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Kings and Chronicles, Part 2: Seeds of Hope

  1. Lesson One
    Hezekiah (2 Kings 17–20, 2 Chronicles 28–32)
    19 Activities
  2. Lesson Two
    Josiah and the Fall of the South (2 Kings 21–23, 2 Chronicles 33–35)
    23 Activities
  3. Lesson Three
    Overview of 1 and 2 Chronicles (1 Chronicles 1–7, 14–29, 2 Chronicles 29–36)
    22 Activities
  4. Lesson Four
    Ritual and Sacramental Living (1 Chronicles 13, 21, 2 Chronicles 1–27)
    24 Activities
    |
    1 Assessment
  5. Lesson Five
    Wisdom Literature (Proverbs 1–4, Ecclesiastes 1–3, 12, Job 1–4, 40–42)
    18 Activities
  6. Course Wrap-Up
    Course Completion
    1 Activity
    |
    1 Assessment

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Earlier in the lesson, we discussed the tension between God being present in the temple or His Spirit indwelling followers of Jesus and yet being eternal and uncontainable. Was God really dwelling in the temple, receiving the rituals of the Jewish priests? Can His Spirit really dwell in our lives now as we practice faith and obedience to Christ?

In the end, no matter how many different ways we frame this tension, there’s no way to completely resolve it. It remains a mystery we’re invited to participate in, rather than a problem to be solved. 

Every Christian might pray like Solomon, and like Symeon the New Theologian (AD 949-1022):

For a word is not able

to express the inexpressible,

nor can the mind clearly understand . . . 

How is God outside everything,

in essence and nature,

in power and glory . . .

and how does He abide in the saints . . .?

(How) does He pitch His tent in them? 

. . . How is He embraced in their entrails,

He who holds together all creation?

And how does He shine in the heart, 

their fleshy and thick heart? 

Hymn 29

 

How do You envelop yourself with the corruptible essence of my body? 

Hymn 22

 

How did you come to my filthy house,

You who dwell in unapproachable light, my God?

but how do You keep my house unburned

when the fire is unendurable for mortal nature? 

Hymn 20

Any attempt to comprehend indwelling of a place or a person’s life by God through logic will come up short. Thankfully, we’re not asked to comprehend it; we’re just asked to invite YHWH into our lives as Solomon asked Him into His temple. As a thought process, it may be ungraspable. As a biblical reality, this is the way we are saved.

The act of worship we are called to is a way of participating in God’s life in a way we can’t understand. Again Symeon says it powerfully in his worship song: 

I grip it as though to seize the graspable,

and it is unseizable.

But I seize it inapprehensibly,

and I ascend. 

Hymn 23

Source: St. Symeon the New Theologian, Divine Eros: Hymns of St. Symeon the New Theologian, 2011, pp. 86, 127-128, 134, 159, 177, 223.