February 11, 2023

Passage Read: 1 Chronicles 23-26
Meditation Verse: 23:4

Thought

David appointed the Levites to new duties, since they no longer had to transport the Tabernacle. Among those duties were to be judges, which I assume also meant teachers, since you can't judge people by laws they don't know about. It has been the responsibility of the priests to teach the Law, but they weren't doing such a great job of it, or else they lacked support from the civil leaders (city elders, previous judges, Saul) to execute punishment based on the Law. The people seemed at best to have an incomplete understanding of the requirements of God, so there was significant need for teaching, for judging and for carrying of punishment based on the Law.

Application

David did this near the end of his reign, his son Solomon apparently had an incomplete understanding of all God's Law, and for all his wisdom, he still fell into greater sin as he aged, led astray by the foreign wives he loved in violation of the Law. This effort by David was so important and needed, but it fell short. People still need to know what God desires and what He hates, and despite the number of churches and believers in our land, we are still so woefully ignorant. The proliferation of false teachers is no help, and since we know God so little, we wouldn't recognize a false teacher anyway. What can I do? I have responsibility to press on to know the Lord and teach faithfully what I can understand; opening eyes and hearts is God's work, which I need to plead for Him to do.