Wednesday – History

Reading – 1 Kings 4-6

Highlight Verse:

“He composed some 3,000 proverbs and wrote 1,005 songs.”
‭‭1 Kings‬ ‭4‬:‭32‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Solomon was a writer.

Imagine what the book of Proverbs would have looked like if all of Solomon’s proverbs made it into the Book of Proverbs.

As it is, Proverbs contains 800 of his sayings (with over a hundred more from Lemuel, Amur, and various wise men of Solomon and Hezekiah.”

If all of Solomons proverbs made it into the book, it would be more than three times its size.

Then there’s the Psalms. Of the 150 Psalms in the Bible, only 2 are attributed to Solomon. If all of Solomon’s songs had been included, Psalms would be nearly 8 times longer.

Why did they not all make it?

As a writer, I can tell you that not everything a person writes is equally inspiring or important.

The books of the Bible were chosen over 1600 years ago by people who were led by the Holy Spirit to make the right choices.

The Catholic and certain eastern churches include 18 Psalms of Solomon, but they are not generally accepted by most Protestant churches as scriptural.

In other words, not all of Solomon’s writings rise to the level of Biblical.

They may have been good but not the Word of God.

None of what I write is the literal Word of God, but it may still be helpful for people to understand their faith a little better. And then, some of what I write is just entertaining and some is, umm, not so good.

You can’t hit home runs every time you come to the plate.

My point here is that while we should strive to glorify God and draw people to Him every time we exercise our talents, we shouldn’t worry if we miss the mark sometimes.

Only 27% of Solomon’s Proverbs and less than 2% of his songs made the Biblical cut.

But they made a difference.

When you exercise your talents to glorify God, you make a difference too.

What are the primary talents that you bring to glorify God?
What differences have those talents made?
Note: this is not for us all to “toot our own horns” but to encourage others to step out with their talents.