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.
When King Hiram of Tyre learned that Solomon had succeeded to the throne of Israel he sent messengers to Solomon. Hiram had always been a friend of David. Solomon replied to Hiram’s messengers with a request for cedars from Lebanon to be used in building a temple for God. Hiram and Solomon reached an agreement for Solomon to pay Hiram for the cedar that Solomon wanted for the Temple. Solomon also had stone quarried and began work on constructing the Temple. It took seven years for the Temple to be constructed. When completed, the Temple was 90 feet long by 30 feet wide by 45 feet high. There was a 15 foot entrance room that ran the entire width of the Temple at the front of the Temple. The Temple itself was 2700 square feet. This compares to the average new house in the U.S. today of around 2400 square feet. A house of that average size would be multistory (I would expect it to be two floors), so it would probably have dimensions about 1/3 of that of the Solomon’s Temple (not counting the courtyard and the rooms built against the outside of the Temple walls).
Taking up where yesterday’s passage left off, the high priest asked Stephen if the charges made against him were true. Stephen did not directly answer the question. Instead, he began recounting the history of the Jewish people starting with Abraham. Stephen recounted the records of God’s promises to Abraham. He went on to tell how Isaac gave birth to Jacob and Jacob sired the twelve Patriarchs of the Israelites. He then told how Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt to prepare for his father, his brothers and their families to escape the famine in Canaan. He continued to tell how the Israelites increased in number and the Egyptians enslaved them. Today’s passage ends with Stephen talking about how God provided for Moses to be adopted into Pharaoh’s household, which led to him being educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The last thing mentioned in today’s passage is the failure of Moses when he attempted to relieve the suffering of the Israelites under his own power.
There are other things that can be taken from this passage, but what connects for me today is that Stephen laid the groundwork of common understanding by laying out the things that both he and his listeners agreed upon. Everything that Stephen said up to this point would have had those on the Sanhedrin who were listening nodding their heads in agreement. This strikes me as an important thing to keep in mind for two reasons. The first is that when we preach the Gospel to people, if we do not make sure to lay out the groundwork, they may take what we have said and layer it on top of some very different understandings of how the world works. The end result might be someone who thinks they have followed the Gospel, but have missed it entirely (this is why reading the Old Testament is important, it lays a solid foundation about how God works). The second reason is that by laying the groundwork of common understanding we can discuss where our views diverge.
No matter what we do and how hard we work, if it is not according to God’s will it is a waste of time. Contrary to what some have said, children are not a punishment, but rather they are gift from God.
The first of today’s proverbs warns us against gossip. We should strive to neither spread nor even listen to gossip. This can be a hard thing to follow. Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between gossip and news. The most important question to ask yourself is this, would you be interested if the information reflected well upon those in the story? If the answer is no, then it is gossip.
The second proverb tells us that those who choose violence mislead others. There are many stories throughout history of leaders who got others to support their use of violence using deception.