Year 3, Day 296: 1 Chronicles 24

Organization of the Priests

In this relatively short chapter, we can hear about David organizing the priests into a schedule for serving in the temple.  We need to step back for a moment and think about this to understand why the services were set up like this.  Often we think about the priests and we think about the guy in charge – like a pastor in a church.  We wonder why a single temple would need so many priests!

The worship in the temple would be overseen by the high priest.  The assigned priests would rotate in an out of service underneath the watchfulness of the high priest.  To make an improper but reasonable analogy, this might be like the lay people serving underneath a parish pastor as they help out with worship week to week and month to month.  Therefore, each priest would come into Jerusalem to the temple and serve at some point during the year.  But they wouldn’t serve all of the time.

In fact, David organized them into 24 rotations.  That meant each rotation would serve for two weeks every year.  Since there are actually 365 day in the year instead 336 (24 x 14) it would actually mean that the priests would gradually serve the whole way around the calendar throughout their whole life.  So no priest would always get Passover, or the Feast of Booths, etc.  Each priest would get to serve in both normal times of the year as well as special festivals.

While this is certainly not the deepest of lessons and not the most theologically challenging of chapters, I think we can learn something.  First of all, it is good to serve in both the special events as well as in the normal events.  So often we desire to be wrapped up in the high holy days and serve God in the great moments of the church year.  But it is also good to serve in the normal moments, too.  In fact, most of life actually happens in the normal moments.

I think about the Christmas and Easter services in the churches where I have been.  Yes, I love the songs we always sing.  I love the tradition we always meet.  I love the nostalgia.  But honestly, I can’t remember the last time that I have truly been theologically moved in worship in those times.  Now I find myself theologically moved in the normal times hearing the lessons Christ gave to His disciples in their day-by-day living.  So often we long for the special sacred times; but as I write this I think there may actually be more value in serving during the mundane days of normal life, normal circumstances, and normal problems.

The second lesson that we can learn from this chapter is that it is good to share the responsibilities.  It is good to have time to serve and then time to be at rest.  It is good to have time to be responsible as well as time to have a break.  I believe David is wise in organizing the service of the priests into a rotation as he has done.

Again we can also learn a lesson that we spoke about yesterday.  David is doing this in advance of his death and the young Solomon taking over the kingdom.  David is making sure it gets accomplished out of his wisdom and not Solomon’s immaturity.  David is planning so that God can be honored and not forgotten among the desires of Solomon’s youth.  David shows great wisdom as he prepares to hand off his reign to his son.

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