Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The International Nature of Solomon's Temple

2 Chronicles 2:13-14 KJV
And now I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding, of Huram my father's,
The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre, skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him, with thy cunning men, and with the cunning men of my lord David thy father.


I am always impressed that, though the Old Testament is primarily a Jewish emphasis, and we see God's plan more fully developed in the New Testament, still there is every reason in the world for the serious student of the Bible to see, even in the Old Testament that God's plan included people of nations other than the Jews. In fact, we could say that the very Temple of Solomon was not a national but international one.

Solomon sought for and received help from a foreign king in both the supplying of materials and in the experts employed in creating the most delicate items in the Temple

Then, the skilled help that foreign king sent them was, himself, the offspring of a Gentile father and Jewish mother.

Finally, Solomon employed those strangers (count them Gentiles) that lived in the Promised Land to do the majority of the manual labor required to construct his "wonderful great" Temple to the Lord.

The Jews never should have been bothered that Gentiles visited the Temple (as they accused Paul of) the Temple was built largely by Gentiles. And that reflects the fact that it has been God's plan all along to include and employ people of every race tongue and kindred, even those whose backgrounds include mixed blood (a thing God's Word teaches should not have happened).

God's grace and love extending to all mankind is demonstrated over and again in His Word.

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