- 00:02
- Well, I said it yesterday, and I'll say it again today, I'm just a regular guy.
- 00:09
- You know what I mean? Perhaps you'll join me today. I don't have a Bud Light today, but I do have an apple cider vinegar beverage.
- 00:19
- I've heard it's good for digestion. But anyway, I'm trying to work my way through, you know,
- 00:25
- Jonathan Lehman's example of King Solomon. So he had this thing that he said about King Solomon being wise, and how a king rules through wisdom.
- 00:37
- And this is the kind of wisdom that they can sort of, you know, make up laws and rules that, you know,
- 00:43
- God's law doesn't really address. But I'm trying to work my way through this. It doesn't really seem to match up.
- 00:48
- Maybe you could help me. Pull up a chair and mix yourself a nice apple cider vinegar drink. I've heard it's also good for blood sugar.
- 00:56
- Anyway, but you know the story. I mean, Solomon, you know, Solomon is
- 01:01
- David's son. It says in verse 3 of 1 Kings 3 that Solomon loved the
- 01:07
- Lord by walking in the statutes of his father David. But he wasn't perfect. He also was offering sacrifices at the high places and stuff like that.
- 01:16
- So it wasn't, he wasn't perfect, but he was loving the Lord. That's what it said.
- 01:21
- And so, you know, God comes to Solomon and says, you know, what do you want? What do you want, Solomon? And Solomon says, look,
- 01:28
- I'm, I'm just a young man, you know what I mean? But I don't have experience, so I need wisdom.
- 01:33
- I need to know how to rule. I need to know how to, how to do this thing, how to discern between good and evil.
- 01:41
- That's what he's looking for. How do I do this? And God is very pleased with that request.
- 01:47
- In fact, he says that, this is what he says in verse 11, he says, you ask for discernment for yourself to administer justice.
- 01:54
- And so I will therefore do what you've asked. And then in 14, verse 14, a few sentences later, he says, if you walk in my ways and keep my statutes and commands, just as your father did,
- 02:09
- I will give you a long life. And so this whole idea is that like the statutes and the rules and the commands, that's, those are
- 02:19
- God's. God establishes those. That's what he's saying. And so if you do them, you'll live a long time, you know,
- 02:24
- I'll bless you, all that kind of stuff. It's, but it's, but it's, but it's God's commands, God's statutes,
- 02:30
- God's rules. And if you notice, he's looking for wisdom, not to, not to decide what justice is, but rather to administer justice and whose justice is it?
- 02:41
- Well, God says, it's my statutes, my commands, my justice. And so the two women come to him and listen to the story.
- 02:48
- It says, one woman says, this woman and I live in the same house. They were prostitutes. I had a baby when she was in the house.
- 02:55
- And then, and then, and then she gave birth and we were alone. There was no one in the house except for us.
- 03:01
- We were the only ones there. And then during the night, this woman laid on top of her son and killed him, accidentally.
- 03:10
- Like it was just like, you know, I didn't say that she was drunk or anything, but it looks like a terrible accident.
- 03:16
- But then what she does is because she's so sad, she steals the other woman's baby. These two people come to, these two prostitutes come to King Solomon for judgment.
- 03:25
- And so what is Solomon doing here? He decided, we know the story. He's examining each one to see whose baby it is.
- 03:35
- Like this is not a matter of like, like establishing what justice is.
- 03:41
- Like this is an accidental death. But one of the women is now saying that the baby's hers.
- 03:48
- Maybe it's, I guess it could be a kidnapping, but, but the point is like the, a lot of the details aren't there, but like Lehman was trying to say that this is like an example of like a law that God didn't give that I don't really even know.
- 04:06
- Like, is, what would this law be? Like, should, should Kings be doing, should, should rulers and judges be doing this today?
- 04:12
- Like, is it like, was it just for like, if Solomon did cut the baby in half, right? Like, is that, was that wisdom?
- 04:19
- No, it wasn't like a new justice. It was just like, he was cross -examining the person. So it was the, it was wise cross -examination to administer
- 04:28
- God's justice, right? So God's justice is that you shouldn't be stealing other people's babies.
- 04:34
- And God's justice would say that the baby should go with its real mother, right? I guess.
- 04:40
- And then, and it doesn't say what happened to the, it doesn't say what, what had happened to the other lady, but like,
- 04:47
- I don't know, this just seems like a really weird place to go. Like, yeah, he was wise in administering justice, but he wasn't deciding like what is just and what is unjust because in this exact passage,
- 05:01
- God is commending him and then reminding him, this is my justice.
- 05:06
- You walk in my ways. You keep my statutes, my commands, just like your father,
- 05:12
- David did. And it even says of Solomon, he loved the Lord by walking in the statutes of his father,
- 05:18
- David, the statutes of his father, David. If you ever read Psalm 119, it's the law of God, my friends.
- 05:26
- Like, I don't know, it just is a very strange, very strange thing. Like, and even, and even in the text, it says they were in awe that they saw
- 05:34
- God's wisdom was in him to carry out justice, to administer it, to cross -examine, to find out who's who, to find out what happened, to find out what's what.
- 05:45
- Like, like a good lawyer does this kind of stuff all day long, but a good lawyer doesn't write laws, right?
