What is a King?

If you ask a dictionary, you get a political answer first followed by descriptions of cards, chess pieces, and checkers. If you ask an Elvis fan, they'll tell you about the king. A British subject might have a different answer for who the king is, especially during this transitional period of their monarchy. But as Americans... what do we do with the idea of a person as king?

 This was a point of contention in the fairly early days of the Methodists as John Wesley was a priest in the church of England and as part of their ordination vows swore fealty to the king. This of course has hints of religious oligarchy or theocracy that did not mesh with the theist or deism based religious beliefs held by early American founders or even well with the more modern religious inclinations of the budding nation. And that's not even mentioning the loyalty issues with swearing fealty to a king with whom you are in open rebellion. And unfortunately for early Americans, John Wesley died before the American revolution got too far along and those who followed had varying ideas about what to do about the Americans who wanted to be Methodist clergy and not be in the Church of England. 

 And thus we find ourselves asking the question... what is a king? 

Scripture offers some clues. Check out 1 Samuel 8:4-18, Deuteronomy 17:14-20, 1 Kings 11:1-13, 1 Kings 10:23-25, and 1 Kings 4:20-28.

Let me know what you think.