Lessons from Solomon: Finding True Success in Life

By Glen A. Blanscet

Everyone wants to be successful. The problem, though, is that most people misunderstand what constitutes true success. The world defines success in terms of our accomplishments, the fame and fortune we achieve, and the recognitions we receive, all of which are fleeting and temporary successes at best. True success, however, is based upon our character, the relationship we have with God, and the glory God receives from our lives. So how do we achieve this level of success?

Lessons from Solomon answers this question by looking at the life of King Solomon, a man who not only achieved success by the world’s standards but also had—and lost—true success that comes from knowing God. Author Glen A. Blanscet has penned engaging narrative retellings of King Solomon’s story from the Bible, and from King Solomon’s story we learn several “success lessons” that we can apply in our own search for true success in life.

Based on the life of Solomon, Blanscet has distilled from Solomon’s story the life lessons that lead us to genuine success from the wisest man who ever lived. I highly recommend this book!

—Dr. David L. Allen, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

In this book, Glen Blanscet has masterfully extracted from scripture Solomon’s successes and failures, providing the reader with vivid lessons on attaining true success.

—Steve Mullen, PhD,

Dallas Baptist University

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973629412

Glen A. Blanscet

Glen A. Blanscet is an author, speaker, and adjunct professor in Biblical Studies at Dallas Baptist University in Dallas, Texas. He is the author of Lessons from Solomon: Finding True Success in Life and the first two volumes of his Bible Study Notes series on the New Testament, including Everything We Need: Bible Study Notes on the Epistle to the Ephesians and Contending for the Faith: Bible Study Notes on the Epistle of Jude. Glen and his wife live in the Dallas, Texas area. They have two children and three grandchildren. For more information or to contact Glen about a speaking engagement, you can reach him at GlenBlanscet.com.

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Copyright © 2018 Glen A. Blanscet.

Author Photo by Becky Blanscet

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-2940-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2942-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2941-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906155

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/21/2018

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

Book Endorsements

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1 Setting the Right Kind of Goals

Chapter 2 The Formula for Success

Chapter 3 Removing the Threats to Success

Chapter 4 Displaying the Attitudes of Success

Chapter 5 Examples of Wisdom

Chapter 6 How to Be Unsuccessful

Chapter 7 The Marks of a Real Friend

Chapter 8 The Importance of Our Words

Chapter 9 What You Need to Know to Be Successful

Chapter 10 Guarding against the Dangers of Success

Chapter 11 The Erosion of Success

Chapter 12 Success: The Conclusion of the Matter

Endnotes

About the Author

To my wife, Becky,

who has always encouraged me

to write a book and

do other things I didn’t think I could do.

Her children arise and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

"Many women do noble things,

but you surpass them all."

—Proverbs 31:28-29

BOOK ENDORSEMENTS

Self-help success books are a dime a dozen. This one is different! Based on the life of Solomon, Blanscet has distilled from Solomon’s story the life lessons that lead us to genuine success from the wisest man who ever lived. Spoiler alert! True success is having an abiding joy, peace, and contentment in life and not losing them before we get to the end. Blanscet explains to us in clear and practical ways how we can achieve that kind of success … and hang on to it. I highly recommend this book!

Dr. David L. Allen

Dean of the School of Preaching

Distinguished Professor of Preaching

George W. Truett Chair of Ministry

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

All lives are subject to examination and evaluation, especially in a day when everything we say and do is seconds from being made public to the world. In Solomon’s day, the information superhighway was not available to record his actions, but Scripture was. In this book, Glen Blanscet has masterfully extracted from Scripture Solomon’s successes and failures, providing the reader with vivid lessons on attaining true success.

Steve Mullen, Ph.D.

Dean, Mary C. Crowley College of Christian Faith

Dallas Baptist University

Practical and biblical, Glen Blanscet provides outstanding insights about success from one of the richest men who ever lived. Though deeply flawed, King Solomon is a superb example for people today who want to have solid biblical principles for finding true success. I strongly encourage you not only to read this book, but put into practice the principles Blanscet draws out into your personal and professional life.

Dr. Brent Taylor

Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church, Carrollton, Texas

Author, Founding Leadership

Having served alongside Glen Blanscet, I can say without a doubt that he is one of the best leaders I know. But he didn’t get there on his own; he listened to the wisdom of Solomon in the pages of Scripture. Let Glen help you do the same in this book as you search for true success in life.

Jesse Payne

Associate Pastor, Lakeland Baptist Church, Lewisville, Texas

Author, Gospel-ology: The Big Deal about the Good News

Solomon, absolutely one of antiquity’s greatest academics, engineers, and kings, was also just as flawed as the rest of humanity. Glen Blanscet captures this leader’s triumphs along with his miscalculations and gives the reader a deliberate path to find true success in life. Lessons from Solomon: Finding True Success in Life conveys, with the same passion with which Solomon lived, what each of us need most.

Jason Carpenter

Director of Engineering, Voyager Sopris Learning

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Throughout my life, I have had many different careers: lawyer, minister, and politician. Each had their own unique challenges and difficulties, but none were as challenging and difficult as writing a first book. I never expected to struggle over a blank page for so long or to agonize over how to translate the thoughts in my head into words on paper. It sounded easy at first, but I have learned otherwise from experience.

Without the help of so many friends and family members, I don’t know if this book would ever have happened. Over the years, many friends would ask me how the book was coming along. Even if I was doing nothing on the book at the time, just the questions kept renewing my commitment to get it done. To all of those friends, I say Thanks for continuing to bring it up. You helped me keep going.

Writing a book is in reality a team effort, and to all of those team members I say thank you. Two good friends of mine took their time to read an early draft of the book and provide helpful feedback that improved the final result. Thank you to Jason Carpenter and Jesse Payne for your support and investment in making this book better. Not only did you give valuable critiques of my work, but you also encouraged me to keep on going. Also, thank you to Georgia Rutherford, who provided important advice and assistance to me.

No book is ever as good as it can be without the help of an excellent editor. I appreciate the advice and support of my editor, Jana Good. Thank you for reading and rereading and re-rereading the book, catching and correcting all of my errors, and supplying advice and tips for improving my writing. Thank you also to the many people at WestBow Press for making this book a reality.

Of course, nothing like this is possible without the help and support of one’s family. For years, my wife, Becky, has listened patiently to me while I talked of my desire to write a book. Even when I was doing nothing toward that dream, she kept encouraging me and telling me I could do it. Thank you, Becky, for loving me and cheering me on. And thank you to my children, Jenna and Mark, who have always believed in me. I am so proud of both of you and the godly people you have become. Seeing my children grow in their Christian walks, serving God in their lives and living for Him, is certainly one of the true successes in life I have experienced.

Finally, and most importantly, I thank my God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. My prayer is that this book will bring glory to God first and foremost and that He will use it to lead others to find true success in their lives.

INTRODUCTION

SOLOMON AND SUCCESS

In 2015, a study conducted by Time, Inc., set out to determine the wealthiest individuals to ever live. Trying to compare wealth across different time periods and economic systems is a difficult task, but based upon a complicated formula calculating each individual’s economic influence, Time’s study determined that Mansa Musa, the fourteenth-century emperor of the Mali Empire in West Africa, was the wealthiest person in history, nudging out Augustus Caesar who was worth $4.6 trillion in today’s values.

The value of King Musa’s wealth is incalculable, however, according to the study, because contemporary accounts of his wealth lacked the ability to describe it. University of Michigan history professor Rudolph Ware explained that there are pictures of Musa seated on a golden throne and surrounded by multiple objects of gold, from the scepter in his hand to the crown on his head, creating a picture of more gold than anyone can comprehend or imagine. ¹

If the Time study had extended back into biblical days, another great king may have also made the list of history’s wealthiest individuals. Like Musa, Israel’s King Solomon was wealthy beyond description, amassing a fortune that made him the richest man of his day. Even today, Solomon is recognized as the quintessence of success, the man who had everything and whose grandeur and accomplishments still define the ultimate lifestyle of success and happiness we all want to achieve. Not only was Solomon rich and powerful, but he was also famous and popular throughout the known world at that time. He was brilliant, intelligent, and indescribably wise. He had an astute understanding of people. He was knowledgeable about many different fields, such as education, horticulture, botany, zoology, oenology, agriculture, husbandry, project management, business administration, and the arts, to name only a few. Clearly, there has never been a person with a more extensive knowledge or greater skills than King Solomon.

But there is an aspect of Solomon’s life that isn’t so well known, which in reality reveals Solomon as one of the most tragic figures in the Bible. Despite his immense success, Solomon’s legacy was largely a failure. He became the ruler of a great nation during a time of peace and unity, but at his death he left it in turmoil, divided and increasingly threatened by enemies both external and internal. He began his kingly reign committed to serving the God who blessed him with so much wisdom and ability and ended his rule worshiping false gods and becoming the target of the Lord’s anger and opposition. He didn’t stay committed to his faith. He didn’t continue to do the right things or even desire to do the right things. He lost focus. He took his eyes off of God and God’s will for his life.

The tragedy of Solomon’s story is illustrated by God’s waning attitudes toward Solomon throughout his life. At his birth, God called him Jedidiah, which means beloved by the Lord. ² He was God’s gift of forgiveness to King David after David’s grievous sins of adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband. Solomon’s life, therefore, started as an act of grace and promise on God’s part. God’s favor upon Solomon continued after he became king, when God expressed his pleasure with Solomon and blessed him far beyond what Solomon requested. ³

The end of Solomon’s life, however, was not so wonderful. During his reign, Solomon grew cold and distant from God. The writer of 1 Kings described Solomon’s problem in chapter 11:

As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. … The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord …. So the Lord said to Solomon, Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you. (1 Kings 11:4, 9, 11)

God went from being pleased with Solomon and blessing him to being angry with Solomon and tearing His blessings away, all because of the bad choices Solomon made that led him away from his commitment to God. The contradictions in Solomon’s life had disastrous consequences. He was the wisest man ever to live, yet he made some of the most foolish decisions. He was the richest man in the world, yet he always wanted more and took advantage of others to get more. He was a man blessed by God beyond even what he asked, yet he turned his back on Him to worship false gods made of wood and stone.

The Goal of This Book

The goal of this book is to identify specific lessons from Solomon for achieving true success in life. To do that, this book takes a different approach from most other books about Solomon. Most books focus solely on his wise sayings in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes that speak directly about success and how to attain it. In this book, though, we will look instead at the life of Solomon as told in 1 Kings 1–11 and glean from his actions what we should and should not do to attain true success. I am going to concentrate primarily on the actual events in Solomon’s life, the things he did and did not do, and the consequences that resulted from his actions and inaction in order to identify several success lessons we can apply to our own lives.

In light of Solomon’s poor decisions toward the end of his reign, some may think Solomon’s life would not provide much of an example for true and lasting success. One of the wisest things I ever heard, however, is that a shrewd man learns from other people’s mistakes. Learning from others’ mistakes