I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.
After three years of drought God sends Elijah to Ahab with word that God is about to send rain. The famine had become very severe, so Ahab summoned his palace administrator, Obadiah, and they each went out to search for water and grass to save some of Ahab’s horses and mules. Elijah approaches Obadiah and tells him to go tell Ahab that Elijah has come. Obadiah is at first afraid to do so because he thinks that God will carry Elijah off before Ahab gets there. Ahab has been searching very hard for Elijah. if Obadiah tells him that Elijah is someplace and when Ahab gets there, Elijah is gone, Ahab is likely to have Obadiah killed. Elijah swears to Obadiah that he will wait for Ahab.
When Ahab sees Elijah he refers to him as a troublemaker. Elijah replies that it is Ahab and his family who caused the trouble by refusing to obey God and worshiping Baal. Elijah tells Ahab to summon the people to Mt Carmel along with the prophets of Baal and Ashterah that Jezebel feeds. Ahab follows Elijah’s instructions. When the people arrived, Elijah gets up before them and tells them that it is time to make up their minds. If Yahweh is God, they should follow Him, but if Baal is God, then they should follow him. Elijah’s point was that God and Baal made competing claims. If God is who His prophets say He is, then Baal must be an imposter. On the other hand if Baal is who his prophets say he is, then God must be an imposter. Those claims are such that, if they are false, the one for whom they are made is unworthy of worship. Many people today have a similar attitude to the one that Elijah was confronting. People say about what one believes, “Well, if it works for you, that is fine.” The main competing claims in our society are that of Christianity and that of secularism. Christianity makes claims, that if they are not true, mean that Christianity is a false and destructive belief system. The same is true of secularism (in all of its many variations).
Elijah was not satisfied to leave it at that when the people failed to respond to his exhortation to choose between God and Baal. He did not allow people to remain undecided. Elijah proposes a contest, one which will substantiate some of the claims made by each faction. Each side would build an altar and put a sacrifice on it, but neither side would light the wood to burn the sacrifice. The real God would light the fire on the altar for His burnt offering. He then tells the prophets of Baal to go first. The prophets of Baal begin their worship in the morning with singing and dancing and shouting. Around lunchtime, Elijah starts to ask them what is going on, suggesting that perhaps their worship is not intense enough to get Baal’s attention. The prophets of Baal go into a frenzy, cutting themselves and shouting louder. They got no response of any kind.
Late in the afternoon, Elijah says to the people that now it is his turn. He calls the people over while he prepares the altar. I imagine him explaining to the people what he is doing as he repairs and then prepares the altar, telling them that the twelve stones he is using represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Elijah strikes me as a great showman. Once he has the altar built and dug a trench around it, he laid the wood on the altar and placed the pieces of the sacrificial animal on the wood. Then he tells the people to fill four large jars with water and pour the water on the altar. He tells them to do this a total of three times. I can just picture him doing this.
“Go fill those jars with water and pour them over the altar.”
“Do it again.”
“Get some more water.”
Since around lunchtime, Elijah has been putting on a show. First taunting the prophets of Baal.
“Shout louder, maybe Baal is relieving himself and can’t hear you.”
“Maybe he is away on a trip.”
“Maybe he is taking a nap and you need to wake him up.”
Then repairing the altar to God and preparing the sacrifice while explaining to the people what he is doing. Finally getting the people involved by having them pour water over the altar. During all of this he is putting on a bit of a show, but none of this is part of the worship of offering the sacrifice. Once it is all prepared and he has the attention of the people, he calmly walks up to the altar and cries out to God, “Prove to these people that you are who I have told them you are.” Contrast this with the prophets of Baal, who were dancing and shouting and cutting themselves. In response to this simple, calm request, God sends down fire that engulfs the entire altar, burning the entire structure and drying up the water that was in the trench around the altar. There was no working the people up to a frenzy. The Spirit of God provided the emotional high.
When this was done, Elijah began praying for rain and the rain arrived in a deluge.
When Peter got back to Jerusalem from visiting with Cornelius, some of the Jewish believers Criticized him for associating with gentiles. Peter explained to them the vision he had while in Joppa and of the arrival of Cornelius’ messengers. Peter further told them that as he preached to Cornelius’ household, the Holy Spirit came upon them. The passage tells us that once they heard what had happened, they stopped objecting and began praising God for extending His mercy to Gentiles.
Meanwhile believers had been scattered as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch. For the most part the believers only preached the Gospel to Jews. However, in Antioch some of the believers began preaching to Gentiles and a large number became believers. When the Church in Jerusalem heard about this, they sent Barnabas to look into it. The passage does not tell us why they sent Barnabas, but I am sure that it was in part because they knew that he would guide the young believers to good doctrine. Once again we have Barnabas playing a key role in the early Church. Barnabas was happy with what he found in Antioch and encouraged the new believers in sound doctrine. We are told that many came to the Lord under the influence of Barnabas. Nevertheless, Barnabas felt that something was missing in the teaching of the new believers. So he went to Tarsus to find Saul. Barnabas brought Saul back to Antioch to help him teach the new and growing Church there. Again, we do not know why Barnabas sought out Saul, but we can make some guesses. Up until now, all of the Church leaders we have been told about were good men, dedicated to following God, but not educated in the Law and Jewish theology. Saul on the other hand was a student of Gamaliel, a prominent Jewish teacher whose thought is influential even in today’s Judaism. It seems likely that Barnabas felt that the new Gentile believers needed a more thorough grounding in basic Jewish thought and theology than he could provide, so he went to get the believer he knew with the most thorough education in that. I often express a concern that the Church today places to great an emphasis on Church leaders having a seminary degree. I believe this to be true. There are many truths that are learned through experience in the world that a seminary education can make harder to see. However, this does not mean that I do not believe that the Church needs leaders who have received in depth training in theology and philosophy. It does, as Barnabas’ decision to go get Saul to help him in Antioch shows.
The psalmist here calls for us to praise the Lord because of the wonderful things He has done. He recounts the miracles God has performed for His people and calls on us to praise God for these things. Then the psalmist tells us that the idols that others worship have no power and are merely made by human hands. I was at a party recently where some of the people there were talking about how they practiced a pagan religion. This pagan religion involves some idols. At one point during the evening, while they were discussing their religion, they mentioned that they were atheists. That is, they know full well that the gods that they are worshiping have no power. I praise God that I worship a God that I know exists and has power.
The first proverb tells us that a fool will more vociferously defend his foolishness than a mother bear will defend her cubs. The second one tells us that those who repay good done to them with evil, will never escape the consequences.