2026-09-27
1 Kings 6:7 When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built.
It often feels difficult and trying, or at least it has felt so for me, to read through all the descriptions and details in the Bible which might not immediately reveal their point or importance to us. We find these passages very difficult to appreciate because we just do not relate to them the way we do the rest of Scripture. One is always reminded of the struggle of getting through certain parts in Numbers or the last chapters of Ezekiel. In 1 Kings 6, it’s more or less of the same; in it we read about the details of the temple that Solomon built for the name of the Lord. Once in a while, however, a sentence or an instruction jumps of the page, and we find that it has something to teach and urge us towards, only if we will linger a bit, and listen.
In the building of the temple, the preparation, shaping, and hewing of the stones happened at the quarry rather than in the house while it was being built. I have wondered whether this doesn’t have some insight to give insofar as our unpreparedness and immaturity while we stand before the Lord to serve him is concerned. It’s at the quarry that the stones need to be prepared, yet that isn’t done as it ought to be, and the work prolongs into the building of God’s house. Paul’s lament in Hebrews 5:12 was that “though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food…” They had not zealously, consistently, and with discipline applied themselves to learn, master, and practice the faith that had once and for all been delivered to them.
Most of us would testify that our maturity and growth in the doctrines of the Bible isn’t so much a matter of our intelligence as much it is of our obedience. We are already, as it were, excelling in various other areas of our lives that surely ask for so much; our academics and businesses for instance. It is, however, sad that Christians though we are, it is clear to ourselves and to others too that though we are rich in worldly goods, whatever those might be, we are not as rich towards God, nor does his word dwell richly in us as Colossians 3:16 enjoins. When we show up for fellowship and worship, we find that we have to work ourselves up into a fervor of holiness. We have to, in a sense, pray ourselves up into tender feelings for our Master. Because, really, that’s not how we live our lives the rest of the week when so much time is spent in jesting and crude joking, in lying and compromise, in sin and disobedience– and by the time we show up to fellowship together, we have so little joy and feel particularly ill-fitted for it. As A. W. Tozer says in one of his essays, what we are on Sunday will be what we have been through the rest of the week.
We should do the hard work or let the hard work be done on us at the quarry in order to get us prepared and fitted for service. If the house of God is to be spared of the sound of hammers and axes and tools of iron when we gather together, then the work of beating and chiseling us into shape must happen on other inauspicious and quite ‘normal’ days of the week. To avoid the hammer and chisel at these times is to put off a work that will only end up being even more painful and inconveniencing. And inconveniencing not just to us only but to the rest of the brethren who who would have greatly benefited from our preparedness and well-suitedness for the Master’s good work. We must indeed discern the season we are in, and if at the quarry, we must gladly surrender all, not wasting a moment in letting ourselves be gotten ready for the work and tasks ahead of us.
Prayer:
Dear Lord, thank you because it is you who works in us both to will and to do according to your good pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity to serve in your house and to accomplish your purposes in the earth. Cleanse and sanctify us from all unrighteousness, so that we will be vessels for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to you, the master of the house, and ready for every good work. In Jesus Name. Amen.