Rediscover the Word

If you’re in the Legacy Reading Plan, we’re right in the middle of spring, and during the month of May, we read through 1–2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles. I just finished the book of Kings.

It is quite stunning to read about how in 2 Kings 22-23 that Josiah finds the Book of the Law in the Temple, and tears his royal robes because he is undone by the fact that from the time of the judges the kings did not celebrate Passover. Israel is called to be a light to the nations and through types and shadows demonstrate to the world that God had provided a plan of redemption through a coming Christ. Yet, the very ones who are called to bring this light to the nations had forgotten the Book of the Law.

So you read in 2 Kings 23 that Josiah gave the order to all the people to “Celebrate the Passover to the Lord Your God as it is written in this Book of the Covenant. Not since the days of the judges who led Israel, nor throughout the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah, had any such Passover been observed. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was celebrated to the Lord in Jerusalem” (2 Kings 23:21–23, NIV).

Of course, we know the rest of the story, just as the Northern Kingdom had gone into captivity, so the Southern Kingdom would soon forget the Book of the Law again, and go into exile in Babylonia.

Think about today. The biggest problem we face is the problem of biblical illiteracy. It is not a problem, it is the problem. If we forget the Book of the Law—if we forget the Law that God has in fact inscribed upon the very tablet of our consciousness—we are guilty before the Lord. We are those whom God has revealed Himself to, and we are called to be priests to the people around us. It is no longer necessary to have a priest, we are the priesthood of all believers, and therefore we are called to be witnesses for Christ to a lost and searching world, which of course is the mission of the Christian Research Institute—equipping God’s people so that, first and foremost, they become so familiar with truth that when counterfeits loom on the horizon, they know it instantaneously, and to equip God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ might be built up and strengthened.