Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 5-7.

Today the account of Naaman really spoke to me about how God gives us salvation.  First, Naaman was upset that Elisha just sent him a messenger rather than coming out to meet him in person.  We often see people argue that God should come to them in a way that they would be unable to deny his existence.  But God doesn’t usually work that way.  He sends messengers to tell us what He wants from us.  Second, Naaman was upset at the task which Elisha gave him in order to be healed.  In the same way, we often think that the tasks which God calls us to do are beneath us.  Naaman’s servants pointed out to him that if Elisha had asked him to accomplish some noteworthy deed, he would have gladly completed it.  In the same way, we often think that God should call us to some greater task than that to which He calls us.  Then Naaman wanted to reward Elisha for what he had done (actually, for what God had done).  Elisha refused payment for healing Naaman.  It was this which first caused me to see a connection the salvation God offers us.  God will not accept payment for the salvation which He gives us.  This is not just because we have nothing which He did not first give us.  We cannot pay God for our salvation because our reconciliation with God requires us to recognize that we have no power to redeem ourselves.  The final point from this account is Elisha’s servant, Gehazi,  fraudulently obtaining part of the reward which Naaman had offered to Elisha.  In the same way, some people strive to profit from delivering God’s message to sinners.  I am not saying that we should not pay those who do God’s work because we should indeed pay them.  Rather, I am saying that we should not seek to get wealthy while doing God’s work.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 3-4.

It took me awhile to figure out what to write today.  After much thought it occurred to me that we can learn a lot about how God works from the miracle stories in today’s passage.  First, in the account of the prophet’s widow, Elisha gave her a task which would allow her to pay off her dead husband’s debts and have the means to survive after doing so.  How well she and her sons were provided for depended on the effort which they made to follow through on the instructions which Elisha gave them.  The same is often true for us: God will provide a method for us to have our needs met, but it will often depend upon our willingness to work.  The story of the the Shunammite woman and her son teaches something different.  The Shunammite woman did not seek anything from God because she was afraid she would lose it, but Elisha asked God to give her a son.  Then when the tragedy she feared occurred and her son died of some childhood illness, she cried out to Elisha, he in turn went tog God and her son was restored to her.  The Shunammite woman was afraid to have a good thing in her life because she feared that suffering would follow.  When we seek to serve God, He will provide us with our deepest desires which are consistent with His will, even when we are afraid to ask for them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 1-2.

The account of what happened after King Ahaziah, Ahab’s son, fell from his upper room has a lot of things to comment on.  One question which I have never thought about before is, “Why did Ahaziah send messengers to consult the Baal of Ekron?”  I am not asking why he sent to consult a Baal, but why Ekron?  Ahaziah’s mother was Jezebel, the daughter of the king of Tyre.  So, I would have expected him to send to Tyre if her was going to send messengers to a foreign city.  The suggestion I have seen to this question is that Ekron was the closest city to Samaria with a thriving priesthood of Baal.  That certainly makes sense, but I had never thought about it before.  The other question I have about today’s passage concerns Elijah’s actions when he knew that he was about to be taken up by God.  Elijah tried three times to leave Elisha behind to go off on his own to be taken up. Why?  Closely related to that question is the fact that several times Elisha was told that God would take Elijah from him that day, and each time Elisha replied that he knew and that they should be quiet.  As I read the passage, it seems that Elisha did not want Elijah to know that he knew that God was going to take Elijah presently.  Again the question is, why?  I don’t have much of a spiritual lesson from today’s passage.  Except, the value of faithfully remaining with our mentor to the end.  Ruth was determined to stay with Naomi and she was rewarded for doing so.  Elisha was determined to stay with Elijah, and he was rewarded for doing so.

As an aside, I picked the picture I used before I looked at what today’s passage was, but it is appropriate since Elijah was taken up into the sky.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 22-25.

A few days back I commented on how King Hezekiah deserves the high esteem in which we generally hold him, but my favorite king of Judah is Josiah.  Today’s passage tells us that, “ He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”  He ordered the repair and cleansing of the temple.  When the repair began, the priests found a copy of the Book of the Law and brought it to him.  When Josiah read the Book of the Law he realized that the people had badly broken their covenant with God and feared the consequences.  He inquired of God about what he had learned, and God answered that His anger would indeed fall upon the people of Judah.  Nevertheless, Josiah destroyed all of the idols throughout the land, even into the land which had answered to the kings of Samaria.  He cleansed the land of idolatry and got the people to renew the covenant which God had made with their ancestors.  He did all of this despite knowing that it would not stop the destruction which God had promised His people if they violated their covenant with Him.  Josiah did all of this solely for the reward of being faithful to God.  We too should recognize that the greatest reward for serving God is that we get to do God’s will.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 2 Kings 19-21.

I have always wanted to write about God’s answer to Sennacherib through Isaiah, but could not figure out how to comment on the poetry Isaiah spoke in.  Today I am going to try to make my thoughts on it coherent.  In composing his message, Sennacherib thought he was belittling Hezekiah and Jerusalem, but he went beyond that.  Sennacherib told Hezekiah that God was deceiving him when He told Hezekiah that would not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.  Sennacherib told Hezekiah that the gods of other nations had failed to deliver those other nations, so therefore God would be unable to deliver Jerusalem.  God answered through Isaiah by telling Sennacherib that he did not know Who he was ridiculing and blaspheming.  That Sennacherib thought he had succeeded by his own power.  Sennacherib had reached great heights of power and thought that nothing and no one could stop him from reaching any goal to which he aspired.  God answered that by informing Sennacherib that He had planned Sennacherib’s rise to power long ago, and now He had brought it to pass.  Everything Sennacherib had accomplished was merely carrying out God’s plans.  Further God knew where Sennacherib was, and when he went out and when he went back in, and how he raged insolently against God.  This is the negative counterpart to Psalm 121. There God promised that He would watch over those who put their trust in Him.  Here what God tells Sennacherib is a warning to those who defy Him.  He says that He will put a hook in his nose and lead him back the way he had come.  For those of you who, like me, have never worked with large livestock that are manipulated by rings in their noses, I have another image that may help understand this.  I am sure you have seen videos of women, usually a mother or a wife, who grabs someone by their nose and pulls them around in a direction they did not want to go.  Imagine that, only more painful.  At some point, those who defy God will experience God putting a hook in their nose and dragging them somewhere they do not want to go.  While those of us who put our trust in Him will experience the protection described in Psalm 121.  And in both cases, it does not matter where we have gone, nor when, we will not be outside of God’s power.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 17-18.

I love the story about Hezekiah and the king of Assyria.  And it is right to admire Hezekiah, because the passage tells us, “Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.”  However, today I want to look at what the passage tells us about the exile of the people from the Northern Kingdom.  It tells us that God caused this to happen because they had sinned against God.  The phrase which really struck me was, “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless.”  They had value because they were made in the image of God, and because God had chosen them as His people.  But, instead of doing what He asked of them, serving and worshiping Him, they chose to worship idols.  As a result, they destroyed the value which God had given them and made themselves worthless.  In the same way, we have value because we too were made in God’s image, and Jesus died for our sins so that we might become children of God, God’s chosen people.  If, instead of seeking to follow God’s commands we worship idols , we too will become worthless.  This passage even foreshadows this when it speaks of those whom the Assyrians settled in the land of Israel after taking its people into exile.  It tells us that these settlers worshiped the Lord, but also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the lands they had come from.  The implication being that if they had given up their idols, God would have welcomed them into His people.  Today, we have the same choice.  God has chosen us and used the death if His Son, Jesus Christ, to bring us into His people and give us value.  Will we destroy that value by serving worthless idols and refusing to follow His commands?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 15-16.

In today’s passage we have accounts of three kings in Judah, the Southern Kingdom, and five kings in Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  The passage tells us of the first two kings of Judah mentioned that “He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father …had done.”  About four of the kings of Israel the passage says some variation of, “He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as his predecessors had done. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.”  The one king of Israel it does not say that about only reigned for one month.  Then we come to the third king of Judah.  It says of him that he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, that he followed the ways of the kings of Israel.  It goes on to say that he even sacrificed his son to the fire, following the practices of the people God had driven out of the land.  It is not clear to me if the writer is trying to say that the kings of Israel had sacrificed sons in fire, or that Ahaz, the king of Judah being referenced, had gone beyond the kings of Israel in following detestable practices.  In any case, when Israel and Aram allied with each other to attack Judah, instead of turning to the Lord and seeking His aid, Ahaz sent tribute to the king of Assyria and swore fealty to him.  Then he visited a temple with the Assyrian king and sent orders for an altar duplicating it to be made in the temple in Jerusalem.

I wrote the above not quite sure where I was going.  However, I realized that the sins of Jeroboam were in using religious practices to further his own ends, rather than using religious practices to build a closer relationship with God.  In following the practices of the kings of Israel, Ahaz was doing the same thing.  Ahaz followed ever more “exotic” religious practices.  There are three possible reasons that may have motivated him.  Perhaps he was seeking to use these religious practices to consolidate his political power.  Perhaps he was seeking spiritual enlightenment.  Or, perhaps he was seeking a new “thrill”.  Whatever his motivation, he started by rejecting the God of his fathers and went ever further afield in seeking to satisfy his craving.  But he started by following a path laid out by the kings of Israel, Jeroboam, and later Jehu.  They were men who were called by God to lead His people, but they did not fully put their faith in Him.  So, they gave themselves exceptions to His Laws in ways they thought would help them better fulfill the plan He had for them.  Ahaz just took what they did to its logical conclusions and threw over worship of God for worship of the gods of the most powerful nation on earth.  Where are we on that path?  Is there still time for us to give up all of the pagan practices we have introduced into our worship and turn back to God?

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 13-14.

The passage begins by telling us that Jehu’s son, Jehoahaz, “did evil in the eyes of the Lord by following the sins of Jeroboam.”  It goes on to tell us that Jehoahaz, in the face of the terrible suffering Israel experienced at the hands of Hazael, king of Aram, sought the Lord’s favor.  And that God answered his pleading.  It tells us that God provided a deliverer for the people of Israel.  It follows that by telling us that, despite what God had done for them, the people of Israel did not turn from the sins of the house of Jeroboam.  Then later when discussing Amaziah becoming king of Judah, it says that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but “not as his father David.”  It then tells us that the high places were not removed and the people offered sacrifices and burned incense at them.  In both of these places it seems to indicate that it was the people who were at fault for the sin.  The only blame given to Amaziah appears to be that he did not lead the people away from their idolatry.  I would also say that it appears as if the writer is implying that Jehoahaz turned from the sins of Jeroboam, but failed to lead the people to do the same.  Whether or not my interpretation about the actions of the rulers is correct, the passage clearly tells us that, at the time being recounted, the people sinned because they chose to sin, not because their leaders led them into sin.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 10-12.

Today’s passage begins with the acts Jehu took to consolidate his control over Israel, the Northern Kingdom.  One of the key things we learn about Jehu’s desire to serve God comes from his interaction with Jehonadab, whose descendants are later held up by Jeremiah as examples of faithfully following God.  The passage tells us that Jehu completely wiped out Baal worship in Israel.  Unfortunately, he was unwilling to get rid of the calf idols which Jeroboam had constructed and continued the practice of worshiping them.  Which suggests that, those who lived in the Northern Kingdom, Israel, considered that those who worshiped according to the practices established by Jeroboam thought they were following the covenant which God had established with their ancestors.  I suspect that leaders, such as Jehu, knew better, but convinced themselves otherwise out of political expediency.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  2 Kings 8-9.

I am not quite sure what to make of the thought which struck me about today’s passage.  In today’s passage, Elisha instigates a coup in Aram, and one in Israel.  First, Elisha goes to Damascus, then the capital of Aram.  At the time, the king of Aram was Ben-Hadad (a name which multiple kings of Aram had), who was also ill.  When Ben-Hadad heard that Elisha had come to Damascus, he sent one of his top aides, Hazael, to ask if he would get better.  Elisha told Hazael to tell Ben-Hadad that he would get better, but that Ben-Hadad would not get better.  Then Elisha told Hazael that God had revealed to him that Hazael would be king of Aram.  Hazael returned to Ben-Hadad and killed him, making himself king.  Then later in today’s passage, Elisha sends a messenger from the company of prophets to anoint Jehu, one of the commanders of the Israelite army, king of Israel.  Jehu then launches a coup and kills Ahab’s son, who was at that point the king of Israel, and Ahab’s grandson, who was king of Judah.  The passage explains why God had Elisha have Jehu anointed.  Well, not why Jehu specifically, but why Elisha precipitated the overthrow of Ahab’s dynasty.  But it does not explain why Elisha precipitated the overthrow of the dynasty in Aram.  Perhaps these two accounts of coups are here to remind us that every king and every ruler is in their position because God put them there.  Hazael, who did terrible things to the people of Israel, and Jehu, who overthrew Ahab’s dynasty and destroyed the cult of Baal in Israel, were equally chosen by God to be in the positions of power they occupied.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.