"Flourishing Finish or Faltering Failure?"

Scripture Passage

1 Kings 11:1-43; 2 Chronicles 9:29-31; Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Scripture Focus

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women. …The LORD had clearly instructed the people of Israel, ‘You must not marry them, because they will turn your hearts to their gods.’ Yet Solomon insisted on loving them anyway. …And in fact, they did turn his heart away from the LORD. (1 Kings 11:1-3 NLT)

Observation

I’ve been kinda “waiting in the weeds” for this one—not because I can necessarily explain it, but simply because it has always intrigued me. And it’s not that there’s some deep theological quandary to be pondered here. This is one place where the Scripture is quite matter-of-fact. It’s just amazing that Solomon—“the wisest man who ever lived”—could so blatantly and completely ignore the instruction of the God who gave him that wisdom.

God had made his will perfectly clear. In Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God explicitly declares that when Israel anoints a king, that king is not to take “many wives” (v. 17); he “must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them" (v. 16). Rather…

“[18] When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. [19] It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.” (Deuteronomy 17:18-19 NIV)

How remarkable…how personally challenging—that someone who started so strongly and served so effectively finished so badly! And yet (not to be self-serving about it), if it’s fair to assume that obedience to one command facilitates obedience to another—and vice-versa—that the neglect of one command promotes the neglect of others, it’s probably safe to assume that the same Solomon who ignored God’s command not to take “many wives” or even “many horses” also ignored God’s command to “read [the law] all the days of his life.” Perhaps if he’d done the latter he’d have not done the former.

And perhaps so for me, as well. Perhaps the regular, daily interaction with the Word of God that I’m both committed to and enjoying will strengthen me for the day of battle, with the result that I might finish as strong as I ever served.