Word Weld

Lesson 1

Introduction

This study is based off of the Sunday School curriculum Truths from the Throne, copyright North Valley Publications, which was provided to me for this class. However, I am not a big proponent of adult Sunday School curriculum myself and prefer a less structured and more organic atmosphere in adult Sunday School. Adult Sunday School is not, in my view, to just be another sermon, where we sit and listen to a teaching style sermon and then leave to go to service. It’s also not to be like the younger-age classes, where a book is read and pre-loaded questions are asked. This formula may work for younger groups, but I feel like adult Sunday School should challenge us at our level, and be tailored to where we are in life. I put my lessons together myself, through my own personal Bible study, marrying the reading of the Scripture itself, which is paramount, with supplemental information I can find, and then drawing out practical applications specifically to us as a group, and applications that we can take for ourselves individually.

Sunday School as a concept is not in the Bible. As many know, it was an invention of English Anglicans in the late 1700s, and was made successful largely by British reformers like Robert Raikes and William Wilburforce. It was originally a form of basic education provided by the Anglican Church for improving society by teaching fundamental lessons, including Bible teaching but not limited to it. Since it was by Anglicans, it was very Catholic in feel, very “religious,” very structured. Yet even though Sunday School is not in the Bible or commanded by God, our modern-day Sunday School classes are very much in line with New Testament thought and Biblical guidance. Sunday morning services and sermons in particular are used to teach the broader concepts God’s Word to a large and diverse group of people. Sunday School classes, like Bible Studies, are to be more intimate, more personal, more focused. For the children, that means energetic teaching, singing, and other activities that are geared for their level, to engage their attention and help them to learn about God in the most beneficial way. None of us believes that young children get very much (not nothing, but not very much) out of sermons from the pulpit. And while God’s Word is always beneficial, a targeted approach to Bible study is the best approach for people who have been saved longer.

Thus, Sunday school in our day is not solely for children, and the goal is not to teach a classical education, but to focus on Bible teaching and spiritual growth, and a deepening of our current understanding of God and His Word. It is by age group because children will get certain lessons out of Scripture that teens will not, and teens will get certain applications that adults will not, and adults will get certain things out of it that retirement-age adults will not. In a way, Sunday School is like discipleship for those who have been saved for a long time. Its purpose is not just to teach facts about Scripture or God (there will be those), but to help saved people get closer to heaven, while still in this life. How can we take Scripture and apply it in such a way that you will become a better Christian, whether you’re a mother of four, or a plumber with his own business, or a single man working a 9-5, or a middle-aged woman with grandchildren. Sunday morning sermons are for preaching large-scale concepts and tend to lean towards salvation themes, because if visitors come to church, they typically come on Sunday morning. For those who have already been discipled, more direct, focused teaching is not only good but necessary.

Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,¹ Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.² And this we will do, if God permit.³ For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavily gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,⁴ And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,⁵ If they should fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.⁶

– Hebrews 6:1-6

While some think this is talking about losing salvation, I am convinced that the context provided by verses 1-3 give us the true interpretation of this passage. Indeed, the verses that come after talk about the earth using the rain to grow plants and food! While we could sit and study this verse all day, the implication is clear: we don’t need to go backward, and lay the same foundations over and over again if we are saved, which is comfortable and easy, but we must “go on unto perfection.” The word, similar to the one used in James, means “maturity” or “completeness.” In other words, if you aren’t moving forward, you risk going back. If your plants stop growing, they rot. As adults, we should understand that we would never want to go back to childhood, though we imagine sometimes that we’d like to. The reality is that you could not, it would be impossible. And if you could, doing so would be shameful, given all that we have been taught, and the responsibility we have to use it. It is entirely possible to stagnate spiritually, and that won’t do. Sunday School, especially adult Sunday School, is supposed to make us think, to go deeper than the surface, not lay a hundred copies of the foundational teachings, but to build upon them.

And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.¹ I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.²

– I Corinthians 3:1

What does that mean for us, as an adult class? Well, for me, it means that we are going to be studying the Bible in an adult way. Not only is my goal to expand your knowledge of the Bible, but my greater goal is to engage you as individual adults. In most Sunday School classes I’ve been in, the teacher reads from a curriculum book. He may have people read passages out loud, or not. Questions are then asked, usually read directly out of the book, and then answered. If the answer given by the students is not the one that’s in the book, the teacher will give the correct answer, and then move on. Sometimes the questions are asked throughout, sometimes at the end. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this method, I think it does not adequately engage you as people. My goal is to study the passages we’re going to look at in light of how you as an individual can be encouraged, admonished, or enlightened by what we study, so that you can take something practical with you. To that end, I will have prepared a large amount of material each time we come to class, but I have no intention of getting through a certain amount of material in a given class time. I encourage you to ask questions at any time, and if a question you ask leads us into a discussion, then I consider that a success. Successful Sunday School in my view is found in reading Scripture, hearing some teaching, and then spending as much time as necessary working it out, making sure we understand it as best as we are able, and then applying that Scripture to our lives such that our faith increases, our boldness increases, our nearness to God increases, on a personal level.

History and Authorship of Kings

The Books of I and II Kings, and I and II Chronicles, were written at different times and by different authors, and indeed for different reasons. This is despite the fact that due to similar time periods and similar wording, many people take Chronicles to be a duplication of Kings. However, the books have different focuses and themes.

In the Hebrew Bible, called the Tenakh, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles were originally one book each. The division into 1^st and 2^nd occurred during the translation into Greek, where there were imposed limitations on the length of books (then scrolls). In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the editors actually called what is in our Bible Samuel 1^st and 2^nd Kings, and our 1^st and 2^nd Kings was called 3^rd and 4^th Kings. So in the original Greek, you would see I, II, III, IV Kings. While we don’t follow this today in our Bible, Kings can really be considered a “sequel” to Samuel, as Kings picks up where Samuel ends, almost without any break or gap. You will thus hear me refer to them in the singular throughout this class.

The authorship of Kings is unknown, as the author is no where named in the text. It is widely believed that Kings was written during the Babylonian Exile, and probably completed sometime around 560 B.C. This comes from the text itself, as whoever wrote it had knowledge of Israel’s Kingdom period from the beginning to the end, but the book ends before mentioning anything about the return to Jerusalem, which began with the decree of the Persian King Cyrus for the Hebrews to return to their homeland, as stated in the first 3 chapters of the Book of Ezra. Thus, it is likely the book was written during the captivity in Babylon. In Jewish and Christian tradition, the book was written by Jeremiah, and there is some evidence within the text to support this.

Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.¹⁸ And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.¹⁹ For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.²⁰

II Kings 24:18-20

Contrast this with:

Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.¹ And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.² For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.³

Jeremiah 52:1-3

Now, it is not definitive proof that Jeremiah wrote the book, but it is highly suggestive of that fact, especially since Jeremiah also lived during this period, though notably he did not go into captivity in Babylon. Jeremiah remained in the land of Israel all the way through the final destruction of Jerusalem, and then was taken prisoner by the remnants of the Jews who remained, and carried away into Egypt when they rebelled against the Babylonians and were subsequently destroyed by Babylon when they invaded Egypt. Jeremiah’s fate beyond that is not recorded, but he would have been in perfect place both geographically and chronologically to record everything that transpired in the Book of Kings. There is also a theory, created by German theologian Martin Noth in 1943, that the books of Deuteronomy through Kings were actually written by the same person, well after the Fall of Jerusalem and the return from exile. I find this theory interesting but do not hold to it myself, as it conflicts with the authorship of Deuteronomy by Moses, and also seems to put forth the idea that much of the historical books were manipulated by human authors in order to achieve their goals of Jewish nationalism and Judaism, whereas we know that God is the ultimate author of the Bible and thus it is assembled without error or human manipulation. However, there is something to be said though between the connection between the warnings that Moses gives to Israel at the end of his sermons Deuteronomy and the historical record of the Book of Kings. In some ways it makes the book of Deuteronomy almost a prophetic book.

History and Authorship of Chronicles

Chronicles was written sometime later than Kings, likely post-exile. As such, it is often attributed to Ezra or Nehemiah, though there is no direct evidence in the text that this was the case. It contains information about the Fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC as well as the return of the captive Jews from exile, from which it is inferred that the book was written well after that. Chronicles is found after Samuel and Kings in our English Bible, but interestingly it is the last book of the Hebrew Bible. English Bibles follow the example of the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint), in putting the books of history together, then follow with the books of poetry and finally the prophets, ending in Malachi because Malachi’s prophecies about the coming Savior are a particularly good launching point into the New Testament. The Jews reject the New Testament, obviously, so instead their Bible ends with Chronicles, which has a hopeful message of a return to their homeland, compared with the somber ending of Kings. It’s important to remember that Judaism in the Bible and in large part today is inseparable from Zionism, or Jewish nationalism. The history of the Jews is a religious heritage, and their nation and their religion are inseparable. However, this focus on their nation and kingdom is ultimately what blinds the Jews to the coming of Jesus, who they reject in large part because He did not come as a national hero, but instead as a spiritual Savior. This is made even worse when the Gospel is given to the Gentiles, leading to the Jews becoming the primary enemy of the early church.

Themes in Kings

The Book of the Kings is largely a historical record, in much the same as earlier books like Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, and of course, Samuel. However, it does contain themes, just as earlier books. As we talked about in our initial discussion, the Book of the Kings is the fulfillment of the prophetic statement that God gave Moses, who subsequently shared it in Deuteronomy.

For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.²⁹

Deuteronomy 31:29

This nearly prophetic statement by Moses tells that he knew that Israel would not follow God, and would be punished for it. By this point in his sermon, Moses has already warned the people what the punishments will be for forsaking God’s Word. The second half of chapter 28 is full of terrible threatening and warnings of God’s judgement upon them if they will not obey Him.

In the last portion of Deuteronomy 28, God even gives what is truly a prophetic series of statements. While he does not name any proper names, he states:

Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things;⁴⁷ Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in all nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. ⁴⁸ The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;⁴⁹ A nation of a fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, or shew favor to the young:⁵⁰ And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee. ⁵¹ And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.⁵²
….
 And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.⁶⁴

Deuteronomy 28:47-52, 64

God knew what would happen, though as we will see He did everything He could to prevent it, in spite of His foreknowledge. Indeed, it is a remarkable aspect of God’s character that He would (at least from our perspective) waste His time sending prophet after prophet, doing miracles, pleading and begging and warning Israel to repent, knowing fully that they would spit in His face and do whatever was right in their own eyes. But God is good, and so He must show His love for His people, even when He knows it will not make any difference to them. That is a truth that proceeds into the New Testament too, with Jesus forgiving the very Jews who were committed to destroying Him, many of whom would die in their sins.

Thus, the Book of Kings is a case study in the human condition: depravity and self-will. It is not a pleasant theme, but it is as dark as one would expect from a writer or writers who had seen all of the terrible deeds of their kings, and still could see with their waking eyes the burning of their homes and the shattering of the walls of their city. In many ways, it is a continuation of the theme of Judges, except that whereas in Judges it says that “there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes,” now there are kings, and things are no better. As it turns out, depraved human leaders are not much more successful at holiness than just the people at large, and due to their power, are capable of even greater depravity. Not counting the three kings of the united kingdom of Israel (Saul, David, and Solomon) there are a total of 39 kings discussed in the Book of the Kings, 19 who reigned over the 10 northern tribes, and 20 who reigned over the 2 southern tribes. The vast majority of the kings openly rebelled against God, all of the northern kings and about half of the southern kings. The closest thing to a Godly king in the north was Jehu, while the worst was Ahab, though there is a lot of competition for worst in this race. In Judah, there were a smattering of good and bad kings. The worst was likely Manasseh, while several were very good, including Josiah and Hezekiah. Kings sees the cyclical theme of Judges taken to another level, but now the cycle of good and bad is personified in the persons of the kings of Judah, while the northern Kingdom is simply a cycle of evil and greater evil. Things have not improved, but in the midst of this bleak outlook there is also the theme of God’s continual pleading, and interestingly the majority of the recorded pleading is with the northern kingdom, not with Judah. The greatest prophets God sends to warn, admonish, and plead, were sent to Sameria, not to Jerusalem. And throughout the book we also see God’s care for individuals who will be faithful to love and serve Him, even in the midst of His judgment on the wicked and their kings.

Themes in Chronicles

Chronicles is more nuanced than Kings. Kings is more of a historical record, and is in many ways a narrative tragedy, a book designed to show exiled Israelites why their fate was sealed by their kings’ betrayal of God. Chronicles was written to encourage those who had returned from exile. This is why it is the last book of the Hebrew Bible, for its purpose is not so much to tell the same story as Kings, but to tell it and more besides in the light of God’s promise of a coming, perfect King. In some ways, Chronicles is to Kings what John is to Matthew or what Luke is to Mark. It is a telling of the same story from a different perspective. Instead of starting where Samuel left off, Chronicles is far more comprehensive. It starts with a long genealogy, reminding the Jews where they came from, and how David was a king unlike any other. It then goes into David’s descendants all the way through Zedekiah, the last King of Judah. It then goes through all the generations of children of each of the twelve Patriarchs, which is a long read. It ends Benjamin and therefore Saul, and then a genealogy of the exiles of Jerusalem.

Then, in chapter 10, beginning with the death of Saul, the first king of Israel, the book briefly recaps Sauls fall, David’s ascent, and then spends the next 19 chapters talking about David. This means that, whereas the first half of Kings (1^st Kings) has already gotten through roughly half of the kings in Israel’s history, the first half of Chronicles has really only talked about David. It also casts him in a very bright light, omitting his sins and focusing on his triumphs and the way in which he loved God and served his people. This is the entire focus of 1^st Chronicles. In the last chapter David gives a speech about how he has prepared all the materials that his son Solomon will need to build God’s temple, because of how much he loves God and wants Israel to serve God through the building of the temple. Finally, it ends with Solomon taking the throne, and David passing away. There is no mention of Bathsheba, no mention of Joab, no mention of Amnon’s incest or Absolom’s insurrection. We will also see that there is no mention of Solomon’s disobedience to God or his descent into idolatry. Many, especially progressive Christians and unbelievers, point to this as kind of Zionist whitewashing, or even revisionist history, claiming that later Jews basically wrote Chronicles to make David and Solomon look perfect, and paint Israel itself in a perfect light. But there’s a problem with that theory: the fact that the books of Samuel and Kings are still in the Bible. No, the author of Chronicles was not trying to erase the sins of his people and their greatest kings, but to highlight the good to a people who had lost all hope. He wanted the people to know that the splendor of David and Solomon’s kingdoms is just a picture of the glorious Kingdom of God that will come. Remember, the Jews who returned from exile were already looking for the Messiah to come. They did not understand the passages about His suffering and death and rise from the dead, and saw only the promises of a national hero who would restore Israel to its former glory. They knew the end of the story, but not everything in between. Thus the theme is more hopeful and to that end, Chronicles not only omits David and Solomon’s sins, but does not discuss the northern kingdom hardly at all. Chronicles does mention kings from the northern kingdom, but it literally treats them similar to other pagan nations of the region, and does not carefully document their dynasties. This too, is more evidence against the whitewashing theory, as Chronicles doesn’t completely ignore the northern kingdom, but talks about them to the reader as if the reader already knows much about them, and why they are evil and not included in the story. II Chronicles is literally the story of the Kingdom of Judah alone. The story talks more positively about Judah’s subsequent kings as well, only mentioning evil when it needs to for the story to make sense. The latter part of the book spends much time talking about Hezekiah, in keeping with its hopeful message. It does mention his sin concerning the messengers, but it does not dwell on it, and even refers to this whole story as a test God put Hezekiah through. Notably, there are some stories in Chronicles that are not found anywhere else, including a story about the ultimate repentance of Judah’s most evil king, Menasseh, among others. The book keeps its hopeful tone even all the way through the end, spending only five total verses on the fall of Jerusalem and the exile, then immediately fast forwarding to the proclamation by Cyrus of Persia for the Jews to return to their homeland, 70 years later, where it concludes. Like Kings, the book ends rather abruptly and open-ended, but whereas Kings ends with the Israelites in captivity or fleeing to Egypt, Chronicles begins with a hopeful message to Israel: we may return home.

Tie-in With Lesson 1

The history of Israel as a divided kingdom isn’t exactly a happy tale, but like most cautionary tales, like the book of Judges, or Lamentations, or even the book of Numbers, there is much to be learned from the mistakes of the Kings of Israel that can apply to us thousands of years later. The book highlights a number of different ways to analyze this period of Israel’s history, and we will touch on those as we go along. We will contrast how God intended Israel to be governed with how it ended up being governed. The nation’s governance was designed by God, to be ruled by Him through the observance of His law and the guidance of His ministers, be they judges, or prophets. The nation departs from God, in the same ways that they did under the judges, but with a king is able to fall even further as a whole. We will also see, especially as we jump back and forth between the kings of Israel and Judah, how different the nations were, and how similar, as a people and their individual kings.

As we go through, we will assess the failures of the kings and how these failures teach us lessons that we can take with us as adult Christians in 2026 and beyond. Telling the stories of the kings of Israel and Judah cannot truly be thorough without talking about the prophets, and their courage in dealing with their mission to admonish, warn, and sometimes directly challenge the kings they are sent to. As we examine each King, we will also speak of the other characters, the relatives, the generals and captains, that queens even, who influenced both the kings and the prophets. But most importantly, we need to not just analyze and study for the sake of knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, the knowledge that we can gain from Bible study is good, but knowledge doesn’t become wisdom until its applied. How does studying King Rehoboam, the first King of Judah in the divided kingdom, apply to your profession? How do his failure to accept proper council teach you to be a better decision maker in your home? How does Jehoshaphat’s relationship with Ahab teach me as a dad about how to be more careful with my managing my child’s relationships with those around me. What does Jehu’s inability to let go of a pattern of behavior already established in his kingdom teach us about how you as a mom can let go of the bad patterns of behavior set forward in your own family? There are so many lesson to be learned from the Divided Kingdom and its leadership, and God willing, in the next quarter we will be exploring each king of Israel and Judah. Some we will linger on, others there’s not much to dive into, but my lessons are not highly structured in practice, even if they are structured on paper. I’m sure it will take some time for us to get accustomed to one another, but if in a few weeks we can be totally wrecking my lesson every Sunday morning with a rousing discussion, I will consider our class a success.