The Bible Recap - Day 151 (1 Kings 3-4) - Year 4

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Two days ago we read in First Kings 1-2 how Solomon was appointed king. Yesterday we read in Psalm 119 about how God is the giver of wisdom, and today those two streams flow into the same river. It's a good thing that Solomon asked God for wisdom, and we'll get to that in a minute, because he's already started out by killing a few people, maybe righteously, maybe not, and by marrying a foreign woman, which is definitely not a righteous move. This marriage was for a political alliance, so does that make it any better?

Starting point is 00:00:40 No. We don't see it right away, but this eventually causes his kingdom to crumble. What we can see right away is that it suggests he doesn't trust God to act on Israel's behalf. He makes alliances that involve marrying the women God said not to marry. And did you see who he married? Pharaoh's daughter, as in King of Egypt, as in the people who enslaved God's people for 400 years and their name is synonymous

Starting point is 00:01:05 with everything God tells them to avoid, just because Solomon's the king doesn't mean he gets a pass on obedience. In fact, he should be the one setting an example. He's the leader. Unfortunately, much like his father David, women are his weak spot. Solomon loves Yahweh, but he also likes to sacrifice to pagan gods. He's got a divided heart. This wasn't uncommon in this day, or even today, honestly. It's called syncretism. It's where people try to synthesize two religious beliefs. This works well with pretty much every other religion except worshiping Yahweh. In fact, lots of religions encourage worshiping multiple gods, the more the merrier, but they're all on the same team,

Starting point is 00:01:45 team darkness and demons. Literally, every false religion is opposed to the kingdom of light, even the false religion of morality that we see at a lot of cultural Christianity today. Paul addresses this in Galatians 5.4, saying that those who believe in Jesus but rely on their own good works

Starting point is 00:02:02 to add anything to their salvation are cut off from Christ. He says, You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. Yikes. Yahweh doesn't synthesize with anything else, even our personal best efforts at living a good, clean life. And he certainly doesn't synthesize with pagan gods.

Starting point is 00:02:22 It's Yahweh or the highway. Solomon tries to make his syncretism work, so he also sacrifices to God. In fact, he goes up to the great high place at Gibbian where some of the pieces of the Tabernacle, including the Bronze altar, were currently awaiting relocation to the future temple. He offered 1,000 sacrifices there, presumably to God.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Then God shows up to Solomon in a dream and says, ask me for whatever you want and it's yours. He knows what Solomon is going to ask for, and this is all part of God's plan to use Solomon to lead his people and advance the plan for the birth of the Messiah. Solomon himself knows this is a big deal, and he doesn't trust himself. He's smart enough to know that he's young and foolish, so he asked God for wisdom. By the way, when he describes himself as a little child, that's just hyperbole. He's actually already a dad at this point.

Starting point is 00:03:11 God is pleased with Solomon's request and grants him wisdom and then some. He promised to give him riches regardless, and he promised to give him a long life if he walks in obedience. Then the first test of his newly granted wisdom comes. Two prostitutes are fighting over a baby and no one knows what to do. Solomon is discerning and a little bit sly and he calls out the truth. All Israel recognizes that there's a divine wisdom

Starting point is 00:03:37 in Solomon. It's worth pointing out that these two women who have a lower social status because of their jobs as prostitutes are even allowed to appear before the king. It shows us how Israel's ancient society valued women far more than most of us are inclined to think. As a newly appointed king, Solomon also sets up his cabinet,

Starting point is 00:03:57 the people who will serve him and serve the country on his behalf. His father, David, had fought a lot of battles and acquired a lot of land, and now they're enjoying the abundance in the Promised Land. Not only is Solomon himself rich, but all the people are happy and provided for during this time too. I don't know if you read Helmuch, he and his crew ate every day, but it's a lot, more than

Starting point is 00:04:17 130 animals a day. And the text tells us that he has 40,000 horses, and maybe you started noticing a problem here. Do you remember back in Deuteronomy 17? That's where God forbid Israel's kings from amassing three things, wealth, women, and horses. So throughout today's reading, we've seen little yellow flags about two of those things,

Starting point is 00:04:39 wealth and women, but here we see a giant red flag regarding the third thing, horses. So this makes me a little nervous for Solomon as we start off his kingship. But do you know what comforts me? My God shot for today. Did you notice that right before it says Solomon offered a thousand offerings to God? It mentioned his worship of other gods. And that's what Solomon is doing right before God shows up to talk to him. And then God basically says,

Starting point is 00:05:06 Solomon, what is it you want? You know you'll only get that from me, right? Come to me. I've got everything you need. Not those other idols, not those demons, me. And let's be clear, Solomon doesn't clean up his act and walk in total obedience and perfection from this point on. It's not like it's a turning point for him where he looks to Yahweh and never turns aside. He fails.

Starting point is 00:05:29 But we're not here to learn about Solomon's heart. That's not the point of the God shot. We're here to learn about God's heart. And what we see is that God showed up in the place of Solomon's divided heart to say, hey, I'm what you're looking for. Like all of us, Solomon will forget this, and God will keep chasing him down.

Starting point is 00:05:48 Solomon will have it all before it's all said and done, wisdom and wealth and women, but it will never get better than the nearness of God, even in the midst of our sins. He's where the joy is. Tomorrow we'll be reading the book of Second Chronicles. We're linking to a short video overview in the show notes, so check that out if you've got a few minutes to spare.

Starting point is 00:06:10 And just a reminder, if you're using our plan in the Bible app, this video will also be linked for you tomorrow in the devotional portion above the chapters. Each week, a team of people from Degroup International spends about 120 hours putting the Bible recap together for you. Each episode is researched, written and recorded by me, Terri Lee Cobble, and Sound Engineered by Alice in Cognitive. Jacqueline Terrell handles content management for the podcast and for our Patreon, and Callie Summers handles YouTube and all our technical difficulties. Sariochum leads our incredible social media team, and Morgan Young creates all the

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The Bible Recap - Day 151 (1 Kings 3-4) - Year 4

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