded everyone how dangerous the holiness of Yahweh actually was. For people who are unclean, for people who are human and naturally unclean. And so the ark was given to a Levitical gatekeeper to protect the people from Yahweh's holiness, which was their job. Imagine being a worship leader whose testimony begins with, well, that time. Well, there was that one time that Yahweh lived in my spare bedroom. You know, like Obed Edom's house begins to flourish because God's presence is at his house. Okay? Chapter 26, verse 20 to 32. David prepares the rest of the officials. Who are these officials? These are gonna be people who guard the treasury, okay? And this is super, super, super important. I'll just read this from my notes. The final part of this chapter deals with two other groups of officials, the first being those in charge of the treasuries of the house of God. This, I think, has come up before. How? In ancient times, the most secure buildings, practically speaking, were temples. And they were always guarded, and people were unlikely to rob them, given that they were temples, unless you were a foreign conquering army. Because when Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem, he sure enough goes to the temple because he knows that there's going to be a treasury at the temple. So the treasury and reserves of nations were often kept in temples. This also had a theological aspect. Just think about what this says theologically, as you are basically saying to your God or to your deity, the treasure of the people is yours, or the God protects the wealth of the nation. Man, I love that. I love that. That also gives context to the Bible saying that your treasure is where your heart is, okay? And if God really is the center of the nation, then it would make sense for the treasury at the temple to be where we store the treasure of the nation. Chapter 27. We're overtime. And I gotta get to this last chapter. And this is that David preps the army. Now, this is totally different than the census, okay? The census that we were talking about a couple days ago made God angry. It was actually a lack of faith, and David saw the consequences of it. The army is now counted again. So the issue's not counting because the army literally gets counted again. But here, for a practical reason, in the handover of power, rather than David's pride or show or display of strength, you will notice that this is a different kind of counting, as each tribe has the same number of troops available. But then, if you notice, it mentions months. So what we have here are 12 tribes divided into 12 months, and each tribe had to provide the army to protect Israel. And in their assigned month. So one tribe gets January, one tribe gets February, one tribe gets March, one tribe gets April, on and on and on, divided into 12 months. And each tribe had to provide the army to protect Israel in their assigned month. Which means that the nation had a form of rotating standing army in addition to the mercenaries that were full time. Which is where this is different to what David was planning before. This is no great conquering, powerful army, but rather each tribe taking its turn to protect the others if needed. This was small. This was the army of Israel that was supposed to be. This is what Yahweh wanted the army to actually be like. Small, but loyal to Yahweh and caring about their neighboring tribes. It also had a practical effect that you had an army, but the manpower of the country was not affected too greatly. Only one month of the year would you lose your men of fighting age, which would have a massive impact on an agricultural society. This decision would have the least impact on agriculture because again, to make men serve in the Army 12 months out of the year as opposed to just one month when it's your tribe's turn, would mean that we don't have men to actually farm the land or to cultivate the land. Okay. Which. That's all the nerdy nuggets. Okay. I hope that helps these chapters come alive, which leads us into our timeless truth. And I got two, Number one, worship leaders are gatekeepers. That's right. You have gates, you have ear gates, you have eye gates. And what a worship leader does is they don't just help you to enter into the presence of the Lord, but good worship leader should also be helping you to guard what you put in your ears and that you see in your eyes for the remainder of the week. Two, planning is not preparation. That's not just true for Heman and Jedithan and Asaph and their children. That's true for you. That's true for me. If you are in ministry, there has to be a prophetic edge to what you do. Because like the famous prophet Mike Tyson said, everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the face. And your ability to go off script, your ability to be spontaneous, your ability to think on your feet, your ability to problem solve when issues arise and not just not have to have like, well, I gotta, I got any 20 minutes to figure that out? Nah, you gotta figure out right now there's a room full of people and you have a mic like, let's go. That ability, that's prophetic. And you develop prophetic gifts in private, you develop prophetic gifts in your secret place. You develop prophetic and a prophetic ability when you meet with God one on one. And so I don't just want you to go into ministry assignments planned. I want you to go into ministry assignments prepared. And that's not just relevant for the characters in the Bible. That's relevant for you and for me because of the timeless truth. Tomorrow we got day 355. It's our last day in the book of first chronicles. But first, second chronicles is really one book. We're gonna think about them as such. So tomorrow's our last day in First Chronicles. It's gonna be amazing. I hope to see you right here, same time, same place. Love you. Proud of you. See you 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 the Bible Department 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.