Today, in an effort to assist you lovely ladies accept the power of Christ in your hearts, we will learn some stories from the book of Kings. Kings follows the book of Samuel.
The book begins with the story of the ascension of King Solomon. So a bunch of stuff happens with people dying and whatever. Not important. Solomon is important for one and only one story. The baby story. Not A Baby Story, which shows about 6 times a day on TLC. We’re talking about the baby story. This story is to prove how just and wise good king Solomon was. It goes like this:
Two whores came to King Solomon with a baby. They could not agree between the two of them who the baby actually belonged to. Really, you wouldn’t think this was hard. Which ever whore got fat and then pooped out a kid should be the rightful owner. No fuss, no muss. Unfortunately, that version doesn’t highlight King Solomon’s greatness. So the story goes that the two whores brought King Solomon the baby, each claiming the baby was her own. King Solomon asked for a sword to cut the baby in half and settle the dispute once and for all. The first whore says “Fine by me!” The second whore says “NOOOOOOO!!!!!! Don’t cut the baby in half. Ok, just give it to her. I’d rather it go to her than be hurt.” The king knew that this woman had to be the real mother because only the real mother would rather give up the baby than see it killed. I would argue that most decent people would rather anything happen than a baby being cut in half, but hey, what do I know? I wonder which way he was going to cut it? Length wise, so everybody got half a face, half a body, one leg, one arm? Or width wise so someone got ahead and chest and someone got legs and an adorable baby butt?
Following this story is a story of a construction of a temple. The construction story is complete with negotiations with contractors, bidding wars, and delivery of supplies. Fascinating stuff. Then Solomon, in all his great wisdom, enslaves an entire race of people. Every Canaanite living in the land. Wise, indeed, Kingy.
Then good King Solomon holds a party. The Queen of Sheba comes to visit and see if Sol is really as wise as they claim. She is sufficiently impressed so she give him many of her precious things she’s got hanging around with her retinue. In return, Solomon gives her everything she wants along with everything she could ever desire beyond what she has already asked for. Solomon is so rich, he holds banquets every day. He has utensils and plates made of gold, ivory, and silver. Monkeys came to his banquets! I don’t know if they were guests or meat… He had a wife – you know, a main wife. But he had another 700 wives and 300 concubines. Really. 1,001 wives. What would you DO with all of them? How would you keep them straight? And if one did something you really liked, if you know what I mean, would you remember her going forward. Maybe if it was really really good. Given all this, I’m not sure Solomon was as wise as they claim.
Anyway, Good King Solomon dies and the kingdom is divided up in a rather complicated way. People die, there are droughts, there’s a guy who is fed by ravens. People die and then come back to life magically. There is a volcano (yes, they have those in the Bible…why not?). There are bears that tear 42 boys to shreds. More people die and miraculously come back to life. (That’s a bit of a theme in this book, as you’ll see) and then a bunch of people run off to Egypt. It’s all very complicated, with a lot of different kings doing different things that may or may not be good. Hence the name…Kings.
And that’s Kings!
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