Tabernacle of David: The Model for Church Part 1

For many years David’s Tabernacle occupied a place of obscurity in the mind of the church at large and was only thought of as a fringe topic. This trend has shifted dramatically in recent years. I have seen in the last several years a great increase in interest surrounding the Tabernacle of David and specifically how it relates to the life of the church. I believe this shift is part of the Holy Spirit’s wooing of the church back to purity of devotion to Jesus. Many leaders are starting to dream about what the Church could be if it was centered around the person and presence of Jesus as David’s Tabernacle was. 

The goal of this blog series is to pass along some of the insights the Lord has impressed on me regarding David’s Tabernacle and to spark you to dig deeper in your understanding of it. The Lord had challenged me at the beginning of 2020 to take a season of study to look more fully at the Tabernacle of David to understand God’s purposes in it. I was astounded by what I found. I have been leading a ministry in the “spirit of the Tabernacle of David” for over 15 years, however there was much I did not understand about it. I hope this blog will compel you, and especially those of you who are leaders, to consider how the Tabernacle of David may provide a model for changes we need to make in how we lead church in the coming decades.

One of the most overlooked events in the entire biblical narrative is the establishment of night and day worship before the ark of the covenant that took place during David’s reign. Much has been said about David’s conquest over Goliath, his failure with Bathsheba, his flight from Absalom, but until recently it has been hard to find much scholarship or teaching about David’s Tabernacle which hosted live music-led worship on the hill of Zion throughout the entirety of His reign in Jerusalem (Isaiah 16:5, Amos 9:10-11, Acts 15:16).

So, what exactly was David’s Tabernacle? In basic terms it was a tent that David set up to host a night and day worship meeting before the ark of the covenant. Day in and day out singers and musicians would minister to the Lord in shifts. 1 Chronicles 25 details twenty-four families, composed of twelve singers and musicians who were to “prophesy with harps, stringed instruments and cymbals.” They “were instructed in the songs of the Lord” operating under the direction of the fathers of their households, “for the music in the house of the Lord with cymbals, stringed instruments, and harps.” David’s Tabernacle is not to be confused with Moses Tabernacle where animal sacrifices and incense were offered. It was a completely different worship environment.

At its commencement the Tabernacle was stewarded by two hundred eighty-eight singers and musicians (1 Chron 25:7). By the end of David’s reign there were four thousand singers and musicians worshiping day and night before the ark (1 Chron 23:5). To put that number in perspective, that would be the same size as a symphony forty times larger than the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

Throughout David’s reign Israel financially supported these singers and musicians to worship the Lord as a full-time occupation (1 Chr. 9:33; 16:37). Consider the incredible commitment of the king and the nation to see to it that the singers and musicians were “free from other duties because they were employed in that work, day and night” (1 Chron 9:33).

This worship center was critical to David’s reign and his thoughts of how leading the nation was to be conducted. It was so important to David that he commanded the kings in Israel after him to continue to fund full-time musicians and singers to worship the Lord as the centerpiece of their reigns as well. What’s more notable is that this command wasn’t simply David’s idea, it was a prophetic directive from the Lord as to how the kingdom of Israel should be set up (2 Chron 29:25-26). 

When we recognize God wanted the nation to support singers and musicians to minister before Him night and day, we must ask ourselves when did this desire change in God’s heart? It also leads us to wonder about God’s desire for His church. If He set up His nation with continuous worship at the center, why would the format of church be a service we attend on the weekend with a few moments of worship “to set up” the preaching? Would it make sense that just as the nation of Israel was a people centered around His presence through worship and prayer, that the Church should function similarly? Is there a biblical directive that in some way changes God’s desire for continuous worship and prayer? Is it possible that most of our current expressions are simply adaptations that fit our cultural context rather than one that mirrors how God originally desired for the worship gathering of His people to be conducted?

When I ask these questions, please know that I am not asking to condemn. I am offering what I believe to be a call back to original patterns and emphases that are biblically and historically established. It’s well documented that the early church met daily for worship and prayer, a practice that mostly ceased in the fourth century with the embrace of Christianity by the Roman empire. We all recognize Jesus’ displeasure with the Temple worship in the first century because they had omitted the very thing for which the temple existed – night and day worship and prayer (Mat 21:12-13). 

My hope is that you will come to the same conclusion that so many are in the wake of 2020: Church as usual is over. How we have done things in the past won’t sustain us in the days ahead. In order for the church to thrive in and through the crises of the future, she must regain her prophetic calling to be a house of prayer for all nations. I propose that centering our communities around the person and presence of Jesus through continuous worship and prayer is one way we can regain what has been lost and empower us for the days ahead. 

In the next blog we will zoom in on the dynamic and glorious spiritual activity that took place in David’s Tabernacle; a glory that is the portion for the church today. As we consider more fully the model of David’s Tabernacle, we will be challenged to consider what God may be dreaming for the church in the days ahead.