Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 4-6.

King Solomon inherited a kingdom at peace, and was able to maintain that peace (for the most part, a later passage touches on some of the disturbances which happened later in his reign).  Solomon maintained peace in his kingdom by delegating authority to well chosen subordinates.   As a result, King Solomon was able to dedicate time to becoming knowledgeable about many different subjects.  This passage shows the important connection between wisdom and knowledge.  Wisdom will lead us to seek the knowledge necessary to make wise decisions, but knowledge does not make us wise.  I wrote above that King Solomon maintained peace by carefully delegating authority.  However, another element in maintaining the peace within his kingdom was the fact that he built the Temple.  The passage tells us that Solomon was able to build the Temple because he had peace, but it also allowed him to maintain that peace.  By focusing the practice of worshiping God in Jerusalem, he brought the people of Israel together.  They came from all parts of his kingdom with a common interest in worshiping God.  That connection made them feel like one people, and it caused them to have a unified understanding of what it meant to worship God.  It should encourage us to gather with other Believers so that we can both learn from them what God has revealed to them and teach them what God has revealed to us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.