1 Chronicles 21

What does God not want?



theme: The nature of sin; the danger of pride; how it affects our lives, our relationship with God, and others.
worship songs: songs on themes of repentance, forgiveness, etc.
parallel passage: 2 Samuel 24
background: Years have passed since our last Bible study with David. God has kept his promise of giving David vicotry in battle, establishing his royal line, and greatly blessing his rule as king. The nation has experienced great military victories over neighboring nations, big and small. David has built up a large, well-equipped army. The nation has undergone economic expansion and blessing, has become a major power in the region, and has begun to enter its golden age (which reaches its peak under Solomon). Is our hero David the same faithful, humble man we saw before...?


1. Oops, I sinned again.
Why was David judged for enacting a census? What was his sin? Why was it so serious?

If he was "incited", was it his fault? (What does 'incite' mean?) Did Satan make him do it?
What does James 1:13 say about temptation? Describe the stages in which it works.
How does it work in your case -- describe the process by which you commit your most common sins. What are your weak spots? Pride, lust, poor self-esteem, loneliness?

How and why was David convicted of his sin?
How do you respond when the Holy Spirit tries to convict you of sin? Does pride get in the way?
What does it mean to grieve the Holy Spirit? [Eph. 4.30]

Look at the following passages say about pride:


2. Dealing with the effects of sin.
How does our pride affect our relationship with God? Is it a harmless or victimless sin? Is any sin harmless? Consider these following sins – how does each of these sins or attitude problems affect your relationship with God? why is it a big deal?

How does pride affect your relations with others?

How are we to deal with the problem of pride in our lives?

Which sin do you have trouble with, and why? How, where, and when are you most vulnerable to temptation?
How do you plan do deal with it?

Can you think of an example of how your pride or sin hurts others?
Or causes you to have a poor witness to others?
How did you repent and seek forgiveness? How have you learned from your mistakes?

If we have hurt others, does that also affect our relationship with God?

How and why does sin hurt other people, including innocent persons?
Can you describe a good example in the world today? Why is it unfair?
How would God want us to respond to it?

Imagine you were a Jewish person under David's rule and lost a friend or loved one due to David's sin. How would you feel? Would you be able to forgive him?
How about in your actual life experience – have you been hurt by someone else's sin and had difficulty forgiving him/her/them?
How do you forgive when you've been very hurt (or how would you forgive if you were hurt)?


*See also: previous Bible studies from James on temptation and sin, Gen. 39 on sin and temptation (the story of Joseph & Potiphar's wife), or the story of David & Bathsheeba in 2 Sam. 11.


3. Sharing.
Your Bible study may get into a lot of deeper theological points, or basic stuff that younger believers in the group need to understand. Be open to whatever direction the study needs to go, based on your group's needs and the Spirit's guiding. But try in the end to come back to the over-arching them: how all this stuff effects our relationship with God, and its practical aspects (e.g., how to get rid of pride and get closer to God). Spend enough time sharing about each other's needs and weaknesses in this area and praying about them (separate male & female groups may generate better sharing here).




Notes.

  1. Why did innocent Israelites suffer and die for David's sin?
    Well, they weren't entirely innocent. 2 Sam. 24.1 indicates that God was angry with the Israelites for some unspecified reason. We can speculate that it may have been because of the people's support for Absolom's rebellion earlier, for some incident of idolatry that we're not told about (but that would be consistent with the rest of the history of this time period), or nationalistic pride after Israel's conquest of neighboring nations under David's leadership and the emergence of a "golden age" in the nation's history. Thus, God used this opportunity to teach David a lesson and to execute judgment on the Israelites, with whom He was also angry.
    There are other theological considerations: (1) the idea of corporate guilt, i.e., an entire nation, society, or group shares in the guilt of sins and punishment committed by its members (which runs counter to the Western concept of individualism); and (2) the unfair consequences of sin – how one person's sin unfairly hurts others – Satan does not play by any kind of fair rules.

  2. Who incited David to sin?
    2 Sam. 24.1 seems to indicate God incited David to sin, while 1 Chron. 21.1 indicates Satan incited him to sin. First, God does not tempt people (James 1.13) to sin, and we know that God is absolutely sovereign. But God allows us to fall into sin so we can learn hard lessons about our attitudes and choices that lead us into sin (pride goes before a fall, Prov. 16.18; also, Prov. 11.28, Eccl. 10.8). After years of trusting God faithfully and humbly, over the years David became proud after all his military conquests of nearby pagan nations and enlarging the nation's borders (including the conquest of Palestinian, Syrian, and Phoenician kingdoms), building up a large military force of many soldiers and weapons, and economic and military success of the kingdom.
    Other parts of Scripture tell us how Satan tries to attack or tempt God's people, but only if God allows it. However, while Satan's intentions are malicious, God's purposes are for ultimate good. While Satan's success is limited and temporary, God works thru the bad situations for larger, longer term purposes (Rom. 8.28). Other examples in Scripture include Job; Judas' betrayal of Jesus; and the persecution of Christians (1 Peter 4.19, 5.8), which is satanically inspired but used by God as a means of testing and improving believers' faith and witness. Here, Satan wanted to harm Israel and David's reputation, while God used it for David's good – to humble him and teach him important lessons – and to punish the Israelites for whatever their sin was.
    Here God does not tempt, cause, command, or directly incite David to sin, but He takes advantage of David's pride and the fact that Satan is tempting him. God allows Satan to tempt him and takes advantage of it to teach him a lesson. God is in effect saying, okay David, you want to indulge in sinful pride by counting your fighting men, go ahead, and learn your lesson.

  3. What about other discrepancies between 1 Chron. 17 & 2 Sam. 24?*
    (a) Census figures:
    For the northern tribes, 1 Chron. reports the number of all men of fighting age, whether they had fought or not. 2 Sam. 24 reports the number of "mighty men" or battle-seasoned troops (800,000) plus possibly 300,000 men of age who were "reserves" but had not yet fought, totalling 1.1 million, as 1 Chron. reports. For Judah (the southern tribes), 2 Sam. 24 reports 500,000 – 30,000 more than in 1 Chron. 1 Chron 21.6 reports that Joab did not finish numbering, so it was halted before counting the tribe of Benjamin (Benjamin would be counted last, according to the order in which the census was carried out, 2 Sam. 24.5-6). So the 1 Chron. census omits the Benjaminites, whose number was known or estimated at 30,000 (a reasonable estimate, at least) and included in 2 Sam.
    (b) number of years of famine
    David is given a choice of punishments: in 2 Sam., 7 years of famine, 3 months of defeat, or 3 days of plague; in 1 Chron., 3 years of famine, 3 months of defeat, or 3 days of plague (="the sword" of the angel). One should note that the choice in 2 Sam. is given by the prophet Gad, while the choice in 1 Chron. is from Nathan. Apparently Gad was the first to confront David, and in light of David's sorrow for his behavior, Nathan gives David a less severe set of choices.
    (c) the price of the threshing floor
    The 50 shekels in 2 Sam. is for the threshing floor (for processing wheat) itself and some oxen; the 600 shekels in 1 Chron. is for the entire estate on Mt. Moriah. The lengthy discussion of the negotiation and sale can be omitted from this Bible study; the writer of Chron. goes into detail here because of its future importance – Mt. Moriah would later become the site for Solomon's temple.

    *Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties, 1982, Zondervan.


EBS.
Focus on the reality, nature and consequences of sin, and the dangers of seemingly "harmless" or "victimless" sins like pride, which is actually often considered acceptable or not wrong in the world, esp. in modern relativistic thinking. This may lead to discussion of what sin is in God's eyes, how it separates us from Him, and what remedy we need. If you want to avoid the theological complexities that might come up, instead you could use the topics above with a different passage like Genesis 3 or the story of David's sin with Bathsheba (in a previous Bible study, 2 Sam. 11-12).