1 Kings 5-7
After a trip through some Wisdom Literature of the Bible, we are back in Kings. This particular passage is a fairly detailed description of Solomon’s building of God’s house – the Temple. I have been reading some historical fiction books written by Brock and Bodie Thoene (they have several related series). One of the things that some of their characters often say when referring to scripture is, “everything means something”. I have found this to be so true! The Bible is like an onion of information and meaning, with layer upon layer of significance. Perhaps someday we will be blessed to understand it all.
I mention this to make the point that there is likely some amount of significance to many of the details given about God’s house. After all, Moses received the original Tabernacle design that the Israelites built in the wilderness directly from God. Even details like the start date, which was 480 years after the Hebrews left Egypt. Ten bucks to a dollar that number is significant for some reason.
One thing I do notice in this passage is the continued theme of Gentile involvement in God’s Plan. Hiram, king of Tyre, was essential to the building of God’s temple. He sent both supplies and skilled labor to Solomon for the task. It seems that Hiram was a very good friend of King David, Solomon’s father, and in reading Hiram’s response to Solomon, I would not be one bit surprised if David had turned this Pagan king’s heart toward the One True God.
There was also another Hiram of Tyre, a half-Hebrew whose mother was from the tribe of Naphtali and whose father was from Tyre. This Hiram did much of the metal work for the Temple and all of its furnishings. It is obvious to me that God included Gentiles and “foreigners” in His Plan from the very start. We are not an afterthought; we are not a concession. God did not set His people, the Jews, apart to exclude the rest of us. Rather, He did it as a means of both implementing and revealing His Plan for the redemption of the whole world.
Acts 7:44-60
The charge brought against Stephen was that he said that Jesus would destroy God’s Temple and change the customs that Moses gave them. Stephen responded by giving a recap of God’s promise, given to Abraham and fulfilled through Moses. The promise was to deliver Abraham’s enslaved descendants and bring them to worship Him in the Promised Land. Part of the fulfillment of that promise was in the building of the Temple – first the “portable” model built in the wilderness, and then the more permanent one built in Jerusalem. Stephen also made note of the people’s continued rebellion against God through all of it. He concluded by saying that God doesn’t dwell in houses, accusing his audience of doing as their forefathers had done. He told them that they did not keep God’s law and that they betrayed and murdered God’s Righteous One.
So what was Stephen trying to say in all of that? Best I can put together, he told them that God’s Promised Redeemer, not the Temple, is what matters. The customs that Moses gave them, in fact all of the law and the prophets, pointed to Jesus as that Redeemer. I believe he told them that it was actually they who had missed the point. They were the ones guilty of destroying God’s Temple and changing (or at least not keeping) the customs that Moses gave them. Whatever the case, it seems they got the point. They pulled a “peas and carrots”, as they “cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him” (Act 5:57), ultimately stoning him outside the city.
Stephen boldly stood for and spoke the Truth, giving no consideration to the consequences of doing so. Such behavior affirms Christ’s presence in him. Then, as they stoned him to death, he spoke two very familiar phrases. “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (vs 59b) and “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (vs 60a). Christ like behavior indeed. May I be challenged to live as Stephen did (preferably without the stoning part), that Christ might be reflected in me.