May 12-16
[M] 2 Sam 6; 1 Chr 13; Ps 60; Acts 23
[T] 1 Chron 14-16; Acts 24
[W] 2 Sam 7-8; 1 Chr 17; Ps 132; Acts 25
[T] 2 Sam 9-10; 1 Chr 18-19; Ps 89; Acts 26
[F] 2 Sam 11-12; 1 Chr 20; Ps 51, 32; Acts 27
Dwell Plan Day 96-100 | CSB | Digital PDF | Printable PDF
Notes from Jon & Chris
Monday
Samuel and Chronicles | Four out of the five days this week (and several more times in the weeks to come), we are going to read parallel passages from the books of Samuel and Chronicles. The books of Samuel and then Kings were probably written before or during the exile to tell the story of the sin of the people of God. Chronicles tells the same stories, but with a more hopeful emphasis on the faithfulness of God during that time. As you read the parallel accounts, don’t get annoyed and think, “Ugh, I already read this…” Take a bit of time and look at the differences and similarities. When you do that, you’ll have a better grasp of what’s going on.
2 Samuel 6:14 | David’s dancing before God is something we don’t imitate in our worship. What’s odd is he didn’t dance the first time they tried to move the ark, but he did the second time. In verse 8 we learn that David had to process some anger about what had happened. Uzzah had reached out to steady the ark, so it wouldn’t tip out of the oxcart it was in, and he died. The whole scene is regrettable, because it all could have been avoided by obeying the rules that God had explicitly laid down for them. The eruption of judgment is sudden and severe. David’s anger isn’t spelled out for us. We don't know who he’s angry at or the specific reason he’s so upset. Was it his own negligence? Was it frustration that others hadn’t been careful to be holy? We don’t know.
After Uzzah dies, they stop moving the ark, and let it sit at someone’s house. David hears how blessed that house has become, and he takes action. Time to go get the ark again. This time he sacrifices an animal every six steps! And he’s praising and he’s dancing. What’s changed? David knows two things clearly now which charge his heart with an electric and dynamic worship. First, God is holy. Holy in ways that terrify us and reveal all of our sinfulness and filth. The Holy God must judge us. We can’t stand before Him, we can’t look at Him, and we definitely must not touch Him. But the second truth is even greater than the first truth. This Holy God wants and seeks to love and bless us anyways. Despite our unholiness. And realizing that transports David into radical and expressive joy. May the Holy Spirit do the same work in us.
Tuesday
2 Chronicles 16:4 | David’s leadership included making sure that the Levites were doing their job of worship. This accountability in God’s kingdom is essential. Everywhere we see it, it calls us to be accountable ourselves, and points towards how selfish independence is a dead end. The rule and oversight of God’s kingdom is intertwined with the worship in God’s kingdom.
Acts 24:14 | Here, Paul defends himself before Felix by saying, “I worship the God of our ancestors as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect.” Before Christians were called Christians, they were known as followers of the Way—a title rooted in Jesus’ own words: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). This early name captured the movement’s identity: not just a belief system, but a distinct path centered on Jesus Himself.
Wednesday
Acts 25:23-27 | King Agrippa and Bernice enter with great pomp—surrounded by power, wealth, and applause. Paul, in contrast, stands before them in chains. To any bystander, it would have seemed obvious who held the power in that room. But the kingdom of God doesn’t operate by worldly standards. Two thousand years later, Paul’s words have shaped nations, hearts, and world history, while the family of the Herods are largely forgotten. What looked like weakness was actually the triumph of God’s unstoppable plan.
2 Samuel 7:1–17; 1 Chronicles 17 | This is one of those lynch pin moments that holds the whole story of the Bible together. David wants to do something good: he offers to build God a house, a permanent temple. But God flips the script and says, “Actually, I’m going to build you a house.” He’s not talking about bricks and mortar, but a dynasty—a promise that one of David’s descendants will reign forever. It’s a clever play on words, but more than that, it’s a stunning promise of the Messiah to come. Even though David’s line would eventually stumble and fall (as we’ll read in Kings/Chronicles), God’s plan never would. Jesus, born from David’s family tree, is the ultimate fulfillment of that promise. He now reigns—not just over Israel, but over all creation. This covenant shows us how deeply committed God is to saving His people through His chosen King. And that King, Jesus, rules with justice, mercy, and grace that will never end.
2 Samuel 7:27 | There’s a wonderful turnaround in this conversation between David and God, with Nathan the prophet being the message bearer for God. David wants to build God a house. Makes sense. David isn’t living in tents any longer. In fact, most of God’s people live in houses now so God needs a house! But then, in tenderness and grace, God says no. No can be hard to hear, and it can grieve our hearts. But look again at how tender and gracious our God is. He tells David that He will build a house for David! A house that lasts forever! This is the promise of Jesus and our becoming the family of God, with Christ as our older brother. The lesson is this: sometimes you are the one who goes and does God’s work. And sometimes you are the work yourself. Praise Him.
Thursday
2 Samuel 9 | In this section, David seeks out Mephibosheth, the disabled grandson of King Saul, not to punish him, but to show him kindness. Though Mephibosheth came from the family that once opposed David, and although the normal practice in that culture and time period would have been to execute a rival, he was instead given a place at the king’s table, like one of David’s own sons. This act of mercy is a powerful picture of the gospel. Like Mephibosheth, we were spiritually helpless and undeserving, yet Christ sought us out. He didn’t come to condemn, but to show grace and welcome us into His family. David’s kindness in 2 Samuel 9 points forward to the even greater kindness of Jesus, who gives His enemies a place at His table forever.
Psalm 89:1 | The psalmist opens with a bold and beautiful declaration: I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever. At first glance, it sounds poetic, something you might expect in a worship song or prayer. But if we pause to think about what this really means, it’s staggering. Forever is a long time. The psalmist isn’t exaggerating or being sentimental—he’s touching on a deep truth about who God is.
If God is truly infinite in His being (as Scripture reveals), then His love, too, is infinite. It has no edges, no end, no limits. His steadfast love is not just an emotion, but a covenant promise grounded in His very nature. And if that’s true, then this verse isn’t just a nice idea. It’s a preview of our eternal future. We will truly spend forever diving deeper into the heart of God, exploring the riches of His mercy, grace, and love.
Imagine an ocean with no shore, a well with no bottom. That’s what it means to know the steadfast love of the Lord. In Christ, we have been invited to sing of that love—not just now, but forever, with voices that will never tire and hearts that will never stop being amazed.
Acts 26 | In this chapter, Paul stands before King Agrippa and tells the story of how Jesus saved and called him. This moment fulfills what Jesus said at Paul’s conversion—that he would bear His name before kings. Years earlier, the Lord told Ananias that Paul was His chosen instrument for this very purpose (Acts 9:15). Now, that promise is coming true. One way that we could look at this passage is as a tragedy: one of the most important leaders in the early church is on trial for his life. But Luke (the author of Acts) gives us another perspective. Paul is here because God, in His sovereignty, has placed him here. Paul is in this situation because God is using Paul to move His kingdom forward.
Acts 26:28, | And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” | Uh…yeah…that’s kinda the point of my whole life…
Friday
2 Samuel 11-12 | On Monday, we explained about the differences between the stories in Samuel/Kings and Chronicles. Chronicles focuses less on the sins of the people that eventually would lead to the exiles in 722 and 586 BCE, and more on the faithfulness of God during this period. That’s why there is no parallel story in Chronicles.
2 Samuel 11:1 | David is at home, in Jerusalem, during what this verse calls the time when kings go out to battle. This is a very famous phrase, because it indicts David without actually accusing him of anything. What’s the indictment? He wasn’t doing what he was supposed to be doing. It reminds me of the expression my mom used: idle hands are the devil’s playground. That isn’t in Scripture, but it sure is a biblical truth. The prelude to our apostasy, the introduction of our own self destruction by sin and temptation, all it has to be is laziness. It doesn’t take much for us to wander far, destroy our family, and hurt ourselves terribly. That’s the lesson for us plain and simple. David had real advantages: intimacy with God, and fantastic success. And it all comes to pieces in a weak moment. Don’t miss the warning. No one is safe when it comes to temptation.
2 Samuel 12:1 | David wrote psalms. He’s the warrior poet, and his poetry is still read 3,000 years after he wrote them. Wow. And those poems have a deeper understanding of grace than most modern Christians can articulate. My only question is this: the baby from David’s adultery has been born now. This means the news of all this bad stuff that David did—raping Bathsheba and arranging her husband’s murder—was already at least nine months old. And there’s no way it was a secret. Servants always know the private business of their masters. So every time I read about Nathan going to confront David, I imagine what the palace had been like for the past half of a year. Did David keep singing and composing songs? Did he continue to act as he was holy? Did he ignore God? We have such a clear view of his heart in his poetry. Perhaps that same dedication he expressed for God had been redirected towards his new wife? We don’t know. We do know that Nathan has to trick him into seeing himself, implying that a kind of hardness or blindness had set in. It’s a side of David that we can’t really see in the narratives, but we all really know because we share the same broken sin nature. And when we see it, when we see that David was blinded in his sin and rebellion, we can now be stunned by the grace he celebrates so deeply in his poetry. The clear and unobstructed vision of Psalm 51 is the amazing lovingkindness of God, something he now describes in ways that only knowing Jesus can make sense of. In and through his spectacular and horrific failure, God has provided for us a script in David’s poem. It’s a script we can all use when we discover again the extraordinary mercy of the Living God for ruined sinners. Praise Him.
Psalm 51 | This Psalm is David’s prayer of repentance after being confronted by the prophet Nathan about his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, Uriah. It’s one of the most honest and broken cries for mercy in all of Scripture. David doesn’t try to justify himself; he pleads for cleansing, knowing his sin runs deep. He says, “Against you, you only, have I sinned,” showing that true repentance starts with recognizing our offense against God. But what’s striking is David’s confidence in God’s mercy—he asks for a clean heart, a renewed spirit, and restoration. That kind of bold repentance is only possible when we know the character of the God we’re coming to. David throws himself entirely on God’s grace, not his own efforts. Ultimately, this grace is fully revealed at the cross of Christ, where the true and better King bore the guilt David (and we) deserved. The cross shows us that God doesn’t just forgive sin; He deals with it in full, at great cost to Himself. Psalm 51 reminds us that real repentance is not rooted in fear, but in hope—hope in a God who is both just and merciful through Jesus Christ.
Acts 27:43 | In this verse, as the ship is breaking apart, the Roman centurion orders that Paul be spared—going against the standard practice of executing prisoners. The text says he did this because he wanted to save Paul. Throughout the voyage, Paul had demonstrated calm, courage, and deep faith in God. He spoke with wisdom, acted with integrity, and cared for others in the storm. Though the centurion was not a believer, Paul’s life had clearly made an impact. This moment is a reminder that a life shaped by Christ is one of the greatest apologetics. People may not believe our words right away, but they notice when our lives look like Jesus.