I intend, therefore, to build a temple for the Name of the LORD my God, as the LORD told my father David, when he said, ‘Your son whom I will put on the throne in your place will build the temple for my Name.’ – 1 Kings 5:5

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 3, 2013): 1 Kings 5

One of the dangers of religion is that it can set us up to try to do things that God never intended for us to do. I am convinced that the terrorist attacks that have become a common part of our contemporary experience are not born out of any God. There is no God sitting up in heaven at the moment of an explosion saying “the ones planted that bomb, they’re my people and I am so proud of them.” If there is a moment when God cries, I think that those are some of the moments. Every time we burn a holy book, or trash someone whose lifestyle is different from ours (even if we would say that their lifestyle is sinful), I think that those actions brings tears to the eyes of God. We want to believe in those moments that we are doing the work of God, but the reality is that we are not – we are simply fulfilling our own selfish desires.

So Solomon makes this pronouncement and he places the command in the voice of God – God has told me to build him a temple. The problem that we face is that we cannot confirm the command – and in some ways the command itself seems out of place. It is not that God did not use the temple throughout the history of the nation – we know that he did. But often, as is evidenced in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4, the temple also became a source of pain and division. Some experts have gone as far as to say this idea of was totally conceived of in the mind of Solomon. And they are probably wrong. If the dream of the temple was not conceived of in the mind of God (by the way, the tabernacle was conceived of in the mind of God and the temple was really just an extension that tabernacle) – the idea for a temple was definitely present in the mind of Solomon’s father, David. If it was not Solomon’s heavenly father that Solomon was following, it was the dream of his earthly father.

One of the things that make us wonder if this is really the will of God is this is that Solomon used slave labor of the conquered peoples and forced labor of his own people to build the temple. He even went into debt to finance the task. And the question that we are left with is does that sound like something God would want us to do.  All of this just to build a building that we are not sure God really wanted.

Stephen in his final speech before his death notes that all of the powerful things that God did for Israel happened before the Temple was built. And then Solomon built the temple. In his final speech before the keepers of the temple Stephen makes this comment - “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands.” (Acts 7:48) What David and Solomon possibly both missed was that God’s plan has always been that his dwelling place here on earth was to be inside of us. That in dwelling in us he would be all that we would need. 

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings 6