Hello and welcome to Boxset Binge the Bible, the podcast from 7 Vineyard where we are listening

through the entire Bible. In a year, my name is Bern Lecky, joined by Owen Lynch.

Hello everyone. This week we have been engaging with a book called Chronicles. It is an historical

book. It has lots of details of stories that we've read before in other books and family

trees that we've seen before in other books. What have you thought, Owen, have you enjoyed going

through this? Yeah, yeah, it's actually quite refreshing actually. I quite like it. For me,

it seems like this is stuff we've read before in Samuel King's book or listened to before.

I might just say at this point this week I actually read it rather than listen to it.

Was there a reason why you were reading rather than listening? Sometimes I find it easy to read

and there was a lot of lists in this. Where do you listen, Bern? How do you do it? Because sometimes

it's a bit repetitive, isn't it? I decided I wanted to listen to the whole thing but I couldn't

just put myself in the room and not do anything. Actually, I never do to be honest. What I do,

what I do is I play full guys, which is a video game where you run around and race other people

and go through courses and bounce off obstacles and it just gives me my hands and the part of my

brain, something to do. But I find that it just happens to also put me in a zone where I can listen to

other things and taking other things and whatever thing in the prey sometimes about what those

other things are about. But I did find myself going from about one and a half speed up to double speed

when we were playing through listed names. It felt like the landscape. You're secret set.

It felt like I was on a train looking at the landscape at a very high speed.

And a high speed train? Yes. Yes. Which meant perhaps I might have missed some of the details,

at least on the first glance, but I got the big picture. And I think the big picture's important.

But why does it look a bit different from some of the ways in which that picture has been painted

in the past? Are we imagining that there are differences? It made me remember how I had been

trained. It seems really awkward even to confess. When I was a teenager I received training

in what to do when having a conversation with people about faith because I went to a Christian

Union at a school. In your school? In your school and at a university.

You really got trained in how to show my faith. And the training, I don't know if it's still the

training at the time, was around sorts of things that people might say, including the Bible

full of contradictions. How can you trust the Bible? There are loads of contradictions in the Bible.

Do you know what the training was to do? No, a good one. I'm intrigued. It was to say to the person

who asked you that. And now it makes a big difference how you say this. Okay, so first of all,

I'll say it the way it fills in my head that I remember having to say, I don't think we make

it to say it like this. But if someone says, the book sort of contradictions, you would say,

I really, I'll name one. Which is a terrible way to say it. But you could say that really nicely.

I'll really, I'll, that's interesting. Have you got a particular one in mind?

Yeah, yeah. Much kind of a bit. It's the same thing you're saying to people, which is basically just,

I want to minimise myself from this issue. I'm actually coming from a place where I think the

whole of the Bible should just all fit together and we shouldn't be fussing about contradictions

in the Bible. And actually most people, they said in the training, can't name one. So you then go,

oh, well, in that case, let's move on. But when people can name one, the training suggested, well,

you maybe you can answer if they've misunderstood. Or if you don't, then you say, that's a very good point.

I will go and ask a leader about that and we'll get back to you. Like, like the assumption was,

they're saying this because they wanted rationally to have an argument with you and reconcile

their understanding. And then you could sort it all out. And then once you sorted it all out rationally,

then they'd become a question. Do you know how many people I know who became Christians that way?

Probably zero. Zero. Although I know plenty of people who've come around and we've

had conversations about faith and they've shared what's made it makes it difficult for them to believe in

it. And what I found is that when you listen and go, oh yeah, that sounds really rough. You know,

I'm trying to, well, maybe we'll understand and walk through it a bit and they're not arguing with

them about it. Well, sometimes they go away and you never seen them again. But sometimes,

quite a few people are going to think of who've come back and we've grown in relationship or

or maybe they've grown in relationship with someone else, a friend, someone else in the church.

And they have eventually decided, actually, we want to walk with these people. These, you know,

what, where are you going? You're good. Let's do that. And so I don't think it's anything to do with

arguing about contradictions that change people's minds. But this business of, are there contradictions

in the Bible makes me feel prickly because of that background. And I think, and I think, and then

looking at how chronicles is different in some ways from other books in the Bible makes me want to

ask why what's going on. So what have we noticed? What have you noticed? Well, I mean, I just think it's

fascinating, isn't it? If there are contradictions in the Bible, that's a killer argument for your

religion and your nonsense, you know, because of course it's not because that's actually the Bible's

actually full of contradictions because it's not just one book written in one particular time, right?

Ah, right. Okay. That's a good insight. Yes. It is, isn't it? And I think that scholars think,

and you know, a little bit of nerdy stuff here, but a scholars think that this was actually in the

Hebrew Bible. And that's what we need to understand is is that Jews have the same books as the Old

Testament. They have them in different order. And chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible.

Okay. And it's kind of like a highlights reel, probably written around about the time of either

the end of the Excel or after the Excel. That is the Excel of the Jew Dayites and Benjaminites

to Babylon. And then they, if you remember, they came back from Excel and they started to rebuild the

Wars of Jerusalem, read Ezra and Na'amaya for that. And that's when this particular book is thought

to have been written at a time actually when the Jew Dayites needed hope, hope for a future.

It looks to me like this was written by people who were part of the tribe of Judah or Benjamin,

which if you remember back, actually there was the Southern Kingdom and the Northern Kingdom and

the Northern Kingdom was the Ten Tribes and then the Southern Kingdom was two tribes Judah and Benjamin.

And the reason this, and I'm just going to be a quick, quick resume of my thoughts on this,

chapter two, Judah is presented like as the first son of Israel, is his descendants that are listed

first, although he's not the firstborn of Israel as it actually says in chapter five that the first

born rights were actually transferred from Ruben to the sons of Joseph, Benjamin and Manasseh.

But Judah is described as the strongest brother of the 12 and of course David is descended from him.

And we read that in chapter five. And also interestingly in chapter nine, Jerusalem appears to be

the place where the descendants of Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim, one of Joseph's sons, settled along

with some Levi's because they always need some Levi's to administer the temple. So even in those

first nine chapters of Chronicles, we're getting lots of evidence that this has actually been written

by the people who settled in that area at that time and principally from the tribe of Judah,

Benjamin and some Levi's as well. For me that stood out in those first nine chapters that we read.

It's interesting how that stood out because that sounds like a lot of detail.

Yeah, I know. But for me, I think that's what came from reading it, which is quite interesting

because actually I was going, oh, oh, I was kind of just drawing, I was actually writing, I was actually

using pen in my body. Do you do that pen? Do you write in your Bible? I write in my Bible.

And I was underlining that sounds going, oh, that's there. Oh, that's there. Oh, that's there. So,

yeah, literally just just saw it as I was reading it, just stood out. I mean, whoever wrote this

was writing with great clarity. I mean, it's a wonderful summary of that time. But there are some

interesting contradictions, which is what you were getting at, wasn't that? Yes, my impression from

the listening, I went back to look at the details later, but my impression from the listening was

firstly how like what the broad scope this family tree is. And because it starts with Adam,

and it moves through kind of therefore like the whole of humanity as they understand it, then

then it's, it feels like an everyone's family tree except that there are clearly branches,

there are clearly things that are concentrated on. So yes, it starts with everyone, but it gets

important when you get to Abraham. And all of Abraham's sons equally important, well, no, because

there's Isaac who's kind of more important to this family tree than Ishmael. And then his son,

Israel is more important than his brother Issaul. And why is that? Well, it's because this family tree

has a shape. And the shape is, we're going to introduce you to Israel. And then we're going to

introduce you, Israel is another name for Jacob, Jacob and sons. Israel's sons are essentially the

tribes, which then become the clans and the people with the jobs and everyone in the social order of

Israel as a nation. And it's so important, it seems, to describe Israel, but also quite important

to describe the fact that there are other people who are not Israel. Right. So I think there's kind of

two things going on. There's the thing of let's introduce you to your family if you're Israel.

And there are tons of names you can latch onto and stories that you'll remember. But also,

let's remind you if you're Israel that there are others who are not. Right. So now you have a

sense of who you are and you have a sense of who you are not. And that's quite important in some

ways for a really identity of a people, especially in the people who are feeling the crisis. And if

this is written, like, scholars think it is, at either during or at the end of the exile period,

and they're trying to rebuild Israel, then it strikes with that has an obvious purpose then,

to remind people of who they are, to remind people of who they're not, and to remind people of this

sort of purpose that they want to draw people into this vision that they want people to share.

And so there's very much the scope for this to look different from other books, because it's written

with a very, very particular purpose. Now the other thing that strikes me are once we get past the

family tree, the hugeness at the beginning, once we get into the historical stories, is that

it's familiar stories, but an unfamiliar edit. Did you notice the edit? Yeah. So we don't get a lot

about how Saul was blessed and did great things and was chosen by God. We just introduced a

Saul, right, this very weird point in his life, where he's a weakest and he's about to die,

and it gets explained he was rubbish. Basically, Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord,

didn't keep word of the Lord, even consulted a medium for guidance, didn't inquire of the Lord.

So the Lord put him to death. They didn't have a particularly high opinion of him today. He's

almost cancelled, isn't he? He was part of the family then, yes, but he was cancelled. He's like,

right, because he didn't trust the Lord. Who did trust the Lord? David, edit it.

And then the next thing that happens is that the whole of Israel comes to David and says

that we all come together and say, "We're in flesh and blood." And that is literally from

2 Samuel, chapter 5, that is exactly as it's written there. The only thing is that edit misses out

quite a few chapters in which Israel was fighting amongst itself as to who the king ought to be,

because kings normally is their son, so a king, right? It should have been Saul's son, who was king.

That's not how it worked here. There's years and years of conflict that's described in 2 Samuel,

but the right of chronic war doesn't want us to fuss all about all that. No, the story they're telling

is this is what God was doing, and so David. And then, and then just David, how is David look in

this version compared with how he looks in the last versions that we've read? Oh, let's be frank,

he looks very good. This is a, this is a very good edit of David's life. There's a few references

to him not kind of doing things quite right. Not so many. By no means is it what we read about in

kings now. Tell me again, how it happened with Bessueba? Yeah, exactly. Those of you that remember,

he committed adultery with Bessue, didn't he? And he had his husband killed in battle, and none of

that is in this account. As we noted, as we felt when we went through Samuel, it was like, that's the

pivotal moment, that's the, that's a defining thing. Not in this, David's story. No, that doesn't

exist here. No, it didn't happen. The other thing I noticed as well is the big mistake that's drawn

attention to is when he decides to do a census and encountering everybody up, still a bit mysterious,

why that was such a bad idea. I think, I think scholars think that's because he was basically planning

on taxing people and not relying on God anymore for keeping the country running. He wanted to do

his own thing, do a census and take it from there. The way it's recorded in Samuel though,

this is a may a call for David. It's like, oh, I made a mistake here. Is that how it's,

how it is in Chronicles? No, because what happens in Chronicles is Satan gets involved.

Right. Hold on. Where's Satan come from? All of the sudden? Who's Satan?

Well, there's interestingly, we don't even know what Satan means in this context.

Well, I think it's put into a resolved David of responsibility for that decision.

Yes, absolutely. And it figures largely larger and larger, I think, in Jewish thinking,

because they keep wrestling with this question, how do we get to the Kingdom of God? What's

getting in the way of us having the Kingdom that was promised? What's getting in the way? Are we doing

something wrong? Or is there some other force that's opposing us? And from the stories they picked

up from all the other cultures around and telling of opposing forces, of evil opposing good,

I think they just concluded, well, that's it. That's the situation we're in. We're doing our best,

but they're Satan. We've got to deal with Satan. And this might be one of the first credits

that Satan gets in that respect. So David is being described differently. David is absolved of his

responsibility. He's being airbrushed, if you like, in this version of history to look really good.

And that the problems aren't really his problems. Again, the airbrushing is to be seen where it says

in chapter 18 that David was particularly concerned with justice and righteousness. And the sense that

now we're out of exile, we need to get ourselves a king. We need another king, like David.

Yeah, yeah. I think one thing to remember about the exile is that people, the people of Israel

were scattered across the ancient world. And so actually even as they were attempts to bring back

and reform the nation of Israel, there were different views on how this could happen or should

happen. What we're probably looking at here is the views of the people who were very central to

Jerusalem had the stake in gathering people back around a gathered nation, a king. Maybe we

could find someone like David. It would be great. And as we'll see next time, the thing that David

passed on to his descendants to set up the idea of the temple and temple worship. That seemed

essential to and a good way of gathering people up and reforming as a nation. But this was all

also being read, listened to by people across the diaspora, people who had been scattered into Alexandria

and all across other places where God seemed to be doing amazing things with them too. The fact that

the Old Testament got translated into Greek, that happened outside of Israel. It happened because

they were outside of Israel. And it's because they did that that we have really good extensive records

of it today. And that was the version probably of the Old Testament that Jesus' Father was new.

So God's doing all sorts of things in all sorts of places. But I think it's really interesting that

the people who put the canon of Scripture together were very happy to include particular viewpoints

that are different perhaps from other viewpoints. Now the danger, I think for us, comes in when we

can't reconcile that. But if we're trained, there are no contradictions worth bothering

that in the Bible or if we try to look at the gloss over that, or worse still, we don't even look

at the whole of the Bible, but we just grab a bit of the Bible and then go, "That must be for us now."

You know, are there dangers in that? Yeah, I mean, these people who insist that they

can't be contradictions in the Bible, I wonder whether the reason why they're insisting that is because

the way they view the Bible is as an authoritative source which can't be questioned.

And you and I know that we've lived in a Christian tradition for a long, long time. We've come

across people like that, right? The who, for whom? The Bible can't be questioned. It is the authority.

And if we don't submit to that authority, then we're all going to kind of, I think that concern is

that we all kind of go off and are in different ways, having our own different opinions, which is,

of course, for them would be like an anathema that would be like the worst thing to do. But the reality

is that that actually we find ourselves in a position where we go, no, actually we appreciate the

Bible is written in different contexts, different times, with different purposes and what might be

contradictions might be contradictions. And that's okay. It was very okay for Jewish people.

In Jesus' time, we've been debating it all the time and saying, Jesus would ask people the question,

how do you read this? Like, in other words, there's more than one way, perhaps to interpret

a piece of Scripture. And did Jesus say, well, this is the right way and the wrong way or sometimes,

but I think maybe what Jesus was looking at wasn't so much the absolute meaning of the text as much

as the engagement of the person. It's how we engage. It's how we join in with this conversation

that's been going on through Scripture for centuries before us. To me, I think Chronicles is a very clear

set of evidence that it's okay to have in the Bible a part is an viewpoint. It's okay to show

that that God's people were also a people on the move. It's just a movement of people, not a static

thing. And so if we read into the Bible that God through history moves and moves people,

then I think we should expect in to move us, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

it stops with us. We've got it right. And nothing else. It's the only one that disagrees with us from now on.

They're the ones that are wrong. They're the number one. I've literally heard it talk that it did

stop some time in the first century. And that's when the taps turned off. I think every generation

has fallen foul of this, haven't they? If we're part of a movement, then I think that's really

exciting. I think the scary thing about it is it means we'll still have questions. And it means

we'll still be learning. But I think encouraging thing about it is that we're actually part of that

big family tree. We're part of the family tree that might have been written to warn the Israelites.

Here are your enemies. Here's a list of your enemies. But we're part of the family tree

that God has included, that Jesus went out of his way to teach that we're neighbors.

Went out of his way to show that we are absolutely part of God's purposes and what God wants to do

in a loving and inclusive way, and that we've got to learn more about loving and including

if we're going to be part of that movement and growing along with the other disciples.

I love that phrase and that metaphor of movement, because I think that what it also enables us to

recognize is using another metaphor of a snapshot. And for many people, the Bible is an authority

book. And we probably need to talk more about that another point and why we need to, well, I think

we've already done some justice to that argument. But I would say that there are some people that will

go to the Bible and I'm probably being included and you'll be looking for something just to inspire

you, just something that catches your eye and you call that really speaks to me in my current situation.

And I think that songwriters, Christian songwriters and Christian poets and authors are very good at

pulling a, pulling a, having a snapshot of something that they read in the Bible and then creating

a song around it or creating a poem or a story around it or a principle around it. And there's

a really good example in one Chronicles chapter four with this character called Jabers.

Now I've read Christian books or I've seen Christian books on the prayer of Jabers and they've created

these beautiful books which about this prayer of Jabers and I'm like, what, what is this prayer of Jabers?

And basically this person who it says was in one Chronicles four, it says that he honoured God and

prayed that God would bless him in largest territory and keep him from harm and keep him from pain.

And I'm like, well, that's, that's isn't that prayer that we'd all want to pray for ourselves, right?

But, but in a sense, what, what, what is sometimes a snapshot where you go, that really means something to

me has been turned into a book or a song and then it becomes a doctrine and then it becomes fixed

in time rather than being a kind of snapshot. And then consequently you kind of get people going,

oh yeah, no, no. So, so if I honor God then God will bless me, the God will enlarge my

interior which might mean give me more money. God will keep me from pain so I don't get,

I don't have any pain and I won't be harmed in any way, shapeable form. And then I don't know about you,

but you know, when in my life, like, even if I prayed the prayer of Jabers, I certainly can't say that

that that's been my experience, you know, I have experience pain, I have experience loss, you know,

there's, they don't, it doesn't, you know, one plus one doesn't equal three in this situation,

you know, it's kind of like, but you want it to, of course you want it to, if you're in pain.

Exactly right. And that's why the snapshot is so important. It's so important to honor that snapshot

as God speaking through in that moment, but to make a doctrine out of it or even may I add a song out

of it or a book, I think probably is unwise. Well, I mean, I think I get the value of inspiration.

I do. And the ongoing value of remembering that there was this one time with this one person,

this one thing happened to them and that can inspire me. I think the only difficulty comes then

when you turn that in as you say into a doctrine and say, right, in order to get what they got,

we have to do what they did. That's right. And the difficulty with that approach for us is that

our world's just different. Right. You know, we're in a different time and a different place.

If I was to tell myself, right, the answer to all our problems is to do what these people in

Israel were doing at the time. Okay, so what were they doing? They were reforming their nation.

Okay, that sounds good. They were gathering people up that were like them.

And they were excluding the people who were not like them.

And they would say, oh, and this is the way to fix our problem. By the way, because we are God's

special chosen people, I'd like to think that we have God's special chosen people. Is that what God

saying to us in Britain today? Is it though? No, no, that's what God was saying to Israel at this time.

And yet there will be people who pick that up and say, oh, this is us today. There are people in America

who picked this up and say, this is us today. And so we should, you know, America first,

exclude the other people that let's get this is coming from this place of saying we can copy past

their situation and their vision. And as I wrote, as if God is speaking this to us right now,

that's so toxic and so wrong. It's just just wrong. It's no, it wasn't written to you. It wasn't

written for that purpose. The scary thing is that it is a harder thing then to say, okay, well,

what's God saying to us today? How do we know? How do we engage with God today? Is

hard and just picking up a book and go, well, he was saying that to them then. So he must be saying

it to me now. It's harder than that. But you know how we tell you know, we do work our way

through it because I think Jesus has given us loads to be able to tell the difference between what's

God's doing and what God's not doing. You know, he's he talked about us being fruit and a vine.

When we're connected with him, we will be producing things naturally in our lives are the sort

of things that God wants us to grow and pull. Right, a load about that. Those things, he called the fruit

of the spirit, like love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. And you know,

for me, that's that's one way I listen to when a teacher who says they're teaching from God is saying,

yeah, this is where I'm coming from. It's like, well, okay, so is what you're sharing,

primarily about love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and all those good

things. Or does it sound like it's more driven by fear? Which other New Testament writers said was the

opposite of love, the enemy of love. If you're driven by fear, then then no. If you're driven by hatred

and exclusion, if you're driven by by actually physically wanting to identify the people who are not

your neighbours and hate them and tell yourself, we'll only do well when we've excluded them. Well,

no, I think you've not got the gospel there. That's not the kingdom. As far as I understand it,

from having taken this story a bit further. But do you know what? I don't want to argue with anyone

about that because I don't think anyone believes this from arguing about it. I think people believe

it when they walk with other people who are walking and moving the way God's moving us together,

which I do see happening. I agree. And I think there's another angle on this, which I would

talk about in terms of the way in which our songwriters, Christian songwriters, will take scriptures

like this. I'm thinking of chapter 16 here, which is Rich Pickings. It's where David appoints

Asaf and his associates to give praise to the Lord and it says in this manner and then it goes off

and creates loads of wonderful, I mean wonderful poetry. How am I at? Wonderful poetry, but which,

of course, I recognise from many evangelical Christian songs that we sing in church. You know,

Declare his glory amongst the nations is marvellous to heath among the peoples for great is the

Lord and most worthy of praise for he is to be feared above all gods ascribed to the Lord, the

glory due to his name. Now, let the heavens and that my favourite one is let the trees of the forest

sing, let them sing for joy before the Lord, before he comes to judge the earth. Another one,

gives thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love and joy for him. You know, we've heard these lyrics

in songs haven't we? Yeah, they're inspirational though, aren't they? I mean, that's nice. Inspirational

poetry, absolutely. And I think one of the incredible thing about worship songs is they are,

they are of the heart, aren't they? I mean, certainly in the sort of charismatic evangelical

tradition they're of the heart. But I do wonder sometimes if the words that relate to David's

leadership of this nation and the dominance of Israel and Judah, the power that God has given them,

you know, the glory of God and reflected in the glory of Israel, these sorts of songs. Sometimes I

wonder whether we're just, we're a little bit not questioning enough some of the lyrics of the

songs that we sing. Does that make sense? I don't get me wrong, that's not true for all Christian

lyrics at all. But I think sometimes when songwriters just lift lyrics from the Bible, particularly around

the whole, the sort of nationalistic kind of further that, that, you know, we see even, even in that

declare, his glory amongst the nations, his marvellous dees and once all the people's for greatest,

the Lord and most worthy of praise, to be feared of of all gods. That's nothing wrong with that,

it's nothing you're not going to disagree with there. But the way in which the, you know, the,

the kind of the language of, if you like, I carefully say in this, but nationalism, we see that

reflecting some of our worship songs. I'm just asking the question, I think is that helpful, you know?

It's, is it an invitation almost to have a more of a kind of critical ear to what we're actually

singing? Does that make sense? It does, yeah. And I think in times of my life when I've been really

critical of what's happening in worship, have often just happened to coincide with times in

my life when I think my relationship with God hasn't been as trusting as it maybe it could be and,

and, and where my heart hasn't been as loving, maybe as it could be personally. Now, there's not

accusation on you or, or, or, or in and else. I'm, I'm, I'm just recognizing, I think I've been in

situations where say a mass, like I used to go to Catholic church, a mass isn't different from week to

week, but some, some weeks it feels full of life and some weeks it feels dead. And, and that's not a

reflection on the mass content because it didn't change, it's a reflection on me. That, that, my

experience of growing up with that has really encouraged me to be reflective really when, when,

when, when I'm feeling that about, about worship songs. And, and I think that the important thing for

me is, it is to kind of wonder really where is worship coming from? Where's my, where's my feeling

coming from? Where's my, where's my decision coming from to, to worship God? Or am I hoping that I'll

just be taught through the worship worship? Worship something, to me, to my mind are not very good

teachers of theology. Yeah, I think I agree with that. But they're not really intended to be teachers.

And I'll make a whole new choice. Even the ones with lots of words, maybe especially the ones with

lots of words are not very good teachers of theology. They're, they're, they're, they're often,

they're good reflections of how someone who was worshipping was putting their worship into words.

That's great. But, but who are the good teachers of theology? Well, you know, Holy Spirit. And,

and, and engagement with the whole of what's going on in, in the Bible, which is why it's nice to

listen through it at a pace sometimes, you get that big picture. I really appreciate you sent it,

because I think one of the things that we have going on, particularly in charismatic and

evangelical churches, is a propondence of song worship songs over and above every other form

of creative expression of worship. Obviously, that's just, it's just put, put it as a baseline that

we think worship is, is, is, is anyway in which we can honor God with our lives. So it could be our

work, our play, whatever, but, but particularly in churches where, where the principal means by which

we express, words of praise, adoration and, and worship is through songs. As opposed, say, pardon me,

as opposed to say dance or liturgy or prophetic art, you know, call it what you like. Where that

happens, actually, a lot of our theology does come through songs, but I'm partly for two reasons. One

is because we sing so much and we're often sing the same songs repeatedly. And two, the refrains

are often repetitive, you know, and so actually our theology in some ways becomes embedded within our

psyche, by the virtue of the use of songs, you sort of mean. Yeah, I mean, I think what a song can do

though, better than teaching us what to believe, a song is good at reflecting what we already believe,

and amplifying it, you know, hooking onto something that we want to hear in the song, and then we can

sing it with, with gusto. I'm just written outside of a church setting. I'm thinking of a song that's

often misused or just like it seems strange when people want to play it and outside of its original

context is every breath you take by the police because, so when, when I get to play the wedding,

it's just odd. People want to hear it in the context of, oh, this is a nice song about someone who

really loves someone. It's actually a song about stalking. It's an obsessive stalker song.

It's horrible. I've never listened to that before, but that's true. Right, well, yeah, so

so people will read it differently. How do you read it? If you read it as obsessive stalker song

and then hear it as a wedding, you're going to go, what the heck's going on here? Yeah. But I just say

that there are lots of people who just heard it as, oh, this is a nice love song. Well, imagine having

that, so this is a song that was, you know, decade-old. Can you imagine that we have disagreements about

what songs mean that are centuries old? Yeah, of course you do. And what's not, it's not so important,

the content of the song, as much as how we've chosen to engage with it. What is it that it's

igniting in us? What is it that it's that we've grabbed onto that we then quote from the song or the

song sort of reminds us of? There's a ton of stuff. That's a really good point, but because I think

that just going back to that movement versus snapshot thing, that the creator of that song will have

created that song in a snapshot. But equally, we engage with that song in a snapshot as well,

where we're at that moment in which we're singing it, right? And I think that and therein lies the

way I deal with worship songs where I'm kind of like, oh, the theology in this song is just, it's not,

you know, it's just, it's not helping me express my art to God. Actually, I'm actually in a position

to be able to choose how to respond to that. And recognizing that it might have value for someone

to next be singing or someone, you know, kind of helping it as they listen to it in their ears as

they walk down the road. Even if it isn't a value to me, it may well be a value to them because there's

a dynamism, there's a dynamism in the moment, which is the dynamic between you and the Holy Spirit,

right? So there's a very strong dynamic there, which, but that doesn't, that doesn't excuse the

reality that we do sometimes get our theology from our songs. And some of that theology has been

taken out of context. It's no longer a snapshot, but it's been seen as a doctrine.

I think if we were to just be a song church, if that was all we did, but I've never met a church

that was just a song church. I mean, to hill song. No, I mean, hill song, you know, is most famous

around the world for its songs, right? My wife and I, we went along quite a few times, actually,

we've been to the middle of Sydney one, we've been to the big, big one. And we're struck by the

depth of what happens in a church like that. You know, it's that, yeah, there are songs that they're

famous for, but there's also a community. And, and actually, it's the community that makes the

biggest impression. It's the community and actually, the quality they're welcome is awesome.

And something we felt once we'd experienced, we wanted to sort of grab some lessons from and,

try and be even half that good when we got home. You know, that's the way that we saw people growing

together, the way that we saw that that relationships were developing where people went from, you know,

I'm living in a city, and I don't know who to trust, and then what's going on to. I found some people

here that I can really connect with and and really share life with, you know, that's brilliant. That's

the stuff of really good church, I think. And so, whatever the church is famous for its teaching or

famous for its songs or whatever, I think, the churches that God breathes life through, actually,

end up, they're quite good at a lot of things. But sometimes it's the worship or something that stands

out, it's particularly good or particularly icky, depending on what we're expecting, right? Yeah,

well, we've got a lot out of this 21 chapters of Chronicles, haven't we? We have. I feel we've

got another journey here as well. The journey will continue into worship as we carry on into the next

section because we're going to look at the temple and how the story of the temple is retold here.

It's going to remind us that worship was central to the idea of who Israel has believed itself to be.

And we're going to look at how that was expressed. Then and see what we can learn from it now.

Let's listen to that and come back next week.

We'll see you then. Bye bye.