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Word in the Wild is a one year Bible adventure with friends. Join from anywhere and enjoy a fun, rewarding, and doable 12-month journey through the Bible where you read it from cover to cover and understand it. It’s not a devotional or recap. It’s a guide by your side through God’s Word. With support from a weekly podcast and an online community of fellow travelers, this is the year when you finally explore the Bible in its own words and on its own terms for yourself.
This is word and the wild a one year Bible adventure with friends. My name is Owen I'm your host and your guide and together we are on a 12 month journey as a podcast plus community where we read the Bible for ourselves, but not by ourselves. Gang, here we are. It's week 21 and this week the man whose name means peace Struggles to find it.
David's son, Solomon now sits on the throne of Israel. And he's a big success. Or is he? That's the conversation this week.
So hello and welcome in. We're rolling through this journey together. We're not on some recap where we feed you bite sized bits of the Bible. No, this is a free-wheeling walk where we watch the story of the Bible unfold like the epic movie it is.
So subscribe right here on your favorite podcast platform. Share with a friend and enjoy the journey with us. Want to say a special welcome to our word and the wild plus community members. It's their support of this nonprofit endeavor that makes space for all of us here on this Bible reading adventure.
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Or you can check out word and the wild. com and get all the details over there. And stay tuned here in the next few weeks. I'm going to have an opportunity for you to jump in and join the community. If you haven't already, just here at the end of the summer, I'm going to start letting you know more about that in the days ahead.
So just keep that in your back pocket for now. All right. Check us out. Word and the wild dot com. All right. With that. Let's get set up for a week with a new key character in this epic movie. That is the Bible. I'm talking about the wisest man who ever lived. His name is King Solomon and he's who's up next for us.
Now, as David drifts out of view in the story, this week in the epic movie that is the Bible, we spend some time getting to know in detail a man who we've only known in passing so far. You're familiar with his name, I'm sure. His name is Solomon. Solomon is David's son with Bathsheba, another name you're familiar with from the story, and Solomon is also successor to the throne of Israel right after David's departure.
So the question comes, right, as we jump into Solomon's life, what kind of person will Solomon be? Solomon be what kind of king will he be and this week? We're gonna get to see a young Solomon in action as he solidifies his hold on the throne and builds upon his father's legacy and Next week and beyond that we're gonna be getting a look into his inner life through the many wise words from him that are recorded in the Bible, in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.
All right. So we got some time with Solomon. So it's worth getting to know him a little bit. Solomon is let's say he's complicated and we've already gotten a peek into maybe some of his personality and his character through David's interaction with him before David passed on. So although we don't know much about Solomon yet, we do maybe know a couple of things.
Okay. Remember back a few weeks ago, this is now going back past the Psalms we've been in the last couple of weeks, go back to that time when David was King and he gathered everyone together for a large public event where he wanted to encourage the people to remain committed to God and to see, see the work of building the temple through.
Remember that? It was this big public speech. And in that speech, David made a brief and really powerful charge directly to Solomon. It's one of those verses I've got underlined in red in my chrono Bible. It's, it's pretty amazing. Listen to what David said to Solomon.
He says, "And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors, intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him. But if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. That comes from first chronicles 28 verse nine. That's on page five 20 of your chrono Bible. And these, these words are incredible. It's short, sweet, powerful.
But in these words, perhaps we see David acknowledging something in Solomon that he, as a, as a father knows. Maybe David sees some hints of a bent in Solomon toward playing both sides. It's kind of double minded approach to life. And, and that's why David. Urges his son Solomon to, to learn to know and love God with his whole heart.
Whole here meaning undivided, complete. Okay. And it there's, there's something in there that perhaps David sees. See, Solomon's name means peace. And Solomon, the name is related to the Hebrew word shalom. Solomon. Shalom. It means secure. It means all is well with me. I am at rest. I am complete.
That's the, the Hebrew idea of shalom. And as we get into Solomon's life, we're going to see that if there's one thing that about Solomon's life that we know to be true, it, he has the opposite of a restful outlook. I mean, sure. The externals of his life and his kingdom, man, they are secure. This is a golden age for the people of Israel.
There are no threats armies threatening his people. No financial crisis looms. His reputation is solid. His mind is sharp. Legendary, in fact. His power and his influence are far reaching. There are signs of success and wealth all around him.
He accomplishes this massive building project to construct the temple of the Lord, and then he goes on to spend twice as long as he spent building the temple to build himself a just incredibly lavish palace for himself to live in.
Now, if that's not security, if all that doesn't say security to you, I don't know what does. And yet we're going to find a Solomon who lives inside that fancy house and finds no rest. We're going to find a man who is always chasing. Always on this restless search for satisfaction.
He's got a brilliant mind, but it's a mind that's always hungry for more. We're going to find he has, his lust is always hungry for more. His ego always hungry for more.
And so for this, for this man named peace, peace eludes him. And for Solomon too much is never enough. He's a man who literally gets handed a blank check by God himself, we're going to see this week. And yet even with that blank check, satisfaction forever remains out of reach.
This week, there's going to be an important episode in Solomon's life, where God's going to come to him in a dream. You're going to look for it. It's a hugely important moment in the story. It's deliciously fitting and ironic that Solomon's conversation with God in this dream begins with God leveling a very pointed question at Solomon.
The question is simply this. Solomon, what do you want? This is a, it's a powerful question. It's a core question really for anybody who wants to evaluate the path they find themselves on in life, in light of God's priorities, right? But, but for Solomon, it's an essential question that will shape his future.
Now, in this dream, as Solomon has this conversation with God, his response to God in this question, "What do you want?" It's a good one. It's encouraging. It's, it's refreshing. Solomon says, says this, he says, he says to God,
"Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong."
It's first Kings three verse nine. It's on page 600 of our chrono Bible, and that's a beautiful prayer, right? It's, it's a, it's a humble prayer. But it's, it's a little bit different prayer than the kind of request his father David is, is known for.
Remember David prays prayers like this. He says, David says to God, "Search me, Oh God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, point out anything in me that offends you."
Remember that it's from this last week of reading. It's Psalm 139 there on page 5 75 of your chrono Bible. David was a man who prayed for God to change him at the core of his desires. He prayed for God to work on him, to become a person that cares about the same thing God cares about. "Search me, O God. Know my heart."
Solomon, on the other hand, asked God for understanding and discernment. It's a good prayer, but it's a different prayer. See, there's a difference between being perceptive and being faithful. There's a difference between having discernment and then applying what you know from that discernment to your decisions and to your direction.
Solomon, we will see, is a man who sees clearly. He understands insightfully. But at the same time struggles to live faithfully because in the end. His legendary wisdom does little to shape what Solomon honestly, truly wants. Solomon is not a good king who goes bad. He's more of a conflicted man who never achieves an honesty with God and the self awareness and self discipline that comes with that honesty.
And so, while God uses Solomon to bring four decades of peace to his people, Solomon endures a lifelong struggle to find peace for himself.
All right, gang with that, let's hit the trail. Man, I'm so grateful for this opportunity to walk through God's Word with you this year. If you're loving it, Hey, share it with somebody, you know, and make sure you have subscribed to this podcast. All you word in the wild plus community members. Special thanks to you for your financial support.
I'll be seeing you in the wild, our online private community space, all week long. Don't be a stranger in there. Word and the wild, it's a LineHouse community. It's part of the LineHouse Community Network. That's a nonprofit organization with a mission to bring neighbors together to promote awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the Bible because friendship and God's word change lives and change cities.
Word and the Wild is presented by the LumaVoz podcast network as always. So grateful and thankful for our LumaVoz friends. Thank you guys so much. And with that, We are out. My name again is Owen, your host and your guide. Delighted to be with you today, and until next time, looking forward to seeing you out there on the trail, in the word and the wild.
You have yourself a great week.