This is the Bible Book Club, the book of Second Chronicles.

Welcome to the club.

Last time at the end of First Chronicles, David had commanded his son to acknowledge God and seek him.

Well, last episode in chapter one of

Second Chronicles, Solomon does just that. He gathered all Israel, marched them up to Gibbean,

where he led them in worship, and sacrificed at the Ten of Meeting. God was pleased, and that night

he appeared to Solomon and told him he could have whatever he wanted.

Solomon does a good thing and asks for wisdom instead of wealth.

Well, God then gives them both.

And Solomon got down to the business of building the temple for the Lord.

So the Chronicle has been retelling the exiles, stores of their past so they can have hope

for their future.

That hope will rest on their faith. Therefore, the chronicler's driving passion is the temple and worship. The returned exiles

must rebuild their relationship with God, and he hopes to kickstart this rebuilding with a vision

of what the temple was and can be in the future.

The temple was crucial to the covenant relationship.

It was not just a building.

It is the intersection of heaven and earth.

It is where God chose to dwell among his people.

And the chronicler pines for God's presence to once

again reside among them. Now the temple is the grander stationary replacement for the traveling

tabernacle. It was a symbol of permanency and promise. God had given them the land, and they could now dwell with him

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