Lesson Theme: Understanding the Sinful Census
In one of the more puzzling accounts of Israel’s history, King David numbers the people, and for some reason, this constitutes as a sin. So much so that God punishes the people of Israel.
But, the strange quirk of it is, the Scripture tells us in one place that God leads David to number the people, and in another place, the Scripture tells us that Satan puts it in David’s heart to number the people. Is this a conflict of interest?
If a constant irritation makes pearls, then any time we come across a portion of Scripture that seems irritating and almost surreal, than there OBVIOUSLY must be more going on here than what we see at a passing glance.
This week we are going to explore a ‘supposed contradiction’ in the Scriptures, and solve a puzzle of ‘Why would God put it in David’s heart to number the people and then punish him for it? What is so sinful about a census, anyway?’
Note: No PowerPoint lesson today. Let’s just use our Bibles and make some notes in the margins.
“The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.”
— Proverbs 21:1
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