Book by Book · Old Testament
A long account of decline, with one bright moment when something forgotten is found again.
2 Kings carries the story of Israel and Judah through their slow unraveling. Kings rise and fall, prophets warn, and both kingdoms drift further from the God who had bound himself to them, until the northern kingdom falls to Assyria and Judah is carried off to Babylon. It is, for long stretches, a hard book to read.
The brightest moment comes late, under King Josiah. While the temple is being repaired, the high priest Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law, which had been so long neglected that no one seemed to know it was missing. When it is read aloud to the king, he tears his robes. He realizes how far his people had wandered, and not because someone invented a new teaching, but because they had recovered an old one they already had.
I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the LORD.
— 2 Kings 22:8 (ESV)
What follows is one of the great reforms in Israel's history, and it starts with reading. Josiah does not improve on the text or update it for his moment. He returns to the source, and lets it correct him rather than the other way around.
We think about that often, because the work we do is only as honest as the source it returns to. It would be easy to build a tool that sounds knowledgeable about a church by generalizing, by filling gaps with what churches usually say. We built ours to do the opposite: to answer only from what a particular church has actually written and taught, and to go back to that text every time rather than improvise around it.
The reform began when someone bothered to read what was already there.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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