Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, ‘Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David. I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.’
”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, October 29, 2018
Artist’s conception of Solomon’s Temple. (source: Wikipedia)
by Daniel D. Maurer, Clergy Stuff
I don’t know about you, but I really dig beautiful buildings. I know, I know . . . it can border on actual idolatry of those things. But they’re so incredibly beautiful and a wonderful place to gather together with other people.
For our family, our house is like this. Church building too. We’re architectural geeks (or is it nerds?) and we enjoy a fine line designed into a structure.
Solomon’s Temple was to be a bastion to stand the ages. It did for many years . . . until it was destroyed.
Such is life, though. Buildings will always collapse into the sands of time.
But, in the meantime, I will appreciate and cherish the ability to gather in a place designed to house many people together.
It’s also a reminder to me that many in the world go without sufficient shelter. What more can I do to offer them a suitable living environment?
Narrative Lectionary Daily Reading:
1 Kings 6:1-22
In the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month of Ziv, which is the second month, he began to build the house of the Lord. The house that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. The vestibule in front of the nave of the house was twenty cubits wide, across the width of the house. Its depth was ten cubits in front of the house. For the house he made windows with recessed frames.* He also built a structure against the wall of the house, running around the walls of the house, both the nave and the inner sanctuary; and he made side chambers all round. The lowest story* was five cubits wide, the middle one was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for round the outside of the house he made offsets on the wall in order that the supporting beams should not be inserted into the walls of the house.
The house was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the temple while it was being built.
The entrance for the middle story was on the south side of the house: one went up by winding stairs to the middle story, and from the middle story to the third. So he built the house, and finished it; he roofed the house with beams and planks of cedar.He built the structure against the whole house, each story* five cubits high, and it was joined to the house with timbers of cedar.
Now the word of the Lord came to Solomon, ‘Concerning this house that you are building, if you will walk in my statutes, obey my ordinances, and keep all my commandments by walking in them, then I will establish my promise with you, which I made to your father David. I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will not forsake my people Israel.’
So Solomon built the house, and finished it. He lined the walls of the house on the inside with boards of cedar; from the floor of the house to the rafters of the ceiling, he covered them on the inside with wood; and he covered the floor of the house with boards of cypress. He built twenty cubits of the rear of the house with boards of cedar from the floor to the rafters, and he built this within as an inner sanctuary, as the most holy place. The house, that is, the nave in front of the inner sanctuary, was forty cubits long. The cedar within the house had carvings of gourds and open flowers; all was cedar, no stone was seen. The inner sanctuary he prepared in the innermost part of the house, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord. The interior of the inner sanctuary was twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and twenty cubits high; he overlaid it with pure gold. He also overlaid the altar with cedar.*Solomon overlaid the inside of the house with pure gold, then he drew chains of gold across, in front of the inner sanctuary, and overlaid it with gold. Next he overlaid the whole house with gold, in order that the whole house might be perfect; even the whole altar that belonged to the inner sanctuary he overlaid with gold.
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