Episode 6: 1 Kings 9-10: God's Blessings & Warnings
The shards of blessing and warning we've seen so far in 1 Kings are gathering momentum in these chapters, as we see the glories of the kingdom, and the folly of the human heart side by side.
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How does the author help you to see both the major and minor keys in this passage?
As you sit with the Queen of Sheba, how does she challenge your response to King Jesus?
What gets in the way of you believing that God's kingdom is this desirable, and can cause you to be this happy?
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The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Sarah: You're listening to the Two Sisters in a Cup of Tea podcast, the Bible study podcast for everyday life. We're here for a 20 minute burst of Bible chat over a cup of tea and an English style biscuit as we make our way through a Bible book over the course of the season and drive it to our hearts. And this season we're in the first 11 chapters of One Kings. Whether you've been listening for a while or have just found us, we are so pleased you're here.
Felicity: We're thankful to be partnering with P&R Publishing this season and they have a series of devotions out aimed at teenagers, one of which is Anxiety - Finding the Better Story by Liz Edrington. It's written for the younger audience, it's 31 devotions, and but really it's brilliantly accessible and applicable for all of us. In manageable daily chunks, Liz gives richly grounded biblical thinking on that pervasive issue of anxiety and helps us see that there is a better story than that which our thoughts and fears might present. Alongside these winsome and readable meditations, she also offers helpful practical advice as anyone seeks to tackle anxiety in their life. I’d highly recommend this one. It's one that I'll be telling other people about trying to get copies into people's hands as I go along. Grab your copy wherever you get your books. There's a link in the show notes.
Sarah: Welcome to Two Sisters and a Cup of Tea. My name is Sarah, I live in the UK and as ever I'm with my sister Felicity who's in the States and we are jumping into chapters 9 and 10 of One Kings Today and whilst I said in the introduction that we normally do this with a biscuit, Felicity I feel like you're betraying that a little bit with some cake there I see.
Felicity: Betrayal would be a strong word for cake, which is a very good thing. And this cake is particularly good. mean, carrot cake, you know really not very sugary but let it be known that you can have anything sweet with a cup of tea to be honest so you know cake, biscuit, whatever this one is good I'm exactly I'm just hoping the sugar rush that I'm feeling hit me right now is actually gonna carry me through yeah
Sarah: Well before we get there, Felicity, I just wanted to touch on something that we all often feel in the sense that we're living in a really distracted world in many different ways, aren't we? And sometimes trying to focus in on some of this Old Testament narrative just feels pretty hard with the names, with the places, with the story all feeling pretty distant from my everyday. I just wonder are there any practical tips you can give us for growing our focus and for particularly when it feels like a harder stretch of scripture and I'm just feeling pretty distracted in my head and my heart? What are your tips there?
Felicity: Hmm. I mean, that's just a really accurate description of our life, isn't it? I think we probably live in a more distracted time than ever before. My phone being the constant distraction, which is just always there. So I think my first thought is put my phone far away from me when I am sitting down. I think that's just an acknowledgement that's helpful of the fact that we do get distracted. And so therefore even just taking a step to counter that is a helpful thing. And just acknowledging that it takes a bit of concentration to read something that's longer than 30 seconds and so set aside sometimes it's even just setting aside five to ten minutes and you'll be surprised I think undistracted reading for that length of time will actually get you quite far in terms of the narrative and I find that once I'm into the narrative then actually I've allowed myself to just go a bit deeper and it's kind of easier to carry on because I'm like, I'm quite interested now as to what the story is. Whereas in my head previously, it's like, how am I ever gonna sit down and read all of this? But once you're into it, you're like, I kind of wanna know whether Solomon is gonna, you know, do the thing or not. What about you?
Sarah: Yeah. Yes, all of those things. Having a pencil in hand. So there's a kind of intentionality with my reading that I'm not just kind of reading for the sake of reading, but actually now I'm to note down something that I'm reading here and I'm going to kind of be intentionally digging and working at this. I think that really helps me. Sometimes putting on really bland music in the background, it kind of just drowns out anything else and it just says, right, this is my kind of working phase where I'm just going to, even if it's for just 15 minutes, again, I don't think it needs to be a super long time the whole time. We don't necessarily have that hours at our disposal, do we? But just saying, right, actually, I've got 15 minutes. Why not give it this and see what I can find, pray, and ask the Holy Spirit to just reveal something to me in here and see where I get to. Also, I do just find that setting up my Bible and a notebook the night before really helps me to just be ready the next morning when I wake up going, that's the first thing I'm gonna do. It's set up, it's there, I don't even have to think, I just kind of go to it and just kind of, basically just kind of preparing for the intention that you want to dig deeper in this, I think, yeah.
Felicity: Good one, that's really helpful. Preparation, key. Love that.
Sarah: Yeah, well let's get into reading these chapters. So we're in chapters nine and ten and we're to be reading chapter nine versus one to nine and then chapter ten versus one to nine and twenty three to twenty nine.
9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, 2 the Lord appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The Lord said to him: “I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. 4 “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’ 6 “But if you[a] or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 8 This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 9 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them.’”
And then chapter 10 from verse 1
10 When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the Lord, she came to test Solomon with hard questions. 2 Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones—she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind. 3 Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. 4 When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, 5 the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at[a] the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed. 6 She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. 7 But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. 8 How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! 9 Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”
And then from verse 23
23 King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. 24 The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. 25 Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules. 26 Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses,[i] which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. 27 The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. 28 Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue[j]—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. 29 They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty.[k] They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.
Felicity: Thank you, Sarah. It's worth just noting, isn't it, that as we're moving towards chapter 11, I mean, the big plot spoiler, really, Solomon's downfall is just around the corner. And I think it's just worth just kind of prefacing our conversation of these two chapters, just saying, we'll all have inclinations to be optimistic or pessimistic. I mean, that might be true of life altogether, but in relation to Solomon's life, I found the Satch Henderson book really helpful, this on just checking our natural inclinations and therefore being able to see the major, the highs, the positives in this, but also the minor keys as well. And we'll probably be inclined to go either which way, but we're seeking in this conversation to kind of give both sides.
Sarah: Absolutely. And I think what the author does in these chapters is he does give us the balance, even in the first few verses, doesn't he? So we start in verses one and two with this most extraordinary high that Solomon's work is finished. Like it's done. Like everything that was kind of asked of him, he's finished. It's kind of almost kind of second Eden of level, isn't it? And to kind of complete that the Lord chooses to appear to him a second time, which is extraordinary grace, isn't it? It's a beautiful, amazing thing that's going on there. It's a real high. My eyes and my heart will always be there, God says to him. It's just a wow, wow, wow moment. And then within the same breath, we've also got this, but if you turn away from me, this is what's gonna happen. And so even in the first few verses, we've got this kind of blessing. Extraordinary blessing and also this warning kind of just simmering there and just really just edging Solomon to just be be on your guard Solomon
Felicity: Yeah, and alerting the reader as to what we're actually going to see very sadly. It's very kind of Deuteronomy kind of language, isn't it? It's blessings and curses. And so if we have any kind of background understanding of the covenants that God has made, the promises he's been making from the beginning, then we're seeing, as you say, almost idyllic in that kind of like, is this it? And for the people at the time, because we've got probably three different audience here, haven't we? We've got the people there in the story at the time living under Solomon's Law and they must have been thinking, wow. Maybe this is it, the fulfilment of those promises. God's king on God's throne doing his thing, blessings, wealth, all these things. But then you have the people who are reading this and actually the people who are in exile, who have seen the temple fall down basically. And they're wondering, well, what went wrong? And then there's us, this side of the cross. And so we've got those different kind of audiences in play, haven't we? And I think that as we hear the blessings and the curses and the Deuteronomy kind of vibe here, we are kind of full of yes but also anticipation of what is to come.
Sarah: Yeah, yeah. And in the kind of, in the verses that I didn't read at the end of chapter 9, so from verse 10 onwards, we've just got these rumblings, haven't we? We've got these rumblings of discord between someone who he has worked very well with, another king, but he's just, he's not happy with what Solomon has given him. And then we've got this kind of statement in verse 20 where there's still people left that are actually God's enemies because of the mistakes of past kings in not in not getting rid of God's enemies in this land. And that should just kind of, that just is a flag, it's a red flag I think, those kind of rumblings. But as we were saying, we don't want to kind of major on rumblings when the author doesn't, because actually what we have in verse 10 is then this beautiful, extraordinarily beautiful picture of the Queen of Sheba coming to Solomon, having heard about him and yet exclaiming actually half of it I didn't even realize that you know such is the glory of this kingdom.
Felicity: It is, I mean, it's amazing, isn't it? Chapter 10 just brings this kind of just absolute just kind of fanfare of wow. And I just love that it's someone outside of Israel. Like we're just got a little nod to the very fact that the gospel has been always for all the nations. God's King is not just King of Israel, but the Queen of Sheba comes and she comes with lots of questions that she's heard and she's got this kind of and caravans and spices and gold and I mean she's just I love it in verse five and she gets to the temple and she was overwhelmed like which I think we're supposed to sort of sit with the queen of Sheba here and go wow aren't we like this is a helpful person that the Lord has given us here in order to direct our response to Solomon it's right to see that this kingdom is magnificent it is beyond what she thought and what people at the time thought, I think that's just a really helpful guide.
Sarah: And not only the king and the throne and the kingdom itself, but the overflow of this kingdom. And I think that's what's so striking in her own comments about it, isn't it? So in verses eight, which says, happy your people must be, how happy your officials must be. Actually, the reality that this kind of kingdom sitting under God's rule, under God's king, in God's place is is the kind of essence of happiness, like it's joy. There's joy just kind of brimming and overflowing here, isn't there? And that in itself, I think, is a heart check for ourselves, isn't it? Because actually, I think we just don't often kind of associate the real true happiness with this kind of picture. But that actually, that's what the Queen of Sheba says. And that's just really good to hear, isn't it?
Felicity: And it's really significant, really significant that the king, because you might read this and think Solomon must have been just so chuffed. I mean, this has just all gone so well. He's probably the happiest man like in existence at this point. And the emphasis is on that this is really good for the people. And, you know, just to take it to us, we don't want to get there too quickly, but to take it to us, this side of the cross, even just beginning to think that to be sitting under the rule of God's king, is a huge blessing to be in that kingdom, to be under that reign, is something to be rejoicing in and to be trusting that we live in peace and prosperity and the blessings as we sit under the reign of Jesus.
Sarah: Well and so much more so for Jesus, isn't it? So she talks here because of the Lord's eternal love for Israel. You he's a king who maintains justice and righteousness and yet, I mean, we see that fleshed out to the nth degree with Jesus, don't we? And how much more so should we be lost for words? Should we be overwhelmed with the joy of sitting under King Jesus? It really is, it's good for us to kind of sit there, isn't it? Yeah, we don't, yeah, like we do want to get there, but we don't want to get there kind of so quickly because as we come to the end of the passage, we've got more of the splendor that's kind of told in terms of the gold, gold, gold, gold, gold. And that kind of just then leads us to the gold has a, has an implication here because not only is it gold, but there's also horses and chariots. And just taking us back to that Deuteronomy passage that we read right at the beginning of this season. That is one of the kind key alarm bells as we reach the end of this chapter, isn't it?
Felicity: Yeah, and I think the narrator kind of gives us a good flag for that, he? Even just the word accumulated. I feel like, I don't know whether I'm just hearing that differently because I know chapter 11 is around the corner, but I feel like there's this kind of gathering of the wealth and he's basically, think verses 28 through 29, that's basically the description of almost like an arms dealer, like a kind of chariot dealer across the, so this is just, it's not just for the sake of the nation, there seems to be something else going on here and we've seen that and as we read that, I think it makes me just wanna go back to the beginning of chapter nine and just, and you just notice a bit more, okay, what? It's not just a bit jolting. It's not quite sitting as it might if this guy was it.
Sarah: Yeah, there's a jarring nature to it, isn't there? But it's so jarring because the kind of verses before it says King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought his audience to hear the wisdom of God put in his heart. Yeah, the author has really kind of placed those kind sentences next to each other and it is kind of, ooh, it does make you feel a bit uncomfortable, doesn't it? But I think what really struck me was, as we kind of bring this to ourselves and even just to Jesus a bit more, in Luke chapter 11 verse 31 Jesus mentions the Queen of Sheba and he mentions her coming to listen to Solomon's wisdom and the context of that is those who hear and listen to God's word will be blessed, those who choose to not listen will be condemned and just that kind of example of the Queen of Sheba where she's hanging on Solomon's every word and she's listening and she's feeling the impact of his wisdom and just I think that's just quite a helpful kind of way for us to think about this. Am I clamouring like the Queen of Sheba to sit at King Jesus' feet and to listen to what he says and to really appreciate all his wisdom?
Felicity: Yeah, I think that's so helpful just to sit with her and I'm just really struck by the openness that she has. Like she's coming from not really knowing. She's heard rumour of, but she's coming with questions and then she hears the answer and there seems to be a soft-heartedness in that of like, wow, okay, you're right, this is wise. Yeah.
Sarah: Yeah. Even though she had everything. As in, she is a woman who had all the things. Like, no lack at all. And yet, she recognizes that there's something greater. There's something more glorious. And I think that is just beautiful, isn't it?
Felicity: Yeah, agreed, agreed. And all the way through, as we've been in One Kings, we've been, really our primary application has been see Solomon and know that Jesus is so much better as Luke helps us see. But there is just a secondary application here of just the warnings. Like we're gonna see it more as we get into the next chapter, but these warnings are for Solomon as God's king but I think also for Solomon as a person who has been seeking to follow the Lord, whose heart has been after the Lord and yet the sin that we're just catching the sight of here, it's slipping in there isn't it and it's really pulling him down. He's on the trajectory down.
Sarah: Yeah, I think, you know, when we head back to that Deuteronomy passage, which becomes more and more important. And remember when it says, don't put yourself above the people in your need to sit and listen and memorize the law for yourself, for your own heart. And we'll link back to that passage in the show notes, but just that reminder that actually, and the Lord is so gracious, he appears to Solomon. He doesn't kind of take for granted that Solomon's going to be rooted in the word, he kind of appears to him and reminds him and warns him. But just that, yeah, just that danger of sitting above others thinking, I don't need this, my sins fine, I'm not in a dangerous position. And actually, yeah, it feels like a nervous cliff here, doesn't it?
Felicity: It does, it does. I think, you know, you can read it and it, I see myself in Solomon. Like we don't want to be, that's not a primary kind of thing that we want to just be seeing ourselves in Solomon. But as we see that we're in danger of that and that we know something of our own sinful trajectories in that way, what a, what a delight, what a relief then to know that we therefore run to the arms of Jesus, King Jesus, the perfect King who wasn't disobedient, who died on the cross so that we were able to be in his kingdom to sit at the feet of well to sit at his feet and worship him and so I think it's both and it's that kind of it points us to those that spot doesn't it
Sarah: There's so much more to say here, isn't there, as ever, but it's really good for just starting these conversations, isn't it, and just being able to then pray on those. Felicity, would you just be able to pray for us as we close?
Felicity: Absolutely. Heavenly Father, we praise you so much for King Jesus. Thank you for Solomon here and the way he points us to Jesus. Thank you for the Queen of Sheba. She shows us what it is to respond to the King. And we praise you that having your King is good for the people. is good for us to be in the kingdom of Jesus. And so we pray that you'd incline our hearts to worship him. Would you make us like the Queen of Sheba as we look at Jesus? We pray that you guard our hearts. Please guard our hearts against the sin patterns that we see in Solomon. We want to be those who are eager for Jesus above all else and we pray this in your name. Amen
Sarah: Amen. Well, next week we will be heading into our penultimate episode of the season as we head into the big fall, really, of Solomon. We'll be doing chapter 11 verses 1 to 25. If you haven't already, do remember to check out our free download library on our website, which gives you access to various different resources we've created to help you dig into the Bible for yourself and others. We really do continue to hope and pray that those are helpful for you. And we look forward to seeing you next time as we head into chapter 11. We'll see you then.
Felicity: See you then, bye bye.
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