Today's Scripture Reading (October 3, 2022): 1 Chronicles 28
Back in my University days, I remember one of my sociology
classes. But what I remember was not the planned teaching point of the day but rather a lesson that
was likely unintended by my professor. The church that I had attended since childhood was going through
the process of constructing a new building. The old building was downtown in
what had become a rough area of the city. It was not unusual for the
homeless to show up looking for help, and prostitutes regularly tried to sell
their wares to the men who were attending the church or
some other meeting. Part of the problem was that this was essentially an upper or upper-middle-class church,
featuring many economically and politically powerful people in attendance. The
church no longer reflected the neighborhood where the church had been built in any way.
The mission field might have been ready for the harvest, but this church had no
inclination to be the workers needed for the harvest that now surrounded the building. And so, the pastor, with whom I was admittedly
often in conflict, had decided to move the church. He had chosen an upper-middle-class neighborhood
and had drawn up plans
for the new church. Now he was going through the procedure of getting
permission from the city to begin the construction.
Enter my sociology class. Apparently, my sociology professor was
a resident in the neighborhood where the church had proposed constructing their new building. He had seen
the plans, and he was
disgusted. The proposed
blueprints included large fountains and large monuments. My sociology
professor was not amused. The money that would be used to build what he
considered a largely ornamental church could have been used to change the lives
of people around the
church's current
location. The church could have struck a blow to poverty
and crime if it wanted to. But
instead, they decided to build
fountains and monuments. Making the blueprints even more absurd was the fact
that we lived in a northern town that would suffer under winter conditions for
almost half the year, times when the fountains would not even be able to function.
I sat quietly and listened. I didn't disagree with my professor, but I did not want to stand up in class and admit that this was my church. I would likely still be showing up if the building were constructed because that
would be where my friends were going. So, I sat for
the entire class and just listened to my professor's tirade about the social ills of my church.
We call the first Temple in Jerusalem Solomon's Temple, but it was really David's. David had dreamed of the Temple. He had planned its features, likely over and over again as
time passed. By the time David's life was ending, every inch
of the Temple had been painstakingly prearranged. On top of
the plans, he has found the location, paid for it, supplied the materials and
the supervisory staff, and even
organized for how the
Temple would be run. He did everything but build the Temple. And he had used his personal political capital so that Solomon
wouldn't have to
have any uncomfortable moments like the one in my sociology class. All Solomon had to do was build the Temple. And with all of the work that had already gone into the Temple, not
building the Temple would be a hard decision to make.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 29
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