1K5-6: Solomon, Paul, and the Battle We All Lose

We’ve been discussing the excessive number of horses Solomon acquired for his kingdom.

Before that, we examined the enormous amount of food required to keep his royal court running.

And it was the common people of Israel who had to foot the bill through taxes and levies.

We can see here that Solomon was just as much a shrewd businessman as he was a royal ruler.

He ran Israel like a Fortune 500 CEO with every intention of making Israel the envy of the world.

Economics had begun taking precedence over spirituality.

Solomon was walking a fine line between the worldly wisdom that earns prestige and prosperity and the higher wisdom that elevates a nation before God.

During this early part of his reign, Solomon penned the following words of wisdom:

“Happy the person who finds wisdom,
the person who acquires understanding.
Her profit exceeds that of silver;
gaining her is better than gold.
She is more precious than pearls;
nothing desired can compare with her.
Long life is in her right hand;
riches and honor in her left.
Her ways are pleasant and delightful;
all her paths are peace.
She is a tree of life
to those who grasp hold of her.
Whoever holds fast to her
will be made happy.”
-Proverbs 3:13-18

However, as beautiful and inspiring as those words are, the truth is that right here in chapter 5, sinister signs of the evil inclination lurking in Solomon’s heart (and in our hearts) began showing up.

Just like his father, Solomon deeply loved the Lord.

Yet, at the same time, he just couldn’t resist the temptations the world had to offer him.

Fast forward about 1000 years, and Paul wrote about this same maddening dilemma that plagues the entire human race:

“For we know that the Torah
is of the Spirit; but as
for me, I am bound to
the old nature, sold to sin
as a slave.
I don’t understand my own behavior—
I don’t do what I want
to do; instead, I do the
very thing I hate!
Now if I am doing what
I don’t want to do, I
am agreeing that the Torah
is good.
But now it is no longer
“the real me” doing it,
but the sin housed inside me.
For I know there is nothing
good housed inside me—that is,
inside my old nature.
I can want what is good,
but I can’t do it!
For I don’t do the good
I want; instead, the evil
that I don’t want is what
I do!
But if I am doing what
“the real me” doesn’t want,
it is no longer “the real me”
doing it but the sin
housed inside me.
So I find it to be
the rule, a kind of
perverse “torah,” that although I
want to do what is
good, evil is right there
with me!
For in my inner self
I completely agree with God’s Torah;
but in my various parts,
I see a different “torah,”
one that battles with the
Torah in my mind and
makes me a prisoner of
sin’s “torah,” which is operating
in my various parts.
What a miserable creature I am!
Who will rescue me from
this body bound for death?”
-Romans 7:14-24

This brings us to our takeaway for today.

It all has to do with the gap between what we know and what we do.

And how that gap is not a modern problem or a personal failure.

It’s a permanent feature of human nature.

Think about it for a sec.

Solomon, the wisest man alive, wrote some of the most beautiful words ever penned about the supremacy of wisdom over wealth.

And then turned right around and let wealth run his kingdom.

Paul, one of the greatest theological minds in history, essentially threw up his hands and said I don’t even understand my own behavior.

The takeaway?

Wisdom is descriptive before it’s prescriptive.

Ya feeling me here?

These men weren’t necessarily hypocrites.

They saw the truth clearly.

They just couldn’t close the distance between seeing it and living it.

And the fact that both a Hebrew king and a Roman-era rabbi arrived at the same agonized conclusion…

Even separated by a thousand years…

Says something important.

This ain’t a character flaw you fix with more information or better intentions.

The bottom line is the human race needs a savior.

So here’s the lesson I want you to take to heart.