Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Wisdom is Something You Wish For | Historical Books | 1 Kings 3:1-15

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

What do you wish for? Do you have an undivided heart? Do you have the humility to ask for God's wisdom? In today's episode, Keith shares how 1 Kings 3:1-15 encourages us to seek God's kingdom first. 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 3:1-15

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 Keith Simon. As a pastor, my wife and I get invited to quite a few fundraisers, and they're all for really good causes. Like some of the fundraisers help poor people without homes or jobs. Some are for international projects, like building churches or giving people access to clean safe drinking water. Some are to help with domestic violence or foster children or at-risk kids. others are fundraisers for Christian ministries that work with high school and college students.

My point is that these are all great initiatives that are close to the heart of God. Now, we can't go to most of the fundraisers we're invited to, so we usually ask other staff from our church to attend, so that there's at least one representative from the church there. But one fundraiser that we always decide to go to is for a local organization that helps sick children in our community fulfill a dream or wish they have. there's a different organization, a national organization with a similar mission. It's called Make a Wish Foundation. You might be familiar with it.

They do similar kinds of work as the local organization does. And of course, they garner a lot of support. And I get it. I mean, who doesn't want to help fulfill a kid's wishes? This is true even for healthy kids. We might ask a kid, what do you wish you'd get for your birthday or Christmas? Or it doesn't even happen to be kids. we might ask a friend or a spouse if you could travel anywhere in the world where do you wish you could go

we signed cards or emails with phrases like best wishes or we say we wish we could win the lottery or we wish a decision or investment we'd made had turned out better and of course there's the story of the genie in the bottle who grants the person three wishes now if you met a genie what would you wish for for us it's a hypothetical question no genie is going to appear to you and me but for kings of Solomon, it wasn't hypothetical but actual. No, a genie didn't appear to him, someone far better than that did. Here's First Kings chapter 3, verse 5. At Gibbon, the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream and God said, ask for whatever you want me to give you. If God appeared to you and asked, what do you want from me? How would you answer? We'll get back to that in just a moment,

but before we do, let's just pray, and then we'll start at the beginning of chapter 3. Father, I pray that you would open this chapter of the Bible to us so that we could see the truth in it, and that you would open our heart so that we would be transformed by it. Amen. So 1 Kings 3 tells us that Solomon was a conflicted man, which means that he was a lot like us. In verse 3, it says Solomon showed his love for the Lord by walking according to the instructions given him by his father David. Did you catch that it said Solomon loved the Lord? I want that to be true of me. I want someone to say,

Keith loved the Lord. Don't you want that to be true of you that what you're known for is loving the Lord? When it says that Solomon loved the Lord, it meant that his affections were drawn toward him. Solomon adored God, and that's what it means when you and I love him, of course, that it's not just an intellectual relationship with God,

but a whole life relationship that we're devoted to him. Verse 4, The king went to Gibbyan to offer sacrifice. for that was the most important high place, and Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. Imagine the huge expense. Solomon's love for God drove him to sacrifice for his relationship with God. Maybe I need to sacrifice time or money or my energy to invest in my relationship with God. It's when he was offering the sacrifices to God that the Lord appeared to him and asked him what he wanted to do for him. But before we get to how Solomon answered the Lord's question, I also want to point out that chapter

3 gives us some warning signs that sin is starting to fester in Solomon's heart. The first warning sign is who he married. Verse 1, Solomon made an alliance with Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and married his daughter. The problem isn't that they were of different ethnicities, but that they had different faiths. The Bible fully supports the union of people with different ethnic and racial backgrounds. what it forbids is a believer marrying an unbeliever. Eventually, marrying women of other faiths turned Solomon toward idolatry, but that doesn't become obvious until chapter 11.

But right here in chapter 3, there is a warning to us to make sure that we marry people who have the same Christian faith that we do. Another problem with this marriage to the Pharaoh's daughter is that Solomon has done it to form an alliance with the Egyptian nation. as Solomon is trying to make Israel into a major international player, but God frowns on that kind of power play. He wants Israel to depend on him, not Egypt, not other nations. Again, all of this is to say that Solomon is a lot like us.

He's conflicted. He loves the Lord, but he has a divided heart. He's like us. He was a sinner and a saint. Before returning to the story, let's ask God for an undivided heart. Father, we pray that you, you would give us an undivided heart that loves you and worships you and follows you. Amen. Now let's get back to God asking Solomon what he wanted from him. The king's answer is going to

reveal a lot about his character. How do you think you'd answer that question? Would you ask for health or wealth or something different? Verse 7. Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in the place of my father, David, but I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong, for who is able to govern this great people of yours. Solomon requested a discerning heart. He requested wisdom based on his own self-assessment. I mean, Solomon looked at himself and said, there's a lot I don't know. I need God's wisdom in my life. And that's what humility sounds like.

who are impressed with themselves, they don't ask God for wisdom because they think they have enough of it on their own. Solomon also knew that God had given him a huge task in leading the nation of Israel. There's no way he says, I can do that in my own strength, in my own power, and my own wisdom. I think of what Jesus said to his disciples in John 15. He said, apart from me, you can do nothing. Of course he doesn't mean nothing. I mean, you can be very busy apart from God. Jesus just means you can do nothing that is eternal. that pleases God. If you want to live a life pleasing to God, then you need God's wisdom like Solomon did. Notice that wisdom is practical. Wisdom is different than knowledge, right? Being wise isn't the same

thing as being smart. You might have done well on the college entrance exams. You might have graduated with a 4.0 from an Ivy League college and still be a fool. And conversely, you might have never finished high school, much less gone to college. You might be intellectually mediocre. You might be, intellectually mediocre, you might have a learning disability and still be wise. Wisdom can't be measured by degrees or grade point average. It's not the same as knowledge. Wisdom is how you live your life. It's skilled, godly living. You can get knowledge from Google, but you can't get wisdom there. Proverbs says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. It's impossible to be truly wise and reject God. God is the fountain of wisdom. Deuteronomy 4 says wisdom is, wisdom is,

is keeping God's laws and God's commands. Verse 10 tells us how God responded to Solomon's request. Says the Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have you asked for the death of your enemies, but for discernment and administering justice, I will do what you have asked.

I will give you a wise and discerning heart so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. God said that he was just as pleased with what King Solomon didn't ask for as with what he did ask for. God knew that in asking for wisdom, Solomon wasn't asking for any of the things that most people want out of life. Most people would have asked for health, but Solomon did not ask God for a long life. Most people wish they had more money, but Solomon didn't ask God for riches. Most people wish they could get even with the people who've done them wrong, but Solomon did not ask for revenge against his enemies.

Solomon knew those earthly things were inferior to the supreme gift of spiritual wisdom. Solomon wrote in Proverbs, wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you desire cannot compare with her. See, the king knew that wisdom is helpful for every situation. Wisdom helps a young person know which way to go in life. Wisdom helps people know how to live, how to work, how to play. It even helps people know how to die because wise people trust in Jesus for eternal life. And after giving Solomon this wisdom, God proceeded to give him even more than he asked for or imagined. Here's verse 13. Moreover, God says, I will give you what you have not asked for, both wealth and honor,

so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands, as David your father did, I will give you long life. Solomon received the very gifts he had bypassed in his quest for wisdom. So King Solomon is an ideal example of. of an important principle that Jesus taught. Seek first the kingdom of God in his righteousness, and these things will be added to you. Solomon never regretted his decision to make wisdom his only wish.

He would counsel us to make the same choice. Later in Proverbs he wrote, get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly and she will exalt you. She will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland. She will bestow on you a beautiful. crown. So where do we find wisdom that we need in our life? Well, 2 Timothy 3 says the scriptures make you wise for salvation, but ultimately God's revelation of wisdom is found in Jesus. All the treasures of

wisdom and knowledge are found in Him. Let's pray. Father, we thank you that you have given us wisdom in the scriptures and wisdom in our relationship with Christ. I pray that we would seek after the wisdom that we can find in you and that we would live obedient trusting lives. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.