1 Kings 2: 10-12, 3:3-14
Ephesians 5:15-20
“A Crucial Indicative Conditional”
Solomon’s dream was a boon to his career — a windfall for the PR campaign needed for the young King consolidating his power. He only wanted wisdom, which so impressed God that God granted every other good thing too. The public sharing of the dream almost amounted to an incontrovertible “because God said so.”
If one were feeling cynical, we might wonder if some how the Spirit fell short in her proofreading of the Biblical text and the King’s press corps got their press release printed in paper of record, the Scriptural text?
Is this too thick a hermeneutical of suspicion?
Well, the King did attain great wealth and power. But he also left a bloody trail and a lot of injustice in his wake. Could that history be somehow squared with his being such a wise ruler?
Unless there is in a closer reading of the text another alternative, some way in which the granting of wisdom was conditional…
Let’s look at Solomon and the political realities in his day. We might even think about politics in our own day as more and more of our news time is taking up with the upcoming Presidential elections.
