“King Solomon then asked for a man named Huram to come from Tyre. He was half Israelite, since his mother was a widow from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father had been a craftsman in bronze from Tyre. Huram was extremely skillful and talented in any work in bronze, and he came to do all the metal work for King Solomon.”
1 Kings 7:13-14 NLT
It is interesting to note that the scripture makes special care to mention that Hiram was not a full Jew. The idea of being a “full blooded Jew,” would become very important to the worship of the temple and Judaism in general later on. Indeed, the parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of the women at the well illustrate the prejudice, and the longing for their to be a unified worship. Jesus tells the women that it is foretold that worship will not be dependent on where but how. Therefore it is noteable that at the temple, in a place where impurity wasn’t allowed, was the skill and loving craftsmanship of someone who wasn’t fully Jewish. Sometimes we misunderstand God’s standard of righteousness as being only divisive. In truth, it divides after it includes. It brings in all the wheat and the tares and then allows what is bad to be blown away in the sifting process. We must remember this as we build things for God. We don’t need to be ascetic to glorify God, to offer the best. If what we offer is our first fruits, we can offer them knowing that God can make them holy and useful for his purposes.
JOSH McGARY. COM 