Sunday morning we are moving on with our "Crash" series. The message is entitled: "Wrong Turn". It's the story of the boy-king, Joash (he assumes the throne at age 8). Joash begins his reign seemingly committed fully to God and his ways but after his mentor dies, he leaves behind those ways and breaks covenant with God and with those who had earlier rescued him.
A few intriguing things from the text:
- In the entire story of the crowning of Joash his name is never used. Instead the focus is on the High Priest Jehoiada. This lack of naming the new king while highlighting Jehoiada shows the power, influence, and impact that this high priest had.
- Joash is in conflict with the priests and seems to be in some sort of power struggle with them. This is especially seen in the conflict over the repair of the temple.
- While the priests seem to take Joash lightly (even after he's been reigning 23 years), the princes of Judah pay him homage. It's possible that he abandons the ways of Jehoiada in order to wrest power from the priests. To do so he has to find a priestly class he can control and no priests of Yahweh are going to fit that bill.
So here's how the story starts (you can read the rest of the story to get ready for Sunday morning here):
10 Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah. 11 But Jehoshabeath, [1] the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king's sons who were about to be put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him [2] from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death. 12 And he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of God, while Athaliah reigned over the land. 2 Chronicles 22
No comments:
Post a Comment