It’s pretty amazing isn’t it that Solomon made a marriage
alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt?
Amazing given the events of the book of the Exodus, that an Israelite
king, the former slave colony of Egypt, would have enough prestige to make such
an alliance. Right from the start, we
see Solomon loving the Lord, but…he also sacrificed at the high places. When the Lord asks, however, what Solomon
might want from Him, the young man answers well. He recognizes that the role he has been given
is a gift from the Lord and also a great responsibility and that if he is to do
this well and right he will need wisdom, but a particular kind of wisdom, “that
I may discern between good and evil.”
Hmmm, where have we seen those two things before? Solomon, for all his faults, knows that this
knowledge is knowledge that God alone possesses and that if he wants to rule
properly over God’s people he will need God’s knowledge. Because he asked for this he received much
more, the world’s honor, riches and lengthened days. Sounds a lot like what Jesus promised in
Matthew 6.33, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all
these things will be added to you.” What was Solomon’s response to the
dream? Worship before the ark of the
covenant of the Lord in thanksgiving.
Was it just a dream or was Solomon convinced it was much more?
The nard this woman used to anoint Jesus was indeed costly
and rare. It is from the spikenard plant
that grows in the Himalayan mountains of China, India, and Nepal between 10,000
and 16,000 feet of elevation. By the
time of the New Testament it was imported as a luxury into Egypt and from there
to the rest of the near east. Her
extravagance in anointing Jesus with this raised eyebrows and the idea of
wastefulness. Surely there was a better
way to donate such a valuable commodity.
Jesus points towards his coming death, Mark tells us it is now two days
from the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Jesus says she has
anointed His body for burial. This seems
to be the final straw for Judas but we don’t know what part drove him to betray
Jesus.
Paul has a prophetic word concerning the proposed voyage,
that they will lose the ship and lives if they set sail. The centurion, Luke tells us, “paid more
attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said.” That isn’t a surprise is it? The owner and pilot had more experience than
this itinerant evangelist and they had more at risk. Paul was also a prisoner, didn’t he get a
prophetic word that would have avoided that?
The centurion had little reason at this point to consider Paul’s “word”
as particularly important or meaningful.
Paul, in the midst of the storm that caused the crew to jettison the
cargo of the ship, could have stood and said, “I told you so,” but he didn’t.
He informs them that God has spoken and that while they will lose the ship and
its contents, no loss of life will be incurred.
In the three lessons today we see that wisdom comes from God. Solomon received wisdom from Him, the woman had
wisdom to know what to do with the nard, and Paul had wisdom that none of the
experienced people had, wisdom to know the future.
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