My goodness! I haven’t
posted in over two weeks. If you’re
interested, here are some thoughts on the previous weeks’ readings. You’ll understand if these are relatively
short!
The
dedicated student of the Scriptures will need a few more resources than just a
Bible. A study bible, like Concordia
Publishing House’s Concordia
Self-Study Bible (NIV) or Lutheran
Study Bible (ESV), is a good start.
One can find several one-volume introductions to the Bible. (Zondervan has Handbook
to the Bible; Eerdmans offers Companion
to the Bible.) For those who
want to go a little deeper in the Old Testament, I’ve found a series by Baker
very helpful: Handbook
on the Pentateuch, Handbook
on the Historical Books, Handbook
on the Wisdom Books and Psalms, and
Handbook
on the Prophets.
I mention
this because the Handbook on the
Historical Books offers these excellent insights into Solomon’ s
reign. “Solomon is in many ways like his
father, David. Neither sought the
kingship (in ch. 1 of First Kings, Solomon is singularly passive, if not for
the most part absent, and does not speak until the last two verses). . . . For
both their reign reaches a zenith (2 Samuel 10; 1 Kings 8), only to have it
plunge into a darkness (2 Samuel 11-21, 24; 1 Kings 11) for which both father
and son are culpable. And neither David’s
nor Solomon’s strongest virtue is his relationship with women. . . . But one
thing is missing from Solomon’s reign to which his father was privileged. David enters his reign-to-be when he is anointed
by the prophet Samuel (1 Sam. 16:13). Solomon
is the recipient of no such prophetic charisma.
Rather, he enters office thanks to a well-orchestrated power play by his
mother, Bathsheba, and Nathan, who manipulated the aged David” (Hamilton, 380).
There’s so
much there! I’m fascinated by the
collaboration of Bathsheba and Nathan.
Since Nathan was the one who confronted David over his adultery with
Bathsheba, one would not expect them to be allies. But times change and, as they say, ‘politics
makes strange bedfellows.’
In terms of
a christological lesson, that is, a lesson about Jesus, I note this: neither David nor Solomon sought the kingship
and its trappings. In the same way,
Jesus ‘did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped’ (Phil.
2). However, David and especially Solomon
certainly enjoyed those trappings and the privilege and power that went with
them. (Consider the brutal way that
Solomon consolidates his reign, killing Adonijah, Joab, and Shimei in
turn.) Jesus, in contrast, ‘humbled
himself even to death’ (Phil. 2). There
are analogies between the kingship of David and Solomon and that of Jesus, but
in the end, we are reminded that Jesus’ kingship is of a whole different sort!
There are
hints of Solomon’s eventual downfall at the beginning of chapter 3 (again,
thanks to Handbook on the Historical
Books). Those hints include his
foreign wife, the order in which his buildings are noted (his comfort is first;
the Lord is second), and the fact that he worshipped at a ‘high place’ (a
description of a Canaanite worship site).
Those hints
of future trouble, though, are secondary to the more pressing point of the
story, namely, that Solomon asks for the ability to rule well (wisdom) not the
rewards of having ruled well (power and wealth). Here’s a fact that strikes me: in asking for wisdom and a discerning heart,
Solomon has already demonstrated that he has a wise, discerning heart.
This is important
in understanding so-called ‘spiritual gifts.’
I’m not a big fan of spiritual gift inventories and the like. I think that they give us the wrong idea
about how God endows us. The discussion
of spiritual gifts in the last half of the 20th century seemed to
suggest that God gave special “3rd Article” gifts when a person came
to faith. That is, it suggested that a
person was one sort of person with certain talents and inclinations from birth
but after conversion the Holy Spirit added other talents and inclinations that
hadn’t been there before. I don’t think
that’s a particularly responsible reading of 1 Corinthians. Instead, I think that the Lord fearfully and
wonderfully makes all human beings. The
difference between the unconverted and the believer is not that the Lord adds
other talents to the believer; it’ that the believer uses his talents and
inclinations in the service of the Lord, His church, and His world. It’s not that the Spirit adds new ‘gifts’ to
us at conversion; it’s that He shows us how to use our gifts to God’s glory. I think the story of Solomon’s wisdom
supports this conclusion.
Consider
here the immense expenditure that Solomon made for the temple. The cedar from Lebanon costs him 125,000
bushels of wheat (north of $800,000 in today’s prices) and 115,000 gallons of
olive oil (about $1.5). 1 Kings doesn’t
list quantities of gold used, but 1 Chronicles notes that David set aside 3,750
tons of gold and ten times that amount
in silver. (At today’s prices, that’s
more than 130 billion dollars!) Of course, it’s not fair to evaluate on the
basis of today’s prices. For example,
the wheat and olive oil would have been more expensive then, because they would
not have had the efficiencies and technologies we have. On the other hand, the gold may have been
much less valuable because there wasn’t the global economic pressure there is
today. Either way, between David and
Solomon, they dropped a lot of coin
on the temple.
Secondly,
having marveled at the investment in the temple, note, too, that he had plenty
left over to build his own exceedingly comfortable palace.
Over the
years, I’ve noticed a certain reluctance to be extravagant in the church. Sometimes we talk like Judas and the disciples,
reacting to the woman who anointed Jesus’ head with perfume, “Why this
waste? It could have been sold for a
year’s wages and given to the poor!” On
the other hand, it’s a rare congregation that is frugal in regard to its
worship so that it can be extravagant in its missions and benevolence. My experience is that a church that is
reluctant in the one will be reluctant in the other. (Not always, but often.)
Anyhow,
this is not a post about big, gaudy churches; it’s a post about the generosity
of our hearts. I’m by no means perfect
or even very far advanced in this, but I have found that being generous becomes
easier and easier the more generous one is.
Once you discover generosity, you start to realize that there’s usually enough
to go around. I think that’s an important
lesson from Solomon. He gave to the Lord
extravagantly and first, and he had plenty left for himself.
Two details
get at the heart of the temple and why it’s so important for understanding the
Bible and Lutheran worship. First, 1
Kings 8:11 notes that the ‘cloud of the glory’ filled the temple. Second, Solomon ponders, “Will God really
dwell on earth? The heavens can’t
contain you, much less this temple I have built.”
God had always intended to dwell with
humans. It’s right there in Genesis
3. The Lord spoke to Adam face-to-face;
He walked with Adam in the garden; that’s how it was supposed to be. Adam’s sin changed that and resulted in man’s
banishment from God’s presence. What God
had intended should be together—heaven and earth, His presence and man’s—man ripped
asunder.
Yet the
Creator God never failed in His love for His creation. We read of Him visiting the earth (Gen. 6,
11) and speaking to various patriarchs (Abraham, Jacob, Moses). And in the days of Moses He commanded that
the tabernacle be built. Israel lived in
tents and her God will dwelt in a tent in the midst of her. Now, He graciously deigned to dwell in a
temple made with human hands.
In the
grand scheme of biblical theology, the temple theme blossomed into Jesus. Matthew called Jesus “Immanuel,” the God who
is with us. John declared Him “the Word
who became flesh and ‘tabernacled/tented/dwelt’ among us.” Jesus was (still is) the very presence of
God, no longer tied to one place but walking about His earth. Significantly Jesus declared at the end of
His earthly ministry that He would still be with His people to the end of the age. Then, He sent His Spirit, who has declared
the church His temple. Wherever the
church gathers, there is the Spirit, there is Jesus, there is the presence of the
Triune God.
And here’s
the other thing: in the tabernacle, in
the temple, in Jesus, in the Church (especially as she gathers around Word and
Sacrament), God’s gracious presence
is made known. Just last night I was at
a funeral and I heard a man say that he found the lakeshore a better place for
prayer than church. I didn’t know him so
I didn’t say anything, but, listen, if you want to find God in nature than at
least cop to the fact that the God in nature is powerful, maybe good (sometimes),
but not clearly gracious. God’s power is
revealed in nature. I expect that’s what
most people have in mind when they say they find God in nature. “Look how beautiful things are!” OK, true enough. (I love mountains, too. Glacier and Grand Teton National Parks may be
the best places on earth.) But that God
in nature—well, you have to account for tornadoes and hurricanes and brutality,
too. You can’t say, “I see God in a
beautiful sunset,” unless that same God can be identified in a terrible storm,
and if it’s the same God, what message are you getting about Him?
But the
Lord said that He would be present in certain places—temple, church—with a
clear message: that in that place He
would ‘hear from heaven and forgive.’ The
message of the temple, of church, is meant to be very clear: the God who meets you here is the God who
sacrificed His Son to bring you into His presence. It’s a message you won’t find any place else,
and it reminds us that God continues to tie His presence and His promise to
certain place—wherever His Spirit-filled people gather to receive His gifts in
Word and Sacrament.
Solomon was
incredibly blessed. His fame spread over
the whole earth (10:24). His military
was powerful (10:26). His wealth was
unparalleled. 1 Kings reports all of
these things without any value judgment or warning. They are simply blessings that Solomon
receives. It seems that having asked for
wisdom rather than riches revealed something of Solomon’s character. He was able to have great blessings without
those blessings become idols, a fate that awaits many. (Remember Jesus’ saying about camels, the
eyes of needles, and rich men entering the kingdom of heaven?)
Solomon
handled fame, power, and wealth just fine, thank you very much. What he did not handle well was multiple,
foreign wives. “He loved many foreign wisdom” (11:1).
Many, maybe even most, of his wives were probably the result of
political arrangements. (An ancient king
often married the daughter of a defeated rival for two reasons: first, it made
for a convenient hostage should the rival try anything, and, second, it allowed
the victory to make a claim on his rival’s throne later.) But Solomon loved these women. I wouldn’t
take that in the modern sense of affection, but certainly we can say that
Solomon liked the attention of women.
Here then, like his father David, was his fatal weakness.
Everybody
has weaknesses. We can sometimes mask
them, hide them, compensate for them. But
we all have them. “No one is righteous,
no, not one!” (Rom. 3:10). Sin is just
that insidious. Of course, it is only
Jesus who loves the Lord with all His heart, soul, and mind, and loves His
neighbor as Himself. Only Jesus avoids
this tragic weakness, and so by His perfect righteousness brings salvation to
all.
On the one
hand, the roots of the split between north and south in Israel reach back to
Solomon and some of his policies.
Solomon had place ‘a heavy yoke’ on the people (12:4). This included taxes, forced labor, and
(presumably) military conscription. It
probably didn’t help anything that Solomon lived in such opulence and his
people did not. People will only
tolerate oppression and inequity for so long before they try to do something
about it.
On the
other hand, Rehoboam didn’t do himself any favors. He had access to his father Solomon’s advisors. Just to be clear these were men who had spent
their whole careers in service to the wisest man in the world. They might have picked some wisdom up along
the way! But Rehoboam chose to take the advice
of his young, inexperienced peers.
So, two
thoughts: first, we see again that the
seeds sown by one generation sprout in the next. In very practical terms, we are reminded that
the attitudes and patterns of thought and of life that parents model for their
children shape the attitudes and thoughts and lives that their children will
carry through life. Second, we have a
lesson about the importance who we listen to.
Ironically, one of the themes of Proverbs (much of which Rehoboam’s dad,
Solomon, had written) is that one needs to be careful about whose advice he
takes. It’s important to have advisors
who actually understand the issues not just advisors who’ll say whatever one
wants to hear.
A man of
God from Judah goes to Bethel and condemns Jeroboam’s shrine there. He refuses to stay because the Lord told him
to go straight home.
Then a
prophet from Bethel summons that man of God to turn aside and eat with him. At first the man from Judah says, “No, the
Lord told me go straight home.” But the
prophet of Bethel persists, saying, “An angel told me you could come.” Long story short: the man of God from Judah turns aside and
dies.
Why would a
‘prophet’ entice a ‘man of God’? Who
knows! But this much is certain: not every prophet nor everyone who claimed to
be a prophet was actually a true prophet of the Lord. The text gives no hint, but the fact that the
guy is living near Bethel might mark him as a false prophet.
More
importantly, the man of God from Judah ignored the world of the Lord and turned
aside. That’s the real lesson. We’re so often on our guard against obvious
evil—like the invitation of Jeroboam to stay—that we miss the more insidious
evils—hidden grudges, bitterness, discontentment—that wear away at the Word of
the Lord. For example, in the last week,
there’s been an awful lot of handwringing over the Supreme Court’s overturning
of DOMA. My point is that it’s easy
enough to deplore homosexuality, but the church is perhaps too quiet on all
sorts of other sexual sin that has crept into our midst.
Very
briefly, although Rehoboam’s son, Abijah, is an idolater whose heart is not fully
devoted to the Lord, the Lord secures his throne, protecting Jerusalem and
giving him a son. The reason is
important: because of David (15:5). Then Asa, a faithful man, took the throne and
reigned for 41 years. This will be in
marked contrast to the kings of the north.
They will be uniformly unfaithful, and they will be marked by generally
shorter reigns and a revolving door of dynasties. (Assassination is normal in the north; rare
in the south.)
Without
trying to make this into a universal rule, there’s a strain of biblical
teaching that says evil actions get evil results. The Lord often consigns the wicked to their
wickedness and lets them reap the whirlwind (Hos. 8:7). In the Scriptures this line of reasoning is
often coupled with the suffering of the righteous. The righteous suffer and wonder why the evil
prosper and the Lord says something along the lines of, “Just wait; they’ll get
theirs.” Again, the Lord makes no
promises about timelines, but He does encourage the righteous to be patient in
a wicked world. That’s an exhortation
many of us need to hear regularly!
Israel’s
problem was not that they outright rejected the Lord, Yahweh, the God of
Israel. No, they tried to merge their
worship of Yahweh with the worship of other gods. It’s not that Israel was outrightly pagan; it’s
that they were syncretistic. (Syncretism
is the mixing of elements of several religions.) This is clear in the story of Ahab and
Elijah. We’ll discover in chapter 22 that
Ahab named his son Ahaziah; the –iah ending is an abbreviation of Yahweh’s
name. Ahab held on to some aspects of
the faith of Israel, and we’ll hear the Lord say in chapter 21 that Ahab had
humbled himself before the Lord. On the
other hand, he worshipped the false gods of his wife Jezebel. This is precisely the problem that Elijah
faced on Mt. Carmel: “How long will you
[Israel] waver between two opinions? If
Yahweh is God, follow him! If Baal is
God, follow him!”
The truth
is you can’t have it both ways. The God
we worship, the God of Jesus the Messiah, the God of Israel, the Creator God
won’t tolerate split attention. Now, I
know that we don’t have the same kinds of gods that ancient folks had; we don’t
have little shrines or altars or statues in our houses. But we still have divided hearts. We love all sorts of things more than the
Lord, or at least we let all sorts of things have a seat at the table next to
the Lord. We are susceptible to a
theology that says God wants us to be wealthy and powerful and popular; we are
susceptible to a theology of glory. If
your God’s main job is to make you wealthy, doesn’t that just show that you’ve
given wealth a place next to that God?
Of course,
the Jesus moment is that He is the only One who is completely devoted to the
true God. His prayer in Gethsemane
stands as a counterpoint to all human desires to have it both ways: “Not what I want, but what you want.” It’s that attitude and His faithful
submission to an undeserved death that works atonement and forgiveness for all
of our divided loyalties.
Following
through on the Jesus connections, Elijah thought he was all alone. Twice he bemoans, “They’ve broken your
covenant, broken your altars, killed your prophets, and I’m the only one left.” The Lord sets him straight, “Get back into
the game. I have a plan [it involves Hazael of Damascus, Jehu of Israel, and
Elisha the prophet]. And by the way,
there are still 7,000 in Israel who
are faithful.” Jesus, on the other hand,
never left the game. Luke 9:51, “Jesus
resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” He
enacted the plans of God, and He did that all alone. Romans, Israelites, disciples—all turned on
him, and on the cross He suffered the abandonment of God Himself. Jesus had a reason to complain about being
all alone, but He died with a word of faith on His lips, “Into your hands I
commend my spirit.”
Chapter 20
puts Ahab into a much better light.
Elijah doesn’t appear, and Ahab listens to other prophets about his
border skirmish with Ben-Hadad of Syria.
Things go well for Ahab. The
prophets promise success so that Ahab may know the Lord is God (vv. 13,
28). However, there’s a hitch: Ahab does not kill Ben-Hadad. Now, there’s no direct command to ‘fully
devote’ the Arameans to the Lord, like there is with Joshua and with Saul, but
it seems to be implied that if the Lord delivers your enemy into your hand you
should finish the job. The conclusion is
that Ahab returns to Samaria sullen and angry (v. 43), which will set up the
next chapter, in which a grouchy king petulantly participates in a grave
injustice.
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