“If you aim for real flourishing, there is nowhere more dangerous.” ”— Andy Crouch

When David was king in ancient Israel, the kingdom flourished. Enemies folded under his military leadership. And wealth soared. David recognized these great benefits and thanked God for them. But also he wondered why God had not yet directed the construction of a proper temple. The Ark of the Covenant, God's sacred dwelling, was still housed in a tent as it had been during Israel's nomadic years. Then the word of the Lord came to the prophet Nathan: "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son." David's son Solomon would go on to build a temple of God in Jerusalem. But that temple would fall and rise and fall again. Not until the arrival of God's Son Jesus, who was likewise the offspring of David, would a temple emerge that would rise and fall and rise again. God's eternal dwelling was not to be a structure of stone and cedar but a living body, impervious to death.