Today’s Scripture Reading (September 2, 2019):
1 Kings 3
President Donald Trump wants to
hold the next G7 summit at his Doral resort in Miami. According to the
President, his Doral Resort was one of many resorts his staff examined, and it
is simply the best of the bunch. Trump tries to excuse the idea that the G7 at
Doral would mean that he would personally profit from the summit at Doral by
saying that Doral wins as having the best facilities and the exact facilities
that the G7 requires. None of the other resorts check all of the boxes and measure
up to the expectations of the G7 quite like the Doral Resort.
Trump's critics are not
convinced. The idea of having the 2020 G7 Summit at Doral is wrong because it
violates the “Emoluments Clause” of the constitution which forbids the
President from personally profiting from payments originating from foreign
governments. The clause is meant to prevent external influence and corruption
of elected officials by foreign nations. Essentially, there is no problem with
holding the G7 at President Trump’s Doral Resort, as long as Donald Trump pays
for the Summit, allowing the foreign governments to come at his expense. But if
he wants them to pay, the Summit must be somewhere else.
As so often happens in modern
politics, the viewer is left with trying to decide who is right. And
complicating the whole matter is the fact that we are the masters of excuses. If
we are honest with ourselves, we often form our idea of right and wrong
according to what is convenient for us or fits within our complex sense of
right and wrong. And so evangelical believers can excuse Trump’s many character
defects because he is a conservative and supports a conservative agenda. Concerning
the Trump Doral suggestion, supporters of President Trump are probably not
bothered by the idea of holding the Summit at Doral. They are not concerned
with whether or not he profits as long as he continues to push their agenda.
Non-supporters are more likely to be against the concept, complaining that the
president is too easily influenced. Each is right according to their own
assessment of the situation, but also because of their view of political
necessity and the desire to meet their personal political goals.
The author of Kings takes a
look at the religious situation at the beginning of Solomon’s reign. He will
make a more critical evaluation of the reign of Solomon later, but here he
makes an excuse for the action of the people. He excuses the peoples
sacrificing at altars built on the high places of the nation, a move that they
will be condemned for later in the book, by arguing that the practice was
understandable because in those days there was no Temple. His comment is true.
Solomon had not built the Temple yet, this evaluation takes place very early in
Solomon’s reign, but that does not tell the whole story. The Tabernacle still
stood at Gibeon. The altar, on which sacrifices could be made, stood at the
front of the Tabernacle. Priests were present at the Tabernacle, serving on a
rotational basis. The High Priest was present at the Tabernacle in Gibeon. The
reality was that everything that could be accomplished at the Temple when
Solomon finished his father’s dream could be performed at Gibeon. No, the
appearance of a tent could not hold a candle to the grandeur of the Temple that
Solomon would build, but then we are not supposed to be attracted to the appearance
of something. And if it was wrong to sacrifice at the high places later in the
history of Israel, it must have been wrong in this instance. The lack of a
Temple did not change the situation. And if the sacrifices at the high places were
wrong after the Temple was built, then they must have been wrong here during
the last days of the Tabernacle. The sacrifices at the high places were sins
now as they would be later, and could not be excused by an argument of convenience.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 45
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