1 Chronicles 23 - Levites and their Duties | Bible Podcast, David Alley, Peace Christian Church

In this video listen to 1 Chronicles Chapter 23, read by David Alley, followed by comments and prayer.

In 1 Chronicles 23 begins a four chapter discussion on the preparations for temple worship. David is not just focussed on building a building, but on building an entire system of worship for God. THe building was magnificent, but it is what happens there that is the most important, so we have four chapters to that, whereas we only had one chapter on the building.

We know the church is people, and not physical things. You can have a church without physical structures, but you cannot have a church without people. This is why the church thrives and grows in places where it isn’t allowed to exist. Even in the Maldives, believers go fishing so as to have church in a boat, because they have no legal right to exist. So the intangibles, the worship, the people, these are the things of most significance.

Here there is a census of Levites. In Numbers 4, there were 8,580 Levites… and now 38,000. It has grown by almost five times. Also in the catastrophic census of Israel that David took, the Levites and Benjamites were skipped, but now we have this number, but he only counts the over thirties, and doesn’t anger the Lord. David sets up 6000 officers and judges, 4000 doorkeepers and a praise and worship team of another 4000.

These were all on a roster as we shall see. And of course churches still have rosters today. The rest of them, 24000 assisted in the temple - helping the priests with sacrifices etc. The next three chapters will go through the dividing up of the jobs of these groups. The first of these was the priestly division. The next three chapters will discuss how these groups were divided up for their tasks and what it means for us today.