October 7
1 Kings 10; Philippians 1; Ezekiel 40; Psalm 91
1 Kings 10
The visit to King Solomon by the Queen of Sheba is the stuff of legends: the great queen testing Solomon (1) and being left breathless by she sees (5). There are three facets of God’s kingdom that we may observe here, and one warning.
First, when God brings His kingdom, it brings happiness. The queen marvels at just how happy Solomon’s subjects are (8).
This she attributes, secondly, to Solomon’s wisdom (8b). When God brings His kingdom, His royal subjects are happy, because His wisdom pervades the realm. This brings happiness because God’s wisdom always has the added advantage of agreeing perfectly with reality. The people see and feel, in the ordinary details of life, that God’s wisdom is both beautiful and that it works.
And His subjects are happy because that wisdom leads to, thirdly, prosperity. The gold just flows in, and so do the nations. The nation becomes so wealthy that silver becomes commonplace (21), and there’s enough disposable income to acquire apes (22).
Throughout history, this has been the way of the gospel. When it enters a culture, it brings with it greater knowledge and wisdom. After all, ours is a religion of words, which requires literacy. And knowledge is the difference between our wealth and that of the ancients. What are the main ingredients of that phone in your pocket? Silicone and glass, aluminum and air. Where do these come from? Sand, and the ground. The ancients had those materials too, but not the knowledge, the wisdom, to reconfigure them into a circuit board.
So the gospel enters a culture, and produces wisdom, and then prosperity, and then happiness. But there is a danger, here, too. Twice the passage mentions that this was the high point: “Never again came such an abundance of spices” (10); and “No such almug wood has come or been seen to this day” (12).
We will need to wait for tomorrow’s chapter to know why. But for now, consider Cotton Mather’s famous quip: “Godliness begat prosperity; and the daughter ate the mother.” Mather the Puritan said this in the early days of the American experiment. Are they any less true today? When God blesses a people with prosperity, the great temptation is for the blessings of the gospel to distract from the gospel itself.
This is the path Solomon and America are traveling. It turns out we need a better King.