A different angle on growing and fruit today... Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, "Come back to me in three days." The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, "My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions." So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite. When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: "What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse's son? To your tents, Israel! Look after your own house, David!" So the Israelites went home. (1 Kings 12:12-16) Three times in this longer passage, King Solomon's son, Rehoboam, is said to have listened to the advice of the "young men" he grew up with, rather than the advice of the elders or the cries of the people.  Interestingly, neither King Rehoboam nor those men he grew up with would've been understood in that day to have been "young."  1 Kings 14:21 says Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king.  Given the life expectancy of the day: he was certainly no spring chicken.  Besides, the word for "young men" employed here in the Hebrew is a word which is translated in most other places in the Old Testament as "child" or "boy."  The reference, therefore, seems to be to the immaturity of these men, rather than their age.   Interestingly, the only use of this word for "child" or "young man" before this in the book of Kings is from the story of Solomon's wise judgement when he said to two prostitutes fighting over a living baby "cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other."  After he said this, the true mother backed off of her claim to the child, saying: "Please, my lord, giver her the living baby! Don't kill him!" while the other women exclaimed: "Neither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!" Somehow the story of the living child being cut in two is evoked in the telling of Rehoboam's immaturity.  I think the author means to suggest that the words of Solomon's own ruling have come back as a judgement against his own house.  Would Solomon and Rehoboam his son yield the living child of Israel to it's true parent, God, or would they seek to make this people into a kingdom for themselves, claiming it all for their own?  They do the latter.  And so the child—the nation—is killed, cut in two.  Not that the nation died immediately—but what begins here eventually leads to their destruction and exile. The Rabbis said that Solomon was the worst of the Kings of Israel because he was the one who caused this division.  He caused it because he did not "seek first God's kingdom."  Instead, he built his own.  Nor did he "Seek first God's righteousness."  Solomon loved many foreign wives who brought their gods, which he worshiped.  Israel as a nation is often depicted as an unfaithful spouse that prostitutes itself after all sorts of other gods besides the Lord.  Solomon was the first such idolatrous prostitute among the Kings.  Immature despite his wisdom, he was the pagan who "ran after" all the things of this world, and so his heart, like his kingdom, became divided.   The fruit then of Solomon's house and Solomon's idolatrous prostitution is embodied in Rehoboam: a violent, selfish immaturity that results in the cutting of God's people in two.  This is the same violent, selfish immaturity displayed in the prostitute who was not the true mother of the child.  It is the same violent, selfish immaturity displayed by Pharoah as he ruthlessly worked the Israelites as slaves in Egypt.   Immaturity and selfishness leads to idolatry, violence, and division.  It leads to the destruction of faith and life.  The invitation to us, therefore, is to grow up into Christ: to become mature.  The prophet Samuel, King David, and Jesus himself all offer examples of what this "growing up to maturity" looks like. But perhaps the best word is the word from Jesus' sermon on the mount covered this past week as he too draws on this history of Solomon.  Rather than Solomon who sought his own kingdom, pleasures, and splendor—we are called to "seek first the Father's kingdom and his righteousness," trusting the Father's promise that everything needful will come. As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:     May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you. May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm. May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you.  May he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.  

Ver todos los episodios