What impacts me the most as I read the Old Testament, and especially Kings, is how long-suffering our God is. This is years and years of documented focused history. As we learnt in the Snapshot video this week, over 500 years of history. The author has written these accounts for anyone living after these times, wanting them to know that our God is long-suffering and patient in His covenant agreement.

The Books 1 & 2 Kings contain some of the worst, most evil rulers in the Old Testament canon. However, God remains faithful, not only to provide a remnant but to turn poor situations into a place of grace, prophecy and revival. The plight of the disintegrating kingdom raises the question of morality.

An important theme that I want you to notice in the Books of 1 & 2 Kings is the relationship between the Prophet and the King, as prophecy plays a big part in these books.  A great way to read them is with a timeline of The Kings and Prophets with you.

As you read through the Books of 1 and 2 Kings, you’ll recognize its genre as historical narrative. That is, these books tell the story of the people of Israel as events occurred in this time. You will notice an extensive amount of dates, names, places etc. But while you are traversing through these historical accounts, we need to remind ourselves that the author was writing to record the history of his people, yes, but more importantly, he wrote to record the lessons of history.

There are so many heartbreaking moments in the books of 1 & 2 Kings that I can’t honestly say which one is the worst; the sin of Jeroboam worshipping the Golden Calf, the worship of Baal throughout the text? One moment can be quickly overlooked as an insignificant blip on the radar, but I want you to know the true significance of this moment and how it impacts not only the rest of 1 & 2 Kings and Chronicles, but the entire the Old Testament.

In a text like Kings, the over-arching motivation and plan of the sovereign God can be pulled a little out of focus. This Deep Dive’s aim is to relocate the salvation story within the wider historical narrative and to gather some of the scarlet threads together through the old covenant into the New.