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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 18-19.

    This is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It contains Elijah’s confrontation with the prophets of Baal and his encounter with the still, small whisper of God’s voice. However, there is some things in this passage which I rarely receive any attention. Obadiah hid 100 prophets of God from Jezebel’s pogrom, a fact of which he reminds Elijah. Not much later, Elijah claims that he is the only prophet of God left, all of the rest have been killed. This is important because Elijah went from the high of defeating the prophets of Baal to the low of thinking he was the last prophet of God left. Elijah allowed his depression to overwhelm what he knew to be true. Despite being a great man of God, Elijah suffered from bouts of depression (or, at least, he suffered from this bout of depression).

    It is worth noting that Elijah’s bout of depression came immediately after he had what has to have been a mountaintop moment.

There he was before government officials and the people of all Israel, whom the prophets of Baal had worked into a frenzy. Yet the prophets of Baal had failed to deliver. In that moment, he called upon God and God answered in an awesome display of power. Such power that the people of Israel executed the false prophets right there in front of the powerful government officials who had sponsored them. Then to cap it off, he prayed for the drought to end and the rains came. Yet, here he was alone in the wilderness with the Queen swearing she would see him dead.

Seeing this episode in the wilderness as a bout of depression gives me a new understanding of God’s still, small voice here. In the midst of his depression, Elijah was not responsive to the power and majesty of God. In this circumstance, Elijah needed to hear God’s gentle and calm voice. Elijah needed God’s comfort and love at this moment in his life. But there is more to this than just God comforting Elijah. In that same still small voice God sent Elijah back to do His work. That work involved anointing two men to overthrow their respective governments and a successor for Elijah, belying Elijah’s complaint that he was the only prophet of God left. Then, as a capstone, God told Elijah that not only was he not alone, God had, and would continue to, preserved 7,000 faithful Israelites who had refused to worship Baal in even a superficial way.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 15-17.

    Rehoboam’s son was no improvement over his father and did not rule long. However, Rehoboam’s grandson was a different matter. He did what was pleasing in God’s sight. He got rid of the shrine prostitutes and destroyed the idols which Solomon, Rehoboam, and his own father had built. One thing which is unfortunate is that we do not know how Asa, Rehoboam’s grandson, was influenced to become a godly man. Clearly there were some godly people among those who raised Asa. Asa was clearly a man of some courage. He deposed his grandmother from her role as Queen Mother because of her idolatry. He clearly led a revival in the land of Judah. And he raised a son who followed in his footsteps.

    During the time Asa ruled over Judah, the Northern Kingdom had seven kings, none of them good. When Ahab became king, God sent Elijah to prophesy against him. Elijah told King Ahab that it would not rain in Israel until further notice. Then, at God’s direction, he ran away and hid. Elijah first went to a remote stream, where God caused ravens to bring him food. Think about that> Elijah spent some period of time eating food left for him by birds. Considering our many modern food phobias I wonder how many of us would eat food brought to us by ravens.
“Is that bread gluten free?”
“Are you sure that meat was not exposed to nuts?”
“What about food borne illness?”
Elijah’s willingness to survive in this manner indicates his level of faith. Then when the brook finally dried up, God sent Elijah to a widow living outside of the land of Israel. There we see not just Elijah’s faith, but that of the widow. When Elijah arrived and asked for food, she had just enough for one last meal for herself and her son. Yet, the woman was willing to stretch that meal to feed Elijah as well. I think it is worth noting that the widow likely fed Elijah out of her faith driven hospitality more than out of her belief that doing so would not deplete her food supply.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 13-14.

    In yesterday’s passage we were told that Jeroboam set up two golden calves with altars for the people of Israel to worship so that they would not go to Jerusalem to worship (and thus possibly get convinced to return the kingship to the line of David). In today’s passage a man of God prophesies against Jeroboam and his altars. Jeroboam’s initial reaction was to have the man imprisoned. However, God intervened to prevent that. At which point Jeroboam invited the man of God to the palace for a meal. The man of God declined because God had told him to eat and drink nothing while in the Northern Kingdom. Which brings us to the real point of this story.
    This man of God prophesied on God’s behalf, a prophecy which was fulfilled in every particular. Further, God demonstrated His power in protecting this man by paralyzing Jeroboam’s hand, and then healing it when the man of God prayed for that. However, this man of God allowed another man to convince him to violate the command he had received from God. We are told that an old prophet told the man of God that God had instructed him to feed the man of God. The man of God allowed another man, whom he perceived to also be a man of God, to convince him to violate the clear command of God. As a result, the man of God was attacked and killed by a lion. There is a clear lesson here. We must never allow others to convince us to do something contrary to the clear direction we have received by God, no matter how pious they may seem.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 11-12.

    Solomon had many wives and many of them were from peoples whom God had commanded the Israelites not to take wives. This was in contravention of God’s commands to the people of Israel in two ways. First, the one I already mentioned and second in Deuteronomy 17:17 God commanded that the future kings of Israel not take many wives. No matter how you interpret it, seven hundred counts as “many”. Solomon married some of his many wives to maintain control over the territories his father, David, had conquered and avoid wars. Except it did not work out that way as the next part of the passage shows us. We see that even the Pharaoh, whose daughter was Solomon’s first wife, supported those who mounted rebellion against Solomon. One can debate whether it was the many wives he took which undermined Solomon’s diplomatic efforts or his worshiping their gods. However, in either case, it was Solomon’s failure to faithfully follow God’s commands which led to the rebellions against his rule.

    Despite the prophecies which predicted that the northern tribes would secede from the kingdom because of Solomon’s sins, Rehoboam had an opportunity to prevent that from happening. When Rehoboam went to Shechem to be crowned Jeroboam led the people to demand that Rehoboam reduce the tax and other demands Solomon’s government had placed upon the people. Rehoboam first asked the advice of his father’s advisers, men who had advised Solomon while he imposed the burdens the people were now asking to be lifted. Solomon’s advisers told Rehoboam something he did not want to hear, a true leader is the servant of those he leads. When a leader demonstrates that his actions are intended to serve the best interests of those who follow him, they will follow him anywhere. Rehoboam did not like their answer, so he asked his contemporaries, the friends he had grown up with, their advice was that he should tell the people that he was king and they were to serve his interests not the other way around. Rehoboam took the advice of his friends rather than that of his father’s advisers.
    Rehoboam made two mistakes here. First, he failed to recognize that the true role of a leader is to serve the interests of his followers. This resulted from the second mistake, he listened to the advice of those who told him what he wanted to hear instead of what he needed to hear. How can we tell the difference? It is not always this easy, but in this case the older, more experienced advisers told him why he should follow the course they were recommending while the younger advisers just told him to just do as he pleased. There are other clues about whose advice was better. The advice he rejected came from the older, more experienced advisers. The advice he took came from advisers who owed their position to him liking them, from being fun to be around, not from making good decisions.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 9-10.

    God responded to Solomon’s prayer from yesterday’s passage. God promised that as long as the people of Israel remained faithful to Him, He would establish and protect them. But if they failed to remain faithful, He would uproot them from the land and reject the Temple. The promise which God made to Solomon is one which still stands today. If a people are faithful to God, He will establish and protect them. However, if they reject His commands and instructions He will uproot them and bring disaster upon them.

    The rest of the passage describes how Solomon became wealthy and powerful as a result of his faithfulness to God. The Queen of Sheba, who was herself apparently fabulously wealthy, came to Jerusalem to test Solomon. He demonstrated wisdom and knowledge beyond her expectations. In addition, his wealth was everything rumor had conveyed to her. Solomon used his wisdom to negotiate and trade with many other peoples and lands. The core of his success lay with his grounding in God’s commands. It will not always work out for us as it did for Solomon, but if we obey God we will achieve success in all we do. Although that success will be according to God’s definition of success, not necessarily according to our definition of success

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 Kings 4-6.

    Today’s passage starts out with a list of officials who served Solomon. Such lists usually make my eyes glaze over for two reasons. First, the names and titles do not really mean that much to me. Second, the names are generally difficult ones (e.g. Elihoreph). Today I actually recognized a couple of the names. The first name I recognize is Zadok who is listed here as the father of a priest and a little further on as a priest: where he is listed along with Abiathar. It is interesting to see Abiathar listed here because in yesterday’s passage we were told that Solomon deposed Abiathar from his position as priest as part of Solomon consolidating power as king. Benaiah, who was captain of David’s bodyguards and one of his mighty men, is now commander of Solomon’s armies. And one more familiar name appears. Two of Nathan’s sons are officials under Solomon. It was Nathan who confronted David about his sin with Bathsheba. It was also Nathan who arranged for David to crown Solomon as king when Adonijah tried to set himself up to replace David.

    The relevance of these observations is that they demonstrate how reading through the Bible time and again reveal things we might otherwise overlook. I just completed my fifth year of reading through the Bible in order to write this blog. Something I started doing in order to discipline myself to read the Bible everyday. I pretend like there are people who are relying on what I write for their daily Bible study in order to discipline myself to read the passages and write something about them. I pray that God will make some use of this blog, but I know that few of those who come here actually read the passages I am commenting on (yesterday, my blog had 18 views, but only three click throughs to the Bible passage…a number that is pretty consistent, even when my views went as high as 52 earlier this o=month). I will encourage everyone who comes here to click through and read the passage I am commenting on. There is more value in reading that than in reading what I have written.