Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Right Actions, Wrong Motives | Historical Books | 1 Kings 7:1-12

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

What's your motivation for doing good? Do you have a divided heart? Have you forgotten the gospel? In today's episode, Jensen shares how 1 Kings 7:1-12 reminds us that God knows our hearts. 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 7:1-12

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. In high school, I was a good kid. I got good grades. I had friends. I played a lot of sports. I was in multiple honors programs and student leadership positions.

I did the right thing. My parents didn't have to worry about me going crazy or partying. I was a good kid. But, embarrassingly, underneath all that theoretical good, I had a major attitude problem. I had a certain disregard for authority. Not that I wanted to break any rules in any crazy ways, I just kind of had the attitude that I should be able to do what I want, when I want, because I was meeting everyone's expectations for me. I'd stay out way past curfew, hanging out with friends. But I was kind. I was passing my classes. I was excelling in school.

Like, my parents couldn't really be mad about it. I vividly remember reading, books during a class while a teacher is lecturing, getting called on it by them, and then saying something like, quiz me. If I don't know the answer, I'll stop reading. And then I know the answer, and so in my mind, I could read books in class. I could not study in my free time. I could do the bare minimum required of me because that's all it really took to fulfill the requirements that those in authority had of me. See, on the outside, I was excelling beyond what a parent could want for kid. But on the inside, I had a major heart issue. My main motivation for doing good, for following the rules, for fulfilling obligations, was to free me up from scrutiny, free me up from others' opinions.

I gave them what they wanted. Now, I could do whatever I wanted with the rest of my time. Now, I know that not everyone's high school experience looks like mine, but I'd venture to guess that we all have struggled with mixed motivations, divided hearts, maybe putting on a show to accomplish an ulterior motive at one time or another. And in today's passage, the author of First Kings gives us hints that Solomon may be struggling with a divided heart. At the end of First King's 6, we learn that Solomon has completed building God's temple in a total of seven years. And now, in the first verse of chapter 7, we read, it took Solomon 13 years, however, to complete the construction of his palace.

Okay, so Solomon spends almost double the amount of time building his home than he spends building the temple. We learned that while he spared no expense on God's temple and used lots of cedar of Lebanon on it, his palace was called the forest of Lebanon, because it contained so much cedar, it was like being in the forest. His palace had multiple large buildings, a home for himself, a home for his wife, porticoes, throne rooms, you name it, he built it for himself. And to be fair, the author of First Kings never comes out and explicitly tells us that Solomon cared more about his house than gods, or that Solomon built the temple that God told him to so that he could be justified in spending whatever amount of opulent money he could on his own home.

We'll see as the story unfolds that while Solomon may have had pure intentions here, the author is probably hinting at the divided heart of Solomon that we will see throughout his kingship. And I'm not actually trying to nail down Solomon's exact motives here. What this passage really does, as I read it, is that it makes me look at. inward. As I ask questions of should Solomon have spent so much on himself? Was he more concerned for his own comfort and his own desires than he really was about serving God and building him a home among his people? And as I make my own silent judgments of Solomon, I begin to realize that I actually kind of want to justify his choices to defend him. Like, hey, he did what God

asked him. He built the temple. Why shouldn't he get to then do what he wants? And he's with the rest of his money and time. Doesn't he deserve to make those kinds of choices for his own life? And that's when I start to realize that I want to defend this characterization of Solomon because my own heart reflects the same desires and motivations that are being critiqued. If we're right about Solomon, then we're uncovering a heart that is divided, a man who sees his life in sections. Much like Teenage Jensen, you can have this part of my life. I'll adhere to your rules, follow your commands, give you my time, my money, I'll meet your expectations here so that I can do what I want over here so that you can't say anything about these other habits or desires that I have.

And instead of saying it to parents and to teachers, Solomon and, if I'm honest, me, we're saying it to God. We're performing and giving enough of ourselves to God so that we can keep grasping tightly to the parts of our lives that we want control of. Are you like us? Are you like me? Are there parts of your life that you think you deserve to have the final say in? Like you earned it. You went above and beyond for God in one area, so you don't really have to surrender in another. Like maybe you give so generously to your church, so generously that you feel comfortable sitting on the sidelines of serving in your children's ministry because you value having Sunday mornings to feel restful. Or you read and study your Bible

every day and go to a small group, so it's okay if you don't make it to church on Sundays. You deserve to rest after a long week. Or maybe you do serve. You attend church on Sundays, but tithing feels like God is asking a lot. You're not a horrible person. You don't use your money like other people. You aren't jet-setting and buying designer bags, so God can't be mad that you order takeout and spend your evenings late-night shopping. When we start using times of faithfulness, to justify moments of disregard, we have fundamentally misunderstood the gospel, and we have forgotten who God is. We run the risk of living a divided life, of believing that God can be fooled, manipulated, appeased with our meager offerings. When the sons of Adam, Cain and Abel brought

offerings before God, God accepts Abel's and rejects Cain's. Why? Well, because God cannot be fooled by the appearance of offerings. He sees the heart. He saw the divided nature of Cain's heart, his lack of genuine faith, his resentment towards his brother. First John commands us, do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous.

The actual actions that each brother took looked almost identical. They gave an offering of a portion of their work. fruit from the ground, a lamb from the flock, both would have been acceptable offerings in the Levittical system to come. But Cain's offering was evil, rejected by God. Why? Well, it's because of his heart posture. See, God is all-knowing. He is the creator of the universe. He has all the power. He has all the knowledge, and he loves his creation deeply. So deeply that despite our rebellion, he continued to show us the way to redemption, to reconciliation, to teach us the ways that we can live that will bring flourishing and beauty and peace into our lives. And when we still

failed to live up to the things that he's called us to, he became a man, to fulfill what Adam, what humans could not do. Jesus lived as the faithful Israelite. He lived with a fully devoted heart to God, and he gave of his entire life to his father, for the good of creation, for the redemption of you and me. See, God is not finite. He cannot be fooled. He cannot be appeased. He will not be manipulated.

He is asking for your total devotion. When Jesus walked this earth, he wasn't fooled by the piety of the Pharisees. There was no amount of rule following or faithful acts that can get you and I off the hook for following our own ways in different areas of our life. If you want to walk with Jesus, if you want to live in His kingdom, then you have to fully surrender to your king. And as fun as getting to read a book in class or staying up late with friends

or sleeping in on a Sunday morning or living in a palace made of cedar might feel in the moment, it is incomparable to the glory that awaits the children of God in His kingdom when Jesus returns and redeems all of creation, renews our broken bodies, and invites us to live alongside Him in His kingdom forever.