As I finished reading in 1 Chronicles 28 and 29, for our Daily Walk Bible readings, I was amazed at how generous King David was to the building project of the Temple for the LORD. When you do the math it is pretty amazing!!
Using numbers I found online Silver is worth $23.50 per ounce. According to my math (which was never a strong point of mine) there is 16 ounces per pound and 2000 pounds per ton and David gave 262 tons of silver. That means he gave 524,000 pounds of silver, or 8,384,000 ounces of silver which is worth, in 2013 dollars, $197,024,000.00 dollars. Over ONE HUNDRED AND NINETY SEVEN MILLION dollars he gave in silver!
Using the same math process for gold, valued at $1,131.00 per ounce (!), he gave 112 tons of gold or 224,000 pounds of gold or 3,584,000 ounces of gold which would be valued at $4,053,504,000.00. That's over $4 BILLION in 2013 dollars of gold that he gave!
These figures don't even include all the bronze, iron, wood, precious gems and cut stone/marble that he also gave (1 Chr. 29:2-5)! And he gave WILLINGLY because he knew that "everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O LORD...wealth and honor come from you alone...everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us!" (1 Chr. 29:11-14).
Do we have the same willing spirit to give to the LORD, and to His work, that David and the nation of Israel had (1 Chr. 29:6, 9)?
According to Barna's new study that came out on April 12th, only 12% of born-again Christians tithed in 2012! Meaning only 12% gave 10% of their income to a church or non-profit.
It looks to me like we, myself included, have A LOT TO LEARN from the generous spirit of King David and the people of Israel!
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