Avoid Gibeon

During David's reign (1051-1011 BC) worship was at Gibeon and Jerusalem.

‘King Solomon went to Gibeon to offer a sacrifice because that was the most important high place’ - I Kings 3:4.

There is something in all of us that drifts back to Gibeon.

Gibeon was the place of structure, of sacrifice, of system—where the Tabernacle of Moses still stood, where priests carried out rituals, where the law governed worship, and where everything about approaching God felt distant, measured, and veiled.

Gibeon and the Tent of Moses felt right. It was ordained, it was glorious, and it was a legacy. But Gibeon was incomplete, because it was designed to point beyond itself.

At the very same time, under the reign of King David, something radically different was happening just a few miles away in Jerusalem.

David pitched a tent for the Ark, but unlike Moses’ tabernacle, this tent had no veil, no barriers, no layers of restriction separating the people from the presence of God; it was open, visible, immediate, and centered not on repeated sacrifice but on continual praise, thanksg…