Recently, I was going through Kings & Chronicles, as part of my Church’s reading program. As an aside, I could have sworn it was a two-year read-through-the-Bible thing, but apparently that hasn’t panned out. It’s just started the third year, and we’ve just now started with Psalms. At the rate it’s going, Psalms is going to take us the entire year. Who knew a fierce warrior could write SOOO many poems? As an aside aside, do you think David was composing stuff while he’s hacking away at people’s brains and stuff? “Wow, that blood spurt reminds me of God’s sacrifice!”
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Kings and Chronicles. I don’t know about you, but whenever I read them, I always try to guess beforehand whether the king I’m reading about is a good guy or bad guy. Well, with the Northern Kingdom, it’s pretty easy. Bet on black. But with the Southern Kingdom, it’s a little more of a challenge. Granted, they have fewer kings in general, but, on the whole, I’d say David fathered some pretty good people.
Well, for the most part. Have you ever noticed that the Bible will say like this is a good king, followed the laws of God, cleaned up the place (What’s with all these Asherah poles anyway? And why are they always the first ones to be taken down. I guess it can’t be hard to break a stick), etc, and so on. But, most often, they would add, almost parenthetically, (I don’t know why they just don’t go the whole way and add parentheses, big babies), that the kings would leave the high places. Like here, 1Ki 15:14 (NIV) “Although he did not remove the high places, Asa's heart was fully committed to the LORD all his life.”
So does that mean Asa is a good king? That always messes up my tally. In the end, I do put him under good, otherwise there will be like 2 good Davidic kings and the rest bad. (Note, I exaggerate a lot and I’m too lazy to fact-check) So that got me thinking. Is it ok to leave the high places? Maybe they’re hard to take down cause they’re so high? Or maybe the high places are like mountains, and it would take a lot of digging to flatten the place—after all bulldozers weren’t invented yet.
But I’m sure God doesn’t tolerate that kind of stuff. But Man does. Well, I guess for the same reason I put certain kings under the “Good” category, it’s hard to be perfect. Hey, this king did do some good, at least he’s NOT sacrificing his kids or anything. This again drives the point that only God is perfect, and even the most perfect person, while well-intentioned, still cannot match God’s measuring stick. It’s just too high. (cont...)
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1 comment:
Could it be that:
Since high places were where the people went to sacrifice to idols, they couldn't have been places hard to get to. They were just a little higher (hilltop) compared to the local surroundings to stand out and to be closer to the sky.
King Asa had his heart after God, but not to the point that he would want to upset his subjects as to destroy their places of idol worship, making him unpopular. I would imagine that he wouldn't go to those places himself, but he would still want to please his people and look good in front of them, unlike kings Hezekiah or Josiah. God hated kings that misled His people into committing sins, so my guess is Asa as a king wouldn't look that good to Him. Ultimately the message behind the record of all these kings was that the people needed the arrival of the one true King?
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