The tent became a house. When David longed to build God a permanent dwelling and Solomon at last raised the temple on Mount Zion, the portable sanctuary of the wilderness gave way to a house of stone and cedar and gold, and the glory of God descended and filled it until the priests could not stand to minister.
Glory in the Stone is a rich, careful reading of the temple, its building, its glory, its meaning, its defilement, and its loss, and of the God who chose to make His dwelling among His people on the holy hill. It is a story of ascent and of tragedy, of a house filled with glory and, in time, a glory that departed.
In twelve chapters this book traces the whole story of the temple, from David the chosen builder and Solomon's raising of the house, through the holy of holies and the descending glory and the great prayer of dedication, to the defilement, the departing glory, and the rebuilding after exile. Throughout, it keeps one eye on the horizon, because the house on the mountain was always pointing beyond itself, to a greater temple and a greater dwelling still to come. It is a book about permanence and its limits, about a glory that could fill a house and also, grievously, leave it, and about the longing for a dwelling that could never be defiled or lost.
Grounded entirely in the King James Bible and written for the everyday believer, it shows how a house of stone was only ever a shadow of something far greater.
