PSA Bible Reading Challenge 2023-2024

We are focused on the king Jeroboam, remember, the one who was in charge of the northern kingdom who took away the people from the son of Solomon, Rehoboam.  This king was completely opposed to worshiping the God of Israel and only wanted his people to worship the idols that were surrounding them and their region.  A prophet of God came and spoke out against him in a forceful way, telling him that the high places that he built up to worship foreign idols, will be torn down.

The king tried to capture this prophet, but his hand shriveled up and he was mortified by that.  I’m struck by what the king does next.   He doesn’t ask for protection for his people, rather he is so stuck with focusing on his own problems that he asks for healing for his hand, and not healing for the land.  The hand is restored but the prophet has no more time for the king and heads home.

On the way home the prophet was met by another prophet who lies to him and convinces him to come to his house for a meal and water.  As a result of his disobedience to God by stopping on the way home, which was encouraged by a prophet who told him he had heard from God but hadn’t, he then returns home and is killed by a lion on the road.

It is so hard to discern what God wants from us and how to know when it is God’s voice speaking to us or the voice of society and culture, or our own desires that are infringing upon our ability to discern the voice of God.  This prophet I do not blame, the one who was killed.  If you have a colleague who tells you that God has spoke to him and has a new message for you, I guess you do need to check with God to see if it is really from God.  But cut the guy a break.  Yeah, not so much.  At least the prophet who lied was sorry about it.  But he doesn’t really suffer any consequences as a result of the lie that took the life of another prophet of God.

Things start to go from bad to worse.  I forgot to mention that Solomon dies in the end of the last chapter, and in his death we see that his son, Rehoboam,  takes over the reigns. The first thing that Jeroboam does, I told you to remember his name, was to ask for an audience with the king, now Rehoboam, to ask for a lightening of the load upon them.  He has an audience with the king and asks basically that he would lower the taxes and lower the amount of work that was expected of them.

Rehoboam does the smart thing and takes counsel.  He asks his elderly counselors what he should do, and they tell him to lighten the load.  He asks his school buddies what he should do and they tell him to make the load harder on those who were complaining.  He doesn’t listen to the wizened folks and so increases the suffering of his people, the people of Israel.  How important it is to not only have counselors around you, but counselors who have wisdom and to whom you will listen.  

The kingdom of Israel is taken from Rehoboam and Jeroboam takes over the 10 tribes that weren’t directly located in Judah, that would be Jerusalem and the surrounding areas.  But things don’t stay right with Jeroboam.  He is jealous of Jerusalem’s religious preeminence and so he builds  two golden calves, sound familiar?, in order for the ten tribes to have an opportunity to worship.  But they become false gods and Jeroboam and the people turn away from the God of Israel.  Now things are going to start to break apart.

Just as a summary: you now have two kingdoms – one ruled by the son of Solomon which is tiny and basically located around Jerusalem, and the other ruled by Jeroboam which comprised of the remaining 10 tribes.  The one ruled by Solomon’s son is the southern kingdom.  The one ruled by Jeroboam is called the northern kingdom.

We see that lust is the root of all evil for Solomon.  The Scripture tells us that he had 700 wives who were all princesses from foreign lands.  Let that sink in, and then imagine that he also had 300 concubines aside from those princesses.  But just lust in and of itself was not the downfall for Solomon.  It would have been okay, I guess, for Solomon to have these wives, except for one problem

God had commanded the Israelites not to marry foreign wives for one reason and one reason alone.  Look at vs.2 which is taken directly from Deuteronomy 7:3-4 where we read in I Kings: “You shall not enter into marriage with them (foreigners who worship idols)…for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods.”  Well, this happened in spades to Solomon.  If you look at vs.4 we read: “his wives turned away his heart after other gods…”

So where does that leave us today in marrying someone who does not have our same religious background or our same faith?  Are we forbidden to marry someone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  We do read Paul who tell us in II Corinthians 6:14 “Do not be mismatched with unbelievers.”  So I think that leaves us with the answer being yes.  We are not to marry those who have a different religious perspective than we do.

Solomon does not follow that advice and so as a result the Lord leaves him and raises up two enemies.  One who will be a military rival for Solomon’s son, and the other will be the king of a divided kingdom.  Jeroboam is a really important figure which you need to remember and keep in the front of your mind. He will develop into a major character in the Bible.

We find a visit from the Queen of Sheba.  Below you will see a 15th century depiction of her.

She is thought to be a queen who came from what is considered modern day Yemen.  She comes pretty much out of curiosity to see if all the rumors about Solomon are true.  She discovers that the rumors hadn’t actually given Solomon enough credit for the type of ruler that he actually was.  She finds out that people had underestimated his wisdom, his wealth, the joy of the people serving him, all those things which are important for a ruler of that day.  

Solomon was an exquisite host as we read in vs. 13: he “gave to the queen of Sheba every desire that she expressed.”  As a result of this visit Solomon’s fame grew and his wealth grew exponentially.  But we do see that a storm is on the horizon.

We find Solomon who is amassing his wealth and frankly amassing his military might with not only chariots and land cavalry and battle arrangements, but also a very formidable navy, just in case things might go sour.

We read about this relationship that he has with the king of Tyre, a guy named Hiram, who had basically been the main supplier for all of the goods that were needed in order to build the temple.  Solomon was grateful and so gave to this king 20 cities in Galilee, cities which were not very satisfactory to Hiram.  In fact, he calls them Cabul which could mean “a land good for nothing”.  Not a great vote of confidence for someone who has done so much for you.  But it doesn’t seem to affect their relationship.  

We also read about a relationship that Solomon had with the king of Egypt, whom we would know as Pharaoh, to the point where he gave his daughter to Solomon as a wife.  Keep this account in mind because we will see that this will start to lead to Solomon falling away from the Lord and beginning to worship the gods of Egypt.  Almost as if it is an end that states: To be continued…

So we are back.  This break has really been a result of me trying to figure out a whole new way of doing ministry.  It has been strangely exhilarating on the one hand, while also disorienting on the other.  We have discovered a new way to do ministry which we hope has been effective and has allowed the family to stay together.  I need to say how proud I am of all you staying close and allowing this time to be a time of growth.  Now, let’s get back to the Scripture in front of us.

Solomon approaches God with a prayer after gathering the people of Israel and moving the ark of the covenant into the temple in Jerusalem.  He praises God in a way that is completely comprehensive.  He basically in his prayer reminds the people, and God, of the promises that God has made to David and which are being carried out that day by David’s son, Solomon, the author of this prayer.  Notice the part that says that when there are plagues and disease and coronavirus the people need to lift up their voices and God will respond.  

Without a doubt it is a time in Israel’s history where the ruler of the land and the role of the master beseecher to God was intertwined.  Solomon could appeal to God as both the one that God would listen to and as the one who ruled the people.  But once again it was a conditional agreement.  God would be faithful if the people were faithful.

Solomon also predicts a time when the people would not be faithful and potentially be taken away into captivity, which happens later on with the Babylonians, but even then, if the people remember God and ask for His help, God will remember the people and come back and help.

I encourage you to read this chapter again because it really is very comprehensive with Solomon giving thanks for the faithfulness of God, and then having a week long party where everyone basically feels really good about themselves and about how God is at work in their lives.  The leadership of Solomon really shines through here.

This chapter overlaps both the building of the temple and the building of the palace of Solomon.  It strikes me as curious that the palace was more than twice as big as the temple and the chapter which is somewhat devoted to the building of the palace, chapter 7 which we are looking at now, is inordinately long, as compared to the last chapter which describes the building of the temple.

So if someone were to project one could say with some impunity that for Solomon the building of his palace might have been considered a more important project than the building of the temple. The building of the house of the king might have been seen by some, at least the optics of it, as being more important than the building of the house of God.  Now, it seems like the house of God was built first, so that’s a good sign, it was also built in less time.  But the palace, well, that took nearly twice as long and was nearly twice as big.  No excuses are made by Solomon for this and all of the chapter lays out pretty much matter of factly what was built and how it was built.  A lot of detail is included to describe the building of both.  But one just seems to tower over the other in relationship to the time and the detail given.

We are back.  It has felt like over these past few weeks we have been drinking water out of a fire hydrant trying to keep up and figure out how do we do church together.  A quote that I heard this past week that I really liked said the following: “We are still the church, we’ve just left the building.”  I like that.  And speaking about the building…

We find ourselves here in I Kings with Solomon who is depicted as building the temple just as he had promised his father that he would.  Solomon builds the temple in 7 years.  We have the details that go beyond probably any of our interests, but keep in mind that the temple is considered the house of God.  Interestingly after we read that this house is finished, Solomon then finishes his own house which takes almost twice as long.  We find the statement that Solomon finished the house a number of times.  It was a big deal.

But just think that we are of such a different mindset from those in the Old Testament.  We do not believe that God lives in the church.  But the church location has become such a real focal point for our communion, for our common life together.  Now that that is taken from us we are appreciating how important a location to gather is for us.  But again, we are still the church, we’ve just left the building.

From last chapter, where we saw the expanse of Solomon’s influence, we transition to now this chapter where we read of an individual king to whom Solomon reaches out to gather his help in building a temple.  When Solomon reaches out to him he cites his father David as wanting to build the  temple but simply was not able to because he was always at war with the nations around him.  But now that things have calmed down, and now that there is a pax solomona (I made that up), then can you help me build the temple?

This king, King Hiram of Tyre, had the best lumber workers and wood workers in the region and Solomon got him to agree to help out and send his materials his way.  Solomon arranged all the logistics that were necessary in order for that to take place.  He also not only contacted the lumber folks, but also set up the stone workers in a way that they would not be without work.

In this time of upside down I find myself more and more involved in administrative and logistical tasks that I have not been so intensely involved in since my time in Russia.  Here in the US we have a real separation of duties which is great when people are able to meet and sort out who does what.  But when something like this comes along it requires that a new system and that a new routine be put into place.  We are well on our way to doing that.  Hopefully we can do it in such a way that we remain connected as a church body,  and as the human race.

I find myself about a week behind schedule which is what it took to start getting to a place where this blog took a bit of a back seat to continued administrative work in getting people set up to worship and work virtually.  We are not by any means caught up, but we are at a place where I realize I have to jump back into the blog before the days pass before us and then I have more to make up than I can manage in a sitting or two.

So, here we find ourselves at the beginning of I Kings and we see ourselves dealing with Solomon who was just given in the previous chapter the wisdom which he had asked for and was able to use it right away over a maternity issue.  This chapter emphasizes the blessings that Solomon has received over the period of the beginning of his reign.  It is really meant to bring us up to speed on the breadth and width of Solomon’s rule and the amount of resources that he had.  Vs. 20 really reflects where we find ourselves in this chapter and in the life of Solomon.  

In some ways it shows the exact opposite of where we find ourselves now here in our reality where things are being incredibly restricted.