1 Kings: The Kingdom of Solomon

When God said to Solomon, ‘Ask whatever you want and I'll give it to you.’ How wonderful it was to hear Solomon say, ‘Give your servant an understanding heart that I may know how to judge between this people,’ 1 Kings 3:9. Welcome to our study of the book of 1 Kings. As we look to the history of Israel today, I want to encourage you to get your Bible and have it ready as we're going to look to the word of God to learn some very practical lesson from this time in Israel's history known as 1 Kings. As we think today about the great book of 1 Kings, much of this is going to encompass the reign of Solomon, David's son. Solomon had so much good, so much potential, and started out with the right heart-but things got in Solomon's way and things tempted him to go the wrong way. In the book of 1 Kings, we're mainly dealing with what we refer to as the United Kingdom. Basically, in the book of 1 and 1 Samuel we've got Saul reigning for 40 years. Then along in 2 Samuel, you'll have David, who's going to reign for 40 years as well. Then as we turn to 1 Kings, you now have Solomon, who's also going to reign for about 40 years. (The full transcript is available in the "Download Document" button above.)