Pretension Busters:

Achievement

www.despair.com

Arrogance cannot be avoided or true hope be present

unless the judgment of condemnation is feared in every work

--Martin Luther

(Heidelberg Disputation, Thesis 11)

Solomon ordered a temple to be built to honor the Lord, as well as a royal palace for himself. Solomon had 70,000 common laborers and 80,000 stonecutters in the hills, in addition to 3,600 supervisors.

2 Chronicles 2:1-2

Hank Lanknecht from Trinity Seminary once said in a sermon based on the apocryphal Daniel and the priests of Baal that "we give to God the things we most want to enjoy ourselves." Solomon satisfied his vision and his determination to "enjoy" honoring the Lord with the Temple by using the same tactics the Egyptians had used many generations before: conscription of those different--"put the aliens to work!" Furthermore, these "aliens" were the very ones Joshua had been ordered by the Lord to eradicate. Their existence was an ongoing reminder of the peoples' failure of obedience. Perhaps there is something sadly ironic that the very ones whom the Lord had ordered exterminated should be the ones building the temple to honor their would be exterminator. But my sense of irony is most aroused when I consider the warning the Lord gave to Solomon concerning his building of the Temple: the Lord's presence was contingent upon Solomon's obedience and lack of idolatry. (1 Kings 6:11-13) How Solomon could hear that warning and still go ahead and complete the Temple with labor whose very presence represented disobedience has to be one of the most ironic stories in scripture.

Christians have often become a source of "expendable labor"--or at least, expendable income--to those determined to 'give to God the things they most want to enjoy themselves.' The "Babel Syndrome" runs deep in all of us, I guess. Though the confusion of language may have been the end of the Babel culture, the Syndrome will only be eradicated when the Old Adam, the Old Eve, and this old, old creation pass away. Until then, we'll continue to be "expendable labor and income" to those with shiny visions and great determination to honor themselves in the guise of giving to the Lord.

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery.

(Galatians 5:1)