I have been using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study for almost a year. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I started writing this blog because the only way I can get myself to read the Bible everyday is to pretend that I am teaching someone about what it says to me. 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. I hope that the Spirit is moving in others through these posts as the Spirit has definitely been convicting me.
After completing the Temple, Solomon built himself a palace. He was not satisfied to live in the palace which David had built. It took thirteen years to build Solomon’s palace. Solomon also sent to Tyre for a bronze worker to oversee the making of the bronze furnishings for the Temple. The craftsman was the son of a Jewish woman and a man of Tyre. The passage tells us that Solomon used so much bronze in furnishing the Temple that it was not practical to measure the total quantity. When he had completed building the Temple and the furnishings for it, Solomon moved all of the gifts which David had dedicated to the Temple into the Temple treasuries and stored them there.
Stephen continued recounting the history of the Jewish people. He told of how God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and sent him back to be the savior of the people of Israel. Here he places the first “hook” relating to his message about Jesus. He tells them that Moses, God’s chosen savior for the Israelites in Egypt, had been rejected by them. Stephen went on to tell them that Moses performed many signs and wonders in order to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Yet, the people of Israel still refused to listen to Moses and rejected his leadership, asking Aaron to make them an idol to lead them back to Egypt. Nevertheless God gave Moses the plans for the Tabernacle which the people carried with them as they entered the Promised Land. They continued to worship at the Tabernacle until the time of David. Then Solomon built a Temple for God. Stephen pointed out that even so, God did not live in a Temple made by human hands.
There are two points that Stephen makes here that are important to pay attention to (there may be others, but I am not seeing them today). The first is the human tendency to reject God’s leaders and the guidance He sends to us. The second point is that God is not limited to a specific locale. God made both heaven and earth, so no man, or group of men, will be able to build Him a house that can contain Him. Have I rejected the leaders God has sent? What leaders has God called me to follow?
The psalmist tells us that those who fear the Lord will be joyful. Or as the NIV puts it:
who walk in obedience to him.
When we fear the Lord as we should, there is no room left to fear anything, or anyone, else. When we have an appropriate fear of God, our fear of everything else vanishes in comparison. No, it is not just in comparison. If we truly fear God as we should, we realize that everything else is subject to His power and nothing can bring us harm outside of His will. If we fear God, we will strive in all ways to serve Him, and if we do so we will take joy even in the trials we face, secure in the knowledge that we will not face God’s wrath.
The first of today’s proverbs reminds us that the signs of aging on our bodies (such as grey hair) should not be hidden. Rather they should be embraced as signs that God has blessed us with a long life. The second tells us that patience and self-control are more valuable than power. The last of today’s proverbs tells us that we may take the risk, but it is God who decides the outcome. When we throw the dice of chance in this life, the outcome is not random, rather the outcome is what God has determined that it will be.