BROADCASTS.com

Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, \u201cCome back to me in three days.\u201d The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, \u201cMy father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.\u201d So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite. When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: \u201cWhat share do we have in David, what part in Jesse\u2019s son? To your tents, Israel! Look after your own house, David!\u201d So the Israelites went home. (1 Kings 12:12-16)

\xa0

\xa0

I am still hung up on the theme of growing up to maturity in Christ.\xa0 Paul uses this image a few times in the New Testament, fretting over his congregations that were still too immature to eat the \u201csolid food\u201d of the faith, but could only receive \u201cmilk.\u201d\xa0 How he longed for them to grow up into the fullness of Christ! \xa0You can see this thread in passages like 1 Corinthians 3:1-4, Galatians 4:19-20, Ephesians 4:11-16, Hebrews 5:11-14.

\xa0

Jesus once declared that \u201cevery teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.\u201d\xa0 Paul was such a teacher, and some of the old treasures he brings out of his storeroom through his letters are images that come from deep reflection on the Old Testament scriptures.\xa0 This theme of maturity is one of them, I think.\xa0 I\u2019ve noticed it most recently in places like 1 Samuel 2 (click here for a devotion or sermon on that text) and right here in 1 Kings 12.

\xa0

Three times in this longer passage, King Solomon\u2019s son, Rehoboam, is said to have listened to the advice of the \u201cyoung men\u201d he grew up with, rather than the advice of the elders.\xa0 Interestingly, neither King Rehoboam nor those men he grew up with would\u2019ve been understood in that day to have been \u201cyoung.\u201d\xa0 1 Kings 14:21 says Rehoboam was 41 years old when he became king.\xa0 Given the life expectancy of the day: he was certainly no spring chicken.\xa0 Besides, the word for \u201cyoung men\u201d employed here in the Hebrew is a word which is translated in most other places in the Old Testament as \u201cchild\u201d or \u201cboy.\u201d\xa0

\xa0

The reference, therefore, seems to be to the immaturity of these men, rather than their age.\xa0 Interestingly, the only use of this word for \u201cchild\u201d or \u201cyoung man\u201d before this in the book of Kings is from the story of Solomon\u2019s wise judgement when he said to two prostitutes fighting over a living baby \u201ccut the living child in two and give half to one and half to the other.\u201d\xa0 After he said this, the true mother backed off of her claim to the child, saying: \u201cPlease, my lord, giver her the living baby! Don\u2019t kill him!\u201d while the other women exclaimed: \u201cNeither I nor you shall have him. Cut him in two!\u201d

\xa0

Somehow the story of the living child being cut in two is evoked in the telling of Rehoboam\u2019s immaturity.\xa0 I think the author means to suggest that the words of Solomon\u2019s own ruling have come back as a judgement against his own house.\xa0

\xa0

The Rabbis said that Solomon was the worst of the King of Israel because he was the one who caused the division of the nation depicted here in this text today through his sins of promiscuous marriage and idolatry.\xa0 Israel as a nation is depicted often as an unfaithful spouse that prostitutes itself after all sorts of other gods besides the Lord.\xa0 Solomon was the first such idolatrous prostitute among the Kings.\xa0 Immature, despite his wisdom, his heart was divided among many dead scraps of religion rather than wholeheartedly devoted to the living God.\xa0

\xa0

The fruit then of Solomon\u2019s house and Solomon\u2019s idolatrous prostitution, as embodied in Rehoboam, is a violent immaturity that results in the cutting of God\u2019s people in two. \xa0This is the same violent immaturity displayed in the prostitute who was not the true mother of the child. \xa0It is the same violent immaturity displayed by Pharoah as he ruthlessly worked the Israelites as slaves in Egypt.\xa0 The result of this violent immaturity?\xa0 A fatal wound that would eventually culminate in the death of both Israelite Kingdoms through exile.\xa0

\xa0

Immaturity leads to idolatry, violence, and division.\xa0 It leads to the destruction of faith and life.\xa0 The invitation, therefore, is to grow up into Christ, to become mature.\xa0 The prophet Samuel, King David, and Jesus himself all offer examples of what this \u201cgrowing up to maturity\u201d looks like, as do the fruit of the Spirit.\xa0 More on that to come.

\xa0