Day 239

2 Chronicles 29:1-31:1, 2 Corinthians 1:12-22, Psalms 103:13-22

There is something that I have been meaning to point out for a while now, just one of those little things that we often skip over. The Bible is often seen as being very male centred, the culture at the time was quite like that so men appear a lot more than women. We have taken a brief look at this on a number of issues but all the way through Kings and now through Chronicles, note that, as the king changes, the writer points out who the mother was. Women aren’t forgotten completely, they were very important to the compilers of these books.

Moving on to the temple, we saw yesterday that the doors were shut up and today they are reopened, a hugely significant event for Jerusalem and we see that in the worship and parties that follow. It took them sixteen days to clean the temple because previous kings had let it get so bad. Imagine a house that has not been cleaned for years, there is junk absolutely everywhere, every surface is covered with hundreds of layers of scum and the floor is black. Now imagine you have to clean it. The temple was horrid, but the king was fervent for the Lord, so it would be made clean so that worship could happen there again. And so the people made it happen.

Just before the cleaning started though, we get a message that is so often tied to the New Testament. The Old Testament seems to be all about judgement and death but just check out what the king says – “consecrate yourselves”. He is talking to people, and about a place, that had once been consecrated but it had all gone a bit wrong. There is always a second chance, the people could get themselves clean in the eyes of the Lord and all would be well. Ok it went of the rails, but lets get this show back on the road (mixing the metaphors a little – but you get the point).

With Christ too there is always a second chance, we just need to reach out and take it.