Bubblical

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Kings 11:14-14ffAll hell seems to break loose in these next few chapters. Similar to Duke and Gonzo under the influence of drugs in a wild array of encounters in Las Vegas, Rehoboam and Jeroboam are under the influence of God’s cup of wrath as they stagger through Israel encountering an array of prophets and stupidity. The kingdom is now divided. As God p...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms1Kings 11:14-14ffThe heart wants what it wants. It’s God who tells us the real problem of the world: heart attacks. Solomon’s heart loved God until he had sex with so many women like Wilt Chamberlain. Then Sol gave his heart to his women’s gods. Wilt had the good sense to confess that he wasn’t thinking straight. To do it all over he would make love to one...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Kings 9-10God talks to Solomon for the second time. This time God speaks to Solomon like a good dad, explaining the great responsibilities behind the wheel of the Kingdom. It’s God kingdom, and His rules. Keep it on the road, and God is delighted to have Solomon behind the wheel. Take it off roading and the keys will be taken away. God sends his favorite...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms1Kings 8Solomon is the Master of Ceremonies over an 8 day party. What gets the party started? The ark is coming into the temple, and we should all know what that means…we’re gonna get married, as the old bee bop song goes. The 10 commandments are always the vows to a marriage with God, not a legal code.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Kings 5-7Details about the temple being built appear to us ‘ad nauseam’. But this is the reality God gives us and an important piece contemporary with its own times. God permits Solomon to build a temple, but warns what this temple should be. God’s temple is a symbol of his dwelling with his people that he has redeemed, established and given rest to, a pe...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms1Kings 4This chapter offers a window into God’s practical guide for wisdom. It starts with loving God and asking for wisdom for other people’s sake. And then, surround yourself with an entourage of other who love God and have wisdom for other people’s sake not your own. That is what the who’s who list in chapter 4 is driving at. Solomon runs a government th...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms1Kings 3The Kingdom may be in Solomon’s hand but what does God have to say? God taps Solomon in a dream to test his heart. You don’t have to be a King to be like Solomon and his answer to God is the key to the Kingdom. Solomon loves God, appreciates God and asks God for his help with good and evil. You don’t have to be a King to follow this script.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Kings 1-2One last look at David. He is old, cold and impotent - even with the most beautiful girl in the land spooning with him at night. This is not a good look, and not surprisingly another son makes a run at the crown. A blast from the past, Nathan and the Prophet and Bathsheba, wake David up from his impotency to pursue a proper succession to the crow...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 21:15 thru ch 23David has been more than naked about the egregious mistakes he has made and now it’s time to end on David’s heart which is his heart for God. He was a faithful warrior for God along with his fighting men, and he was also the sweetest poet that Israel ever had. God gave us David to learn from both negatively and positively. David give...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 21:1-14, 24Awkward ending and awkward bits all thru these two chapters. Did the author understand how awkward this is? Yes. In the awkward, our attention must be drawn. Our attention then focuses on the endless and exhausting nature of the need for atonement and an atonement that can be once and for all, which is where the story points when it gets...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 15-20The sin of David with Bathsheba rolls into a wayward son who usurps his father, takes the kingdom into civil war, and has sex with his father’s concubines. Off the hook stuff, but actually the substance of modern day politics of rebellion. This can not be the Kingdom of God. We need a king to do away with evil once and for all.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 14-15David’s ‘sexcapades’ continue to roll out consequences, just like God said. David went from being the epitome of faith in God to dirty rotten scoundrel, and now he is a ‘do nothing dad’. Every character in God’s novel shows us both faith and unfaith, so that we can be inspired to do better than even kings like David. Fatherhood is half of God’s...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 11-13All the good vibrations of Israel becoming a nation among nations, to bring the nations to God and to bring God’s compassion to the down and outs goes out the window. Sex in the city turns the kingdom upside down, as it does. The real Kingdom of God must defeat evil not wallow in it. David really steps in it in this maddening story of sex gone...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 10Mocking, beards and the Kingdom of God roll together in this pretty humorous and eye opening segment of God’s story. David behaves with Godliness but the world around him mocks. God gets the last laugh and the Ammonites are embarrassed beyond their own mockery. But there is something about mocking beards that God uses here and later in his story....

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 9The high point of the promised nation of Israel’s inauguration is a cripple named Mephibosheth. Equity and justice for all! This is God’s idea for us, then and now. Jesus makes it even better, the kingdom Jesus promises takes compassion as its chief virtue top down then out, so that the down and outs can have equity and justice. Your kingdom come y...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 8What seems like an uneventful, maybe a bit dreary, text is actually a peak in the whole Biblical story so far. A thousand years before David, God promised a nation to Abraham’s children and here it is! This is the Kingdom of God and God’s promise fulfilled. Exciting stuff, but is this it? It can’t be, because God told David (2Sam 7:13) that a son o...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 7:18-29David talks to God. Why? Because God became his God. When God becomes your God you should talk to him, just like David. That’s what this passage is here for. Do you talk with God? Are you amazed by his grace in your prayers? Do you pray God’s promises? David models proper prayer so you can pray like this. No surprise, Jesus teaches us to pray...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms2Samuel 7:1-17Today we expect leaders to be ‘servant leaders’ without realizing how different this is to human history and the world outside Christian influence. God gives David a lesson of History by reminding David that he is a happy camper, pitching a tent wherever his people are. If this isn’t extraordinary, nothing is. God keeps his word moving forward...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 2Samuel 6 David grabs the Ark, throws it on cart and starts the party train to Jerusalem. When an ox slips, the Uzzah is struck down by God and David gets angry with God. What went so wrong? Was it the partying? Nope. We suffer from man in the box syndrome when it comes to God and God knows us so well that he makes a box for himself because he’s funny. Pay...

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 2Samuel 2-5 We are political animals. These chapters reveal the normal human involvements in politics in this world. God knows our political nature is the point. Ultimately, the Gospel of God is the good news of God’s politics that are not of this world.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 2Samuel 1 Three talking heads form the story: the narrator, an Amelekite, and David. Sounds funny until someone gets killed. What is the point of this story? Reality. The real world we live in and the real God who making His story in and for the real world we live in.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Samuel 27-31 As we left David and Saul, they were both seemingly on point, the proverbial spear head. Now, both are dead heads, but one will lose a head and the other will become the Grateful Dead. Take this long strange trip with David and Saul, and draw closer to God so you to can be truckin’ with God.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Samuel 26 David is spear heading God’s will in this comical adventure where David swipes Saul’s spear. Spear heading God’s will is all our comical adventure and David shows us how to do it , or maybe Saul shows us how not to do it.

Talkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1Samuel 25 Meet Abigail, woman of epic Godly wisdom. Meet David and Nabal, boys doing what boys do, being silly. Abigail towers over both as God’s providential agent. Also a word on polygamy and same gender relations.

alkin’ with God about Kings and Kingdoms 1 Samuel 21-24 David is on the run, and so are we. How do we find rest? The right WORD is the answer.