Solomon's Wisdom
1 Kings 2-3

Introduction

Let me tell you a story of an old dog … who when on a safari with his master gets lost. And as this old dog is sitting there contemplating his fate … he notices out of the corner of his eye a leopard approaching by stealth. So the dog looks around … thinking up a solution … and he sees a pile of old bones. So he lies down on them and start chewing one. And just as the leopard is about to pounce … the dog says out loud ‘hmmm … that sure was a delicious leopard’. So the leopard thinks twice … then sneaks away.

Well a cheeky monkey witnessed all this … and went off after the leopard to tell the leopard that dog was not responsible for that pile of bones. But the wise old dog noticed the monkey take off … and so he snuck off after the monkey … and heard the monkey spill the beans to the leopard. So the dog quickly races back to his pile of bones … to think over his next move. And just as the leopard was about to pounce for a SECOND time … the dog THEN says out loud ‘now where’s that pesky monkey? I sent him off an HOUR ago to bring me another leopard’.

Well I tell that joke about a wise old dog … because today we’re looking at the wisest MAN to ever live … save for Jesus himself. So we’re in the book of 1 Kings this term. And the first third of 1 Kings is ALL about King Solomon. And King Solom is famous for 3 main things. And they are (i) his riches, (ii) his 700 wives and 300 concubines … which is more infamy than fame, and (iii) his wisdom. And today’s passage focuses on Solomon’s famous wisdom. And I say famous because there’s a Seinfeld episode in which Kramer and Elaine are arguing over the ownership of a bike. And so they go to Newman to settle it. And Newman says ‘cut the bike in two’ … just like Solomon in THIS passage.

And the BEAUTY of this passage … is it shows US how we can achieve this kind of wisdom. Now we may not achieve the DEPTHS of Solomon’s wisdom … without divine intervention. But this passage is written in such a way that it shows us how to pursue this type of wisdom. And one of the things you realise as you go on in life … is we NEED wisdom. OK … the older you get … the more practice you’ve had at blowing your life up through making bad decision. We chose the wrong career path … we dated the wrong person … we took the wrong job … we invested in the wrong place. So if you don’t yet CRAVE this kind of wisdom … it’s probably because you’re not old enough yet to have a back catalogue of bad choices. ‘Wisdom’ … according to the Bible … is designed to save us from making bad choices in life.

And I’ve got 3 points today to help us get this wisdom … as your sermon outline shows. So we’re going to begin with the ORIGIN story of Solomon’s wisdom … in v. 1-15 … where God offers Solomon ANYTHING he wants … and Solomon says ‘I want wisdom’. So I’ve titled this first point (i) The need for wisdom. We’ll then look at v. 16-28 … where we get to see Solomon’s wisdom in action … which I’ve titled (ii) The essence of wisdom. We’ll then conclude with our application … which is how regular plebs like you and me can actually display this type of wisdom ourselves. Now we WON’T be able to display it to the same extent as Solomon … unless we’re given the ‘spiritual gift’ of wisdom … 1 Cor 12. But we can make a start. And I’ve titled this third point (iii) The path to wisdom. So please come with me as we look at Solomon’s wisdom.

The need for wisdom (v. 1-15)

And our passage this week is 1 Kings chapter 3. Like I mentioned last week … we don’t have time to look at EVERY passage this term. So we’re skipping chapter 2. But in 1 Kings 2 … Solomon starts to reign. And as he finds out pretty quickly … leadership is all about making decisions. And Commentators are split over whether Solomon made the right decisions in 1 Kings 2. My PERSONAL opinion is (i) Solomon was RIGHT to put Adonijah to death … as he clearly still posed a threat to the throne … v. 22, (ii) Solomon was RIGHT to put Joab to death … for he had ‘shed innocent blood’ … v. 31, but (ii) was WRONG to put Shimei to death … because all he’d done was insult his father. But the lesson from 1 Kings 2 is that leadership is not easy. This is why I hope we’re all praying for our leaders … as Paul commands in 1 Timothy 2.

Well our passage today begins with ANOTHER leadership decision … this time a geopolitical one with regards to Egypt. OK … what do you do when the most powerful nation on the planet … is your neighbour? Well we read:

1 Kings 3:1 (NIV) Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt and married his daughter. He brought her to the City of David …

Now marriage alliances were quite common in ancient times. The rationale is … your neighbours are LESS likely to attack if (a) you have good relations with them … which a royal marriage can help build, AND (b) the king’s daughter might get harmed if that king attacks. But this is another mistake for God’s king. Not only does it show a lack of faith in God’s ability to protect his people … it was also forbidden for Israelites to marry those who worshipped foreign gods. Solomon’s foreign wives end up being the direct source of his downfall. But AGAIN … v. 1 show leadership is hard. And this catalogue of decisions … some good … some not so good … leads into what happens next.

1 Kings 3:4-5 (NIV) The king went to Gibeon to offer sacrifices, for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. 5 At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, “Ask for whatever you want me to give you.”

Now … if this were YOU … what would you ask for? Have a think for a second. If you were given 1 wish … what would it be? Good looks? A rockin body? The ability to fly? A never-ending pack of Tim Tams? What would YOU choose? The reason I ask is … what we choose speaks directly into what we value. And what we notice with Solomon is … he doesn’t value sex. At least not at this point of his kingship. He doesn’t value money … he doesn’t ask for riches. Nor does he value power … such as conquering his enemies. What he values … is serving God in righteousness.

1 Kings 3:9 (NIV) So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

Now as we’re going to see in a few weeks’ time … Solomon ends up going completely off the rails later in his reign. He enslaves thousands for his building projects … marries hundreds for political reasons … and he bows down to dozens of false gods. But what we learn in chapter 3 … is that Solomon loved God as a young king … v. 3. And what he wants more than anything else in the world … is the ability to serve God WELL … in the role God has chosen him for. And what he needs for that role … is wisdom.

Wisdom is described in the Bible as ‘competence with regards to life’s realities’. OK … how competently do we deal with the realities of life? Now sometimes life’s realities are clear and simple. Do I marry a non-believer or NOT marry a non-believer? Well the Bible is clear on that one. Do NOT marry a non-believer. Do I kill this person for insulting me or NOT kill this person for insulting me? Not kill. The problem is … most decisions in life are not so clear cut. And this is where wisdom is needed. OK … wisdom is needed when there is a fork in the road … and both paths are allowed.

So for example … someone asked a good question the other day during a question we had. And the question was ‘should you get divorced if your spouse cheats on you?’ The problem is … there’s no clear-cut answer on that. The Bible ALLOWS for divorce in such a situation. But it also allows for reconciliation. We need WISDOM to be able to answer that for ourselves. OK … we need wisdom to figure out what job to take … who to marry … where to live … or how many kids to have?

The fact is … MOST decisions we’re faced with in life have no clear-cut rules to help us. OK … we’re only 1 chapter into Solomon’s reign and he’s already faced a barrage of difficult decisions. This is why Solomon knows that WHEN we come to a fork in the road … we NEED wisdom. And that’s what Solomon asks for; the ability to distinguish between right and wrong.

The essence of wisdom (v. 16-28)

Well directly following the origin story of Solomon’s wisdom … the author gives us an example OF this wisdom … where Solomon is asked to judge between two women. Both women are prostitutes. They both live in the same house … probably a brothel. And they both gave birth about the same time. And the FIRST woman says this:

1 Kings 3:19-22 (NIV) “During the night this woman’s son died because she lay on him. 20 So she got up in the middle of the night and took my son from my side while I your servant was asleep. She put him by her breast and put her dead son by my breast. 21 The next morning, I got up to nurse my son—and he was dead! But when I looked at him closely in the morning light, I saw that it wasn’t the son I had borne.” 22 The other woman said, “No! The living one is my son; the dead one is yours.”

So this is an impossible case to decide. There’s no witnesses. DNA testing is still 3,000 years away. And you can’t usually tell by LOOKING whose baby is whose … because as Winston Churchill said … quote; ‘all babies look like me’. So what do you do? Well what Solomon does … is next level brilliant.

1 Kings 3:24-25 (NIV) Then the king said, “Bring me a sword.” So they brought a sword for the king. 25 He then gave an order: “Cut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.”

Now on the surface this of course looks barbaric. But Solomon’s intention was never to actually USE the sword. We KNOW this because he’s not surprised by the women’s responses. OK … he doesn’t say ‘OH … as it turns out we don’t NEED the sword after all’. He KNEW he didn’t need the sword. The sword was simply a TOOL … to help him look into these women’s hearts. And he’s doing so … through his wisdom.

My favourite verse in the whole Bible is Psalm 37:4. But it’s only been my favourite for the past 10 years. For 20 years before that … my favourite Bible verse was Proverbs 9:10 … which says this:

Proverbs 9:10 (NIV) The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

Now the word ‘fear’ … when used in religious contexts … means to revere … to stand in awe of … or to worship. So what Proverbs 9:10 tells us is … our wisdom emanates from whatever it is we worship in life. Whatever is our lord … whatever is our ultimate treasure … THAT is the beginning of our wisdom. Let me explain.

If your ultimate treasure is money … if the thing you value most in life is money … then your wisdom will emanate from money. What this means is … IF there’s a job you REALLY want … and that would REALLY make you happy to get out of bed each day to go to … and it pays $80,000 a year … but there’s ANOTHER job that you know you’d HATE … yet it pays $120,000 a year … you’ll go with the money. Now there are no rules for that decision. There’s no moral or immoral decision there. You’ve used your wisdom. But when money is the beginning of your wisdom … you will grow to hate that job very quickly … and will become less productive … and will potentially have less money in the long run.
If marriage is what you value the most … your ‘wisdom’ will may lead you to marry the first person who shows interest in you. OR … your ‘wisdom’ will lead you to stay in an abusive relationship.
If children are what you value the most … you will live vicariously through them … forcing them to do things they don’t want to do. And in the end … they will grow to hate you.
If career is what you value the most … you’re ‘wisdom’ will lead you to choose work over family, or rest, or health.

The great irony of fearing things other than God … is their ‘wisdom’ leads you to make decisions that end up ruining the very thing you idolise.

And this is what Solomon is trying to figure out. What kind of a woman is MORE interested in raising a baby that isn’t hers … than allowing that baby to be raised by its biological mother? Because that’s the situation before him. He has 2 mothers here … both of them claiming the living child is theirs. Now he doesn’t know which is which. But what he DOES know … is ONE of them idolises motherhood. One of them values being a mother MORE than allowing this child to be raised by its own biological mother. The sword is simply to figure out which one it is.

And it works. The woman who idolises motherhood is so envious … so unhappy with her rival being a mother … that she would rather see the child die. The REAL mother shows that the child’s life is more important than her motherhood. And so she gives up her motherhood … in order to save her child.

And this is the essence of wisdom brothers and sisters. Our wisdom emanates from whatever is lord of our life. If our lord is the TRUE Lord … then we will have true wisdom. But if our lord is a false lord … like sex, money or power … love, likes or looks … then we will have false wisdom. We will have folly.

The path to wisdom

So … the ONLY question left to ask is … how do we get this true wisdom? Like we don’t want to be like the second mother. Her idol of motherhood led her to ‘out’ herself in front of the king. That’s where her ‘wisdom’ led her. How do we protect ourselves from foolish decisions like this? Well the path to true wisdom comes in 2 steps.

Step 1 is to realise that true wisdom … God’s wisdom … looks like foolishness to the world. OK … what I’m about to tell you SOUNDS really dumb. But the only reason it sounds dumb is because God’s wisdom is the opposite to the world’s wisdom. Yet because you and I have been slowly cooked in this sinful world … we’re USE to the world’s wisdom. God’s wisdom … and it SOUNDS dumb … is this. The way up is down. Jesus tells us this time and time again.

Mark 8:35 (NIV) For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.

Mark 10:31 (NIV) But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

Mark 10:43 (NIV) … whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,

Now what does this all mean … that the way up is down. It means if you REALLY want something … you need to be willing to give it up. OK … the FIRST woman in our passage today gave something up. She gave up motherhood … she gave up her joy and her hope of raising her child … so that HE could find joy and hope … by not being divided in 2 with a sword. And what happened? She got motherhood back.

Now you MIGHT say to me ‘well WHY does God make it so crazy like that?’ Why is it that the first mother has to GIVE UP motherhood in order to get motherhood? It’s because God wants the best for us. And he knows that when we idolise ANYTHING in this world … we will only end up ruining it. So WHEN that first woman got her motherhood back … it was now purified. She would go on to be a good mother … because being a mother wasn’t her lord. If the SECOND woman had got the child … motherhood would have become a TYRANNY in that mother’s life … AND the child’s. OK … the REASON the way up is down … is to rid our hearts of their idols … because our wisdom emanates from whatever is our Lord.

So if you ultimate treasure is to be married … you’re going to ruin anyone you marry … under the overwhelming weight of fulfilling your ultimate treasure. The path to TRUE wisdom is to be willing to say ‘Lord … I give up my right to be married … because you’re more important to me than marriage’.

I mean look at Solomon. What world leader would risk his reputation by judging between two prostitutes? Most kings would have their secretary screen their calls … to avoid looking like a fool. Yet he gave up his right to look wise … and opened himself up to two nobodies … and look what happened. Everyone stood in awe of him.

Friends … no matter what our Lord is … whether it be sex, or money, or power … the path to true wisdom is to be willing to say ‘Lord … I give up my right to sex, or money, or power … because you’re more important to me than those’.

So that’s Step 1 to true wisdom. We need to GIVE UP our right … to those things we’re tempted to worship. Step 2 … is the worship the Lord … fear the Lord. And there are 3 aspects to this:

Number 1 is to realise God IS more valuable than career, or marriage, or looks. And the way we do that is by looking at the ULTIMATE example of the first woman. When the FIRST woman looked at the throne … she said ‘don’t ruin HIS life … ruin mine instead’. She gave up her motherhood for her son. When Jesus looked at the throne … he said ‘don’t ruin THEIR life … ruin mine instead’. Jesus gave up his joy and his hope … so that you and me can have the joy and hope of heaven. Isn’t that the kind of God you’d like to worship? The God who was willing to lose everything … so that we could win?

The SECOND aspect to worshipping the Lord … is you have to obey him … in everything. You can’t just say ‘you’re my Lord in these areas over here … but I’m calling the shots when it comes to sex, or money, or power.’ That means you’re still fearing sex, money or power. You can’t just worship Jesus a little. He needs to be the meaning of your whole life.

The THIRD aspect is to then trust that Jesus will be wise for you. OK … godly wisdom LOOKS like foolishness to you and me. It will mean making decisions that look CRAZY to our friends and family. But we need to trust that if we make our decisions according to his word … he will work it out for our good … Rom 8:28. EVEN if we make a mistake … God is able to weave that mistake into the tapestry of our life … to bring us to the place we need to be. So relax … and obey God … and trust that God will be wise for you.

Conclusion

And THAT … brothers and sisters … is the wisdom of Solomon. When we come to a fork in the road … where BOTH options are allowed … we need to make sure our decision making … our wisdom … emanates from the fear of the Lord … not the worship of created things. And v. 14 shows us how to do that:

1 Kings 3:14 (NIV) … if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you …