Solomon Temple was Amazing

 

 

2 Chronicles 3: 8-17

 

May 13, 2023

 

In the Most Holy Place, he made two cherubim of wood and overlaid them with gold.  The wings of the cherubim together extended twenty cubits: one wing of the one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub; and of this cherub, one wing, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and the other wing, also of five cubits, was joined to the wing of the first cherub.  The wings of these cherubim extended twenty cubits. The cherubim stood on their feet, facing the nave.  And he made the veil of blue and purple and crimson fabrics and fine linen, and he worked cherubim on it.

In front of the house, he made two pillars thirty-five cubits high, with a capital of five cubits on the top of each. He made chains like a necklace and put them on the tops of the pillars, and he made a hundred pomegranates and put them on the chains.  He set up the pillars in front of the temple, one on the south, the other on the north; that on the south he called Jachin, and that on the north Boaz.

 

I can only wonder if the people who came to this amazing Temple that had a Holy of Holies were only the High Priest who was allowed to enter once a year, dressed in their finest clothing.  Did they come with an attitude of worship?  But something happened between then and when Jesus came on the scene, for in 586 BC the Babylonians destroyed the Temple Solomon built.  

 

The second Temple is often called Zerubbabels’s Temple, in that the Jews coming back from captivity were led by a man named Zerubbabel.  It was rededicated in 515 BC.  How we move to a guy named Herod the Great in 37 BC-AD 4.  He was not a great king, but a man who wanted to leave his name in history because of his great building project.  He rebuilt and expanded the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, which was in bad shape.

Jesus was brought by his parents to the Temple to be dedicated to God, and we have the account of Luke’s gospel. Luke 19:45-47

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Late in Jesus' time on earth, he returned to the temple, And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers. “And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him,

And this account from John’s gospel, John 2:14-16

In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my father’s house a house of trade.”

As a child now that was many years ago, no one would have shown up at the building we referred to as the Church, with short or even blue jeans.  But today people will dress up to go to a nice restaurant or play, but wear shorts to the place of worship.  It makes me wonder, what would Jesus do?  For some reason, I do not picture Him in short shorts ladies.  But the question that bothers me is why dress nicely to go to a nice place to eat or the theater, but not to a place of Worshiping the God who died for your sins?  

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice