Topics: America Reads the Bible

Stepping Stones

Thoughts on 1 Chronicles 17:11-12

King David was an accomplished statesman, musician, poet, soldier, and visionary. He sought God with his whole heart, passionately seeking to honor and serve Him throughout his long life, notwithstanding occasional and even serious slips along the way.

As a reflection of his deep love for God, David wanted to give Him a permanent and visible place of prominence with a majestic temple to replace the tent used in the wilderness. By David’s own words, “the house to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent, famous, and glorious throughout all countries” (1 Chronicles 22:5).

David’s intentions were honorable and his heart pure. God was pleased with his desire but made clear that he was not to build the temple. His son Solomon would build it instead (1 Chronicles 17:11-12, 22:9-10, 28:6). When David realized that his heart’s desire would not be accomplished in his lifetime, he was not discouraged. But began working to prepare things for the next generation. He cut stones and collected iron, bronze, and cedar trees in abundance. He “made abundant preparations before his death” (1 Chronicles 22:2-5). David was also diligent to pass on the vision to his son (1 Chronicles 22:6, 11-13) and even relayed the specific plans that God had given for the temple (1 Chronicles 28:11-12, 19-20).

The transmission of a vision from one generation to the next in order to secure its fulfillment is common throughout the Bible. For example, Moses led the people out of Egypt and set them firmly on the path to the Promised Land, but then he handed them off to the much younger Joshua to finish the task. Similarly, God told the older prophet Elijah to find and train the younger Elisha. Elisha then performed twice as many miracles as Elijah. Likewise, Jesus passed on His vision for the world to His disciples to continue.

The Pilgrims also followed this pattern. Upon arriving in America in 1620, they announced in the Mayflower Compact (the first government document written in America) that their mission was undertaken “for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.”1 They had come with the laudable goal of evangelizing the new country.

Their first year in America proved to be extremely difficult. By the end of that winter, over half had died, thereby doubling the workload on the rest. And by the end of the second year, half of the remaining survivors had also died, leaving only one-fourth from the original group. Struggling to survive in that harsh wilderness was grueling work and a round-the-clock occupation. It became apparent that their ardent desire to establish a fully functioning Christian colony and to bring all of those around them to Christian faith would not occur in their lifetime.

So, like David, they worked hard to prepare everything they could for the coming generation: training, equipping, and then transmitting to them the vision and responsibility. As explained by the Pilgrims’ governor, William Bradford:

Lastly (and which was not least), a great hope and inward zeal they [the Pilgrims] had of laying some good foundations (or at least to make some way thereunto) for the propagating and advancing of the Gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world, yea, though they should be but even as stepping stones unto others for the performing of so great a work.2

Stepping-stones. Significantly, one generation was willing to become a stepping-stone for the next. Figuratively speaking, they worked to move the ball as far down field as possible before handing it off to their descendants to score. What a fantastic lesson to learn and practice today: if you see that you will not accomplish the lofty goals you have set for yourself or that you believe God has given you, it doesn’t mean that you are a failure. Don’t quit and drop out in discouragement. Instead, find those who are younger and equip, train, and pass the vision on to them.

Many of the national challenges before us will require trans-generational solutions, which is fully Biblical. We can and must do everything we can right now. But we must also train the rising generation with an understanding of the stewardship that will be placed in their hands. Each of us must work diligently to make ourselves stepping stones for future generations.

Endnotes

1 “Agreement Between the Settlers of New-Plymouth, November 11th, 1620,” Ebenezer Hazard, Historical Collections: Consisting of State Papers, and Other Authentic Documents; Intended as Materials for an History of the United States of America (Philadelphia: T. Dobson, 1792), 1:119.
2 William Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1856), 24.

The Heart of a Grateful Nation

Thoughts on 2 Chronicles 5-7

King David, blessed by God throughout his long life, envisioned building a majestic temple to honor the Lord. But God told David that it would instead be his son, Solomon, who would construct the building. So David prepared everything his son would need. When later King Solomon successfully completed the temple, he gathered the nation together and dedicated the new structure with a time of prayer and praise (2 Chronicles 5-7). The spirit of God filled the temple and fell on those present. God promising Solomon that He would hear and answer prayers prayed from that location. Significantly, our Founding Fathers invoked this incident and this passage at a significant moment early in the political life of a young America.

On September 25, 1789, the very first federal Congress had just finished framing the Bill of Rights—the Capstone of the Constitution. On that notable day, the official records of Congress report:

Mr. [Elias] Boudinot said he could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining with one voice in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings He had poured down upon them. With this view, therefore, he would move the following resolution:

Resolved, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God. . . .

Mr. [Roger] Sherman justified the practice of thanksgiving on any signal [remarkable] event not only as a laudable one in itself but as warranted by a number of precedents in Holy Writ – for instance, the solemn thanksgivings and rejoicings which took place in the time of Solomon after the building of the temple was a case in point [2 Chronicles 5-7, 1 Kings 7-8]. This example he thought worthy of Christian imitation on the present occasion, and he would agree with the gentleman who moved the resolution. Mr. Boudinot quoted further precedents from the practice of the late Congress and hoped the motion would meet a ready acquiescence [approval]. The question was now put on the resolution and it was carried in the affirmative.1

Congress delivered it recommendation to President George Washington, who happily concurred. He issued America’s first federal proclamation for a Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving. That proclamation declared:

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor. . . . Now, therefore, I do recommend . . . that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country. . . . And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions . . . to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue.2

Notice that George Washington said that nations—not just individuals, but nations—have four duties: (1) to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, (2) to obey His will, (3) to be grateful for His benefits, and (4) humbly to implore His protection and favor. This proclamation, along with the several other calls to prayer issued during his administration, was written by Washington himself. Whereas other presidents had chaplains of Congress write their proclamations.3

America observed its first federal day of thanksgiving because Founding Fathers in Congress were thoroughly familiar with the Bible and found precedent for such a day from 2 Chronicles 5-7—one of many American practices with a Biblical basis.

Endnotes

1 September 25, 1789, The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States, Joseph Gales, editor (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1834) I:949-950.

2 The Providence Gazette and Country Journal (Providence: October 17, 1789), 1. George Washington, “A Proclamation,” issued on October 3, 1789, observance date November 26, 1789.

3 Joseph H. Jones, The Life of Ashbel Green (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1849), 270-271.

The Rock Upon Which Our Republic Rests

Thoughts on 2 Kings 23

There are numerous Biblical occasions when civil leaders urged a national reading of God’s Word. For example, under righteous King Josiah of Israel:

The king went up to the house of the Lord with all the men of Judah, and with him all the inhabitants of Jerusalem—the priests and the prophets and all the people, both small and great. And he read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord (2 Kings 23:2).

Ezra also assembled the nation to read the Word of God (Nehemiah 8:1-3), and Moses likewise instructed the people to gather together and read God’s Word so that they might know it, obey it, and teach it to the rising generation, for by so doing, they would remain blessed as a nation (Deuteronomy 31:11-13).

America’s national leaders continued to follow this pattern. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed:

I suggest a nationwide reading of the Holy Scriptures during the period from Thanksgiving Day to Christmas. . . . Go to . . . the Scriptures for a renewed and strengthening contact with those eternal truths and majestic principles which have inspired such measure of true greatness as this nation has achieved.1

(Today, National Bible Week is still officially commemorated one week of the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. But sadly few citizens know of its existence, and sadder still even fewer observe it.)

Why would President Roosevelt publicly call the nation to a time of Scripture reading? Because of its proven beneficial influence:

In the formative days of the Republic, the directing influence the Bible exercised upon the fathers of the Nation is conspicuously evident. . . . We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a Nation without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic.2

On the same basis, President Ronald Reagan declared a national “Year of the Bible,” explaining:

Of the many influences that have shaped the United States of America into a distinctive Nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible. . . . The Bible and its teachings helped form the basis for the Founding Fathers’ abiding belief in the inalienable rights of the individual – rights which they found implicit in the Bible’s teachings of the inherent worth and dignity of each individual. This same sense of man patterned . . . the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. . . . There could be no more fitting moment than now to reflect . . . upon the wisdom revealed to us in the [Bible].3

President Teddy Roosevelt similarly affirmed:

[T]he teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally—I do not mean figuratively, I mean literally—impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teachings were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals—all the standards toward which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves. Almost every man who has by his life-work added to the sum of human achievement of which the race is proud—of which our people are proud – almost every such man has based his lifework largely upon the teachings of the Bible. . . . Among the very greatest men, a disproportionately large number have been diligent and close students of the Bible at first hand. . . . So I plead not merely for training of the mind but for . . . the moral and spiritual training that have always been found in and that have ever accompanied the study of this Book—this Book, which in almost every civilized tongue can be described as “The Book.”4

Teddy wanted everyone to know the Bible, and a reason that he had been so thoroughly impressed by President Abraham Lincoln was his personal mastery of the Bible. As he explained:

Lincoln—sad, patient, kindly Lincoln, who after bearing upon his weary shoulders for four years a greater burden than that borne by any other man of the nineteenth century laid down his life for the people whom living he had served as well—built up his entire reading upon his early study of the Bible. He had mastered it absolutely – mastered it as later he mastered only one or two other books (notably Shakespeare) —mastered it so that he became almost “a man of one Book,” who knew that Book and who instinctively put into practice what he had been taught therein.5

Indeed, it is extremely difficult to find any of Lincoln’s major speeches not laced throughout with Scriptures, so it is therefore not surprising that in speaking of the Bible, Lincoln declared:

It is the best gift God has given to men. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. 6

President Zachary Taylor also stressed how important it was that every citizen, especially young citizens, know the Bible:

The Bible is the best of books and I wish it were in the hands of everyone. It is indispensable to the safety and permanence of our institutions; a free government cannot exist without religion and morals, and there cannot be morals without religion, nor religion without the Bible. Especially should the Bible be placed in the hands of the young. It is the best schoolbook in the world. . . . I would that all of our people were brought up under the influence of that Holy Book.7

President Harry Truman, speaking at a conference of law enforcement officials assembled from across the nation, reminded them:

The fundamental basis of this Nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings which we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days.8

President Andrew Jackson likewise declared of the Bible that “it is the rock on which our Republic rests.”9

And President Grant, on the 100th anniversary of American Independence exhorted, “Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of your liberties; write its precepts in your heats, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for all the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look for our guide in the future.”10

There are many other examples demonstrating that America’s leaders understood the importance of God’s Word to the nation and publicly urged the reading and knowledge of it, just as ancient leaders such as Moses, Ezra, and Josiah had done. It is important that every citizen personally study, learn, and live by God’s Word, teaching it to their children and also electing at the local, county, state, and federal level leaders who know and honor the principles of “The Book.”

Endnotes

1 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Proclamation 2629—Thanksgiving Day, 1944,” November 1, 1944, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/210843.

2 Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Statement on the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Printing of the English Bible,” October 6, 1935, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209257.

3 Ronald Reagan, “Proclamation 5018—Year of the Bible, 1983,” February 3rd, 1983, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/262128.

4 Theodore Roosevelt, “On Reading the Bible: Delivered before the Members of the Bible Society,” 1901, Modern Eloquence, ed. Thomas B. Reed (Philadelphia: John D. Morris and Company, 1903), XV:1770-1776.

5 Roosevelt, “On Reading the Bible: Delivered before the Members of the Bible Society,” 1901, Modern Eloquence, ed. Reed (1903), XV:1770-1776.

6 Abraham Lincoln, “Reply to Committee of Colored People of Baltimore Who Presented Him with a Bible,” Complete Works Comprising his Speeches, Letters, State Papers, and Miscellaneous Writings, John Nicolay and John Hay, editors (New York: The Century Co., 1894), 2:574.

7 “The President and the Bible,” New York Semi-Weekly Tribune (Wednesday, May 9, 1849), IV:100:1.

8 Harry S. Truman, “Address Before the Attorney General’s Conference on Law Enforcement Problems,” February 15, 1950, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230655.

9 Ronald Reagan, “Proclamation 5018—Year of the Bible, 1983,” February 3rd, 1983, American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/262128; see the same quote in a proclamation from President George H. W. Bush, “International Year of Bible Reading,” February 22, 1990, Code of Federal Regulations (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1991), 21.

10 Ulysses Grant, “Message of President Grant to the Children and Youth of the U.S.” card in WallBuilders Museum collection.