Reflecting on Pastor David
Jang’s sermon, this piece connects the dedication of Solomon’s temple and
prayer amid tribulation in 2 Chronicles 7 with Paul’s humanity and reconciliation
in 2 Timothy 4, offering a meditation on the restoration and mission of today’s
church—and a practical path of faith.
Following Pastor David
Jang (Olivet University) through his preaching, one quickly realizes that the
biblical text is not treated as a mere object of information, but as an “event”
that reorders the very center of life. Holding tightly to 2 Chronicles 7—where,
after Solomon dedicates the temple, God appears to him at night and declares,
“I have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices”—Pastor David
Jang asks what the temple and prayer truly mean. That question moves beyond the
language of construction and institutions, organization and operation. The
temple is not a signboard proclaiming what humans have “accomplished,” but a
signboard of God’s presence—God’s own declaration, “I am here.” And before that
presence, the channel through which human beings can become most honest is
prayer. Pastor David Jang calls the temple “a passage that connects God and us”
because the temple is not a structure completed by human hands alone; it is a
holy point of contact where God Himself descends and grants encounter.
Pastor David Jang locates
the archetype of the temple in Jacob’s Bethel experience. In Genesis 28, Jacob
suddenly loses everything and stands on the road as a fugitive. Family,
security, and confidence about tomorrow fade into uncertainty. In that place he
lies down with a stone for a pillow and, in a dream, sees a ladder reaching to
heaven with angels ascending and descending. Then God speaks: “I am the LORD,
the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac,” lifting Jacob from a life
of disconnection into a life shaped by covenant. When Jacob awakens and
confesses, “This is the house of God; this is the gate of heaven,” naming the
place Bethel, the episode reveals that the temple is not first a ladder by
which humans climb up to God, but a ladder of grace by which God comes down
into human anxiety and coldness. In Pastor David Jang’s reading, the temple is
not a technique for sanctifying a particular space; it is an event in which
God’s approach to humanity becomes concrete through “place.” Therefore, the
temple is not merely a “holy building,” but the point where God’s descending
path and humanity’s meeting path overlap.
From this perspective,
Solomon’s dedication of the temple carries meaning far beyond a national
ceremony or religious rite. It could be read as a scene that showcases royal
authority and national prosperity, but Pastor David Jang refuses to frame it as
a ritual seeking approval for human achievement. Rather, when God says, “I have
chosen,” and the temple is redefined with God at the center, it becomes, within
Israel’s history, the place of repentance and restoration—namely, a house of
prayer. And the essence of that prayer becomes even clearer amid tribulation.
In 2 Chronicles 7:13–15, God mentions times when the heavens are shut and there
is no rain, when locusts devour the land, when pestilence spreads. What is
striking is that God does not ignore the possibility of disaster. He presents
calamity with an “if,” and simultaneously offers a new way: “If my people, who
are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face….”
Pastor David Jang reads this as “a sentence that reverses despair.” No matter
how deep the ruin created by sin, when humility, repentance, and supplication
open toward God, the heavens open again. Prayer is not a spell that denies
catastrophe; it is the decision to turn one’s direction and seek God’s face
before a closed heaven—and at that turning, the promise that God will “hear
from heaven” becomes the beating heart of temple faith.
When Pastor David Jang
expands this promise into contemporary language, the message becomes even more
urgent. In an era pressured by pandemics, economic instability, communal
division, and the shaking of worship forms, many believers have stood before the
question, “Where do we meet God now?” Pastor David Jang returns that question
to the covenant of 2 Chronicles 7. Even in the middle of disaster, God says,
“My eyes and my heart will always be there.” Therefore, the best we can do is
not to seize and shake what lies beyond our control, but to turn our direction
with humility and seek God’s face. What Pastor David Jang repeatedly emphasizes
is the conviction that “God sees our heart.” Even when our strength is small
and conditions are poor, when the heart faces God, that heart becomes a temple,
and the prayer offered there becomes a passage to God. In that moment, the
temple does not remain only a building in a particular region. Whether it is a
sanctuary, a family table, silence beside a hospital bed, or a prayer closet
where two or three clasp hands with tears—wherever the heart turns toward God
becomes the place of presence. This is the dynamism of the temple that Pastor
David Jang proclaims. If the temple were a fixed structure bound to a single
coordinate, faith would easily be trapped in a dead end when faced with the
crises of an age. But the principle of presence Pastor David Jang draws from 2
Chronicles 7 reminds us that God is not confined to a single location. As the
apostle Paul says, “Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple?” God
makes a believer’s life His dwelling, and when the community worships with one
heart, He is present in their midst. The sanctuary remains a precious “shared
house,” yet even when the doors are closed, prayer does not stop. Pastor David
Jang encourages believers that even in seasons of dispersed, screen-mediated
worship, the essence of the temple lives wherever hearts are directed to
God—and that the limits of physical distance can be crossed by the language of
spiritual solidarity.
Moreover, God’s call to
“seek my face” is not a magical demand for problem-solving, but an invitation
to restored relationship. As Pastor David Jang stresses, prayer is not the act
of demanding only the “results” God might give; it is the act of seeking God
Himself, and of honestly laying down one’s desires and fears before His face.
Thus humility is not self-contempt but truth; repentance is not a punishment
that chains us to the past but a door that opens the future; and supplication
is not the mark of helplessness but the privilege of a life connected to God.
When this language of prayer is repeated in the temple and in daily life, the
community’s way of interpreting tribulation changes, and its posture toward
despair is renewed.
This does not mean Pastor
David Jang treats space and building lightly. On the contrary, he says it is
never trivial for the church to prepare a place for worship and concretize its
identity as a “house of prayer for all nations.” The expression in Isaiah 56:7
declares that the temple is not an exclusive fence but an open house that
embraces all who approach God through prayer. Pastor David Jang emphasizes that
when the church builds, the building must never become an end in itself; the
space should be a spiritual passage for meeting God and a launching base for
mission. Thus, even when he references examples like Olivet Valley, he does not
boast of scale; he speaks of a vision to build an “infrastructure of prayer.”
He imagines a spiritual center where the global church can worship and pray
with one heart, preparing together strategies of the gospel and practices of
love; a space where different languages and cultures merge into a single
praise; and a place where the next generation receives the memory of faith. In
Pastor David Jang’s vocabulary, building becomes “prayer infrastructure” and a
“platform for mission.”
Where Pastor David Jang
defines the church’s essence as mission, he moves the understanding of the
temple from a static space into a living commission. The early church gathered
for worship, but the end of that gathering was always scattering. The church in
Acts went out into the streets by the power of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the
gospel, and showed God’s face to the world through love and relief. Pastor
David Jang says the same must be true today. The deeper the gathered worship
becomes, the more the scattered life must shine; and the purpose of
establishing a headquarters is not expansion for its own sake, but to serve the
world with a parachurch spirit. In an age of tribulation, God’s question to the
church may not be, “How magnificent a temple did you build?” but “Whom did you
embrace in that tribulation, and what love did you practice?” Before that
question, Pastor David Jang realigns the church’s reason for being toward love
and mission. If the temple is a house of prayer, prayer must open toward mission,
and mission must draw its strength again from prayer.
Within this flow, Pastor
David Jang calls together Zechariah 14 and Jesus’ Olivet Discourse. In
Zechariah 14:4–5, the prophet speaks of a refuge opening in the time of
tribulation and of God’s coming presence there. The phrase, “On that day his
feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,” naturally recalls Jesus speaking on
the Mount of Olives about the end, the return, and the signs of tribulation. In
Matthew 24, when Jesus says, “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the
mountains,” it is not prophecy meant to inflame fear, but a shepherd’s voice
offering direction so that people do not lose their way in crisis. Pastor David
Jang says that even when the church seems to collapse, God provides a spiritual
refuge. That refuge is not merely a physical safe zone; it is the place where
God is present—in other words, the place where prayer and worship cling to God.
Therefore, even if the church loses the shape of its building or the community
experiences scattering, if the heart toward God and prayer remain alive, the
essence of the temple does not vanish. Rather, crisis becomes an occasion to
shift the question from “Where is the temple?” to “What is the temple?”—and to
expose the core of faith anew.
Pastor David Jang also
refuses to ignore real-world sorrow. Many churches have closed; some
communities have had to let go of their sanctuaries; some believers have passed
through darkness deep enough to collapse in despair. In such times, Pastor
David Jang says, “Do what we can with our best, and then entrust the rest to
God.” This is not resignation but a rhythm of faith: not avoiding human
responsibility, but offering trust to God in the realm of outcomes we cannot
control. Testimonies Pastor David Jang shares—such as the experience of a
community praying in unity for someone who had lost consciousness in despair
and witnessing a moment of recovery—show that prayer does not mean only
supernatural spectacle. Prayer makes the community’s heart beat again, rebuilds
compassion and responsibility toward one another, and translates the language
of despair into the language of hope. Prayer sometimes changes circumstances,
but more often it changes the praying person’s gaze and posture, enabling them
to see God even within the same circumstances.
If this message about the
temple and prayer addresses the outward structure of life, then the message
Pastor David Jang draws from 2 Timothy 4 addresses the inward structure of
relationships. He lifts up the humanity embedded in Paul’s final letter and says
the depth of the gospel often appears not in “toughness” but in “warmth.” In 2
Timothy 4:9–13, Paul pleads, “Do your best to come to me quickly.” That the
great apostle—often imagined as a symbol of iron faith—confesses loneliness in
prison and longs for co-workers shows that faith does not erase humanity; it
exposes humanity honestly and purifies it. Pastor David Jang places side by
side Paul’s admission in 2 Corinthians 1 that he experienced affliction to the
point of “despairing even of life,” and the plea in 2 Timothy to come “before
winter” (recalling the situation around 4:21). Even believers feel cold,
experience betrayal, and need someone nearby. The gospel is not a religion that
turns people into superhumans; it is the path by which human weakness is
brought before God and made new.
The scene where Paul asks
Timothy to bring his “cloak” and “the scrolls, especially the parchments,”
becomes a crucial symbol for Pastor David Jang. The cloak is physical
protection for enduring a harsh winter; the parchments—Scripture and
writings—are spiritual food that revives the soul. Pastor David Jang says we
need both together. To cross the winters of life, we need practical care, and
at the same time the comfort and truth of the Word. Yet Paul’s request does not
end there. He says, “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to
me in my ministry.” In that one sentence, Pastor David Jang reads a theology of
reconciliation: the courage to call back someone who once failed, someone who
left relational conflict and hurt within the community. That, he says, is
Christian love. Love is not the power to erase another’s past; it is the
decision to reopen another’s future.
Acts 15:37–39 tells of a
sharp dispute between Paul and Barnabas over Mark, so serious that they parted
ways. Paul saw Mark’s earlier withdrawal as unreliable; Barnabas wanted to
restore him. Pastor David Jang reads this as the reality of church community.
As ministry grows and organizations become complex, differences between people
and differences in judgment collide. In those collisions, we may become like
Paul emphasizing principle, or like Barnabas offering another chance. The key
is that conflict itself does not necessarily mean faith has failed. The real
question is what we choose after conflict. And Paul’s calling Mark again in 2
Timothy 4 proves that conflict can ultimately be transformed into love. Pastor
David Jang says Paul’s confession—“he is helpful to me”—is not merely practical
assessment, but the fragrance of the gospel flowing from a restored
relationship. A community that calls someone back beyond the memory of failure
becomes, in itself, a witness to the gospel.
Here Pastor David Jang
brings Ephesians 2:14 to mind: “For he himself is our peace… who has destroyed
the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.” This declaration means that
Christ’s cross is not limited to individual salvation; it is an event that tears
down relational walls. Not only are God and humanity reconciled, but the wall
between Jew and Gentile—and more broadly, between humans who have wounded and
estranged one another—is broken. Pastor David Jang says that those reconciled
in Christ cannot remain finally locked in hostility in their human
relationships. Of course, reconciliation is not sentimental whitewashing. It
requires responsibility and truth, the acknowledgment of wounds and the
decision to forgive. Even so, the gospel’s direction is restoration rather than
rejection. Therefore, Paul’s calling Mark again reveals the church’s identity:
not a club that collects only “successful people,” but a community that raises
those who “begin again.”
Pastor David Jang explains
the practical shape of reconciliation through the example of Philemon. To
connect Onesimus, the runaway slave, with his master Philemon, Paul writes a
letter and even offers to repay any debt himself. Reconciliation is not an emotional
gesture of “let’s get along”; it is the willingness to pay a cost for restored
relationship. Pastor David Jang calls love “what remains in the end” because
while achievements and accomplishments fade before time, love remains and
leaves traces that bring others to life. Within the realities of birth, aging,
sickness, and death, everyone becomes weak, and everyone eventually meets a
final winter. The strength to cross that winter comes from care that warms the
body like a cloak, truth that raises the soul like the Word, and love that
revives relationships like Mark’s restoration. Pastor David Jang says
spirituality that overcomes winter is not bravado that ignores cold wind, but
community that shares body heat with one another.
This theme can be evoked
through an artistic image as well. Rembrandt’s masterpiece, The Return
of the Prodigal Son, depicts the moment a son who squandered everything
returns in rags, and the father embraces him with both hands. The father’s
hands in the painting rest with a temperature closer to mercy than severity,
and the son’s head sinks into the father’s chest like one who has laid down
resistance. The spirit of reconciliation Pastor David Jang describes resembles
this language of hands: a community that does not turn someone’s failure into a
permanent stigma, but opens the road back, makes room, and pays the relational
cost of restoration—this is the gospel’s aesthetic. Paul’s calling Mark again
is like the father in Rembrandt’s painting declaring, “In the end, you are
still someone useful among us,” an acceptance shaped by love.
Pastor David Jang’s use of
the winter image in 2 Timothy 4 expands beyond the season’s cold into the
coldness of life itself. Today’s winter is not only outside temperature.
Indifference and cynicism, division and hostility, relational severing and the
collapse of trust—these lower the heart’s temperature. Even in the church,
differences of opinion and accumulated wounds emerge; small misunderstandings
escalate into major conflict; hearts sway like reeds. Pastor David Jang says
that even in this instability, there are things we must not let go: God’s Word,
compassion toward one another, and love that endures to the end. Jesus left the
new commandment, “Love one another,” and said, “By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34–35). In Pastor David
Jang’s preaching, love is not an elective; it is the sign that proves a
believer’s identity.
This love is never
abstract. When Pastor David Jang emphasizes the temple and prayer, he does not
speak only of worshipful emotion. A community that prays in tribulation must
also become a community that cares for one another. Prayer is not a spiritual hobby
that ignores the reality of the poor; it is spiritual power that moves hands to
hold the poor. The temple is not a safe internal space; it is a house whose
doors are open toward the wounds of the world. Therefore, Pastor David Jang
says that all labor—building a headquarters, expanding Christian media and
education, widening the paths of mission and relief—must be sustained by love
as the motive. When love wavers, buildings and programs can tilt toward
self-display; when love is firm, even small devotion remains with eternal
value. The temple is evaluated not by “what we possess,” but by “what kind of
love we let flow out”—this is Pastor David Jang’s consistent emphasis.
The promise of 2
Chronicles 7 expands beyond personal spiritual experience into communal
responsibility. In the phrase, “I will forgive their sin and will heal their
land,” “land” does not mean only physical territory; it includes the whole of
life—social relationships, communal wounds, and the fractures of an era. Pastor
David Jang says the church’s task in a time of tribulation is to pray “so that
the land may be healed.” This is not a mystical slogan. Repentance and
supplication rebuild communal ethics, place desires and greed down before God,
and move steps again toward love and justice. The experience of heaven opening
leads into choices that heal the earth. When tears that began in the prayer
closet become hands that wipe the wounds of the street, the temple becomes, in
the truest sense, a “house of prayer.” To keep this connection from being lost,
Pastor David Jang puts the theology of presence and the ethics of mission into
a single sentence.
For Pastor David Jang, the
Mount of Olives imagery in Zechariah 14 and the Olivet Discourse of Matthew
24–25 are not narratives of fear but narratives of hope. Apocalyptic texts are
often consumed as decorative terror, but he reads them as the promise that “God
will surely prepare a refuge.” The deeper tribulation becomes, the more the
church must grow humble, pray more truthfully, and love more concretely. Refuge
is not a justification for escape; it is the foundation of service. In the
place where God hides and shelters, we catch our breath again—and with that
breath, we go back out toward the world. The refuge Pastor David Jang describes
is not a cave for avoiding reality; it is a sanctuary for preparing mission.
And that sanctuary is where longing for the Lord’s presence and responsibility
toward neighbors grow together. He sees the labor of making space not as an
architectural achievement but as devotion shaped by love. When sweat,
offerings, and service gather in one direction, the church becomes a “house of
prayer for all nations,” and that house opens even wider toward mission.
In the end, Pastor David
Jang weaves the temple and prayer, and love and reconciliation, into a single
axis. Faith becomes whole when the spirituality of meeting God and the practice
of embracing people remain in balance. If we speak of the temple’s presence but
lose the love of relationships, we can fall into self-centeredness disguised as
holiness. Conversely, if we speak of love but lose the roots of prayer, love
easily burns out, becomes mere duty, and collapses before wounds. Pastor David
Jang treats 2 Chronicles 7 and 2 Timothy 4 together to show that prayer and
love are like two breaths that complete one another. Prayer gives birth to love
again, and love translates prayer into reality. Therefore, the temple is both
the place of prayer and the training ground of love; prayer is both language
toward God and spiritual work that reshapes posture toward neighbors.
The challenge this sermon
gives to today’s church and believers ultimately condenses into one sentence:
Do not let go of hope—pray even in tribulation; and do not give up on
people—love even in winter. We cannot control outcomes, but we can choose
direction. When we turn our direction toward God, closed heavens open again,
frozen land breathes again, and chilled relationships find warmth again. Paul’s
request from prison—for a cloak, for books, and for Mark—still speaks to us
because those requests symbolize core elements of faith: care, the Word, and
reconciliation. Pastor David Jang’s preaching finally says this: the temple is
the place where God comes down; prayer is the hand that holds on to that
presence; and love is the language that carries that presence into the world. A
community that does not abandon prayer in tribulation and does not abandon love
in winter will live as a present sign of God’s kingdom—an alive temple.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
