The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Introduction to the Divided Kingdom (with Jeff Cavins) - 2023

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

Welcome to the Divided Kingdom period! Jeff Cavins joins Fr. Mike to explain the critical information needed to understand the rest of our biblical readings. They talk about Solomon's alliances with foreign nations, the growth of a civil war, and the incredible significance of 1 Kings 12:16. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. As you know, I'm once again today joined by Jeff Cavins as we go into the next time period of the Great Adventure Bible timeline, which is the Divided Kingdom. Up to this point, we've had a united kingdom under King David and under King Solomon. But things are going to take a turn for the worse for the next bit of time here.

As we enter into this Divided Kingdom, this is a really important opportunity to pause and to like really actually, this episode is going to be a critical episode when it comes to understanding, as Jeff is about to say, because he told me before we started recording, if we don't understand this, we're going to miss the rest of the Bible almost. I don't know. Am I overstating things, Jeff, when I say that? Well, it's good to be with you again. And yes, you are. You are welcome. I'm over here. You are absolutely right. And if you don't get what we're going to talk about today, then about two-thirds of the Old Testament is going to be lost to you. And that's mainly the major prophets and the minor prophets. And so if people can get a little bit of guidance here, then all of those prophets will find

their proper place and the story moves on. I think that's, stitch that on a pillow. All the prophets will find their proper place, and the story moves on. I think that's stitch on a pillow. All the prophets will find their proper place, probably. But why is this so important when it comes to, if we miss what's going to happen here with the divided kingdom time period, why would we miss the two-thirds of the Old Testament? Sure. Well, I think, Father, the major reason is because along the storyline of the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, there are certain moments. If you imagine, for example, going on the Appalachian Trail, there are certain moments where there's a fork in the road.

And if you take the wrong road, you're going to get lost. And this is the big one. When we come to what we call the Black Period, this divided kingdom, this dark period in Israel's history, on the tail of the royal kingdom, the United Kingdom, everything changes. You might remember before at Mount Sinai, a lot changed there. And if you don't understand what happened in that one-year period at Sinai, then it becomes confusing. Well, this is that on steroids. This is where we really have a big change. And I don't want to scare people when I say that, because once you understand the change that takes place in the narrative here, then it actually becomes pretty easy to navigate through it, particularly if you do have a Great Adventure Bible Timeline chart. It becomes very easy visually. But I think today what we'll do is

kind of explain what happened leading up to this big change, which is that the kingdom is going to divide into two nations, and then talk a little bit about how to read it, how to navigate through it. And for people who are listening and joining you in the reading, I think it will help them to understand the story as it moves forward. So, in order to understand the divided kingdom period, you really have to go back a little bit to the previous period, which was the royal kingdom, the purple one, a purple period. And at the beginning of that, in 1 Samuel 8, Israel asked for a king. And of course, they got a king, Saul, for 40 years. But then Saul was replaced by David, and God made a covenant with David and said that from now on, someone from your family is going to

be on the throne forever and ever. And we know that Jesus is the son of David. And so that's the culmination of that covenant promise. Well, after David died, Solomon was the next king because someone from David's house will be on that throne. But Solomon did not turn out so well, as you have read. And what happened there is that there were three things that the prophet told Israel, if you want a king, a king cannot have lots of chariots and horses, cannot have many wives, and cannot have much silver and gold. And in the last part of the royal kingdom, we see the decline of Solomon. And in 1 Kings 10 and 11, we see that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He had 666 talents of gold, 666, and then 1,400 chariots, 12,000 horsemen. So what this says is that Solomon has made alliances with foreign nations that has not ended up well for Israel.

And so there is developing underneath the surface a civil war with the ten tribes to the north not liking how they have been treated by Solomon and his son Rehoboam, and then two tribes to the south, Judah and Benjamin. So what you have here at the beginning of the divided kingdom is you have the leadership of the north headed up by Jeroboam. Now, Jeroboam, it's really kind of tricky here because it's Jeroboam is from the north, Rehoboam is from the south. It's an easy way to remember those, and that is that Jeroboam starts with a J, Rehoboam with an R. That's all I got for you right there. So, you have two leaders, and before Rehoboam, son of Solomon, takes over the kingship, Jeroboam in the north wants to have a meeting.

And in that meeting, he says, and you can read all about this in 1 Kings 12, where this whole mess begins, is that he goes to Rehoboam and said, Your father Solomon was really rough on us. How are you going to lead? So Jeroboam goes to two sets of counselors. He goes to the counselors who were with Solomon, his father, and he goes to the counselors that he grew up with. They were on the football team in high school, same class, all that. And so he gets the counsel from the elders, and they said to him, Rehoboam, you have to serve these people. You cannot continue with a hard policy like your father, Solomon. And he says, okay, whatever. And then he goes to the guys that were his own age

and said, what do you guys think? And they gave him bad advice. They said that your father, Solomon, he ruled with whips. You'll rule with scorpions. And basically said, you can outdo your father. Don't give in to these people at all. And so he took the advice of the young counselors, and that's where everything went wrong. And for all of you who are reading along with Father Mike, there's one verse that this all pivots on like a seesaw. It's the fulcrum, and that is 1 Kings 12 and verse 16. And this verse is so critical because this begins a major division in the land of Canaan from Israel to two nations. And here's the verse. When all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, what portion have we in David. We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. To your tents, O Israel,

look now to your own house, David. And that was the year 930 BC. And there was a divided kingdom. And this is where people get lost because when you're reading through the Bible, they're not going to hear you say, and then the kingdom divided and let me explain this all to you. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's kind of just, it happens. And then you have to, you're dealing with, oh, Israel in the North, Judah in the South.

Wait, I thought they were the people of Israel. And I thought Judah was a tribe. And, and yet there's like, as you said, it's you said, to pay attention to this moment is critical. Yeah, and you bring up a good point, and that is that if you were to quiz people and say, is Judah the people of God? Yes. Is Israel the people of God? Yes.

You kind of consider Israel the same as Judah, because we've been talking about Israel all this time, you know? Right, right. Judah, because we've been talking about Israel all this time, you know, but not now. Now the name Israel, the title Israel, will be speaking about the 10 tribes to the north under Jeroboam's rule, and Judah will be the title for the southern kingdom, which is in the south with Judah and Benjamin. So before we get into how do you actually read this, here's the problem that we're facing in this section. Once the kingdom divides, we have the country of Israel to the north, and that's led by Jeroboam, and we have a country to the south, Judah, that's led by

Rehoboam, that's the son of Solomon. The promise to David will flow through the south, and that's important because Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah. But here's the problem. If you look at a map, you will see that the dividing line between the north and the south is just north of Jerusalem. Now, that poses a problem for the 10 tribes to the north in Jeroboam. And that problem is they don't have access to the temple anymore. They don't have access. Right. And David had established Jerusalem as the place where this is where the Ark of the Covenant is going to abide. This is where the presence of God will reside. This is where the sacrifices will happen, not all the other places, but just in Jerusalem,

in the temple. And it seems, I think a lot of times people miss the fact that, you know, a synagogue is a place of prayer, a place of study, but not a place of worship in the sense that the temple is where sacrifices are offered, that this is restricted to this one place. And therefore, we go back to what we're talking about in Deuteronomy and in Exodus and Numbers when it came to, or Leviticus, the high holy feasts. They go, everyone, people travel to Jerusalem to celebrate those great festivals. But now that's a whole nother country.

And it's a country that you've separated from intentionally. And so what do you do now? Yeah, you got a big problem. And you brought up a good analogy that a synagogue is not a temple, just like a community center is not the church building. The church building is a place for sacrifice, the mass. And in Israel, the temple is the central place. So Jeroboam has a problem. If his people cannot get to the temple, what do they do?

And this is the rub right here. And that is Jeroboam creates his own sacrificial places. And he erects two golden calves. I know, it's like, oh my gosh, I thought we were through with all of that. He- Exactly, this is part two. Yeah, right, right. He creates two golden calves and puts one at Bethel, which is in the south part of the north, and the other one is in Dan, which is at the very northern part of the country.

And he says, these are the gods that brought you up out of Egypt. Okay, so the sacrificial system was a problem for him. No problem, we'll make our own up. We'll make our own liturgy. We'll make our own religion. We'll make our own feast days, and we will have our own priests. And yeah, he recruits from others outside of the Levites, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, he makes it up, basically. And it's like a made-up religion in the north, which if you make up your own faith, then you're going to live with the results of that, which is chaos and disillusionment, and that's what happens in the north. And so understanding that geopolitical little tidbit there about what is it like not to be in the south around Jerusalem. That is so

important to understand this period of the divided kingdom. So what we have now is we have, and I want to just say it again because it's so important, and that is that we have two countries, Israel to the north, Jeroboam is the leader, 10 tribes, capital is Samaria, the city of Samaria. South, it's called Judah, two tribes, Benjamin and Judah, and Rehoboam is the king in the south. Now, as people begin to read the narrative through this period, they're going to be reading from 1 Kings 12, where the division takes place in verse 16, all the way to 2 Kings 16. So all of that, I'll say it again, 1 Kings 12 all the way to 2 Kings 16, that is the narrative of this period. But here's where people need guidance. When you read that narrative, you have to be careful of who the

writer is talking about. Is it from Israel in the north? Is it from Judah in the south? Is it referring to Samaria? That's the north. Is it referring to Jerusalem? That's the south. So, you are called on to pay attention. As you're reading this now, you're going to be reading a lot of this, King so-and-so of Israel, so-and-so King of Judah, and it goes up and down, down and up, up, it goes all over. So you have to really pay attention to that. And then the other thing is, this is where two-thirds of the Old Testament fits in. That's the prophets. And typically people, they will read the prophets as, well, I just think there's probably problems in Israel, you know, and the prophets are adding some suggestions.

Something must be going on. But it's not that. What it is, is the prophets are speaking to the conditions either in the north or the south or another country like Jonah speaks to the Ninevites outside of the north and south. So you got to pay attention. Yeah. And that's so critical. Also, the names. There are a number of times where the kingdom of Israel has a king that has the same name as a king of Judah. And it's like, OK, wait. Oh, this is Jehoram, king of Judah, Jehoram, king of Israel. Joash is OK.

He's in Judah. Sometimes it can be a little bit problematic in terms of what we're doing is when we do go through this Bible in a year is we're also reading from Second Chronicles. And so we're hearing some of the stories doubled up. And so the names are multiplied as well. And so, again, one of the key things to do is to be able to keep in mind, OK, Israel, Ephraim, north, Judah, south. And also one of the things I think you pointed out to me that while there are some kings in Judah, some kings throughout the course of this time who are good, a number of them are not good, none of the kings of the north are faithful.

I mean, Jeroboam starts off with setting up false gods and the rest of them essentially continue that. No one really fully undoes that and they never return to true worship of the Lord God. And so there aren't any good kings of Israel. Am I accurate in saying that? Because I think that's the sense that I ultimately get is that in Judah, there's some good ones.

In Israel, they all go astray, essentially. Right. Yeah, you're exactly right. The division that resulted in the North not having access to the temple, the result of that was a false religion and false kings. And so you have in the North all bad kings, I mean horrible kings in the north, and there's nine different dynasties. There's one wiping out another, wiping out another. As opposed to the south, the line of Jesus, Judah, you have one family dynasty from David all the way to Jesus, and there are some good kings, but there are also some really bad kings in the South. So what you and I are sharing right now, most Christians in America don't know this. They don't know the detail of this split, and they can't explain that. So

this is actually one of those podcasts, Father Mike, where it might be good for people to listen to this a couple of times. A couple of times. Yeah, absolutely. Because then what's going to happen is when we get to the next time period of exile is by the end of this time period of divided kingdom, the kingdom of Israel in the north, those 10 tribes are going to be gone and never to be recovered except for the universal covenant that God sends throughout the entire world in the church through Jesus. And that's so, so critical. And even you highlighted something that I think people can find some hope in, and that is here in the south, in the kingdom of Judah, that's one bloodline. It is, it's God being faithful to that promise to David that a member of your family, of

your line will always sit on the throne here. And that sense of like, I will not abandon this kingdom. Now they're going to get into exile. They're going to have a bunch of problems, but there's a great opportunity for us to experience real hope and recognizing and affirming the fact that, okay, even in the midst of all this mess, I mean, we went through a bunch of mess, right, when it came to conquest and judges and all that, that just chaos. And yet here, even when there's some order, even when there's royalty, there's going to be some mess and some real violence.

There's going to be some real ugliness. There's going to be some real infidelity. And yet here is God who is being completely faithful, which brings in the prophets, right? Who are trying to speak into this situation. And we actually get a chance during this divided kingdom time period to hear from, I think, four prophets. We're going to hear from Hosea and Amos, Jonah and Micah. And as you said, Jonah goes off to the Ninevites, but the others are really trying to speak into the lives of the people and the lives of these kingdoms and saying, just come

back. Basically, you don't want to actually go after these false gods. You want to stay faithful to the Lord. So come back while there's still time. And we're going to experience the consequences. Well, you bring up a good point. And that is that now that the kingdom has divided into Israel to the north and Judah to the south, and Israel in the north does not have a true religion now, does that mean that God is done with them and is not going to talk to them anymore? No. God does talk to them, but he talks to them through the prophets. And the two that you mentioned, Amos and Hosea, are the two principal prophets that speak to the north. And I'll give you just an idea how powerful this is. The one prophet that speaks to the north that is a longer book is Hosea. And Hosea, it's really interesting because God told him to marry a harlot. You think,

oh, there you go again. That's the crazy story, Jeff. No, no, there's meaning here. He told him to marry this harlot and she cheated on him. And so Hosea feels the pain of that infidelity and then prophesies to the northern 10 tribes. And his prophecy has a certain shape to it in the north. And that is, number one, God is your husband, North. God is your husband. Number two, you have been unfaithful. And number three, you're going to go into exile. You're going to go into exile, which you alluded to that earlier. They're going to go into exile later in the next period, the baby blue period. But here's the good news. I will not forget you. I will come to you and I will give you living water. And I don't want to tell the story,

but I'll give you a little bit of a hint. John chapter four, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman, and we'll tie it together when we get to that. So Hosea says this many times in the book of Hosea, God is your husband. You've been unfaithful. You're going into exile. God will not forget you. He will come looking for you and he will give you living water. That's the message of Hosea to the north. And Amos has a similar message. And what we're going to find out as you read through it is they never do come back to God. Right, right. But we can learn a lot. I mean, we can learn a lot from what they didn't do.

And a lot of the names that you're going to be coming across, Jezebel and- Ahab. And others are going to be familiar, right? These are all in the north. And Elijah comes and speaks in the north. And he's got a real tough job in that he speaks the truth to the north. And then he becomes scared and runs, you know? So we'll be coming into that, Elijah and Elisha and those stories.

And in the south, we're going to see the line of David struggling with faithfulness. And what's going to happen to both the North and the South in the next period is they're both going to go into exile. And as you said, the North, they're never going to come back. They're gone. Those 10 tribes, what some would call the 10 lost tribes, are lost, but we'll see when we come to the New Testament too that Paul always has them in mind. And so God is faithful even if his people are unfaithful. And that seems to be the message again and again, a message of the prophets and of, as you noted a little bit more deeply into Hosea, that sense of here is Gomer who is unfaithful and yet Hosea being called to like, no. Even the first couple chapters of Hosea that talk about you went after these other lovers

essentially because you said, oh, they're giving me all these things. You didn't realize, God says, that I was the one who gave you all those things. And yet you ascribe them to others. And that's why I think that not only for the sake of knowing the family story and knowing the great story of God's covenant with his people and of the Bible, but also knowing our own hearts, our own hearts get exposed in the course of this story, because we realize how often in contentment and in times of blessings and abundance, we even thank the wrong source oftentimes, as opposed to even acknowledging that, oh, no, all these blessings, they ultimately come from the Lord. And they're ultimately meant to go back to the Lord in some ways, in many ways.

One last thing, Jeff, what is another way we can or just one last maybe word as we conclude this episode, as we launch into this next divided kingdom time period, things to kind of be aware of or things that will really help the listener slash reader? Well, I think two things. One is a practical literary comment about something you mentioned earlier, 1 and 2 Chronicles. The second is some things that we can learn and pay attention to when it comes to the liturgy.

The first is, you mentioned it, that people are going to be hearing stories that they'll say, I thought you read that already, you know? And that's Chronicles. And we mentioned this a few shows ago, but it's worth repeating, and that is that Chronicles does chronicle the king of Israel, the king of Judah. But there is a special emphasis on the southern kingdom. So Chronicles is really chronicling the south, not the north, but chronicling the south. And it has a way of really chronicling the good things about David, the positive things that happen. Samuel and Kings, they talk about everything, all the dirty laundry and everything, but Chronicles is really establishing that covenant with David. So when you hear Chronicles, understand that we're focused on the South here.

And so you get kind of a double look at the South, not only in Kings, but in Chronicles as well. The second thing that I would just emphasize is the importance of liturgy, that liturgy is not something where God controls his people. Liturgy is something where God shares his life with people, and it's very, very important. And so when we talk about liturgy at this time in Bible history, we're talking about sacrifices, we're talking about the priesthood, we're talking about going out and being the people of God. And in fact, in the next section on the exile, we're going to find out that the South actually was taken into exile because they failed to take what they learned from the liturgy and bring it out to the world and corrupt leadership and so forth. And so as you're reading through this, I think that we can have a heart of thankfulness for the fact that we do have a liturgy, and that's the Mass, and this is God's perfect plan of

sheer goodness. And when you deviate from that, which I did years ago, I left the Catholic Church. To be honest with you, we had great friends, we had some wonderful experiences, but I deviated from the most important thing that God had ever given me, and that was the Eucharist. And I, to some degree, did have to make up a bit of a liturgy and so forth. And it wasn't as bad as the North, but I certainly was missing out. I was missing out. And the further you stray from the liturgy, the less you are going to know God, because God

meets us in the liturgy. He is redeeming us. He is feeding us. He is encouraging us so that we can go out into the world and spread his kingdom, his yoke, his worldview. And so the liturgy really ties us all together. And in fact, it's almost like a cosmic experience where those in heaven and those on earth come together and worship. And there's nothing else in the world that offers the people of God that opportunity like the liturgy. Oh, no, that's so good. Exactly. People can take that to an extreme and just kind of plug and play and just go through the motions.

But that's not what you're talking about at all. You're talking about you entering into this thing that is greater than us and this thing that has been given to us by God himself and in that this is the blood of the new and eternal covenant, Jesus says at the Last Supper. And you recognize that, oh, if I stay close to this, I'm staying close to him. And man, because we all have that tendency of like Gomer, we're a bunch of Gomers. And we have the tendency to just, you know, wander away. And what does the liturgy do?

Yeah, liturgy is a place of that touchstone. It brings us back. And wow, yeah, I'm so glad you said that. Thank you so much for those words. And I'm so grateful for even these introductions to these time periods, because it just gives all of us who are reading and listening a clearer lens. And that's what this whole Bible in a year is about, is about having that lens that can see the world, see our lives, see God himself in the way that God has revealed himself in that biblical worldview. And so thank you, Jeff, once again.

And for all of us who are here, please know that we are praying for you. And please keep praying for us because this has been a long journey. And today is day, I think, what, gosh, 162 is the first day of the divided kingdom, which is pretty phenomenal that all of you have been faithful to this and part of this journey. So again, please know of our prayers for you. Please keep praying for us. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow.

God bless.