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Episode 557: In this episode, Chris and Jeff dive into a fun and engaging episode, focusing on 1 Kings chapter 4 and its parallels in 2 Chronicles chapter 1. We explore the prosperity and wisdom of King Solomon, highlighting the impressive statistics regarding his daily provisions and the organization required to manage such a vast kingdom. We marvel at the sheer scale of Solomon's reign, noting how he ruled over a contented and thriving population, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the sand on the seashore.
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Bible Guys. My name is Chris. This is Jeff, and we are qualified to be the Bible Guys because we love the Bible. Well, because we got the U r L first, right, Bible Guys dot. Com, Bible Guys dot com. So that makes us, That makes us pro. Now you can you can trust everything that you hear on the Internet, that's right, the. World Wide Web, that's right. So today we are kicking off a segment that Desire put together and this is a spin off of a very favorite segment. Yeah, this is one of our favorites. Well, oftentimes we do a Dad Joe competition, which I love. That's right, we all love them as long as they're good jokes. But this here's the spin she said. These are featuring jokes sent in from our listeners this week. This is fantastic. Yes, yes, I'm very excited about these, which. By the way, I didn't even we didn't even ask for people to do this. Well, people send us all kinds of fun stuff. Yeah, so this is pretty great. So great. So let me just say, if you're listening and you know a good dad joke and you're like, hey, if I wonder if I send it in, I wonder if it ever make the show? Well, here it is? Well, here it is so info at is it Bible Guys or the Bible guys dot com? What We'll put it right here on the screen. Info at the Bible Guys. The Bible it's info at the Bible guys dot com. Give us an email. Yes, so, okay, here we go. So you want to do the first one? Yes, I just went off that screen. Here we go, ready, yep? I told my wife. She was drawing her eyebrows too high. She looked surprised. Did you open mine? Oh? I opened? You quit looking at my stuff? Oh yeah, okay, here you go. Okay, here's mine. So Chris is spelled c h. All right, here we go. Mine says, got a couple of sock puppets for sale? Anyone interested in taking them off my hands? That's a good one. I like that. Yeah. Hey, our listeners are good. Why don't skeletons fight each other? They don't have the guts. Oh, there you go. That's pretty good. That's funny like that one. Okay, hey, listen, I know you're busy, but can you say one ton backwards? Ton one not now, not now? That's one ton one time, not now, not now? Oh really yeah, oh one ton? Yeah, okay, that's one of those you have to read. Yeah, I guess, so thank you for that. Yeah, you're welcome. That was amazing. Okay, what do you get when you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor? A flat minor? Oh my, a flat minor? Yeah right, right right, a flat minor. That's a musician. Joe, yep, yep, very funny. Yeah, okay, my friend lost his car. I call him Carlos. Oh no, no, nope, not laughing at that one. No, that was terrible. Okay did you hear about the claustrophobic astronaut He just needed a little space. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Okay. Ready, instead of water, I put red Bull in the back and the oh sorry, instead of water, I put red Bull on the back of my coffee maker. This morning, I was halfway to work before I realized I forgot my car. Glass of red bull. Okay, that is really funny. This past summer, my wife and I were in Austria and we were going to a little village called Halstat. It's really beautiful. Anyways, on the way we passed the Red Bull World headquarters and it's in the mountains and in this forest, but and it's like really space age looking as effect all the buildings they're kind of tied together, but they look like spaceships, round space ships like this. And coming out of one of the it's the main main entrance building, the glass looks like it's broken, and a whole herd of bulls are running out and then they're huge, like copper bulls or brass right, and they're statues and they're running right down into a lake. It's really magnificent. Really, yeah, I was really impressed by the Red Oh I can't imagine. But the owner of Red Bull is the richest man in or was. I don't think he's alive anymore, but was the richest man in Austria. So wow. Okay, anyways, yeah, but it's funny to me all of that, all that caffeine and in his mind, you know, what the whole world needs to think when they drive past my place is so much energy that comes crashing out of our building, right, it's kind of yeah. Okay, why did the girl keep her trumpet in the snow? She wanted to play cool jazz? That was a rough one. That's actually, well, not as rough as your Carloss Carlos. Yes, yeah, I didn't even I try to make it sound good by saying Carlos. Yeah, yeah, Carlos, it's Carlos. It's terrible. Okay, okay, whoever, So you know who sent that in? Right right? You know who are? If that's you, bow your head in shame. Look away, don't make our contact with the screen right now. Look away, look away, right now. But you match my eyes? Boy? Oh no, okay, here we go. Last one, my friend joined a dating site for arsonists. He's been set a lot of matches. Oh no, that's pretty that's clever, clever. Okay, all right, we're sorry. We're sorry for that. Thank you listeners putting up with it. Yeah, well, thank thank eight of the ten listeners. Yes, we're going to thank eighty percent of our listeners today. Like Carlos, you don't like what was the one? Cool? You? Those two? Yeah? Not mad? I think I actually am about Carlos. Yeah, because it doesn't make any sense, like cool jazz, you understand it? Yeah, yes, right, it's like, oh, it's just a. Terrible joke, but Carlos doesn't sound like Carlos. Okay, well, hey, we want to invite you. We believe in redemption. Send us a better one. Okay, you know what. That's good. I dare you to to top it, right, So, but by topping of what we're really meaning is redeem it. Yes, okay, and let us know I'm the Carlos person. You don't have to do that, right yeah, yeah, okay, Well we'll never know otherwise, Well Deaz knows, well, she knows. If she does searching your history or whatever. But but if somebody announces it, then it'll be a segment. Then our listeners will be like, oh, it's the Carlos person. All right, Well how many? How many do they have to send to redeem themselves? So that was a bad enough joke, just one? Oh, I would say it needs to be probably four or five, don't you think? Well four or five better is long. It was so bad it brought the whole segment down for so long. The consequence of that should be still currently Okay, So whoever whoever sent in that joke, just understand if you wherever our friends, you would just spend your time being brutalized. Because this is how we this is how we show love to each other and the other people we. Love, which means we love the freak. We love you send it in. Yes, we love it our sense of just we Actually, if we're super super polite to you, either we don't know you or we don't like you. That could be true, actually, right, right, might be true. Like sometimes you find yourself just being as surface polite as possible, like hoping the conversation ends quickly. That that content made me imagine those moments, and I just get exhausted. You need to just go, oh well, okay. Thank you polite. Yeah, and just going through motions of being surface polite is it's hard. It's hard. Yes, it's more fun to have fun. Yeah. Well, you know when when you have good friends over and all of a sudden you look at the clock and it's midnight, You're like, oh my goodness, it's midnight. It's like that's when you know they're good friends, right right, when time just goes by and it's easy, you know. So anyway, I just I just hiccuped in Yon. So is there a name for that? A hiccup and a yon hic cup? Ay, yeah, we're just being ridiculous. Okay, Well this is a rough passage, so not rough, but it comes up twice in First Corinthians chapter four. Also Second Chronicles chapter one. So if you're reading and they're you know, you're doing a kind of a chronological study. Just understand the life of Solomon and the life of David show up in multiple books, and so we just keep flipping back and forth. We're not trying to read all of them. They basically say the same thing. But uh, here in One Kings, chapter four, verse twenty, that's what we're reading, right, yep. Yes. The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They were very contented, with plenty to eat and drink. Salomon ruled over the kingdoms from the Euphrates River in the north to the land of the Philistines and the board of Egypt and the south. The conquered peoples of those lands sent tribute money to Solomon and continued to serve him throughout his life. The daily food requirements for Solomon's palace, where one hundred and fifty bushels of choice flour, three hundred bushels of meal, also ten oxen from the fattening pens, twenty pasture fed cattle, one hundred sheep or goats, as well as deer, gazelle's roe deer and choice poultry. So that was just refast, lunch, and dinner every day. Yeah, that's every day. Wow, for the palace, for the armies, for the west. Okay, everybody there, meat eaters, buddy. Yeah. Solomon's dominion extended over all the kingdoms west of the Euphrates River, from Tipsha to Gaza, and there was peace on all his borders. During the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel lived in peace and safety, and from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, each family had its own home and garden. Solomon had four thousand stalls for his chariot horses, and he had a twelve thousand horses and the sinct. The district governors faithfully provided food for King Solomon at his court. Each made sure nothing was lacking during the month assigned to him. They also brought the necessary barley and straw for the royal horses and the stables. God gave Solomon very great wisdom and understanding and knowledge as vast as the sands of the seashore. In fact, his wisdom exceeded that of all the wise men of the East and the wise men of Egypt. He was wiser than anyone else, including Ethan, the Ezra Height, and the sons of Mayhall. He Man really wow, Wow, Kelcall and Darta. Right. His fame spread throughout all the Only he Man got its own TV show. I know that. Yeah, the others not so much. Cal Call and data. Yeah. His fame spread throughout all the surrounding nations. He composed some three thousand proverbs and wrote one thousand and five songs. He could speak with authority about all kinds of plants, from the great cedar Lebanon to the tiny hitsip that grows from cracks in a wall. He could also speak about animals, birds, small creatures, and fish. And kings from every nation sent their ambassadors to listen to the wisdom of Solomon. Yeah, and I love this. Yeah, I did too. And it's prosperity and wisdom. And you know what, I know, it's you know in. Terms of like it feel similar to yesterday? It does, but you know, you always ask yourself there's a sermon in there somewhere, right, like where's the sermon? And before I get to any attempt on a sermon thought, I just want to marvel at the fact that the Queen of Sheba observed when we read first chronicles yesterday at she observed how organized, yeah, the kingdom was, and she marveled over the organization. Well, you can't even you know, this gives us a little bit more insight. Think about ten oxen from the fattening pins, twenty pasture fed cattle, a hundred sheep or goats, as well as deer, gazelle's road deer, and choice poultry with one hundred and fifty bushels of flowers three hundred bushels a meal. So think of think of everybody who lived in the palace or around the palace, or the armies that served the palace, the servant guards, and think of how organized you would have to be in order to execute ready, not not one big kitchen, but rather how many kitchens hundreds, right, so many, so many and then and then just and then have that just I mean it's just an incredible thing to establish that from nothing, And so I would imagine that if you've never seen anything like that. A queen who comes from Ethiopia sees that and says, I've never seen anything like this. Let's ask let's ask uh chat GPT, how many meals can an average ox provide? She is what a question? Between five hundred and seven hundred pounds of usable meat. So if it was seven hundred pounds of meat between somewhere around fourteen hundred meals. Wow, So one ox. And they're killing ten oxen. Wow, so fourteen thousand meals. Let's say it was on the low side, ten thousand meals okay, right, just from the oxen. Wow, he's feeding ten thousand people a day just from his oxen. Then it's twenty twenty pasture fed cattle. That's probably going to be five or six hundred more meals. Times twenty, it's gonna be another ten thousand meals. And then he's got one hundred sheeper goats. You and I we've eaten sheep and goats in Africa before. Right, sure? And I mean it feeds the whole village one hundred people, right right, So you're talking another one hundred of them. That's going to be another ten thousand people. It's crazy, right, he's thirty thousand people a day. He's feeding a day, So ten thousand people a day if he's eating three times a day. Okay, So perhaps a sermon in here is this is that when the king does well, in other words, when he is a person of prosperity, and in this case he's a person of wisdom and prosperity who follows God. Right. Right, So you know, have you ever heard the saying everything rises and falls on leadership? Yes, And so you know, when the king and the leader does well, then everybody in the household, who, by the way, may not even deserve it, may not even earn it or work for it, but yet everybody gets well taken care of. And so you know that speaks into the roles that God has given for instance, like me, So God has given me a role as a father, as a husband, as a leader, as a friend, as a family member. Right, And so I'm a provider. I do all sorts of things. And when I don't follow God, and when I am not doing well, my life is not my own. Right, there's the sermon. My life is not my own. So people always think, hey, I'm just gonna I met with a guy yesterday. In fact, we obviously I won't give you his name, but he is. I did their wedding five years ago. And uh and they're struggling. And he's been in and out of rehab and he literally just got out of rehab a couple of days ago. And this is his third rehab in uh in in just in one year. And uh and he's not doing well. And uh, well, if you're listening, stick with it, man, don't give up. Don't And you know what, here's the thing. When I met with him yesterday, I was very encouraged, and I was hopeful, and I was prayerful. We prayed together at the restaurant and uh and so I'm just prayed like maybe it's this time, right and and and this fighting, this is the time, keep on fighting. But here's the thing. We talked about the consequences of him wanting to do what he wanted to do. When he when he indulging himself, when. He indulges himself, it's not just his life, right, It's his wife, it's his family, it's his loved ones. And everybody. Everybody suffers because of you know, obviously in this case it's an addiction, but in a lot of cases it's just selfishness. You know. I'm not talking about him anymore. Rights as a leaders, as a family, man, as a father, right, anyway, I just think that this is a great lesson, even under these goofy stats of trying to figure out twenty thousand ox and meals, right, you know, and here we are doing that math. But there's a sermon in there somewhere that says, your life is not your own, and everything rises and falls on leadership. And when you serve God, when you follow God, then the blessings and every life you touch benefit, and the responsibilities certainly that God has given you also benefit because you're just living life. And I've been very struck by the fact that the world is run by kings. Yeah, pray for good kings and hope that God stops bad kings. Right, that's it. And whether we're talking about kings of industry or kings of nations or leaders in communities, right, there's this kind concept. And so what you pray for is good kings. And if you have the opportunity to be a king in your office or at your corporation, be a good one, be a good man, be a good woman. And what you see here is it starts off the people of Juda and Israel, whereas numerous as the sand on the seashore, which is what God promised Abraham. It says they were very contented, with plenty to eat and drink. Right, So a good king doesn't work for himself. This is what we warned about yesterday, because eventually Solomon shifts the other way. But during this time he was good, and he worked for the benefit of his people. He leveraged his wisdom, he leveraged his power, he leveraged as well. You notice it never mentions that he's taxing his own people here. It mentions that the money kept coming in from everywhere else. Right, but his people are prospering and they love him. He had their own home and garden. Yeah, yeah, everybody, everybody. Yeah, that's incredible. The whole country. Everybody was satisfied. Produced. And so there's this idea. And you know you mentioned everything rises and falls on leadership. John Maxwell became famous for that. That statement existed way before John Maxwell. I hate to break your buster bubble. But he became famous for John also was famous with really introducing the American business world to the idea of servant leadership built around Jesus being a servant leader. Right, And so a servant leader doesn't only work for his own benefit, he works for the benefit of others. A servant leader in the household, the father doesn't just work for his own comfort and his own benefit. He works for the comfort and benefit of the whole family. Well, then what happens is he also gets comfort and benefit, right, And that's what happens with the king. I've had the privilege of knowing a couple of and meeting President in Africa, working for King in Africa, working for shakes in Middle East that are I'm not saying that they're completely moral people, but their mindset is work for the betterment of the nation and the betterment of the people. And in all three of those countries, the people loved their leaders. I'm a saying that they're perfect. They also do some things I wouldn't agree with, obviously, but the people love these leaders because these leaders are building streets and good water supply and sewers and prospering the people and supporting business and bringing in business from outside the country, and bringing in other revenues, and building hospitals and schools and all these things. Those kings could, by right of the law of their land, just hoard all that stuff, and instead they turn it out to the people in a way that the people benefit. And then they're providing education and training so that the people get better and better and the nations become stronger and stronger. You and I have also been in nations where the kings were the other way. They took everything, and everybody lives in poverty, everybody lives in ignorance, nobody has education, people die young because they don't have any medical supplies, any care. Right. So this is what you see with Solomon is he's a phenomenal leader who is putting God and people first, and he has outrageous wealth himself. Right. The other thing that I'd like to just kind of end with this, this is very interesting God gave it, says in verse twenty nine. God gave Solomon very great wisdom and understanding and knowledge as vast as the sands the sea shore. And then it said it exceeded all of the wise people. And we made jokes about he man and all those guys, it's not the real it's not the he Man. I was gonna say the real he Man, this is real, he Man, it's not the cartoon he Man. I have the power. But he was a writer. He wrote some three thousand proverbs. He was a musician. He wrote over a thousand songs. He could speak with authority about horticulture, about food, about animals and birds and creatures and fish. Right. He clearly was brilliant at law. He was brilliant at organizational leadership. That's why the Queen of shebacame to see him. There's something about being. It's what we you know in the in the Western world, would call a renaissance man. Right. He clearly had a curious mind. So God gave him the supernatural gift of wisdom. But it doesn't look to me like he just rested on that gift. He took his gift, invested with curiosity and became very intelligent about so many a breadth of things, which. Is which is? This is different than wisdom. His wisdom drove him to pursue knowledge, and his knowledge then enhanced his wisdom. Right, And there's something about that that Hey, I always encourage young people. When you're growing up, be very well read, develop a curious mind. Maybe the greatest mind is a curious mind, right, and so so read the a breadth of things. I had one of my mentors when I was in my late teens early twenties, really make a big deal about, Hey, when's the last time you read the Wall Street Journal? I said, I don't think I've ever read the real free journal. He said, you should get subscription to Wall Stree Journal. I'll read it. Then he says, when was the last time you ever read about And you just start asking things. What do you know about anatomy? What do you know about biology? What do you know about plants? What do you know? He said? Well, then how are you going to talk to people? Do you know anything about engineering? Do you know anything about banking? Do you know anything about real estate? No? You need to know those things. Why because you're going to serve people who are experts in those areas and you won't have anything in common with them if you don't know something about those things. He said, You don't have to be an expert, you just need to know about it. And there is something about that being If you want to be a leader of a lot of people. You need to have a breadth of knowledge, not a narrow knowledge. Hey, another thing that you'd mentioned earlier, like ten minutes ago, you said, the people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore. And you said, and that was God promised Abraham, which of course you know is very famous, right. It was the big promise to make you a nation, and he said those exact words. So here's my question. I wonder if that's the very first time that it was phrased that way. Oh yeah, I don't know, you know what I mean. Yeah, Because if that's the case, then that would be the first time it's I'm not saying it's the first time it's happened, like that's the moment of that promise being fulfilled. But if it's the first time that it's mentioned, it would definitely be the first time that it's been celebrated, right, Yeah. And then and then then I wonder, like, how many years in between God promising Abraham this that He's going to make his people a great nation and then all of a sudden, here we have here the Jewish people being made a great nation. Uh, you know, is as much as the uh sand is on the seashore. So that's the fulfillment of a promise. If that's the case, that's a whole sermon in there together. Right, absolutely, that's. That's the uh you know, the idea that you know, Abraham didn't obviously live to see the fulfillment of that promise. I don't remember anywhere else where. It just declares right this, yeah, as being just, and it's in passing it's a right, right, just saying that has been accomplished. Yeah, yeah, I don't remember it. Yeah, well, that's that's really interesting. Yeah, it's it's a It's a great thought, isn't it. So you know, the promises of God, you know, through every generation, knowing that God never forgets his promises, that he is, you know, faithful to his word. If God promises something to you, you know through his words as a blanket promise, for instance, I will never leave you nor forsake you. There's never a time where you have to pray God, please be with me. If you're a follower of Christ, if you're a believer in Jesus, there is never a time that you should pray God be with me, Please be with me. Because you're not right or Father, give me your holy spirit. The Gobi says you have holy spirit right. So there's just certain things that we can just bank on God's promises when he says them, we never have to worry about it. And so there there it is. There's another sermon that's really brilliant. So all right, well that's all our time for today, so hopefully we will see you next time. I'm the Bible Gos