Day 169

1 Kings 3:16-5:18, Acts 12:19-13:12, Psalms 74:18-23

It is funny how many TV storylines are stolen from the Bible, and we all thought that Eastenders was original! Two babies born about the same time, one dies and the grieving mother steals the other one and replaces it with her own. Now where have we heard that before?

In what appears such a tragic story, and then such a seemingly barbaric resolution, we actually see a wise man set out his stall. We could ask whether he would have gone through with the threat, but in fact this is an empty question. Solomon’s wisdom is such that he knew, without any shadow of a doubt, that the true mother would speak up – there was never going to be the need to go through with it. And from this point on the people across the region revered Solomon for his wisdom, wisdom that was seen to be from God (4:28).

I wonder how many of our leaders across the world this could be said of today. If we took a step back a few years, would George Bush be noted for his wisdom?! Perhaps not. Even so, what about David Cameron or Barak Obama, how do they fair on the wisdom front? I wonder whether they have ever said the prayer of Solomon though, and if they did pray when they got into office, whether it was their first prayer? We do not need to be in high office to pray such things, and the wisdom of God is something that we would all find useful, no matter what it is we do on a day to day basis.

Moving on to Acts we start Paul’s journeys which have created a lot of interest for some people, he certainly travelled a long way with all the churches that he visited. What we see as we follow these journeys in the book of Acts is the context that makes up the letters. By using Acts to delve deeper into the different letters we get an idea of where he may have been when he wrote, and what was going on around him at that time, helping us understand what he was actually saying.

We can pray for wisdom and that wisdom can often come through the Bible. Whether that is a deeper understanding of Paul’s ministry or whether it is something more profound and relevant to us today, it all comes via the word of God. The joy that we have is that we are immersing ourselves deeper and deeper into His word and finding more of the wisdom he offers.