IN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON March 10, 2008 Issue

A weekly column in which writers discuss Bible passages that appear in the Christian Science Bible Lessons.

SOLOMON: PROVERBIAL WISDOM AND A CAUTIONARY TALE

MICHAEL HAMILTON

THIS WEEK'S CHRISTIAN SCIENCE BIBLE LESSON includes the story of Solomon's request to God for wisdom, and also draws on the book of Proverbs, which is attributed to him.

In the Lesson's second section, Solomon's response to God's offer ("Ask what I shall give thee," I Kings 3:5) is both commendable and memorable. It anticipates Jesus' direction in the Sermon on the Mount, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matt. 6:33, section three). Solomon's wisdom and resultant wealth are—excuse the pun—proverbial. But his insight into what's truly substantial—"an understanding heart"—may have been hard-won for the new king, as well as a challenging ideal from which he sometimes strayed. What can we learn from Solomon that will help us "stay the course," and live more consistently and closely with what really matters?

Whatever his actual age at the beginning of his reign, Solomon may indeed have felt like "a little child" when he had his dream-vision and responded to God's invitation, "Ask what I shall give thee." The upheaval that came with his accession to power, the intricacies of foreign policy-making, the building projects inherited from his father, King David, may have been overwhelming to the new king. However, Solomon seemed to recognize that the necessities of his situation were both universal and essentially spiritual. A passage in Science and Health in the Lesson's second section articulates the timeless demand: "Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual,—they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite,—in order that sin and mortality may be put off" (p. 265).