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TEMPLE BUILDERS. I Kings 5:13-18. 05/08/2022. #13.
13 Then King Solomon raised up a labor force out of all Israel; and the labor force was thirty thousand men. 14 And he sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts: they were one month in Lebanon and two months at home; Adoniram was in charge of the labor force. 15 Solomon had seventy thousand who carried burdens, and eighty thousand who quarried stone in the mountains, 16 besides three thousand three hundred from the chiefs of Solomon’s deputies, who supervised the people who labored in the work. 17 And the king commanded them to quarry large stones, costly stones, and hewn stones, to lay the foundation of the temple. 18 So Solomon’s builders, Hiram’s builders, and the Gebalites quarried them; and they prepared timber and stones to build the temple.
1. Gonna build a Temple
a. Now that Solomon had secured a contract for material, he needed to gather a labor force
a1. There were no building machines
a2. Had to use the six simple machines used from antiquity: wheel, wedge, incline plane,
screw, lever and fulcrum, and pulley
a3. Oxen, horses, donkeys, and mules provided extra power and muscle
b. Solomon wanted to expedite the project, so he gathered a massive labor force (7 years to build – cathedral at Chartes took 600 years to build)
c. Shows God’s blessing on Solomon when he could afford such a payroll
a1. 183,300 worked on the Temple
a2. Need either massive time or labor force to expedite an enormous project
d. God gave Solomon great engineering skills to do the job
2. A massive undertaking
a. Sol sent 30,000 men in 3 shifts to work alongside Hiram’s men in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains
b. 70,000 men were used to transport wood and other material from source and port to Jerusalem
c. 80,000 were used to cut and shape stone blocks
a1. Stone carving is laborious, heavy, slow work with each stone cut out of the mountain, shaped, and fitted
a2. The work must be precise to work
a3. Carved images or scrolling on the stone took skilled artisans
d. 3,300 foremen oversaw the work
e. God blessed the work
a1. The work was well planned and organized with each stone precisely cut to fit in exact positions in the building
a2. All 3 groups (Jews, Phoenicians, and Gebalites) working well with each other (Gebal = a town at base of Mt. Herman, whose men were stone masons)
f. Solomon showed a marked skill in organizing and supervising major building projects
a1. Solomon loved building so much that he kept building structures
a2. Building with a valid beneficial purpose is good, but building for self-satisfaction
alone is wasteful and vain
3. The complete ministry
a. Ministry requires all kinds of skills (evangelism, counseling, teaching, finance, child skills, care sick and elderly, music, administration, planning…)
a1. 1 Cor. 12 not everyone is gifted and tasked the same (all the skills fit to make a whole)
a2. The builder and preacher all play a part in the success of the ministry
b. Solomon was not only given an abundant of gifts, but also the ability to recognize gifts and others and to use those skills effectively
c. As exciting as building the temple was, the edifice was tool for a greater purpose (focus for worship)
a1. Tools are to be used to honor God a2. Tools and aids are not sacred in themselves, nor is the activity sacred (offerings, communion, music, scripture, etc.), but is an aid