Today’s Scripture Reading (July 31,
2016): 1 Kings 5
It has been
argued that the Great Depression ended because the world went to war. The
nations of the world took care of their massive unemployment by raising an army
and a civilian support for that army. At least, that is the way that it looks
on the surface. If that is true, then the economic solution to any kind of
economic downturn is to drop bombs on somebody. I know, it doesn’t sound like a
great solution.
But the
deeper reality is that what looks to be true on the surface is actually not the
truth (and that seems to be true in so many areas of our lives.) The truth is
that winning World War II was a massive, and expensive, undertaking. What
appears to have happened at the end of the Great Depression is that the world
made a trade – massive unemployment for massive debt. Luckily, we do not need a
World War to incur massive debt (yes, that was sarcasm). When the 2008 downturn
threatened to turn into an even bigger depression, we took what we learned with
the Great Depression and spent our way out of trouble, increasing our already
massive debt. My fear is that all we are really doing is delaying our problem
to tomorrow; we are presenting it as a gift to our children because we know
that someone is going to have to pay back what it is that we have borrowed.
In many
ways, it is only with our current modern economies that the kind of debt we
have incurred is even possible. Under ancient economies, limited debt might
have been possible. But often hard economic choices had to be made.
David wanted
to build a Temple. God said no. My opinion is still that God never intended for
the Temple in Jerusalem to ever be built. The Temple that God wanted was the
one that was placed in the hearts of humankind. But the practical reality is
that David could have probably never raised the workers and materials needed to
complete the process. The building was a huge undertaking. Many Bible experts
don’t want us to miss that it was essentially built with slave labor – men who
had been conscripted into the process. But those conscripted men could not be
used for any other purpose, like fighting a war or maintaining a border. For
David, he needed the men and materials that he could gather to serve that
purpose; to fight his wars and stabilize the nation’s borders. But because he
did that job so well, Solomon did not have that concern. In peace, Solomon
could raise the resources needed to complete the Temple.
Of course,
raising those resources came at a price. While we remember Solomon as a wise
king, his conscription for the Temple and other projects sewed the seed for the
rebellion that would take place during the reign of his son, Rehoboam, and
would result in a divided Israel – North and South. The nation would never
again be whole.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Kings
6
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