1 Chronicles 17

What does God want?
(2) Temple plans


theme: There are a number of great themes that come out of this; you can't cover all of these, but depending on your group's needs, try to put a couple together in a way that progresses naturally from one to another, leading up to what you feel is most important for your group.

  1. worldy ideas of success versus what is important to God (our relationship with Him, obedience, and such)
  2. making plans within the context of God's will
  3. having a vision for how you want to serve God and minister
  4. how our lives should conform to God's vision and desires
  5. more important than doing things for God, is simply our relationship with God – our hearts, worship, love, obedience
worship: good worship songs would be those focusing on our devotion and obedience to God over worldly things, as well as songs about serving and vision


1. What's success?
(You can just read v. 1-15 if this is to be your main focus)


2. God's will and your plans.
[a huge topic in itself – could take a whole year to really discuss this well!]

General considerations regarding God's will: how to seek & discern God's will: practical ways in which God shows His will to us:


3. Vision and ministry – and even more important is...


Further references:

  1. Spring '99 study on Christian service from Rom. 12
  2. Spring '99 talk by Mike McQueen on Christ and/or career
  3. Summer '99 study on the Holy Spirit in our lives
  4. Summer '99 study on making our lives count for God, which pertains to the topic of vision


Notes.
When theologians speculate about why God denied David's desire to build the temple, a common and likely reason given is his participation in warfare. Though he was a godly man (generally), he did participate in a lot of wars with neighboring pagan nations, apparently to a degree beyond what God intended, and perhaps in a worldly way sometimes rather than from God's command. Warfare between competing states and tribes was a common part of the political culture in the Ancient Near East, and maybe the nature and degree of David's conducting warfare was too much like the worldly, violent warfare culture of the times. Aside from that reason (a very valid one, i think), in God's plans, it just wasn't the time yet for the temple, and God had different purposes in mind.

God's promise to David here is called the Davidic covenant – sort of another installment of the general Old Testament covenant also developed in "installments" to Abraham, Noah, and Moses. The promise of an eternal heir on the throne is of course fulfilled by Jesus, the eternal king of the covenant. (Thus, this promise has a real messianic tone.) Thus, God has a longer range plan and vision in mind than what David had, which is another reason God denied his "temple plans".

For mature Christians especially, the last section (#3) should lead to a lot of serious thinking or conviction.


EBS.
For an evangelistic Bible study or young believers, section 1 and parts of #2 may be appropriate – getting them to seriously consider worldly ideas of success that guide many people's lives, their vanity and uselessness, and what God wants instead. For an EBS, a related passage from the gospels might be even better:

A few issues to raise are: the meaning (meaninglessness) of worldly success, the meaning of one's life, what is the soul, what is eternity, what is eternal life, why God rejects those who displease Him, why pursuing worldly things is wrong (and spiritually unhealthy – in fact, spiritually suicidal).