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

Today’s passage made me think abut something we overlook a lot.  We normally think of Ancient Israel (the combined lands of the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel) as being essentially the territory controlled by the modern state of Israel plus the West Bank and Gaza.  This year I have been noticing the repeated mentions of Gilead as part of Israel.  Gilead was the land east of the Jordan River settled by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and one half of Manasseh.   Today’s passage tells us that Pekah led a band of fifty men from Gilead to assassinate Pekihiah.  Then later the passage tells us that during the reign of Pekah, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria took Gilead and Galilee and deported the people living there to Assyria.  All of which tells us that Gilead was an integral part of Ancient Israel.

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 thing we usually note about Jehu’s son, Jehoahaz, and his grandson, Jehoash, is that they each did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam.  We pay little attention to where it tells us that at some point Jehoahaz sought the Lord’s favor, and God listened to him and delivered Israel from the power of Aram.  And, while we sometimes hear someone teach about Jehoash weeping over Elisha when Elisha was on his death bed I have never heard them mention that just a few verses earlier the passage said that Jehoash did evil in the eyes of the Lord.  So, even though Jehoahaz did evil in God’s eyes, when he sought God, God listened to him.  And even though his son Jehoash also did evil in God’s eyes, he wept over Elisha and God gave him a prophecy of victory.  God will listen to those who have done evil if they turn to Him.  God will use those who do evil to further His purposes.  The lesson here is that as bad as each of them were, God saw potential in them and offered them an opportunity to serve Him.  Perhaps if Amaziah, king of Judah, had invited Jehoash to join him to worship God instead of making war against him, Jehoash would have abandoned the worship of Jeroboam’s golden calves.  Whether or not that is the case, we should invite others, even those who do evil, to join us in worshiping God, rather than making war on 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 10-12.

When Jehu met Jehonadab, whose descendants Jeremiah praises during the siege of Jerusalem, Jehu invites Jehonadab to join him and see his zeal for the Lord.  Jehu destroyed all of Ahab’s family who lived in Israel and completely destroyed Baal worship in Israel.  However, he continued the worship of the golden calves which Jeroboam had made.  So, Jehu considered himself zealous in serving God, yet he continued the worship of the golden calves.  Which raises the question: did Jehu not see the conflict between worshiping the golden calves and being zealous for the Lord?  Or, was he aware of the conflict but unwilling to change?  In either case, he offers a lesson for us today.  Whichever was true as to why Jehu continued the worship of the golden calves, the passage tells us what his mistake was: he was not careful to keep the Law of the Lord.  If Jehu had been careful to keep the Law of the Lord, he would have been aware that worshiping those images was contrary to what God desired for His people.  And, if he aware of that, being careful to keep the Law of the Lord would have led him to abolish such worship.  Are we careful t keep the Law of the Lord?  What things do we do which are contrary to what God tells us is best for us?  Have we studied what He tells us so that we do not miss some behavior which God has warned us against?  And if we are aware of such behaviors, have we turned from those behaviors in order to keep His Laws?  Or, have we continued to do things which we know we would be happier if we avoided 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 8-9.

I am not sure what all I want to write about today, but I will start with something I have noticed before.  At the end of the description of King Jehoram’s reign, the passage says, “As for the other events of Jehoram’s reign, and all he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? ”  There is a similar phrase at the end of the description of reign of most if not all of the kings mentioned in the Books of Kings.  This indicates that the compiler of these books was aware of other writings which gave details about the actions of the kings of Judah and of Israel.  So, why is that significant?  There are those who claim that the books of the Old Testament were written after the Babylonian Exile.  However, if that were the case, it would be unlikely that the book of the annals of the kings of Judah or the one of the kings of Israel would still have been available.  Which means that the bulk of these two books were composed before the Babylonian Exile.  The only way to believe that First and Second Kings were written after the end of the Babylonian Exile is to believe that the writers intentionally deceived their readers by implying that they had access to the book of the annals of the kings of Judah and the book of the annals of the kings of Israel.  However, these references to those annals also tells us something about the things which the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel had in common.  They both kept a record of the acts of their kings.  A record which was maintained even with the dynastic changes which happened in Israel.

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 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 1 Kings 18-19.

I have always loved the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.  A few years ago I realized what a show Elijah put on here.  Today, as I was reading the passage my attention was drawn to the prophets of Baal.  My first thought was, “What did the prophets of Baal expect to happen?”  Did they expect Baal to send fire to light their offerings on the altar?  Or, did they think that neither Baal, nor God, would send fire, and their “show” would attract more people?  Or, perhaps they thought that the support they had from the royal family would make it not matter what results happened?  Then, I read further and realized that the priests of Baal routinely put on a show as part of their sacrifices.  First, they shouted and danced.  Then they cut themselves with swords and spears, which the writer tells us was their custom.  All of that excitement an energy made an effective contrast to Elijah’s calm. almost pedestrian, approach.  After the priests of Baal had spent most of the day exuberantly calling on Baal, Elijah called the people to his worship, where he calmly dug a trench around the altar he had built and carefully laid the sacrifice upon the altar while the people watched.  Then he got the “audience” involved by having them bring water to soak the altar.  Finally, again in contrast to the priests of Baal, he calmly prayed for God to reveal Himself to the people.  We can learn a valuable lesson about preaching the Gospel today.  While Elijah was a bit of a showman, he knew that he wasn’t the show.  God was the “show”.  If it was just Elijah vs the prophets of Baal, the prophets of Baal had the better show.  None of Elijah’s showman techniques mean anything if the fire of the Lord doesn’t fall upon the altar and burn up the sacrifice.  So, when our worship teams lead worship, when our speakers give their oration, whatever else we have going on to bring people to God, we, and they, need to remember that without God, none of it means anything and none of it will move the dial.  The show is God’s.

I use 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.

I found it interesting that the Scripture tells us that Asa, grandson of Rehoboam, “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done. ”  A couple of sentences later it says that his heart was fully committed to the Lord all of his life, even though he did not remove the high places.  Over the forty-one years which the passage tells us that Asa ruled in Jerusalem, the Northern Kingdom had six kings (not counting Jeroboam, who as king when Asa took the throne, or Tibni, who fought Omri for the throne after the death of Zimri) from four dynasties.  I am convinced that there is a connection between the faithfulness of Asa and the sinfulness of the Northern kings and the stability, or lack thereof, of their kingdoms.

I also want to write about the account of Elijah and the widow.  We can really learn a lot about faith from the widow.  When Elijah first came to her, she was about to use the last of her supplies to make a final meal for her son and herself, after which she thought they would die.  Elijah told her to go ahead and do so, but first to make him something to eat because her supplies would not be used up until the Lord sent rain.  She did as he said and his prophecy came true.  We look at that and think, “This woman had faith and acted in that faith.”  We are correct when we think that, and if that was all that we had about her, she would be someone for us to seek to emulate.  Yet we do have more, when her son died she was heartbroken and angry.  Then when Elijah raised her son from death, she declared “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”  She acted on faith before that, and even the miracle of her food supplies not running out did not fully cement her faith.  It was only after she served God for some time that He completely removed her doubt.  Let us similarly act on faith, despite our doubts.  And we should not let our doubts make us stop acting in faith, when the time is right, God will give us certainty.

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