Sep 28 2013
Solomon’s Wives & Their Religions
1 Kings 11:1-12 Solomon’s wives were attached to other religions
The powerful kingdom established by David and expanded by Solomon was ripped in two when Solomon opened the door to numerous religions as he went about marrying foreign woman. Different religions in the palace – is that a problem? Well, you’ve probably seen it in other homes before; the husband believes one thing, the wife another, so what will their children believe? There are two common reactions: they accept both religions as equal, or reject both as being false. So what were the chances that a child of Solomon would continue to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as the one true God when his mother worshipped Molech the god of the Ammonites? How was Israel’s worship going to remain dedicated and pure? This is why the God of Abraham stopped Israel marrying foreigners. But Solomon compromised, the religions of the world flooded in and God’s judgement fell on Israel. The great kingdom of David and Solomon never recovered. More
Jan 24 2014
Facilitating Divine Intimacy
Learning from the cloud that filled Solomon’s temple – 2 Chronicles 5:2-14
A God of love is a God of relationship – and not a distant relationship, but a close one. Those who have experienced divine intimacy will tell you that there is nothing they would want more. In this post I use the account of the cloud filling Solomon’s temple to make some points about how churches and their worship teams can facilitate divine intimacy. If you are not familiar with the story of the cloud you may want to read the Scripture above before continuing.
Israel did not put an idol in their temple like other nations … they had a gold box. This box was called the Ark of the Covenant. In it were the tablets of stone on which were written the Ten Commandments. This was the core of God’s covenant with Israel, it was an agreement between heaven and earth and Israel was convinced that God would meet them wherever the documents were. More