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• wisdom

Some people live on a budget. Others accumulate debt on their credit cards.

Whether rich or poor, in abundance or in need, we are all burdened by financial stresses and must decide how to spend what we have.

Timothy Keller, in his book The Prodigal God, defines the word prodigal as one having spent it all, recklessly extravagant…

In Matthew 13:45-46, we see the parable of the pearl of great price or value. We don’t know the financial condition of the merchant in search of fine pearls. We don’t know how many nice pearls he had found previously.

What we do know is that when he found this one pearl, he went and sold everything he had in order to buy it. He sacrificed it all for the one.

God sacrificed his one and only Son—he paid the ultimate price, that we might be his.

What are you willing to sacrifice in order to be his disciple (Luke 14:33)? The widow gave her last two coins (Luke 21:1-4).

This kind of financial practice seems foolish to the world, but we recognize it as wise spending.

God sees you as the pearl of great price. Do you see him in the same way?

• wisdom

Who marries 700 women, has 300 concubines, follows their foreign gods, and yet still constructs the most elaborate temple for Jehovah God? The same man who is known as “the Preacher,” the wisest and richest man to walk the earth (second only in wisdom to Christ, of course). Solomon.

As the book of Ecclesiastes confirms, Solomon denied himself nothing. And he paid for it dearly. He forgot his own admonition at the end of the book to fear God and keep his commands.

Just as God had warned, Solomon was led astray by his foreign wives and began to worship their gods. He even built high places for the various gods that each of his different wives worshipped.

This angered God greatly and he would’ve completely stripped the kingdom from Solomon but for his promise to David. Solomon broke his covenant with God, so God tore the kingdom from him—not during his rule and not 100% of the kingdom, again, because of God’s promise to David (1 Kings 11:1-13).

What would’ve happened had Solomon followed his own advice—practiced what he preached?

In Proverbs 18:22, Solomon says that he who finds a wife finds a good thing, but he was unable to describe the virtuous wife in Proverbs 31… We look to King Lemuel for that account.

I suppose that if finding a wife means you find a good thing, finding 700 wives is even better? Not really. Maybe that’s why he dedicates two and a half chapters in Proverbs warning against adultery, in addition to a warning in Ecclesiastes 9:9 to enjoy life with the wife whom you love.

While it is easy to point our finger of blame at Solomon for not practicing what he preached as it related to his wives, the graver and more foundational error was not fearing God or keeping his commands.

Are you practicing what you preach?

What does it mean to fear God and keep his commands today?