The Kingdom economy is very different from that of the world. The world economy is about meeting our own needs by the work of our hands. The Kingdom economy is about meeting the needs of one another with the resources God has put in our care as stewards of His kingdom. My husband’s spiritual gift was generosity. I learned from him how to hold lightly the things God has entrusted to my care. I believe this is what Acts 2:42-47 is describing.
The Bible also speaks of “going out and coming in.” We can think about our being in the world but not of it in this way: we go out into the world to gather resources by the work of our hands. We come back into the Kingdom to celebrate, worship, share and enjoy the first fruits with God and one another. We go back out into the world to sow a portion of our resources in the world for future seasons and future generations for those who will come into the kingdom through our ministering the generosity of the Spirit and the blessings He provides. There are always people within the kingdom and beyond in the world who are in need. God makes provision for them through His people by His wisdom and blessings. Live in the Kingdom. Take the Kingdom principles and resources into the world daily and teach others how to live in it, too, inviting them to become part of it through your witness and your action.
Solomon, on his anointing as king recognized his inexperience and his privilege and the opportunity before him. He had seen the successes of King David and the accumulation of wealth to build God’s temple. But he had also seen the some of failures and frailties of his father’s leadership and earnestly sought God’s wisdom for the good of God’s people.
“ O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in…. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad. 1 Kings 3:7-9.”
Solomon ruled well in many ways, but the pride of prosperity brought separation from God. From the joy of divine communion Solomon turned to find satisfaction in pleasure and self gratification. Of this experience he says:
“I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards …: I got me servants and maidens …: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasures of kings and of the provinces: I got me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem…. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour.”…
“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done” (Ecclesiastes 2:4-12).
(There is a lot of thought for “me” and “I” and no evidence of thought for God and others in the fearless and searching moral inventory of Solomon about his life….)
“I hated life…. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun” (verses 17, 18).
By Solomon’s bitter experience of pursuing wealth for his own sake and the power it conferred, Solomon learned the emptiness of a life that seeks its highest good in the pursuit and accumulation of earthly things without thought of God’s desires. THIS is the true wisdom granted to Solomon. A wise pastor told me once, “The good news is that God will give you what you want. The bad news is that God will give you what you want.” The wisdom is in wanting the right things, the things that God has prepared for you and desires for you to pursue and use “for His glory, others’ gain, and your good.” (CBB 5/23/25)