He said to me: ‘Solomon your son is the one who will build my house and my courts, for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. – 1 Chronicles 28:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (July 20, 2016): 1 Chronicle 28

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” The words belong to Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. As a master of words, he would probably know a lot about real communication. But more than that, I think that we experience on almost a daily basis exactly what Shaw was speaking about. Too often we seem convinced of communication that simply never happened. People are angry at words that were never spoken or bound to hold us to promises that were never made. Communication takes two willing participants and real communication almost never happens under pressure. Sometimes communication is nothing more than a mirage in the desert; it is something that we really want to see, but it just isn’t there.

There is a problem with David’s words here and it is this – the communication between God and David didn’t actually take place, at least, not in the way that David remembers it. I believe that David actually believes that this communication happened, but it is nothing more than a mirage. The actual words of God are found in 1 Samuel. God says this to David through the priest Nathan - When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, 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 (1 Samuel 6:12-14). There was no mention of Solomon, in fact, at the time of these words, Solomon hadn’t even been born. At the time of God’s words to David, David’s sin with Bathsheba was still something hidden by the waves of the future. Solomon was years away from being born. 

God could have mentioned Solomon and David would not have even known the name.

But there is a bigger problem. What David has misunderstood is that God means that the person to build the temple would be his son born in the next generation. But that is not what God had promised. And the last phrase is rather telling. Every indication was that the one that God had promised to raise up to build a temple for his name was not Solomon, it was Jesus. It is the importance of the genealogy that opens up Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus was the offspring of David who called God, Father, and who God called Son. It is his kingdom that would last forever.

No son of David has reigned in Jerusalem for more than 2500 years, yet Jesus still reigns. His kingdom has been established, and to that kingdom, there will be no end.     

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 29