Latest / The Bible Explained with Jenn Kokal / 2 Chronicles 2:11-18 - Working for Pay, Working for Free
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello, Faith listeners, Welcome to the Bible Explained Podcast. After
- 0:03Speaker 1: a few days off, I am thankful to be back
- 0:07Speaker 1: with all of you guys, and we're going to be
- 0:09Speaker 1: talking about Second Chronicles, Chapter two, verses eleven through eighteen.
- 0:13Speaker 1: To finish out this chapter and discuss this letter that
- 0:17Speaker 1: King Hiram sent to Solomon in response to Solomon's letter.
- 0:21Speaker 1: And if you guys don't remember any of this because
- 0:24Speaker 1: it's been a few days since we've talked about it,
- 0:26Speaker 1: that's okay. I will refresh all of you guys as
- 0:28Speaker 1: to what this is discussing, so stay tuned. We'll get
- 0:31Speaker 1: into it in just a minute. So, yeah, as you
- 0:40Speaker 1: guys know, I was sick. I'm still not fully recovered. Actually,
- 0:44Speaker 1: I think you guys can probably hear it in my voice.
- 0:46Speaker 1: I was down for like three days straight. However, I
- 0:52Speaker 1: did learn to knit while I was sick, so that
- 0:55Speaker 1: was something that I took advantage of. Was the time,
- 0:59Speaker 1: and I said that binge watched the Twilight Zone while
- 1:02Speaker 1: learning how to knit, fell asleep, woke up, and repeated
- 1:07Speaker 1: for about three days straight. That is the entirety of
- 1:10Speaker 1: what I did for the most part. So yeah, I
- 1:12Speaker 1: can confidently say now that I feel more like a knitter.
- 1:18Speaker 1: I kind of knew how to knit before, but now
- 1:20Speaker 1: I actually think I have it down. I can knit
- 1:23Speaker 1: and pearl quite confidently now. So yeah, I took advantage
- 1:26Speaker 1: of being sick and spent some time learning to do that,
- 1:31Speaker 1: and now I am back with all of you guys.
- 1:34Speaker 1: So we're gonna read Second Chronicles chapter two eleven through eighteen,
- 1:38Speaker 1: and I'll go ahead and read it and then do
- 1:40Speaker 1: a recap as to what we are talking about today.
- 1:43Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and read this. I'll be reading
- 1:45Speaker 1: as usual from the web, but of course, feel free
- 1:47Speaker 1: to grab the version of the Bible that you prefer
- 1:49Speaker 1: this morning. Grab your cup of coffee or your cup
- 1:51Speaker 1: of tea to share with me this morning, and let's
- 1:53Speaker 1: read Second Chronicles two eleven through eighteen. Then here, I'm
- 1:58Speaker 1: the King of Tire, answered it writing which he sent
- 2:01Speaker 1: to Solomon. Because Yahweh loves his people, he has made
- 2:04Speaker 1: you king over them. Hiram continued, Blessed be Yahweh, the
- 2:08Speaker 1: God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who is
- 2:10Speaker 1: given to David the King, a wise son endowed with
- 2:14Speaker 1: discretion and understanding, who would build a house for Yahweh
- 2:17Speaker 1: and a house for his kingdom. Now I have sent
- 2:19Speaker 1: a skillful man endowed with understanding, Hiram Abi, the son
- 2:24Speaker 1: of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his
- 2:26Speaker 1: father was a man of tire. He is skillful to
- 2:29Speaker 1: work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in iron, in stone,
- 2:33Speaker 1: in timber, in purple, in blue, in fine linen, and
- 2:36Speaker 1: in crimson. Also to engrave any kind of engraving, and
- 2:39Speaker 1: to devise any device, that there may be a place
- 2:42Speaker 1: appointed to him. With your skillful men, and with the
- 2:44Speaker 1: skillful men of my lord David your father. Now therefore
- 2:48Speaker 1: the wheat, the barley, the oil, and the wine which
- 2:50Speaker 1: my lord has spoken of, let him send his servants,
- 2:53Speaker 1: and we will cut wood out of Lebanon as much
- 2:55Speaker 1: as you need. We will bring it to you in
- 2:57Speaker 1: rafts by sea to Joppa. Then you shall carry it
- 2:59Speaker 1: up to Jerusalem. Solomon counted all the foreigners who were
- 3:03Speaker 1: in the land of Israel after the census with which
- 3:05Speaker 1: David his father had counted them, and they found one
- 3:07Speaker 1: hundred and fifty three thousand, six hundred. He set seventy
- 3:11Speaker 1: thousand of them to bear burdens. Eighty thousand who were
- 3:14Speaker 1: stonecutters in the mountains and three thousand, six hundred overseers
- 3:18Speaker 1: to assign the people their work. So the last time
- 3:22Speaker 1: we talked about this chapter, which was last week, we
- 3:25Speaker 1: discussed how Solomon needed more timber, so he sent to Hierum,
- 3:31Speaker 1: the king of Tire, to ask for this timber. Because
- 3:35Speaker 1: Tire was well known for its nurturing of beautiful cypress
- 3:39Speaker 1: trees and cedar trees and algum trees. And not only that,
- 3:43Speaker 1: the men were very skilled in cutting down these trees
- 3:46Speaker 1: and transporting them across the ancient world. But the reason
- 3:50Speaker 1: Solomon needs these trees was not for God's temple. Instead,
- 3:55Speaker 1: Solomon actually was asking for these trees for himself. He
- 3:59Speaker 1: wanted to build a palace for himself. And even Hiram,
- 4:03Speaker 1: in his response to Solomon in the portion we read today,
- 4:07Speaker 1: mentions this, He's like, good on you, Solomon, for building
- 4:10Speaker 1: God's house and also a palace for yourself. So Hiram
- 4:14Speaker 1: figured out that Solomon was using all of this timber
- 4:18Speaker 1: for a palace for himself, and that's not necessarily a
- 4:21Speaker 1: bad thing. We established that, you know, there's nothing wrong
- 4:23Speaker 1: with Solomon wanting to build himself a palace. I mean,
- 4:26Speaker 1: he was the king, he didn't necessarily have to live
- 4:29Speaker 1: in the palace that David built. But it is kind
- 4:32Speaker 1: of interesting that Solomon didn't get started with God's temple
- 4:36Speaker 1: until he had cedar wood for himself. I don't really
- 4:39Speaker 1: know why he did that. It's not explained in scripture.
- 4:42Speaker 1: But something that I pointed out last week is that
- 4:44Speaker 1: there's already some evidence that Solomon's heart may not be
- 4:49Speaker 1: in line with Yahweh one hundred percent, just analyzing this
- 4:53Speaker 1: letter that Solomon sent to Hiram, the King of Tire. Now,
- 4:58Speaker 1: all that being said, Solomon did ask for one other
- 5:01Speaker 1: thing other than timber. He asked Hiram for an artisan,
- 5:05Speaker 1: somebody who was very skillful in working with all different
- 5:09Speaker 1: types of materials, whether it was gold, silver, wood, stone,
- 5:14Speaker 1: engraving materials like purple and crimson. He needed somebody who
- 5:20Speaker 1: was an artist to come and work for him. And
- 5:23Speaker 1: that's because Israel this time period, and this is actually
- 5:28Speaker 1: proven by archaeological finds, Israel is not nearly as advanced
- 5:34Speaker 1: in art as other nations around the world were. The
- 5:38Speaker 1: Phoenicians were well known for art, and that is why
- 5:42Speaker 1: Solomon asks for an artist to come and work with
- 5:47Speaker 1: his people to teach them how to actually build something
- 5:50Speaker 1: beautiful and make beautiful things. And this artist wouldn't have
- 5:53Speaker 1: just been for Solomon's palace, though it could be he
- 5:56Speaker 1: worked on Solomon's palace, It's pretty clear that this artist
- 6:00Speaker 1: was mostly for God's temple. So even though Solomon did
- 6:05Speaker 1: have some selfish motivation in writing to hire them so
- 6:09Speaker 1: that Solomon could get these trees for his own palace,
- 6:12Speaker 1: he was also motivated to make God's temple beautiful and
- 6:17Speaker 1: he needed somebody skillful in the arts to truly be
- 6:22Speaker 1: able to do this. Because God's temple was supposed to
- 6:26Speaker 1: be beautiful, a beautiful place to look at and to
- 6:31Speaker 1: be in, and just to be in awe of when
- 6:34Speaker 1: you saw it. And this is actually very clear even
- 6:37Speaker 1: back in the wilderness days when God first told the
- 6:40Speaker 1: Israelites to build him a tabernacle, God commanded it to
- 6:46Speaker 1: be beautiful. God laid the plans out as to how
- 6:49Speaker 1: the temple was supposed to look, and it was supposed
- 6:52Speaker 1: to be gorgeous, you know, covered with gold chains and
- 6:56Speaker 1: beautiful tapestries and golden pomegranates and pillars and just it
- 7:02Speaker 1: was supposed to look amazing and God actually appointed a
- 7:06Speaker 1: man to make it look amazing. God wanted his temple
- 7:10Speaker 1: to be beautiful, and I think Solomon understood that and
- 7:13Speaker 1: understood also that Israel was a little bit behind its
- 7:16Speaker 1: time when it came to the arts. And that is
- 7:19Speaker 1: why he's asking Hiram not just for timber for his
- 7:23Speaker 1: own palace, but for an artist that can truly take
- 7:26Speaker 1: God's temple to the next level and make it look
- 7:29Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful. So Hiram responds to Solomon. Here's what he
- 7:35Speaker 1: says in writing. Because Yahweh loves his people, he has
- 7:39Speaker 1: made you king over them. Hiram continued, Blessed be Yahweh,
- 7:43Speaker 1: the God of Israel, who made heaven and earth, who
- 7:46Speaker 1: is given to David the King, a wise son, endowed
- 7:50Speaker 1: with discretion and understanding, who would build a house for
- 7:53Speaker 1: Yahweh and a house for his kingdom. So there you go.
- 7:55Speaker 1: Hiram is like, good for you, Solomon, for building God's
- 7:59Speaker 1: house and also building yourself a beautiful palace. But Hiram
- 8:04Speaker 1: is pretty clear in there that he at least respects Yahweh.
- 8:08Speaker 1: I don't know if he was a full Yahweh worshiper,
- 8:10Speaker 1: because it does not say anywhere in scripture that he
- 8:13Speaker 1: was or wasn't. But every time Hiram is mentioned, he's
- 8:17Speaker 1: mentioned as being a good king, giving honor to David,
- 8:22Speaker 1: to Israel, or to God. I mean, he even calls
- 8:25Speaker 1: David in this letter his Lord. So King Hiram seemed
- 8:30Speaker 1: rather humble, seemed to have a reverence and a respect
- 8:35Speaker 1: for Israel and for Yahweh. So it very well could
- 8:39Speaker 1: be that Hiram truly was a Yahweh follower because of
- 8:45Speaker 1: the reputation of David, and because of the friendship he
- 8:50Speaker 1: had with David. So David's influence and his reverence for
- 8:56Speaker 1: God showed other nations who Yahweh really was. David did
- 9:01Speaker 1: what God commanded the Israelite people to do, which was
- 9:05Speaker 1: to be a light for surrounding nations. It's kind of
- 9:08Speaker 1: the same exact thing that us Christians are supposed to
- 9:11Speaker 1: be now, we're supposed to shine the light of God
- 9:14Speaker 1: to all nations, to every single person we're supposed to evangelize.
- 9:18Speaker 1: But it was a little bit different back in these days,
- 9:20Speaker 1: where Israel itself was to be that light by being
- 9:26Speaker 1: obedient to God and showing who God was to the
- 9:31Speaker 1: surrounding nations. David was able to do that at least
- 9:34Speaker 1: with this king, King Hiram. So Hiram continues in verse thirteen,
- 9:40Speaker 1: I have sent a skillful man endowed with understanding, Hiram Abi,
- 9:45Speaker 1: the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan,
- 9:47Speaker 1: and his father was a man of tire. He is
- 9:50Speaker 1: skillful to work in gold, in silver, in bronze, in iron,
- 9:54Speaker 1: in stone, in timber, in purple, and in blue, in
- 9:57Speaker 1: fine linen, in crimson, and also to engrave every kind
- 10:01Speaker 1: of engraving and devise any device that there may be
- 10:04Speaker 1: a place appointed to him, with your skillful men, and
- 10:06Speaker 1: with the skillful men of my Lord David, your father.
- 10:10Speaker 1: So wow, this guy was really skilled. He was able
- 10:12Speaker 1: to do a million things, and he was able to
- 10:14Speaker 1: devise any device. So that sounds like to me he's
- 10:17Speaker 1: an inventor of some sort. He's able to just kind
- 10:22Speaker 1: of put things together, like if something in the temple
- 10:24Speaker 1: isn't working quite right, he's able to figure out how
- 10:27Speaker 1: to fix it. He just seemed to have a knowledge
- 10:30Speaker 1: of how things operated and functioned. So this guy was
- 10:34Speaker 1: very intelligent in a lot of different things. And it
- 10:37Speaker 1: says that he was the son of a woman of
- 10:39Speaker 1: the daughters of Dan. So, in other words, his mother
- 10:42Speaker 1: was an Israelite woman and his father was a Phoenician man.
- 10:47Speaker 1: And I do wonder if King Hiram picked him because
- 10:49Speaker 1: of that, because someone who has a mother from Israel
- 10:53Speaker 1: is going to understand Israelite culture far more than somebody
- 10:57Speaker 1: who is a true blooded Phoenician, you know, because people
- 11:01Speaker 1: would feel far more comfortable with a Jewish man working
- 11:05Speaker 1: on God's temple than a Gentile man working on God's temple. However,
- 11:10Speaker 1: Solomon did not seem overly concerned with that about who
- 11:12Speaker 1: worked on God's temple, because actually there's a lot of
- 11:15Speaker 1: gentiles working on God's temple, as we're about to find
- 11:18Speaker 1: out at the end here. So Solomon was not too
- 11:21Speaker 1: concerned with what people were participating in the work of
- 11:26Speaker 1: the temple, as long as it was done beautifully and
- 11:29Speaker 1: with excellence. I think Solomon was okay with any skilled worker,
- 11:34Speaker 1: whether they were from Israel or from some gentile nation
- 11:38Speaker 1: working on God's temple. It did not matter to him. Then,
- 11:42Speaker 1: in verse fifteen, hear him continues, Now, therefore, the wheat,
- 11:46Speaker 1: the barley, the oil, the wine, which my Lord has
- 11:48Speaker 1: spoken of, let him send to his servants, and we
- 11:51Speaker 1: will cut wood out of Lebanon as much as you need.
- 11:53Speaker 1: We will bring it to you in rafts by sea
- 11:55Speaker 1: to Jappa. Then you shall carry it up to Jerusalem.
- 11:59Speaker 1: Now that of course referring to the wood that Solomon ordered,
- 12:04Speaker 1: probably for his own palace. Though there is some debate
- 12:06Speaker 1: on that, you know, it sounds to me like that's
- 12:09Speaker 1: the reason Solomon needs the wood is because he doesn't
- 12:12Speaker 1: want to take wood from the temple, even though David
- 12:17Speaker 1: collected it in abundance, like there was so much wood
- 12:22Speaker 1: that the timber was without number. But Solomon probably did
- 12:26Speaker 1: not want to take timber from God's temple to use
- 12:31Speaker 1: on his own house. He wanted that timber to be
- 12:35Speaker 1: holy and set apart for the building of the temple.
- 12:38Speaker 1: And that's probably a pretty good motivation, honestly, that Solomon
- 12:41Speaker 1: had was that he wasn't going to steal anything from God.
- 12:44Speaker 1: He would pay for the timber himself. Now, the other
- 12:48Speaker 1: option here that I just thought of is that it
- 12:50Speaker 1: could be that Solomon did want some of this timber
- 12:53Speaker 1: to go towards the building of the temple, because when
- 12:57Speaker 1: timber sits around for a really long time, if it's
- 13:00Speaker 1: not in like an enclosed location, it can start to rot.
- 13:05Speaker 1: So it could be that some of the timber because
- 13:07Speaker 1: it took Solomon so long to get around to building
- 13:10Speaker 1: this temple. It took him four years after David had
- 13:14Speaker 1: died to actually get to building this temple. In that
- 13:18Speaker 1: four year time period, some of that timber could have
- 13:21Speaker 1: started to rot. So very well could be that some
- 13:24Speaker 1: of this timber that Solomon is asking for did go
- 13:28Speaker 1: towards Yahweh's temple because that wood needed to be replaced
- 13:32Speaker 1: just due to age and rotting over time. I don't know, though,
- 13:36Speaker 1: it doesn't specifically say where this timber went to, but
- 13:39Speaker 1: if I were to take a guess to me, it
- 13:41Speaker 1: sounds like Solomon is asking for this timber for himself,
- 13:45Speaker 1: not necessarily for the temple to God. And Hiram does
- 13:48Speaker 1: expect payment for this timber. He says, give us the wheat,
- 13:53Speaker 1: the barley, the oil that you've spoken of. Send it
- 13:56Speaker 1: along with your servants. We will cut the wood. We
- 13:59Speaker 1: will give you as much which as you need. We
- 14:01Speaker 1: will bring it to you in rafts by sea to
- 14:03Speaker 1: jopp Up, and you shall carry it up to Jerusalem. So,
- 14:06Speaker 1: of course Hiram does expect payment for this wood. He's
- 14:09Speaker 1: not just gonna give it for free. And even if
- 14:12Speaker 1: Solomon was using this wood for God's temple, like let's
- 14:16Speaker 1: just say the wood all rotted, Solomon needed brand new
- 14:20Speaker 1: wood and asked Hiram for it, and Hiram knew that
- 14:23Speaker 1: this is where the wood was going toward. I do
- 14:25Speaker 1: think that it was probably right for Hiram to take
- 14:28Speaker 1: payment for that wood and not just donate it for free.
- 14:31Speaker 1: It would have been nice for him to donate it
- 14:33Speaker 1: for free, but it's certainly not required. And I think
- 14:36Speaker 1: something that a lot of people don't understand is that
- 14:41Speaker 1: God does not expect people to work for free, no
- 14:45Speaker 1: matter what they're doing. Actually, just recently, Jelly Roll, you know,
- 14:50Speaker 1: the the rap artist whatever he is, he got into
- 14:55Speaker 1: some hot water recently with Forrest Frank, who's a Christian
- 15:00Speaker 1: music artist, because Forest Frank said that he's not going
- 15:04Speaker 1: to take awards for writing worship songs. He does not
- 15:09Speaker 1: think that's right to be praised for worship to God.
- 15:13Speaker 1: He doesn't like award shows, so he said, I'm not
- 15:15Speaker 1: going to accept any rewards from the awards shows this year,
- 15:20Speaker 1: and Jelly Roll was like, well, you accept money for
- 15:24Speaker 1: doing worship, So what's the difference? And like he tried
- 15:27Speaker 1: to get into a fight with Forest Frank over it.
- 15:29Speaker 1: I didn't see if Forest Frank responded. I don't know
- 15:32Speaker 1: if he did or not. But what was funny was
- 15:35Speaker 1: a lot of people actually did not side with Jelly
- 15:38Speaker 1: Roll on that one. They were like, well, what's Forest
- 15:40Speaker 1: Frank's supposed to do? Not make any money? Like just
- 15:46Speaker 1: work for free. And unfortunately, there's a lot of people
- 15:49Speaker 1: that think very similarly to Jelly Roll that if you
- 15:52Speaker 1: make money, you know, doing something for God, that you're
- 15:55Speaker 1: actually doing something evil. And that's not always case. It
- 16:00Speaker 1: can definitely be the case. You know, you can certainly
- 16:03Speaker 1: make money and fame your idol. Even if you are,
- 16:06Speaker 1: you know, claiming to worship God. Money can become an idol. Actually,
- 16:10Speaker 1: Jesus even says that himself in Matthew chapter six nineteen.
- 16:16Speaker 1: He says, don't lay up treasures for yourself on Earth,
- 16:18Speaker 1: where moth and rust consume, where thieves break through and steal,
- 16:22Speaker 1: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
- 16:24Speaker 1: moth nor rust consume, where thieves don't break through and steal,
- 16:28Speaker 1: and where your treasure is there, your heart will be also,
- 16:31Speaker 1: And then jumping down to verse twenty four, Jesus also
- 16:34Speaker 1: says no one can serve two masters, for either he
- 16:37Speaker 1: will hate the one and love the other, or else
- 16:39Speaker 1: he will be devoted to one and despise the other.
- 16:42Speaker 1: You cannot serve both God and mammon, and mammon is
- 16:45Speaker 1: an old fashioned word to say money. You can't serve
- 16:48Speaker 1: both God and money for obvious reasons. You know, if
- 16:51Speaker 1: you are only preaching God because of the money that
- 16:57Speaker 1: it's going to grant you, then you're not sincere but
- 17:00Speaker 1: truly preaching God the way that God requires you to preach. However,
- 17:05Speaker 1: that does not mean that Jesus expects you to work
- 17:07Speaker 1: for free or that you should live in poverty for
- 17:10Speaker 1: your entire life just because you're a preacher, or because
- 17:14Speaker 1: you do something faith based as your job. And Paul
- 17:18Speaker 1: talks about that in length in one Corinthians nine seven
- 17:22Speaker 1: through fourteen, and this is from the NIV version. By
- 17:26Speaker 1: the way, don't you know that those who serve in
- 17:28Speaker 1: the temple get their food from the temple, and those
- 17:30Speaker 1: who serve at the altar share in what's offered at
- 17:32Speaker 1: the altar. In the same way, the Lord has commanded
- 17:35Speaker 1: that those who preach the Gospel should receive their living
- 17:38Speaker 1: from the Gospel. So yes, that's very clear that preachers
- 17:42Speaker 1: and those who live for the Gospel message, whether they're
- 17:47Speaker 1: worship leaders or or youth pastors or whoever else somebody
- 17:50Speaker 1: that teaches the Gospel, they are allowed to make a
- 17:55Speaker 1: living from the Gospel. They don't need to provide every
- 17:58Speaker 1: single service that they do for free. But that being said,
- 18:02Speaker 1: it's a very fine line that ministers of the Gospel
- 18:05Speaker 1: need to walk, because it's very easy to get tempted
- 18:10Speaker 1: by money and by fame and by anything else that
- 18:15Speaker 1: the world can throw at us. It's very tempted to
- 18:18Speaker 1: start making another idol in your heart. And that's why
- 18:22Speaker 1: many people actually prefer to just volunteer their time rather
- 18:26Speaker 1: than actually earning an income from the church. My husband
- 18:31Speaker 1: is an example of this. Even though he is the
- 18:33Speaker 1: youth leader and has been for many years, he will
- 18:36Speaker 1: not take a paycheck from the church. He wants to
- 18:39Speaker 1: remain a volunteer youth leader, and he does that with
- 18:43Speaker 1: a great amount of conviction because he does not want
- 18:47Speaker 1: to benefit financially for service that he is giving to God.
- 18:52Speaker 1: But that's a personal conviction that each person has to
- 18:55Speaker 1: come to on their own. So there's nothing wrong with
- 18:59Speaker 1: making money the gospel, and there's certainly nothing wrong with
- 19:02Speaker 1: refusing to take money for your work with the gospel.
- 19:05Speaker 1: For example, Paul himself said, I don't want to take
- 19:09Speaker 1: money because I think that that will hinder the gospel. However,
- 19:12Speaker 1: the preachers who want to make this their living, that
- 19:15Speaker 1: is their right. They have every right to make a
- 19:18Speaker 1: living off of the Gospel without anybody critiquing them or
- 19:23Speaker 1: getting upset with them, because they are making a living
- 19:26Speaker 1: from the Gospel. So in the case of Hiram here,
- 19:31Speaker 1: even if this timber was specifically for the building of
- 19:33Speaker 1: the temple, he had every right to ask for a
- 19:37Speaker 1: payment from Solomon, because don't forget that Hiram had a
- 19:40Speaker 1: lot of men under him, a lot of men that
- 19:42Speaker 1: would have to do this job. You know, it wasn't
- 19:44Speaker 1: Hiram himself going out and cutting down these trees and
- 19:46Speaker 1: shipping them over to jop Us so that Solomon could
- 19:50Speaker 1: pick them up. It was hundreds of skilled workers that
- 19:52Speaker 1: had to do this job. And Hiram understood that. He
- 19:54Speaker 1: understood that his men needed to be paid, so I
- 19:57Speaker 1: think it was actually better for Hiram to take the
- 19:59Speaker 1: pay rather than expect his men to do this job
- 20:03Speaker 1: for free. And the reason I went off on that
- 20:05Speaker 1: was because I read a commentary where it said that
- 20:08Speaker 1: Hiram was actually in the wrong for demanding payment from
- 20:11Speaker 1: Solomon since these trees were going to the temple. But
- 20:15Speaker 1: I think scripture is pretty clear that God does not
- 20:19Speaker 1: expect anybody to work for free, even if that person
- 20:24Speaker 1: is working for the gospel message, the worker is worthy
- 20:28Speaker 1: of his wages. That is a verse found I believe
- 20:31Speaker 1: in First Timothy. So people who work are worthy of
- 20:35Speaker 1: their wages. And now to conclude, we're going to talk
- 20:40Speaker 1: about some people that don't get paid for working on
- 20:43Speaker 1: the temple Verses seventeen and eighteen of Second Chronicles two.
- 20:48Speaker 1: Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land
- 20:51Speaker 1: of Israel after the census with which David his father
- 20:53Speaker 1: had counted them, and they found one hundred and fifty thousand,
- 20:56Speaker 1: six hundred. He set seventy thousand of them to bear burden,
- 21:00Speaker 1: eighty thousand who are stonecutters in the mountains, and three
- 21:03Speaker 1: thy six hundred overseers to assign the people their Workle's
- 21:08Speaker 1: talking about slave labor, and it's actually mentioned at the
- 21:11Speaker 1: beginning of this as well, the beginning of this chapter
- 21:14Speaker 1: in verse two that Solomon used slave labor, and why
- 21:19Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of interesting that this chapter starts
- 21:22Speaker 1: out with slave labor, talking about the slave labor, and
- 21:26Speaker 1: ending with the slave labor as well. We know, based
- 21:29Speaker 1: upon the New Testament that slave labor is wrong. Paul
- 21:34Speaker 1: himself pretty much said it on multiple occasions. In a
- 21:38Speaker 1: time period when half of all the people you would
- 21:40Speaker 1: encounter in Rome were slaves. Paul told his constituents, the
- 21:45Speaker 1: people who are reading his letters, work with your own hands.
- 21:51Speaker 1: Don't expect other people to do your work for you.
- 21:54Speaker 1: Treat everyone with equality and respect, because every single person
- 22:00Speaker 1: was made in God's image. So all that being said, unfortunately,
- 22:04Speaker 1: the slave labor that Solomon imposed for the building of
- 22:08Speaker 1: God's Temple, I don't think was really in line with
- 22:12Speaker 1: God's heart, you know, because it's pretty clear in scripture
- 22:17Speaker 1: the reason slavery is wrong is because God loves all people.
- 22:22Speaker 1: We are all created in His image, and not one
- 22:25Speaker 1: person is under another person. Right, And one thing we're
- 22:28Speaker 1: gonna find out is Solomon didn't just use foreigners as slaves,
- 22:34Speaker 1: but he actually also used Israelites as slaves as well.
- 22:40Speaker 1: Sometimes slavery was actually a kindness to somebody because that
- 22:45Speaker 1: person was able to actually save their family from death
- 22:49Speaker 1: because of how poor they were or how much debt
- 22:51Speaker 1: they owed. Somebody, they were allowed to kind of sign
- 22:55Speaker 1: their own lives away for seven years to become a
- 22:59Speaker 1: slave so that they could get their family out of
- 23:01Speaker 1: extreme poverty. And then in a lot of other cases
- 23:05Speaker 1: when it came to criminals, it was a just form
- 23:07Speaker 1: of retribution for whatever that criminal did. He had to
- 23:12Speaker 1: in a sense sign his life away because of the
- 23:14Speaker 1: crimes that he committed. So slavery was not always an
- 23:18Speaker 1: extreme evil. But if some of these people were slaves
- 23:22Speaker 1: by force, which it's very possible that they were, that
- 23:26Speaker 1: is certainly not in line with what God wants. And
- 23:29Speaker 1: it's possible here in the case of Solomon that slavery
- 23:33Speaker 1: did become very unjust because of what we find out
- 23:39Speaker 1: later on, where these slaves had these huge burdens placed
- 23:43Speaker 1: on their backs, and it actually ends up probably being
- 23:47Speaker 1: the downfall of Israel actually, because after Solomon died, the
- 23:51Speaker 1: people who had these burdens placed on them were growing
- 23:55Speaker 1: increasingly irritated with Solomon as king, and that's when Israel
- 24:00Speaker 1: actually split into two different nations right after Solomon. Was
- 24:05Speaker 1: most likely because of the unneeded, unnecessary burdens that Solomon
- 24:11Speaker 1: placed on the people of Israel. So once again, Scripture
- 24:15Speaker 1: goes to show you that God uses imperfect people for
- 24:19Speaker 1: very good things. So, faithful listeners, I hope you enjoyed
- 24:23Speaker 1: today's episode. I hope you learned something as well, and
- 24:25Speaker 1: I hope you join me tomorrow because tomorrow we're going
- 24:27Speaker 1: to be in the last portion of First Thessalonians. I've
- 24:30Speaker 1: been saying that for like three weeks now, but I
- 24:32Speaker 1: promise tomorrow is the last day in First Thessalonians. We
- 24:36Speaker 1: are going to finish on that chapter. We are going
- 24:39Speaker 1: to move on to Second Thessalonians on Thursday. So join
- 24:43Speaker 1: me tomorrow six am or whenever you choose to wake
- 24:46Speaker 1: up for an episode from First Thessalonians until tomorrow. Happy listening,
- 24:51Speaker 1: and God bless