Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - An Unlikely Candidate | Historical Books | 1 Kings 5

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Who was Hiram? What is the significance of the Temple? Are you participating in God's mission? In today's episode, Jeff shares how 1 Kings 5 reminds us that God uses unlikely candidates to build his kingdom. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Kings 5

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jeff Parrott. Growing up, my sister and I would often accompany our parents on trips to the grocery store. And most of the time, my presence on those outings was perfunctory, just a kid in tow, traversing the aisles and dreaming about how much sugary cereal I would buy when I was an adult. But there was this occasional moment on our grocery trips that totally drew me in. It was that moment when I walked into a store, surveyed the layout, and spotted the small kiosks of samples. On sample day, I felt like a celebrity at a swanky party.

I mean, fried mozzarella cheese stick? Yes, please. A reformulated flavor of gogert? Why not? The latest brand of tortilla chips alongside this culinary invention called mango salsa? I didn't know that I needed it, but now I do. The sample connoisseur is at your service. I mean, I thought these grocery stores were just suckers for giving away all this free food.

Here's the great thing about samples. They were a step beyond the pictures of food on the boxes. Instead of just experiencing the food with my eyesight, I could have a sense of fulfillment through the avenue of taste. It was bigger than just the picture on the box. And as wonderful as that was, the samples came with a limitation. On their own, they could never fill me up. They were never meant to satisfy my craving for the real food.

Their job was to stir my cravings for the fuller meal. The samples were just a foretaste of something bigger. So sample day at the grocery store was that interesting mix of fulfillment and foretaste at the same time. In a small way, that's the kind of dynamic that we encounter throughout the story of the Bible. There are these moments that embody the power of both fulfillment, helping us see and experience something bigger than just a mere image or an idea, something bigger than the picture on the box. But at the same time, these moments also serve as a foretaste,

stirring our appetites for the bigger, real thing to come. And when these moments of fulfillment and foretaste come together, they work to deepen our craving for the ultimate reality that's yet to come. Today's passage in 1st Kings 5 is one of many examples of this confluence between fulfillment and foretaste in the Bible. As we continue leaning into the early days of Solomon's reign, we see how his kingship is fulfilling certain elements of the biblical story, while at the same time serving as a foretaste that stirs our hearts and our minds for something bigger and better and more complete later in the story. As we get ready to approach God's word together, let's just slow down

and ask for His grace for His truth to move through our time. Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life, and breath and thank you for your word in this day. We bring before you every part of our lives, our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety and our excitement, our calendars and our contingencies. God, Mia is here. Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. And Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in First Kings. And as we read your living word, may it read us and restore us to a life with you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Okay, just a little bit of context. First Kings chapter five comes on the heels of the increase of Solomon's wealth and wisdom back in chapter four. And here in chapter five, we get a

behind the scenes look at the preparations for building the temple. It's a moment that's anticipated going back to Second Samuel chapter seven. But there's an interesting feature at the beginning of First Kings chapter five because here, as the temple is about to be built, we're introduced to a new character. Hearum, the king of Tyre. Now, we learned that Hiram had a deep affection for King David, Solomon's father. When Solomon shares that he's going to build a house for the Lord and he asks Hiram for wood and for help with the labor in the construction process, this foreign king of Tyre gives an enthusiastic response in verse 7.

She gives us a window into his affection for David and something that's going on in Hiram's life. Here's what Hiram says. Praise be to the Lord, Yahweh, today, for he has given David a wise son to rule. over this great nation. So the ensuing verses after that describe how Hiram and his people used their resources and their labor to participate in the preparation of the temple's construction. Verse 12 describes the cooperation between Solomon and Hiram this way. The Lord gave Solomon wisdom just as he promised. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two

of them made a treaty. As you read on, verse 18 ends the chapter with an emphasis on their unified effort. The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Biblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple. Now, all these details could strike us as unnecessary, describing the cooperation between Solomon and the foreign king, Hiram, here in 1st Kings 5. So why is the Bible taking so much time to explain this unlikely alliance other than the fact that historically it happened? Well, it's because this moment, in the preparation of the temple's construction, it's a sample. It's a mix of both fulfillment and foretaste. So what exactly is this passage of fulfillment and a foretaste of? Now, to answer that, we need to appreciate the significance of the temple

itself and its connection to God's mission. So throughout the Bible, the temple and its predecessor, the tabernacle, served as a special place where God's covenant presence would dwell with his people. It was like a return to the Garden of Eden where heaven and earth were united, where the creator king could be with his image bearers in harmonious connection. And this is where the story of the Bible starts, the Garden of Eden, this temple-like place. But it's also the reality that humanity craves from Genesis 3 onward. To be in the temple is to get a sense of the blessed, flourishing life that we were made for in creation. That's why the promise to David back in 2nd Samuel 7 was such a big deal. God's house would one day be built by David's offspring, this meeting place between heaven

and earth, God's place, in space, and our place, and our space. So in one sense, the preparations for the temple's construction here in First Kings 5, it's a kind of fulfillment of the longing of the human heart going back to Second Samuel and even to the earliest pages of Genesis. We're excited for this meeting place, this dwelling place between God and humanity to be built. But then First King's Chapter 5 is a fulfillment in another kind of way that's connected to God's mission. Back in Genesis 12, there's this hinge passage, a hinge promise that the Lord makes to Abram. He says he's going to bless Abram and thereby bless the nations through him. When we read about this partnership between Solomon and Hiram, we get a little glimpse of that promise being fulfilled when God is working through

his people to bless the nations around them, to spread his guardians. of Eden blessing to other people. And as beautiful as that sense of fulfillment is, here at least in the historical books and afterward, it's left incomplete. Later in the prophetic literature, we see the nation of Tyre, the same nation that Heerom is king over. Tire becomes one of the key enemies to God's people, and it serves as the object of God's just wrath against sin and pride and evil. but that's not entirely the end of the story for Tyre and the nations like it because remember in some ways first kings five is also serving as a foretaste a moment in the biblical story that doesn't fully satisfy us now but accelerates our craving

for a bigger and more complete reality that's fully accomplished later a more complete reality like the one that we read about in revelation chapter seven verse nine there we read this after this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the lamb. That's the end of the story of the Bible. That's where the story is heading in the new heavens and new earth, where image bearers from every nation, even those that seemed furthest off, are dwelling in God's presence, amplifying his goodness and his glory. With the end of the story in mind, we start to see how First Kings 5 is like a foretaste, how the tabernacle, the temple is like a foretaste of what this

new dwelling with God will be like in a new heaven and new earth. First Kings 5 is trying to amplify our longing, our craving for those who seem far off for the nations to know the love and the truth of the gospel, to amplify our longing for them to know the love and the truth of Jesus, our king as the living and embodied dwelling place between God and his people. Not only that, but this is also meant to stir our hearts and our minds to participate in God's mission that's heading toward Revelation 7. When we live that way as a people, people will look at our shared life together and echo the words of Heeram. Praise be to the Lord today. Now, in so many ways, Hearum seems like such an unlikely candidate to partner with Solomon and constructing the temple.

Yet here, he's being used by God in this intersection of both fulfillment and fulfillment and foretaste in the biblical story. In light of that, I want to finish our time by having us think about and pray for people who seem to us like the unlikely candidates to know the love and the truth of the gospel. People who seem like they're far off. Maybe even by human standards, it seems to us like they're too far off to be a part of God's story. Who's that person? Who's that group of people for you? How's the Holy Spirit stirring your heart and mind to bless that person? to share life with them, to share Jesus with them. Take a moment to pray for that person or that people group,

that God would work through you to plant seeds, to participate in his kingdom movement that's heading toward Revelation 7. If First Kings chapter 5 is like a sample, it's not just preparing us for an ordinary meal, it's preparing us for a feast beyond compare, a feast where we will celebrate and praise our Creator King, with the nations, with those who are near, with those who are far off. Heavenly Father, we pray for a particular person or a people group that you've put on our hearts.

We pray for these image bearers who reflect your goodness and your glory in a special way, God. We pray for them. Jesus, we ask that you would work through your body, the church, to be a blessing, to share the good news of your life and your love to the people you've placed in our lives. Holy Spirit, would you humble us and empower us to live in this dynamic of fulfillment and foretaste until the day comes when you return and make all things new, and we feast in the fulfillment of your restoration together forever. We ask this by your grace for your glory in your story. In Jesus' name, amen.