I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
This passage tells us that after building the Temple Solomon had a new palace built for himself. It took Solomon seven years to build the Temple, but it took him thirteen years to build a palace for himself. In addition to his own palace, the passage tells us that Solomon built living quarters for the daughter of Pharaoh that he had married similar to those he built for himself. My reading of this is that he built a second palace for Pharaoh’s daughter, although it may be that it was part of the palace that the passage tells us took thirteen years to build. In either case, this suggests that Solomon had a problem of priorities. He put a higher priority on his own comfort and prestige than he did on that of God. He took what was basically twice as long building his own house and he did building God’s House. One could suppose that he focused more strongly on building the Temple and that is why it was completed sooner. However, the description of Solomon’s palace indicates that it was a more complex structure than the Temple that Solomon built.
The next part of the passage tells us that Solomon sent to Tyre for a master bronze worker to make the furnishings for the Temple. One of the interesting things about bronze is that it is actually a superior metal for most uses to iron (or any other metal available at that time). The reason that iron displaced bronze in the Iron Age is because iron is much more common that tin (a component of the alloy we know as bronze). Solomon could have chosen to make the Temple furnishings out of a mix of iron and copper, iron for items that required strength and copper for things where beauty was more important. Instead he chose the more beautiful, durable and expensive bronze.
Stephen continues to testify before the Sanhedrin. The last passage ended with Stephen telling the Sanhedrin that the people of Israel initially rejected Moses. Here Stephen continues that theme. He tells the Sanhedrin that God sent the man the people of Israel had rejected, Moses, to be their savior from the Egyptians. Stephen further says that even after Moses saved the Israelites from the Egyptians, they rejected him again and asked Aaron to make them an idol to worship in the place of God. We today can see where Stephen was going with this, repeatedly pointing out how the people of Israel rejected the man God had sent to save them. Stephen then goes on to talk about how David asked for the privilege of building a permanent Temple for God, but it was Solomon who built it. Then he says that God does not live in a Temple built by human hands. How could we humans hope to build a dwelling place for the Lord that compares to the one He built for Himself when He made the universe? It seems to me that Stephen is building the argument that we, as humans, have repeatedly attempted to constrain God to meet our expectations, rather than accepting the need to allow us to remake us to meet His expectations. That the early Israelites asked Aaron to make them an idol that they could worship when God did not provide them with the luxuries in the wilderness that they had experienced in Egypt. That later, after Solomon built the Temple, the Israelites tried to limit God to living in the Temple. Stephen ends this segment by saying that God will not be limited by our human conceits.
If we follow the ways of the Lord we will receive joy. Our families will be like grapevines and olive trees, providing us with joy and pleasure. I will join in the psalmists prayer, may Israel have peace. While this is a good in itself, if Israel has peace, the whole world will know peace. Not because, the conflict in Israel leads to conflicts throughout the world, but because the conflicts throughout the world lead to the conflict in and around Israel. In many ways the diplomats around the world who are trying to arrange for peace in the Middle East have it backwards. They seem to believe that if they can resolve the conflicts in the Middle East and in Israel specifically, the conflicts in much of the rest of the world will be resolved. In fact, I believe that the conflicts in the Middle East and particularly in Israel are a result of the conflicts elsewhere.
The first of these proverbs challenges the common practice of our society. Our society encourages us to cover up the signs of aging. This proverb says that gray hair is a crown of glory. That age is not something to be hidden but rather something to be proud of. The second proverb tells us that self-control is more valuable to a person than raw power. The final proverb tells us that while we may allow things to fall to chance, they never do. God determines the outcome, even of the roll of the dice. You may think something is coincidence, but it happened because of the will of God. This is important to remember. God is in control of all that happens and nothing is too small for His attention. In Matthew 6 Jesus tells us that God provides for the birds of the air and clothes the flowers of the field. If God will take the time to care for these, how much more will He take the time to care for even the smallest detail in our lives?
