Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - You Are Not Enough | Historical Books | 1 Kings 4:1-19

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

Do you try to handle everything yourself? Do you keep close friends at a distance? Do you see your need for others? In today's episode, Jensen shares how 1 Kings 4:1-19 reminds us that it is not good for man to be 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 4:1-19

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. Growing up somewhere along the way, I learned that it's better to go it alone than to depend on or put your trust in other people. No one ever sat me down and said, Jensen, if you want to be respected in this life, then you're going to have to prove you can handle everything by yourself. I was never explicitly taught that if you put your trust in other people, you can get hurt. But all the same, different experiences in my life shaped the way that I saw the world. And the wisdom that I took out of it was that I was safer. I was better off if I depended on myself.

And that in the end, I would get further, be more respected if I was able to do everything, be everything, and accomplish everything all by myself. Practically, this meant keeping people at an arm's length distance, giving them enough of myself to have friends, but not so much that anyone could really hurt me. Using connections and social skills to get ahead, but never actually depending on another person that could let me down and set me back. Around the time that I was in college, I started having panic attacks.

They'd come on quick and leave me paralyzed in fear and isolation. They would often come when I felt like I had failed, like I had slipped up and let someone in when I hadn't projected the image of confident independence that I worked so hard to maintain. or when I truly felt like I needed someone, anyone, but the walls that I had built were so high that no one could get in. You see, the wisdom that I had built my life on had turned out to be folly.

They came from cultural ideals rather than reality, like the statue of the self-made man, carving himself out of stone. The Hollywood trope of the American dream, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and making a name for yourself, self. The CEO who makes it to the top by being cutthroat, you'll only ever really succeed if you remain unattached, able to make the moves you have to make to get ahead. But here's the thing I missed. The best stories of success, of good overcoming evil, of quests and conquering,

don't follow that wisdom. Think of the Lord of the Rings. Frodo is the ring bearer, the one who ultimately defeats evil and ridds the world of darkness, but without the fellowship of the ring, without Sam, without his friends, near and far, he would have failed. There was this children's book that I read as a kid. It's an older book called The King and his Six Friends, and it follows a king without a kingdom. He's traveling in the woods where he comes across six different things that are in trouble, like an axe stuck in a tree, an elephant, afraid of a mouse, a beehive being attacked by a bear, and so on. And instead of ignoring these things in need to accomplish his mission of finding a kingdom, he has compassion, and he takes the time

to help. And each of these things turn out to be people who can magically transform into these other objects. And so they become the king's six close friends who travel with him to a kingdom that could be his if he's able to pass a few impossible tests. Now each of these tests that he has set, he would fail alone. But with his friends and their magical abilities he's able to conquer them, and in the end, he earns his kingdom. Now, I clearly didn't learn the lesson that this book or the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter was trying to teach me, but the wisdom that man was not made to do life alone doesn't originate from a fairy tale, a children's book, or a fantasy book. It comes from the first pages of scripture.

See, in Genesis 1, as God is creating the universe, shaping the life, land and the waters forming animals and plants casting lights into the sky each day, he announces that it was good. After making man in his image, he says that it is very good. What he has made is good, very good. It is flourishing. It is as it should be. Then in Genesis 2, we rewind and zoom in on the part of Genesis 1 where God creates man. And we read that after God makes one man, something. is not right. The Lord God said it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. It is not good for the man to be alone. He needs a helper. Now devastatingly, this English word helper here has been abused, misrepresented, and used to subjugate women in

ways that the Hebrew language never intended. See, the Hebrew word easer that we translate helper, means the one who supplies strength to a person where they need it, where they are lacking. The word itself doesn't indicate a subordinate or power differentiation at all between the two people. Instead, it lends itself to uncover the wisdom that it is not good for the man to be alone, because he cannot be everything all at once. He will need others who can come alongside him and fill in his gaps with their own strength, ranks. This is true both in the context of marriage like Adam and Eve, but also in the context of friendship and community. It is a distinct truth woven into the fabric of humanity. It is not good

for us to be alone. We need others to strengthen us, compliment us, to be what we cannot be. But don't miss this as well. In a perfect world, before the fall, before sin has entered and marred a flourishing creation, something is not good. We were made for community to have help. We have needs even in Eden. It was not good for man to be alone in Eden and how much more so is that true this side of the fall in a broken, dark, dangerous world where sin poles at our hearts, where our failures are deeper, our weaknesses are more pronounced. How much more do we need community? helpers, friends to strengthen us, to come beside us. You can see this wisdom laced throughout scripture. Proverbs 279, oil and perfume make the heart glad and the sweetness of a friend comes from his

earnest counsel. Ecclesiasties four, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. Proverbs 27, 5 and 6, better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Romans 12, 9 through 11, let love be genuine. Awhore what is evil, hold fast to what is good, love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor. And finally, Hebrews 10, 24, and 25. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.

And all the more as you see the day approaching. And it is in this same vein that as King Solomon, a king gifted with wisdom from God and a discerning mind, that as he sets up his kingdom, he surrounds himself with advisors and counselors. We read at the beginning of First King's, four of all the men that he appoints and their different positions. Some are priests, others counselors to the king, some take on judicial duties while others are scribes and secretaries. Some run the palace and official buildings efficiently. And then there are governors. Over 12 districts in Israel and each district helps to support the king's household for one month of the year,

providing for them with supplies so that the government can continue working and protecting the people. Now, the point here isn't to show us exactly how a government should be run specifically with different positions and systems in place. But what we do see here is that Solomon, the most powerful man in Israel, king over all the people, in all his godly wisdom, sees his need for others. Verse five even tells us that one of the king's official is Zabud, the son of Nathan, who was a priest and king's friend. His official duty was to be Solomon's friend, his advisor. Solomon isn't trying to go it alone. He's too wise for that. He knows his deeply human need for help.

He knows that there are others in his kingdom uniquely gifted to strengthen his kingdom. See, the pride of thinking that we can go it alone, that we will be better off depending on ourselves, will be more impressive or more invincible. It is foolish. It will always fail us. because it denies the reality that we are all made for community. It has never been and never will be good for man to be alone. We need helpers to strengthen us and sustain us when we don't have the strength to go on.

Now that Hebrew word, remember Easer, it isn't only found in Genesis 2. It's actually most common use in scripture is to describe not women, but God himself. Deuteronomy 3329 Blessed are you Israel Who is like you A people saved by the Lord He is your shield and helper And your glorious sword

Your enemies will cower before you And you will tread on their heights Or in Psalm 3320 We wait in hope for the Lord He is our help And our shield See we were made for community We need other humans to come alongside a

and within that need is the need for our great helper, our defender, the one who saves us, who shields us. I wasn't wrong as a child that when you live in community, when you depend on other people, when you're vulnerable and trusting that sometimes you get hurt, let down and disappointed. Humans aren't perfect. Sin gets in the way makes us think that those who could be our helpers are actually our enemies, something to be avoided, mistrusted. We sin against each other. We fail each other.

We can't always be the helpers that we were created to be this side of the fall, but God, in his goodness, made away. He delivered us, he saved us, he forged a path towards redemption, so that on this side of his return, we can depend on him for strength, to be the friends and community and help that he has called us to be. We can turn to him for forgiveness, when we fail. And we can depend on his strength and mercy to be merciful and loving and forgiving

when others fail us. And ultimately, the hope of the gospel is that when Jesus returns, he will redeem all of us and all of creation. He will be our great helper who mends the broken relationship we have with himself and with each other. So that one day, when we live alongside him and his renewed creation, we will also live in right relationship with each other, sharing in the joy and beauty of the kingdom of God together.