Year 6, Day 296: 1 Chronicles 24

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Rhythm

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

In the last chapter, we heard David organize the Levites.  In this chapter, David is organizing the priests.  The priests were Levites, they were just the Levites who were descended from Aaron, Moses’ brother.  David doesn’t leave out these guys as he makes preparations for the temple.

What is neat about this chapter is that we hear David organize the priests into 24 sections, each section serving for a fourteen-day period.  We know that 14 times 24 is 336.  What this means is that one set of priests would work two shifts in the same year.  The grand effect of this means that the duty of the priests would gradually rotate throughout the whole year over their lifetime.  No priest would always have the special holy days.  No priest would never have the special holy days.

Where we can focus on rhythm, though, is in this rotation.  The priests would come and serve for a two-week period.  They would go about their lives the rest of the weeks of the year.  The priests would always come to Jerusalem to serve after having a long time to rest and recuperate.  The priestly duty would never get old for them.

Our worship should never get old, either.  So often in this world we have the idea that we have to work every day, have giant moments of worship on a regular basis, and perpetually live on the spiritual mountaintop.  The reality is that just isn’t possible.  The priests – and people, for that record – had on big religious experience per year.  The rest of the year they went about their life, doing what was necessary, and abiding in the Lord.  They certainly didn’t ignore worship the rest of the year.  But they weren’t having the big mountaintop experience of Jerusalem, either.  They had a rhythm about their life and worship that allowed work to get done, rest to happen, and still appreciate the big moments of coming together with God.

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