October 2, 2019 - Suggested Reading 1 Kings 16 for the October 6th message on Micah 1 &2 in our worship service at 10:00 am

“He bought the hill of Samaria from Shemer for two talents of silver and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill.”

1 Kings 16:24 (NIV)

The photo attached to this post is supposed to be of the ruins of the city of Samaria, though I have no idea how they identified them. Notice the vineyards growing alongside the ruins fulfilling Micah 1:6.

The Gospel account of the Samaritan woman at the well and the story of the good Samaritan are where modern Christians get their knowledge of Samaria - we know it as the geographical area between Judea in the south and Galilee in the north, where a people group lived who were despised by devout Jews in the times of Jesus of Nazareth, in large part because of their refusal to recognize the temple in Jerusalem as the approved place to worship God.

We know that the prophet Micah is addressing the city of Samaria rather than the country of Samaria in his prophecy contained in Micah 1:3 thru 7, just by following the parallelism between Samaria and Jerusalem in verse 5.

All this is because of Jacob’s transgression, because of the sins of the people of Israel.

What is Jacob’s transgression? Is it not Samaria?

What is Judah’s high place? Is it not Jerusalem?

1 Kings 16 records the building of the capital city of Samaria, and records the idol worship that Omri set up in the city and how his son Ahab followed his dad’s lead, and went even further in idol worship than his dad did.

It seems clear that the sin of Jacob(God’s people) is the idol worship that occurred in the capital city of the northern kingdom of Israel.

What then is meant by Judah’s high place being Jerusalem?

It seems if you analyze this verse through its parallel structure that what God is saying through Micah is that the worship in Jerusalem at the temple of God had been turned into the same kind of idol worship that was occurring in Samaria. (see also 2 Kings 17:18-20)

How could proper worship of God at an approved worship location become idol worship?

When our lives reflect the worst of mankind rather than the God we worship.

When organized religion replaces true relationship.

When we treat God like an idol, giving Him what we think He wants in order to get Him to do what we want.