When I read God's Word, I hear Him speak

Since 1998, I have been reading God's Word nearly daily. Through my time with Him, I hear God speak to me. It's not audible. God just makes His Word evident to me. Those lessons are many times reinforced by messages delivered by teaching pastors and sharing with others who study God's Word. I used to write the messages in the margins of my Bible. Needless to say, my Bible is filling up with messages. In 2006, I started to be more intentional about writing God's lessons to me in a journal. Because God is just sharing so much with me, I feel the burning need to share with others. (Jeremiah 20:9) I am hoping that through this blog, folks will join me as we read, hear God and discuss what we've learned. This isn't so we can simply increase our knowledge about God or to spout off Scripture to impress people. This is so we can really come to know God, and get a greater meaning of His truths so we can go out and live them. God said that if we love Him, then we will obey His commands. (John 4:23-24) And James said don't just listen to (or read) the Word and think that's good enough; you're just deceiving yourself. Live the Word. (Rose's paraphrase of James 1:22) It's similar to this great quote people are passing around now... Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. So, join me as we learn from God and what He wants us to do. Then let's encourage one another to live it as a testimony to God so that people know He is who He says He is.



Sunday, October 2, 2011

How to View Solomon & His Writings

Recently, my Women's Critical Thinking Bible Study group was studying Ecclesiastes; it seems like an easy book to study and yet it was not. It was difficult knowing who Solomon is as a person - wise and correct or arrogant and foolishly wrong - difficult knowing why his writings are in the Bible and shocking to see another man different from whom we thought he was.

In short, Solomon seemed to be a man who tried to live life apart from God, by his own wisdom, thinking he was smarter than God only to realize nearing the end of his life - a life God graciously gave and extended - that he was not smarter than God, he was not able to understand, control nor predict life and his lifelong efforts to do so were a waste of time. In the end, Solomon learned that true wisdom began with reverently respecting God and being in awe of Him.

Solomon - his name meaning Peace - by his birth as son of King David was the "Prince of Peace." By his undeniable reign as the king of the then mightiest empire of the known world, he could be the King of Kings. However, Solomon doesn't live into his name as a man of God but as a man of the world. And we must look to Jesus as the truest sense of the Prince of Peace - peace with God and not world peace - and King of Kings as there will be no other to rise higher than the Son of God Himself.

I believe God allowed Solomon to live his life as He knew Solomon would come to the conclusion that true wisdom and true life was found in God only. Ecclesiastes seems to be Solomon's "life journal" where he explains his life's journey and conclusions. Proverbs now seems - to me anyway - to have been written following his life's journey where he concluded he chased the wrong life - a life without God. Isn't it amazing that our God would place the journal of a man in the Bible where this man confesses his life's struggles, searches endlessly and give his lessons-learned so we can read that a life without God is no life at all? That is why I think Solomon and his writings are important to our lives' journeys.

To help me better understand Solomon in context, I first read about Solomon then read his "journal" now will re-look at Proverbs to see how weighty this insight, from an elder Solomon, truly is as he states "the fear (reverent respect) of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge." Proverbs 1:7

Try reading Solomon in this manner:
  1. Dueteronomy 17
  2. 2 Samuel 11-12
  3. 1 Kings 1-11 (maybe into 12 to see Solomon's "legacy")
  4. 1 Chronicles 29 through 2 Chronicles 9
  5. Ecclesiastes
  6. Proverbs
  7. Song of Songs
When reading the Old testament account of Solomon's life in Kings and Chronicles, really look at what David said to Solomon, how he as his father set Solomon into action as King, what did Solomon ask for from God, how many times God visited Solomon and what did God say each time to Solomon. Ask yourself why would God say what He said to Solomon? Did Solomon seek God during his reign? How did he raise his kids? What did his wives do and where in Jerusalem did they do their actions? How did Solomon lead Israel? Did Solomon as king follow God's decrees and commands? What was Solomon's legacy? Does he have remorse? Is he trying to make up for lost time?

I'm not sure I'll see Solomon in God's Kingdom. Good thing I'm not God because I don't discern the hearts and minds of men. Only God can do that and only God knows if, in Solomon's heart, the conclusion of his life resulted in true faith in God and not the end we read in 1 Kings.

August 27, 2013
Here is a lesson taught by Dr. Stephen Davey preached 10 years ago that I heard on Monday, August 27, 2013 during a rebroadcast on Wisdom for the Heart on 90.5 FM. (I'm always amazed how God brings lessons to my hearing of subjects I'm studying.) In this lesson, Dr. Stephen Davey sheds some light on who Solomon was so, we can read the Scripture penned by Solomon with the correct perspective.

From the Portraits of Biblical Failures - Solomon the Richest Fool
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