July 16

OT -- 1st Chronicles 22:1-23:32
Nope, our chronicler is definitely not into the dirt at least as far as David's family is concerned. No mention of the rape of Tamar, the defections of his other sons, the divisions in his family. Just that he made Solomon king who was to build the Temple.
I did especially like that David knew this would be a hard political battle for his son and so he gathered much of the material for the Temple including the personnel to oversee the building and the maintenance.
This is where the mention of Moses' sons are from my previous post "What happened to Moses' sons?" Apparently, just run of the mill Levites.
Having spent my weekend with extended family, I totally understand the need to recount the ancestors. I love the stories and the reminiscences of various members especially when one remembers it one way and another remembers it another way. That's what I think happened with 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles. Only in this case, they were groups of people writing the stories and even among the groups there was dissension.
At one point this weekend, I had a text chat with Matthew who was not here. He is spending the summer as a camp counselor and could not get away. Matthew made a disparaging remark about someone else's parenting skills. My comment back to him was that we really do not know the whole story. Families are complicated beings unto themselves. And Matthew is perceiving the situation from an 18 year old's viewpoint (the world is CLEARLY black and white) and the adult in the drama is seeing it from a late 40s vantage point. Not better or worse, just different.
And that is the beauty of having two and in some cases where we have the prophet writing, three viewpoints on same struggle and situation. Not better or worse, just different.
The problem comes when we only have ONE source material and no dissenting voice or corrections.
I love that David said the reason he didn't get to build the Temple in Chronicles was because of all the bloodshed. Not the specific bloodshed of Uriah but all the other stuff. I don't think Solomon was immune to bloodshed since he does away with several of his brothers, advisors who aren't loyal and assorted other individuals. But I guess he doesn't campaign like David did.

NT -- Romans 3:9-31
Since I blasted Paul yesterday, I guess I have to take it back today. "Are we any better? Not at all!" Sorry, this is the problem with reading the Bible in snippets.
In this section of scripture, Paul reiterates the theme of Romans "by faith we are saved".