David's legacy: worship and praise, not violence
Daily Scripture
1 Chronicles 25:1, 7; 2 Chronicles 29:25-27, Ezra 3:8-11
1 Chronicles 25
1 David and the army officers set apart Asaph’s family, Heman and Jeduthun, for service to prophesy accompanied by lyres, harps, and cymbals.
As for Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman, 7 the number of themselves and their relatives, who were trained in singing to the Lord and who were all skillful, was 288.
2 Chronicles 29
25 Hezekiah had the Levites stand in the Lord’s temple with cymbals, harps, and zithers, just as the Lord had ordered through David, the king’s seer Gad, and the prophet Nathan. 26 While the Levites took their places holding David’s instruments, and the priests their trumpets, 27 Hezekiah ordered the entirely burned offering to be offered up on the altar. As they began to offer the entirely burned offering, the Lord’s song also began, accompanied by the trumpets and the other instruments of Israel’s King David.
Ezra 3
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at God’s house in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel, Shealtiel’s son, and Jeshua, Jozadak’s son, and the rest of their kin—the priests and the Levites and all who had come from the captivity to Jerusalem—made a beginning. They appointed Levites 20 years old and above to oversee the work on the Lord’s house. 9 Then Jeshua with his sons and his kin, Kadmiel and his sons, Binnui and his sons, the sons of Judah, along with the sons of Henadad, the Levites, and their sons and kin, collaborated to supervise the workers in God’s house.
10 When the builders laid the foundation of the Lord’s temple, the priests clothed in their vests and carrying their trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, arose to praise the Lord according to the directions of Israel’s King David. 11 They praised and gave thanks to the Lord, singing responsively, “He is good, his graciousness for Israel lasts forever.”
All of the people shouted with praise to the Lord because the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
“Eventually David makes his way back to God, but not without great suffering in his own family and in the kingdom over which he reigns…. David is worthy of our admiration in many respects, but his entire story is a reminder that even the most worthy life can fall from the heights.” * (Read Psalm 51 to see David’s path to repentance and restoration.) Generations later, Israel remembered him mainly as a worship-leading musician and poet, and not by the darker chapters of his story.
- David was a gifted musician. (Click here to see him as depicted in Resurrection Leawood’s stained glass window, wearing a crown with his hand resting on his harp.) He enlisted many gifted musicians to lead Israel in worship—Chronicles said his “praise choir” included 288 skillful singers! “In their singing, these Levites were proclaiming the praises of God and thereby instructing the people about God.” ** Our Resurrection musicians continue this wonderful tradition—not just playing and singing, but teaching us about God through new songs of worship and praise. Click here to hear “Perfect Love (How Can It Be?),” a recent creation, and let it instruct and move you nearer to God today in a different way than a printed thought question could.
(For more musical inspiration, scroll on down or click on the GPS Insights tab to learn about Mikiala Tennie’s Mama Rose, and hear her sing “I Go to the Rock.”)
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for loving imperfect me with perfect love. Thank you for gifting David, and all his successors in music ministry, to lead and teach me about you. Amen.
GPS Insights
Mikiala Tennie
My mom was appointed the choir director at our very first church in Chicago at the age of 13. Music was such a big part of her life that I felt like I was born onto that old rickety wooden piano bench she would direct the choir from–I could barely see over the black and white piano keys.
Throughout the Psalms that are attributed to that complicated, flawed, royal musician David, some of the stanzas and chapters were written specifically for directors of music. As a child whenever I would see that notation in the Scriptures I would get excited and think, “Wow! This verse is for mommy!”
My mom has been gone for six years now, but the worshipful, musical foundation she set for our family still holds fast. “Levite” is a foreign word to many, but I grew up knowing that the Levites back in Bible times were our people—the “praisers.” I can hear my mom calling us Levites anytime we led worship—vocally for me, drums for one brother, and guitar for the other.
Like the psalmist, my mother left us a legacy of worship and praise to our great God. One of my favorite songs to hear my mother lead from that old piano in Chicago is based on Psalm 62:2:
“Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.”
David was flawed, and yet he praised. My mama wasn’t perfect and yet she praised God anyway—and she taught her children to do the same because she knew the Lord was her rock and salvation.
How can you build praise to our God into the legacy you’re leaving?
Click here for a little help from my Mama Rose Tennie, singing “I go to the Rock.”
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Bruce C. Birch, sidebar article “The Two Parts of David’s Story” in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, p. 484 OT.
** HarperCollins Christian Publishing. NIV, Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, eBook: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (Kindle Locations 89395-89398). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
