Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Purpose of Power | Historical Books | 1 Kings 16:15-28

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

What is power? Is power inherently bad? Why did God create humanity? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 1 Kings 16:15-28 encourages us to use our power to glorify God and serve him alone. 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 16:15-28

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 Patrick Miller. In our last episode, Jensen asked about what we do when the world is tumultuous, and it seems like the people in power are doing nothing but making things worse. In a lot of ways, today's passage is asking similar questions, but I want to personalize it, because while I think it's important for us to remember who is ultimately king in a world full of corrupt, dishonest leaders, I also think it's important for us to realize that the same problem that exists in those leaders, well, it exists inside of you and me. In today's passage, we read about a civil war in

Israel. Leadership falls from a king from the line of Jeroboam to a rebel and then eventually to a military leader, and even he only takes the throne by exercising greater strength and power than his enemies. That military leader's name, his name was Omri. Let's read together what happened during his reign. First Kings 16, verse 21. Then the people of Israel were split into two factions. Half supported Tibney, son of Ganath for king, and the other half supported Omri. But Omri's followers proved stronger than those of Tibney, son of Ganath. So Tibney died, and Omri became king. In the 31st year of Asa, King of Judah, Amri became king of Israel, and he reigned 12 years, six of them in Tirza. He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemmer for two talents of silver, and built a city

on the hill calling it Samaria, after Shemar, the name of the former owner of the hill. But Omri did evil in the eyes of the Lord and sinned more than all those before him. He followed completely the ways of Jeroboam, son of Nabat, committing the same sin Jeroboam had caused Israel to commit, so that they aroused the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, by their worthless idols. Omri is clearly the worst king Israel has had yet. He doesn't merely repeat some of the sins of Jeroboam, but follows Jeroboam's foolish commitment to injustice and idolatry completely. He's worse than Jeroboam. But I wonder what people thought from the outside, looking in on Omri's reign.

Because from the outside, it looked like Omri was the man. He'd wrestled command of an entire nation from a rebel, and then he fought off his rival. After that, he bought a mountain. Can you imagine buying a mountain? And then he built a city on top of its brow called Samaria. Samaria would later function as the headquarters of his royal operations and then the headquarters of his son's royal operations. His son was named Ahab and you might recognize that name, but we're not talking about him today. At this juncture, we're just looking at a man named Omri who seemed to have it all.

Wealth, property, power, and entire kingdom. And all of this not by inheritance, but by his own grit, his own strength, his own power, his own effort. In some ways, he's the picture of the American ideal, a rags to riches story, someone who pulled himself up by his bootstraps and by hard work accomplished tremendous amounts for himself. Because of America's global influence, it's not hard to find these kinds of values across the world, and especially in the West. But here's the basic idea. We tend to believe that power exists so that individuals can use whatever they have to grow their wealth, to grow their influence, and to grow their prestige. Now, this could lead you to believe that power itself is a problem. Just get rid of power,

and then we'd all be good, right? The problem is that as long as humans are in the picture, power is always in the picture too. That's because God designed us this way. In Genesis 1, God creates man and woman in his image, quote, so that they may rule, that's power, over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the livestock and the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. You see, God is a king with unimaginable power, and he's made us to be in his image as sub-rulers with power. In other words, he wants us to share in his power. Of course, his original design was such that we would use our power to rule well, to spread his love, his justice, his mercy, and beauty across the face of the globe. But humans rebel. But humans rebel.

and that rebellion defaced God's image in each of us. Thus, power, which was once a great good, has been corrupted in each one of us. We're all tempted to use our power for ourselves, for our own aspirations, rather than using power for the good God gave us that power to create. Do you see the problem? What does the world tell us about power? Well, let me repeat. Power exists so that individuals can use whatever they have to grow their wealth,

grow their influence and grow their prestige. But why does God give us power? To glorify him in our world by spreading his love, his justice, his mercy, and beauty to every corner of the globe. Power is a gift. It can be used for tremendous good, but this gift can be corrupted and used for tremendous evil as well. Now you may be thinking, what's all this got to do with me? After all, I don't have much power. I don't run a country. I don't run a state. Not in Congress. I'm not. In parliament, I get it. But I think we missed the point if we think that all power is political. Power is present in every life in at least two ways, every single life.

We have power over ourselves, and we have power over our gardens. Let's look at each one of those. We'll start with power over self. Even if you have absolutely no power in this world, there's at least one square inch of creation that God has given you exclusive rights to govern, to exercise power over. Do you know what it is? Your body, yourself. What you do with your body, your mouth, your hands is always an act of power. The question is whether your body exists to serve your interest, your wealth, and your prestige, or whether you use your body to spread God's

goodness, God's love, God's beauty, and God's justice. But God hasn't just given you a body to exercise power over, he's also given you a garden. Your garden is the space in the world God has given you responsibility over. I mean, of course, this could be a literal garden or your home or apartment, but I think primarily it's often your work. It doesn't matter whether you run a business or you're like the lowest level employee. You have responsibility over something in your world. It may be a whole corporation or it may be an Excel spreadsheet or an email. It may be your schoolwork or it may be physical labor. But however small your responsibilities may be, you still have power over that garden. And again, the question is this. Do you exercise your power at work or home or wherever

your garden is? Do you do that in order to benefit yourself, your wealth, and your prestige? Or do you use your power to spread God's love, his justice, and his mercy? No one is more powerful than Jesus, which is how we know power is not a bad thing. And yet, Paul, Paul tells us in Philippians that he used his power, not for himself, but for the sake of you and me. Check this out, Philippians 2, verse 5. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus. Now here's the interesting part. Who, being in very nature God.

In other words, he is God. He has all the power in the universe. Who, being in very nature, God, full of power, did not consider equality with God, something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human lightness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has exalted him to the highest place, and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth,

and under the earth, in every tongue and knowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. If we wish to be exalted by God, the path forward is downward. If we wish to glorify God, the path forward is to lay down our glory. All those who use their power to benefit themselves, they will win nothing but dust in this life. But to those whom God's grace freeze, to use their power for the sake of others, for the sake of God's world. Well, to them, there's a promise of life and life at the fullest.