Tag Archives: Acts 7:30-50

June 10, 2014 Bible Study — God Does Not Live In a Temple Made By Human Hands

For today, One Year Bible Online links here.

DSCN5947

Proverbs 16:31-33

    We should not hide the signs of aging, they are evidence of experience. Our society encourages us to hide our gray hair, when in fact we should embrace them as a sign of gaining wisdom. Those who are patient and maintain self-control will be more successful than those with great power and ability. Patience and self-control will yield success in places where power and ability fail.

DSCN5948

Psalm 128:1-6

    The path to true joy is fear of the Lord. Our God is loving and forgiving, but when His power breaks out it is a scary and frightening experience. The more we know and understand about God, the more scared we will be of Him. However, at the same time we will experience His love and faithfulness, which will give us the courage to act according to His will. As John Newton wrote in the song “Amazing Grace”:

T’was Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.

Let us embrace that grace which both teaches us to fear God and relieves us of that fear.

DSCN5932

Acts 7:30-50

    Stephen continues his defense and showing how his beliefs have common ground with those putting him on trial. However, he shows how the people of Israel had rejected Moses in the same way that they had rejected Jesus. There is the implication in Stephen’s argument that those who had rejected Jesus have the opportunity to repent of that rejection and accept Him, just as many of the people of Israel repented of rejecting Moses and returned to following him in worshiping God. As we witness to those around us, let us not give up on those who initially rejected our message. The Holy Spirit may still at some point touch their hearts and cause them to turn to God.
    Stephen goes on to point out that even though Solomon built the Temple God does not live in a house built by human hands. God will not and cannot be constrained by human action, whether that is the buildings we build or the rituals we follow. The Holy Spirit will move as It wills and settle into the heart of those It chooses. When God chooses to move in the world, He will not be constrained by human preconceptions. Let us not allow our beliefs to limit how God can work in our lives. Let us allow the Holy Spirit to act in us to accomplish God’s plan for our lives.

DSCN5940

1 Kings 7:1-51

    When Solomon had completed the Temple he built himself a new palace. The residence he built for himself, and for the daughter of Pharaoh whom he had married, was more luxurious and gilded than the Temple he had built for God (at least by my reading). He spent twice as long building it as well. However, having finished his own palace (or perhaps while building his own palace), Solomon then hired a skilled craftsmen to craft furnishings of great beauty for the Temple. In many ways this passage summarizes the conflict which marked Solomon’s reign, and many of our lives. Solomon went back and forth between working to bring glory and honour to God and satisfying his own wants and desires. Let us strive to focus wholeheartedly on serving and worshiping God and not allow our own desires to distract us from that.

June 10, 2013 Bible Study –Testimony of Stephen (cont)

     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.

Purple wild flowers next to poison ivy
Purple wild flowers next to poison ivy

1 Kings 7:1-51

     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.

Purple wildflowers up-close
Purple wildflowers up-close

Acts 7:30-50

     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?

Purple wildflowers up-close 2
Purple wildflowers up-close 2

Psalm 128:1-6

     The psalmist tells us that those who fear the Lord will be joyful. Or as the NIV puts it:

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
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.

Purple wildflowers up-close 3
Purple wildflowers up-close 3

Proverbs 16:31-33

     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.

June 10, 2012 Bible Study

     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.

1 Kings 7:1-51

     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.

Acts 7:30-50

     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.

Psalm 128:1-6

     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.

Proverbs 16:31-33/a>

     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?