I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

     Second Chronicles begins with Solomon taking the throne of Israel. He then gathered the leaders of Israel and went to Gibeon where the Tabernacle is still located (even though David had moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem) to offer sacrifices. That night God appeared to Solomon and asked him what he desired God to give him. Solomon asks for the wisdom and knowledge to lead the people properly. God replied that he would give Solomon wisdom and knowledge, and because Solomon’s first thought was of the people, God would give him great wealth and fame.
     The next thing we are told is that Solomon had a huge force of chariots and horses. This is followed be an account that suggests that Solomon’s power and wealth were based on being in the center of a trading empire. David built his power by protecting the trade routes through Israel/Palestine from bandits and raiders. Solomon built his power and wealth by taking control of the trade that used those routes. Next we are told that Solomon arranged a trade agreement with King Hiram of Tyre for master craftsmen to oversee the building of the Temple and for lumber to use in the construction. Solomon took a census of the foreigners living in the land of Israel. He then recruited them as forced labor to build the Temple.
     Today’s passage ends with a description of the Temple that Solomon built. There are two things about it that strike me. The first is something that I have always been aware of. It contained a massive amount of gold and other precious materials. The second thing is that it wasn’t really all that big. The Temple was about 2700 square feet, the average new house in the U.S. in 2010 was about 2400 square feet. Now the square footage of a house is based on multiple floors, while the Temple was a single floor. However, on another site I found a measurement that said the footprint for an average house was around 800 to 1500 square feet. Based on that, a house that was 30 feet by 50 feet would not be considered terribly large, whereas this passage tells us that Solomon’s Temple was 30 feet by 90 feet, or less than double the size of a moderately large house.

     Yesterday’s passage ended with Paul telling us that as people sinned more and more, God’s grace became more abundant. Today’s passage begins by telling us that this does not mean that we should sin so as to cause God to show us even more grace. Instead he tells us that the power of sin over us has been crucified alongside of Jesus and we are raised with Him. That even as death no longer has any power of Jesus, so sin should no longer have any power over us. Paul tells us that we are slaves to that which we choose to obey. If we sin, we are yielding ourselves into slavery to sin. We should instead choose to be slaves of righteousness.
     I had never looked at this passage this way before, but I have a story that illustrates what Paul is getting at here. When I got out of college, I smoked pot. After a time, I realized that as a Christian I should quit (I probably knew all along that as a Christian I shouldn’t smoke pot, but before this point that hadn’t entered my calculations). I, also, felt called to be more active in the Church. I tried to give up pot, but was unsuccessful in doing so. I became more and more convicted that I should be more active in the Church. But I felt like I needed to give up pot first, that otherwise I would be a hypocrite. After quite some time of trying to quit pot and failing, God revealed to me that I should not put off any longer doing what I knew I should be doing and I should become more active in the Church. I said to God, “OK, I can’t stop doing this, which I know I should not be doing, but I will start doing that, which I know I should be doing.” The interesting thing is that when I stopped trying to quit smoking pot and started doing the things that I knew that God was calling me to do, I almost immediately stopped smoking pot. When I made myself a slave to righteousness (obeying the commands of being righteous), I stopped being a slave to sin. There were a couple of steps involved here. The first was acknowledging that smoking pot was a sin. The second was acknowledging that I did not have the ability on my own to stop committing that sin. The final was being open about the fact that I was a sinner and being active doing works of righteousness anyway. The lesson I take away from this (both the story and this passage) is that if there is a sin in your life that you cannot overcome, you need to become more active in doing acts of righteousness. I have sins I struggle with now. I see that the solution to my struggle is to spend less time in “leisure” activity and more time doing acts of righteousness, whether that is Church activities, writing another blog or some other activity that God calls me to. Time we spend doing acts of righteousness is time we do not have to sin.

     There are two elements to today’s psalm. The first is that the psalmist turns to God for safety. He recognizes that every good thing comes from God. The second is that he vows to not take part in the worship of other gods, whether those gods are Vishnu and Zeus, or pleasure and wealth. The psalmist says that he will follow God’s guidance and not be shaken because God is right beside him. What more do we need than the joy of being in God’s presence and the pleasure of living with Him forever?

     Today’s first proverb tells us that we should actively seek advice and instruction. Beyond that, we should take advice and instruction, even when we were not seeking it. The second proverb tells us that we make whatever plans we desire, but God’s purpose will be served. We should seek to align our plans with God’s will, to make our plans to serve God’s purposes.