King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women . . . and his wives led him astray. (1 Kings 11:1, 3)
Expanded Passage: 1 Kings 11:1-3
I didn’t watch the TV show Big Love, but I know the basic premise: a polygamous Salt Lake City businessman and his adventures in managing his multi-wife marriage. A TV series about Solomon would be exponentially more complicated—after all, he had a thousand-spouse harem (v. 3)! With that many wives, someone is bound to feel jilted. In Solomon’s case, that someone was God.
Everything about Solomon’s story sounds larger than life: first the number of people in his kingdom (2 Chron. 1:9), then the extent of his wisdom and influence (1 Kings 4:29–34), and now the excess of his love life. But his weakness for widespread attractions proved a fatal distraction from his devotion to God. It compromised his witness to his own people and the surrounding nations.
Too often the news reports big-name Christian leaders whose lack of restraint, like Solomon’s, undermines their ministries while the church and the world look on. Solomon ignored God’s command, preferring to follow his own heart (1 Kings 11:2), and his heart led him astray. If you and I want to avoid a similar disaster, we must remain accountable to Scripture, spouse, and church. Solomon substituted quantity for quality: he “held fast . . . in love” (1 Kings 11:2) to a thousand women instead of the one true God. When it comes to love, less can be more.
Commit to love the one God faithfully and fully.
Jerome Van Kuiken is a professor of Christian thought at Oklahoma Wesleyan University and the author of The Judas We Never Knew (Seedbed, 2023).
© 2024 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
