Bible in A Year: Episode 14

Intro • 00:00
Welcome to Read the Bible in a Year with Matt and Hannah, a weekly podcast from Fairfax Bible Church where we explore scripture together, uncovering its themes and design patterns. We’re glad you’re here. Now, here are your hosts, Matt and Hannah.

Matt • 00:17
Okay, we are here. Episode fourteen. Episode fourteen, Hannah. How you feeling?

Hannah • 00:23
Good.

Matt • 00:24
Yeah.

Hannah • 00:24
Uh I always love a multiple of seven.

Matt • 00:28
Yes, we’ve talked about that because I grew up watching football. I still watch football and so touchdowns. So f You know, a multiple of seven tells you how many touchdowns there are. I really like the number fourteen too. My favorite baseball player growing up was Pete Rose. He wore number fourteen.

Hannah • 00:44
Okay.

Matt • 00:44
For clarity, he is no longer my favorite baseball player because he ended up being a bad dude. But um my favorite soccer player for a time was Theo Walcott. He wore number fourteen. Yeah, I like fourteen. Fourteen’s a great number. And as you alluded to, it’s two times seven.

Hannah • 01:00
Yeah.

Matt • 01:01
Oh, and that’s gonna show up in our conversation about Elijah and Elijah today.

Hannah • 01:06
Uh-huh.

Matt • 01:07
No spoilers. We’ll we’ll get there. Yeah. So I remember when we we were signing off last week and you said uh First and second Kings, in your view, sort of not the easiest books to read.

Hannah • 01:23
I d I struggle with these with these books. Everyone has like a variation of the same name. Like every king is like Joash, Jehoash, Jehoram, Jor, you know, they’re all the same And I’m like, I don’t know who is who.

Matt • 01:41
Yeah.

Hannah • 01:41
Yeah.

Matt • 01:42
We need like uh like uh I th oh you know this, but for people listening who may not know, one of my big uh kind of projects in the year 2024 was a Red War and Peace. Uh it’s actually part of the inspiration for this uh program or project because it was something that I did with a whole group of people all around the world and it was super fun. But one of the benefits a War and Peace has like 600 characters in it, and it’s really hard to keep track of who is who. And they all have Russian names, and it’s a little bit there’s you know, uh Yosef and Joheeb, and yeah, it’s some of the same vibe. So The guy who runs that project keeps like a Wikipedia of all the characters and what chapters they show up in. And yeah, I found myself kind of wishing for a little bit of that treatment as we read through these. Wait, who? Who is this guy? And we’re sort of switching back and forth between Judah and Israel. And I’m like, wait, what what king is this?

Hannah • 02:33
Yeah, yeah. At one point, I think the king of Judah and King of Israel have the same name. Or like almost the same name, and I’m like, I don’t know who is who. Yes.

Matt • 02:44
So if you’ve been reading this week, uh in First Kings and then moving over to Second Kings and you’re a little bit confused uh You’re in good company. We get confused too. Yes. It’s all good. Keep reading though. It’s fun. Uh all right. Well, so yeah, we’re gonna get into it. We got a lot of kings to talk. Well, we have a couple kings to talk about. to talk about one in particular, uh, but there’s two profits we want to talk about. So who are these guys and what what brings them into the picture? Why do we care so much about that? But to get us set up, uh Hannah, what’s the story so far? Where are we?

Hannah • 03:15
Yeah, so last week we left off tracing uh Solomon’s reign and his downfall, and then after his death, Israel was divided into two kingdoms. So we have the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. And so this week we’re covering 1 Kings 17 through 2 Kings 17, and we traced the line of the kings for each kingdom. And the author uh for each king puts in an evaluation uh based on whether they did good or evil in the sight of the Lord. Um, especially based on whether they served other gods instead of worshiping Yahweh alone, uh, and if they encouraged or allowed idolatry among their people rather than destroying idols. So, while the vast majority of kings in both kingdoms did evil in the sight of the Lord, the northern kingdom notably was worse. Yeah. Because every single king in the northern kingdom did evil in the sight of the Lord. In Judah, at least there’s like eight out of twenty that seem to do good. Yeah. So they have I guess a uh less than half of a leg up, but anyway, so the succession of kings is marked by chaos and disorder. especially in Israel. But at the same time we see a couple notable prophets arise that we’ll talk more about Elijah and Elisha. Speaking of similar names.

Matt • 04:47
Yeah, that’s gonna be hard. Bear with us, people, because we’re we’re gonna have to overpronunciate to make sure that we can keep track of who is who here.

Hannah • 04:54
Yeah. But ultimately, even though these prophets demonstrate some very powerful prophetic signs and even some what we might consider to be messianic signs. They the kingdoms continue to spiral down into military coup after military coup, into greater and greater chaos and disorder uh ultimately leading to the Assyrian exile of the northern kingdom of Israel, which is the very end of our reading this week So we’ll talk more about exile in the coming weeks, but that is where we’re at right now.

Matt • 05:29
Yeah. So you got into it when we were doing the introduction here. So the the kingdoms are divided now, and we get some commentary from the writer as we’re going along here about kind of what makes for a good king versus a bad king. And the differentiating factor is this ideal of uh this idea of idols or idol worship. Um so I thought that was important to tease out a little bit so for our friends to kind of know contextually what’s going on. You know, if we live in the 21st century and we live in Western culture. So idol worship may or may not be a thing to many of us. So that may seem like the kind of thing that is uh something that people a long time ago did or people in more you know, we might even say primitive cultures did. So I think we can look at it and be like, uh, what’s the big deal? So they’re so they got some idols around. Why does God get so worked up about that uh but it actually is a big deal and we can get the hints from that from the text itself so we want to make sure we tease that out a little bit here for the people, because that sets the stage for when the prophets come along, why their words say what they say and and how they’re calling to Israel’s heart. So one pattern that we want to call out, uh we keep going back today. We keep thinking we’re finished with David, but we have a little bit of unfinished business with David and Solomon. But notice when we from our conversation last week. Um, you know, when we’re talking about the difference between David and Solomon and how God views them, we talked about how David had a repentant heart and a heart that would confess sin. And Solomon, there’s no evidence that he did very much of that. The scripts uh the scripture also tells us, you know, Solomon went after idols, specifically the idols from uh his the his wives turned his heart to idols. David did not. David stayed focused on the God of Israel, Yahweh God. So I think that’s an important differentiator. We probably should have teased it out a little bit more last week, but We’re giving David his props now. Again, that’s really sets a template for the kings that are going forward. So so Hannah, help us out a little bit. I know there’s there’s some Ten Commandments language about idols. There’s some other language about idols. So when the scripture, especially the Hebrew scriptures, is using this word idol, what are some of the ideas or or concepts that we need to understand?

Hannah • 07:41
Yeah, well, I I mean it’s like the first part of the Ten Commandments. It says, I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me, and make no idols. So those two are kind of interrelated, serving idols and serving false gods. are really the same thing because an idol is just a image or representation of a false god, something that you worship. Um and so well the Lord says not to even make idols of him like the other religions. the other nations would make idols that represented a god. Um, but he didn’t want that because he made humans as his images. It’s the same word. images and like statue or idol can is there’s a a one word for idol that is the same word that’s used to describe how humans are made in the image of God. So he’s like, you’re already my representatives in the world. Don’t don’t make an image of me, but especially don’t worship images of false gods.

Matt • 08:48
Yeah.

Hannah • 08:49
Yeah.

Matt • 08:49
Yeah. And so I think that idea for us is maybe a little bit straightforward because well I don’t certainly have in my house any um images or statues I’ve got. Do you when you’re doing your house cleaning, do you need to clean any of those up?

Hannah • 09:03
No. But you know, a lot of Christians do have the l what is it called? The like crucifix? Like a symbol of of Jesus on the cross.

Matt • 09:12
Okay.

Hannah • 09:12
And and the people actually argue whether or not that’s like a an idol or an image of that. But yeah.

Matt • 09:19
Yeah, you know, I was uh one uh writer, pastor uh that I respect a lot when I was reading his John Piper. Um and he he he didn’t get into language about the crucifix, but he did say something like, you know, if you carry around uh like a good luck charm, like a lucky penny. or uh a rabbit’s foot for good luck. In a sense, that’s an idol. Because his his sort of definition of an idol is anything that you are seeking blessing from or favor from, um, that is not the God of the Bible. Um, so I don’t know. Uh uh yeah. Some people probably have like their lucky, I don’t know, coin or something like that. I mean I I I don’t know. Up to a point I don’t think there’s any harm in those, but I do think uh he made me think. when he uh looked at that uh when I saw that definition because it’s like, hmm, yeah, if I’m seeking favor from someone or something that is not God. Who promises to pour that out on me in abundance if I will just trust him? It is a little bit of a slap in the face to him, or it’s a little bit of an insult to him. It’s a little bit of Hey God, I’m not sure you’re gonna come through for me on this thing that I want or feel like I need. So let me put this thing in my pocket or let me invest in this thing a little bit. Um, just in case you don’t come through for me in the way that I want you to. And if if we have some thinking like that, we’re we’re in idle territory.

Hannah • 10:44
Yeah.

Matt • 10:45
Yeah.

Hannah • 10:46
Yeah. And I do think it comes down to um I mean it could be a physical or a non-physical thing, but usually a physical idol or object is representing something bigger. Like people might idolize their clothing. Like that’s a simple thing. But you it’s not like you’re really worshiping the clothes. You’re worshiping the the image that the clothes give you. Maybe the you wear expensive clothes because you value your status and your uh demonstration of wealth. Yeah. And so that’s like what you’re saying is you’re you’re putting your confidence in that thing rather than in Jesus.

Matt • 11:29
Yeah. Uh you know, I’m a very proud graduate of the university that I went to, Syracuse University. Uh I’ve got my diploma right up here on the wall in the room where I record this. I’m I often have Syracuse gear on. You know, in my office I have some things and and I like it. I like people to know that I went to Syracuse and it it I like to think that it affords me a certain status. Um, I also am just it reminds me of good times that I had there and school pride and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, there is a little bit of like, you know, I I did something here and you should afford me a certain level of respect for it. So I think there’s that. I also think there’s this idea of sort of um Like hedging our bets. I think this is a place where idol worship shows up for a lot of us. Um, hey God, I know you said you would provide for me in these ways. But just in case you don’t come through or I’m not sure you’re gonna come through in the way that I would really prefer for you to. So I’m gonna do this thing over here. You know, I’ve I’ve known multiple young people, sadly, who really wanted to get married. And of course being married is a good thing. I’ve been married 25 years. It’s a huge joy. You just got married uh within the last year. Uh I trust that it’s been a joy for you. And um so it’s great to be married. But I you know, I know a couple of people, one in particular that I’m thinking of that just really craved this thing so much, but it it wasn’t happening in the time frame uh that they wanted. And so they ended up kind of getting together with a non-believer, uh, you know, got married, had a child, and then the marriage very quickly went south. And I I can’t help but wonder, I don’t want to be judgmental about this person, but I can’t help but wonder if if they’d waited a little bit, if they trusted the Lord just a little bit more, could there have been a happier story there? Um Yeah, so I yeah, things like that. Or hey, you know, God, I I really um you know I got some bills to pay. I want want to do these things Uh, you know, uh I could get this promotion at work if I was just a little bit more aggressive or if I cut some corners ethically. I’m not comfortable with that, but I really want it. And you haven’t come through for me, so Maybe I’m gonna do this. Maybe it’s okay. I anything where we’re doing that thing where it’s like, I know God, God, I know you said obey you, but dot dot dot. Anything after the butt so to speak. You’re you’re talking about an idol. Hey God, I know you said uh don’t be uh uh yoked with unbelievers, but Yeah, we’re we’re talking out, hey God, I know you said trust in you and wait for your timing, but you know, I think it could take the form of say something like political power or cultural influence or all of these things. And I Uh yeah, so I I think we do we’re wise to look at the text and when we see Israel struggling with idol worship and and God’s uh violent uh aggression toward that thing. It might be easier for us to be like, ah, that was what they did back then, but we’re way too cool for that now. We don’t do that. We do that. We d I do that. And uh and those of you who are listening, you probably do that too. So something to be wise about.

Hannah • 14:33
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think finances are a huge one for a lot of people. Yeah, tell me more. Well st you’re talking about hedging your bets. You’re like, well yeah, l Lord, I think you’ll provide for me, but just in case I’ve got my retirement account Loaded up, you know, for my own personal safety and security. Yeah. Just in case you don’t come through in the way that I want you to.

Matt • 14:55
Yeah. And you know it’s it’s s uh strange. Strange isn’t quite the word, but It’s like one of those healthy tensions because the Bible does talk about the wisdom of saving your money, living not frugally, but you know, being very intentional about the way that we steward our resources, thinking about the future a little bit. So Yes, it is wise to say for retirement or say for a house or you know some purchase that you want to make. Um But kind of I I feel like we had a similar conversation. Sometimes that stuff ends up owning you more than you owning that stuff. And yeah, I think it’s a a ripe place for idols. I think you’re on to something.

Hannah • 15:33
Yeah, I mean, how often do you check your bank account ’cause you want to see how you’re doing, or how often does it come across your mind, like I think the more we think about things, that’s revealing of what’s in our heart and our priorities. So yeah, like saving up An investing is a good and wise thing, but am I is is it uh claiming my allegiance or all of my time and priority? Am I overworking myself and neglecting things that the Lord is calling me to because I’m concerned about making more and more and more money? That’s when it tips the scale.

Matt • 16:10
Yeah. Now in the text we see this in the form of when there’s a drought, they will pray to one of the foreign gods, or they’ll sacrifice to the foreign god because they want the abundance of rain. Or for uh if you’re a childless couple, you will do a sacrifice to one of the foreign gods or god of fertility. Um so our form is, you know, we’re our 401k or our retirement account or our this or that. And there, they’re literally, you know, taking a God because like, hey, I want a child, I’ll sacrifice to this fertility god and that will be how I accrue a child. Or it hasn’t rained for seven years, let’s sacrifice to this rain god and that will be you know how we experience that. So when we see these things, uh yes, it’s an ancient culture, but it’s really our our heart is in there too. It it reveals a lot about us. So Yeah. And you know, it’s telling me I don’t think we’re actually gonna hit it in our reading this week, but early next week. Psalm 115 uh says a lot about idols and it’s talking about sort of the foolishness of giving your worship and allegiance and your heart to these things that are man-made. And in verse 8 of that psalm it says, Those who make them become like them. So it’s not a harmless thing to sort of worship idols. Whatever it is that we give our affection to and our attention to and our uh worship to, we become like that thing. Um so when you’re giving your heart to your 401k or your retirement count that’s going up and down every day, you’re gonna be a person that goes up and down every day. When you’re giving it to these other you become Like that thing. Um, so it’s really, really, really important to have wisdom in this area.

Hannah • 17:44
Yeah. Yeah, I even noticed that in our reading this week, the last chapter in um Second Kings 17.

Matt • 17:51
Yeah.

Hannah • 17:52
Verse 15 in the this I like the CSB’s translation of this because it it just hits um the concept a little bit uniquely. It says uh Israel followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. Ugh. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt • 18:10
Yeah. So something to keep in mind as we’re reading these passages, and and this idea is not going away. We’re gonna see it the rest of scripture. Uh even into the New Testament. The New Testament talks about idol worship as well, so something to keep in mind. So to so the the place where idol worship sort of uh has accountabilities in this role of the kings because the kings Uh some of the kings that we read about do this practice themselves. They are sacrificing to other gods or worshiping other gods. Uh but also it’s how they uh shepherd and steward the people in this. There’s even some language in in some of the kings where This king was okay, they didn’t do it, but they also didn’t prevent the people from doing idol worship. So the kings bear some responsibility. And so to counter this, uh there’s this role that rises up. Different. Um a little bit different than what we’ve seen so far, and that is the prophet. We’ve seen a couple prophets so far. Um uh the Nathan who uh encounters David with in the matter with Bathsheba is described as a prophet. couple names in there but there’s two big ones that we meet this week so and this is where we have to over pronunciate there’s a Elijah Elijah and then uh his friend Elijah Shah This is gonna be hard. Oh man, I wish there was an easy way to pronounce this. So so the first one we meet is Elijah. So uh Hannah, tell us a little bit about Elijah. Some cool stories here that I’m sure some people remember from Sunday school, but also a couple of cool patterns happening with him. So tell us more.

Hannah • 19:42
Yeah, well he is described kind of as this like wild uh person. He is it um chap first Kings chapter 17 says that the birds feed him bread and meat. Like I don’t know what that means. They’re just dropping food uh at I don’t know.

Matt • 20:03
Kind of a kind of a prototype door dash or I mean is that really different than getting your food delivered by drone?

Hannah • 20:11
Well, yeah, it is actually.

Matt • 20:13
Oh, okay.

Hannah • 20:14
You can program a drone. A bird is just doing its own thing, you know?

Matt • 20:19
Yeah. I mean they use carrier pigeons in like the war at wars and stuff, so I don’t know. If you can have birds around that might as well be useful, bring you some food.

Hannah • 20:27
Yeah, yeah. Anyway, he um demonstrates a lot of uh s prophetic signs. Um so the big one um is this fire, this test of fire. Um so this is chapter eighteen. So um and this is Uh uh with King Ahab.

Matt • 20:50
Ugh, Ahab’s a bad dude.

Hannah • 20:51
Yeah.

Matt • 20:52
Bad dude.

Hannah • 20:53
Yeah. So Elijah tells Ahab to summon all of Israel to meet at Mount Carmel. And there’s this testifier for Baal uh and Yahweh to see which one is better or real or more powerful or something like that.

Matt • 21:11
Yeah, it’s like a showdown.

Hannah • 21:12
Yeah. And so each of them prepare a bull for the altar, and Baal’s prophets call for Baal to set the fire to the altar, but it doesn’t happen. And then Elijah is like, let’s pour four jars of water on our altar three times and soak the wood and the altar and make a big trench of water around it.

Matt • 21:35
And this is during a drought.

Hannah • 21:38
Where are they getting this water from? And so Yahweh sends fire to consume the burnt offering and it consumes the wood and the stones. There’s like all these descriptions and the dust around it and dried up all the water in the trench. So just really demonstrating how much more powerful and real you know the God of Israel is compared to this false god Baal.

Matt • 22:03
Yeah, and Elijah does some like trash talking. in this showdown.

Hannah • 22:07
Yeah.

Matt • 22:07
He says, where is your God? Is he forgotten? Is he using the bathroom?

Hannah • 22:13
Maybe he fell asleep.

Matt • 22:14
Is one of the things that he says.

Hannah • 22:16
Yeah.

Matt • 22:17
I mean this is like NBA level trash talk.

Hannah • 22:19
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt • 22:22
Uh but God answers him. Now it is curious though, because right after this episode where God answers by fire, and I would think Elijah is feeling pretty good about himself, but uh Ahab’s wife, Jezebel. I mean, talk about a bad dude. She’s a bad dudette, bad bad wife. Yeah. Um She says, Hey, I’m gonna do the same thing to you tomorrow. So if I catch you, you’re a dead man. And he takes off. Yeah, so he runs scared from this.

Hannah • 22:52
Yeah. I’m surprised that that scared him. Uh, honestly. But um yeah, so you were talking about this What is it that stood out to you about how he immediately flees to Mount Horeb?

Matt • 23:08
Um so uh one I’m just a little uh at least as I read the text, I’m surprised because I would expect That he’s very confident at the end of this exchange. He’s just had this big showdown. He’s clearly the winner, um, and things are going pretty well. And yet the first, you know, when uh Jezebel threatens him I would think that he’s earned or Yahweh has earned enough confidence, they could be like, look, you can’t hurt me, come after me, do your best. But he doesn’t. He takes off And he goes to Mount Horeb. And correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s basically another name for Mount Sinai. Is that right?

Hannah • 23:44
Yeah.

Matt • 23:44
Yeah, which is we remember this from Exodus. This is the mountain of God where he makes his presence known. And he goes there and he’s all by himself, um, and he kinda hides in a like hole, like a little cave, and the Lord uh visits him there and is basically like, what are you doing here? And he’s like, well, you know, I there’s only a few of us prophets left here and they’re trying to kill me. And God’s like What n what what? Why are you doing this? Don’t don’t do this. Go back. Um Yeah, so I just thought that was interesting. So uh maybe a I I have to think there’s a Moses connection. If the text tells us explicitly that it’s going to Sinai or Mount Horeb kind of a new Moses calling or new anointing kind of prophet role, leader role type thing. So I think there’s something there. I don’t know enough details uh on that, but I think there’s something there. But y also just it’s just such a different reaction than I expect.

Hannah • 24:40
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and then the way that the Lord shows up when he’s in the cave is interesting to me. I don’t fully understand the description uh it says that a mighty wind came, an earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in them.

Matt • 24:59
Yeah.

Hannah • 25:00
And instead he shows up in a soft whisper.

Matt • 25:03
Yeah. It’s beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, it is a little bit curious.

Hannah • 25:08
Yeah, I don’t know what that’s really what the purpose is there.

Matt • 25:13
Yeah, I’m kind of wondering if that’s maybe Yeah, ’cause you know, God showed up in a big earthquake like way with the test of fire. Um but I don’t maybe it’s telling us that’s Not what to expect from him on a regular basis. He he did it in that moment um to show who he was in front of the prophets of Baal and in front of um uh Ahab, but the the no that’s not necessarily the norm of how we should expect to interact with him. The the norm would be he’s in a quiet voice, which means we have to listen keyword for you. So we have to teach ourselves to listen. He’s not going to be like the big parade, you know, at Disney World all the time. He’s going to be speaking quietly. So we serve our ourselves well to to listen for him. Not wanting the big sort of show every time, but to train ourselves to listen in the quiet.

Hannah • 26:03
Yeah.

Matt • 26:04
I’m I’m workshopping a little bit here, but I there might be something there.

Hannah • 26:07
Yeah. And even you were making a comparison to Moses and Sinai and and the Lord shows up like a storm or an earthquake at Sinai too.

Matt • 26:17
Yeah. So

Hannah • 26:18
Yeah, a little bit of a contrast.

Matt • 26:19
Yeah. Now you pointed out to me there’s some sort of messianic signals with Elijah.

Hannah • 26:27
Yeah. Tell me a little more. Let’s point a few out. So in chapter 17, um Elijah is involved in helping this widow and her son. uh to feed them and so there’s um they have a little bit of flour and oil and uh Elijah says that it will never run out. So it will just like feature. So there’s this abundance out of um out of uh very little. And then that son gets sick and dies, and Elijah raises him back to life. That’s the first time Right? In the Bible? I think so.

Matt • 27:10
Once resurrected. I think so, yeah.

Hannah • 27:12
I mean, that’s a big deal. That’s a big messianic painter.

Matt • 27:17
You’d think they’d pr uh maybe circle that or bolt that when we uh hit it in the text here.

Hannah • 27:22
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt • 27:24
Uh yeah, but we yeah. Cause certainly the uh oil Oil. That’s got some water into wine vibe to it. That’s got some bread and fish vibe to it. Yeah.

Hannah • 27:35
Yeah. And then um Maybe those are the main ones and then he uh you know rides into the heavens on a chariot of fire.

Matt • 27:50
Yes.

Hannah • 27:52
So, you know, the the text implies that he never dies and he just goes up To be with the Lord in the heavens.

Matt • 28:02
In this chariot of fire.

Hannah • 28:04
Yeah.

Matt • 28:04
That’s a little wacky.

Hannah • 28:05
So that’s that’s a little messianic too.

Matt • 28:08
That’s true.

Hannah • 28:10
You know?

Matt • 28:11
Yeah. Okay. I see it. Yeah. And then um Yeah, so so sort of a little prototype of John the Baptist.

Hannah • 28:21
Yeah, with the wild sniss. Yeah. And he’s described as like someone of the wilderness like John the Baptist was, and eating the the animals are feeding him, you know.

Matt • 28:32
Yeah. And confronting power. In in similar way to John the Baptist did where he he told the uh the Herod Herod’s uh uh brother, like you can’t just steal your brother’s wife. And you know, John forfeits his life for having that exchange. So we’ll we’ll get to that in due time. But yeah, so I’m seeing some John the Baptist vibe, but yeah, some messianic connections, uh resurrection, genero abundance and generosity. Um yeah, so Elijah leaves the scene in the chariot of fire, also a little bit messianic, as you pointed out, and his successor is named Elijah. I don’t yeah, I don’t think I got that right. Elisha. And there’s an interesting moment here when they’re having this exchange where Elijah says to Elisha, um, you know, basically, what do you want? And Elisha says, I would love to have a double dose of your God’s spirit that is in you. And I think they point this out in the Bible Project video, but just in case you missed it, so there are seven instances. Where Elijah, Elijah, yes, uh uh demonstrates uh you know a clearly spirit-led thing, seven, so our number, and then there are two times that many. accounted uh or attributed to Elisha. So this is one of those things where you kinda need eyes to see it. The text is not being so ham-handed about it. You know that The scripture, uh you know, if we were writing this today, it’s like Elisha did this seven times, but Elisha’s gonna do it fourteen times. We’d have like a little table over in the corner and we would visualize this, but this the scripture’s not doing that. It’s it’s making you see you have to have eyes to see. But yeah, if you’re counting times where the spirit moves on Elisha, it’s seven. And then if you’re counting for Elisha, it is 14. So 2 times 7, just like uh the anointing promised.

Hannah • 30:18
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and s a symbol of completion, so s you know, Elijah’s um signs are complete, like m meaning they there was an abundance, uh a fullness of them. But then to double the number of completion is like overabundance. Yeah.

Matt • 30:41
Yeah. So I know a story that came up. A couple people in the chat this week were like, what is the deal with that story? The story with the bears.

Hannah • 30:49
Yeah.

Matt • 30:49
It’s kind of a funny story when you read it.

Hannah • 30:52
It is.

Matt • 30:54
Yeah. So uh what can summarize it for the people real quick?

Hannah • 30:58
Uh uh I mean it’s a really short story. It’s like Some young people are making fun of Elisha for being bald. Or well will they say go up balldy? Something like that.

Matt • 31:13
Go on up, you bald head

Hannah • 31:15
Yeah.

Matt • 31:15
And then apparently this is ancient Nere’s trash talk or mockery or something. Yeah.

Hannah • 31:20
Yeah. And then he curses them in the name of the Lord. And then these two bears come out of the woods and maul forty-two of them.

Matt • 31:30
Yeah.

Hannah • 31:31
And that’s it.

Matt • 31:32
Have you ever wanted to like just call bears out on people?

Hannah • 31:36
Uh you know, uh Matt, I’m not that violent.

Matt • 31:43
Okay, fair point. So I actually looked this up. So a uh commentary that I looked at said there’s the couple things going on in the text here that we should know. So uh one is the the term use that they use. We might think that’s like eight-year-old boys who are just like being silly. But we should actually expect that to be sort of young men, maybe about eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. So they’re not they’re not youthful and innocent and cute, um just being rascals. Uh they’re old enough to know better. And apparently there’s uh what’s happening here is sort of a challenge to Elijah’s authority. So on the go on up, they’re sort of hearkening back to Elijah’s you know, uh leaving in the chariot. They’re like, hey you if you’re a prophet, if you’re anointed in the same way, why don’t you just go on up out of the uh chariot too? It’s basically challenging his authority. I don’t know what the bald head is really about. Poor guy. Yeah.

Hannah • 32:34
Yeah.

Matt • 32:34
Uh so they just call this out. So I think part of this is like you’re asking me to sort of defend my role and my authority here. So here here goes. I’m gonna call out a bear to maul you Now the commentary out that I read also pointed out that just because they were mauled doesn’t mean they were killed. But then you looked up the Hebrew word and you’re not so sure about that. You want to challenge that one.

Hannah • 32:56
I mean I only looked up the word for like 30 seconds, so this might not be right, but it means to like literally tear apart. So I’m like, I don’t know if you can survive that.

Matt • 33:09
I would not I think it’s safe to say. Either way you uh get to it, I would not want to have a bear running at me. I would not want to have a bear maul me. I I don’t want it with the bear.

Hannah • 33:20
Yeah.

Matt • 33:21
Have you ever seen a bear in the wild?

Hannah • 33:23
Uh little ones.

Matt • 33:24
Okay.

Hannah • 33:25
Yeah.

Matt • 33:25
Well that’s when you gotta be nervous because you’re not supposed to get between um um baby bear and their babies and their mama.

Hannah • 33:31
Oh yeah, like smaller like black bears. I think. Yeah.

Matt • 33:35
First time I ever saw a bear, I was hiking with my brother-in-law. We were on the Appalachian Trail. We’re just walking along, minding our business, and then all of a sudden he goes, He does that like quick thing and probably a decent sized black bear maybe ten feet in front of us. Just walking across the path. So then like we were like really, really loud for like the next two miles. Just like, no, no bears, please stay away from us. Yeah So that’s the story with the bears. So I know it can seem like maybe a s a weird story, maybe even a silly story in what’s going on here, but it it it looks like best our understanding of it’s the these young men are challenging Elijah’s authority and that is his response. is to to confront them in that way. Uh I’m not sure bears would be the weapons of choice for me, but that’s what this that’s what the text tells us Now, we talked about sort of the messianic connections with Elijah. There’s a there’s even a few with Elijah, and some of them are very similar.

Hannah • 34:31
Yeah.

Matt • 34:31
So yeah, what one tell us what we’re looking at here.

Hannah • 34:34
Yeah, there’s a lot of similar ones. So in 2 Kings chapter 4 is where several of them are. So Elisha multiplies a widow’s oil. basically just like Elijah does with the flour and oil. Um and so this one um gives a little bit more detail about the the widow comes um to Elisha and says she’s in debt and that the creditor is coming to take her children as slaves in order to pay off the debt. And so then Elisha tells her to go gather as many containers as she can from her neighbors and then fill all those containers with the oil from the one little jar she has. And so the oil keeps flowing, keeps flowing to fill all the containers, and it doesn’t stop until all the containers are full. And so then he tells her to go sell the oil to pay off her debt. And um I thought this was interesting, the like the connection of debt. to abundance. It’s very messianic.

Matt • 35:41
Yeah.

Hannah • 35:42
You know, to be freed from your debt Um and your children um spared from slavery. Yes. That’s very messianic.

Matt • 35:52
I love this. Yeah. I mean that’s I mean what else is Jesus do for us? I mean I mean there’s so many things he does for us, but yes, turn us from slaves into people who live in abundance. Um I mean we I know we talked about that in Exodus, but yeah, it’s another example of Gosh, we were we were trapped and now we’re totally free. And it’s not for anything that we did. It’s just from obeying what this man of God tells us to do.

Hannah • 36:17
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that’s kind of a a redemptive pattern. Yeah. Turning debt into abundance and death into life. Um so speaking of death into life, the next story in chapter four is when Elisha raises a boy from um from being dead. So there’s this Shunammite woman who is demonstrates really great hospitality to Elisha. She like makes him his own room to stay anytime he passes through town.

Matt • 36:49
That’s really nice

Hannah • 36:50
Yeah.

Matt • 36:50
Yeah.

Hannah • 36:51
And it’s it’s cool that that’s included in the scripture, you know, to like call that out. Um, I thought that was an interesting detail. And so um then she was she didn’t have a son, and Elisha told her that she was gonna have a son, even though her husband was very old. So this is very much like, you know, Abraham and Sarah.

Matt • 37:13
I was gonna say I feel like we’ve heard this before.

Hannah • 37:15
Yeah, yeah, several times Um, yeah, so then she does have a son a year later, but he um gets sick and dies. Um uh you know, after he grows up a little bit. And so then she calls and it the the n narrator makes it sound like she’s very calm and she’s just like leaves her house and goes to find Elijah, like right after her son has died. Mm-hmm. Like I feel like the author is trying to demonstrate her trust and she believes that oh, you know, this is a man of God and he’ll He’ll figure it out for me.

Matt • 37:51
Okay.

Hannah • 37:52
You know? So she just goes and she finds him and Elisha is like, Oh yeah, I’ll take care of it. And so He comes at first he tells his servant to touch the staff to the boy’s face, but that doesn’t work for some reason. So Elisha himself has to come. uh to the boy, he prays over him and then he like does this weird thing where he like lays on top of the boy.

Matt • 38:19
Yeah.

Hannah • 38:19
Yeah. And he has to do that a couple times before he comes back to life.

Matt • 38:26
That is interesting. Um I like to think that I have a a reasonably strong faith, but I’m not sure I’d be so bold as the mom in this situation.

Hannah • 38:37
Yeah, I mean this is the only the second time we’ve ever heard of anyone being raised from the dead.

Matt • 38:43
Yes. So it’s not normal.

Hannah • 38:45
No, yeah. But I mean this is Elisha and the only other person who has raised someone from the dead is his, you know, teacher, the yeah, uh, the person that discipled him. Yeah. So yeah. And then one more sign in that same chapter is when a man brings twenty loaves of bread and then Elisha says, feed it to a hundred people. And um then the bread just multiplies so that they have leftover, which is very much like Jesus feeding the plant.

Matt • 39:18
I gotta say, yeah. I I don’t know that I had seen that really before. I mean I’ve seen it before, but like the connection’s so strong. Uh yeah, I think if if we were first or second century Hebrew scripture people Um and the accounts of Jesus feeding the 5,000. I think we would the hyperlink would be loud and clear for us. We’re going for an Elijah Elisha moment here. Where he’s taking a couple loaves of bread and feeding thousands of people with it. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I mean it’s a ma yeah. I mean I I geek out on moments like that anyway, but yeah, it’s just a beautiful yeah, ’cause I I think it’s definitely sort of tipping us toward some messianic things. Now we might not see that. This is actually an interesting pattern. This is something I was gonna point out to you. We’re kind of back in the judges pattern a little bit, and especially after the chapters that we read today where we’re going back more into the sort of straight accounting for the kings where, you know, r uh the k king rises up, the the Assyrians or the whoever’s come along and they fight and but then uh you know the king of kinda so it’s a little bit like the judges thing where there’s like a military hero that keeps coming out of the woodwork to rescue Israel, to rescue the God’s people here. So I was just thinking, you know, in the New Testament when Jesus comes along and the the sort of soft expectation that it well, if he were the Messiah, he would sort of get rid of the Romans for us. You can sort of see where the that’s coming from, where that expectation is coming from, because it’s been the pattern so often. It shows up in judges a lot, but it it shows up here. Because the the heroes, or at least their optic on who the heroes of the story are, are military heroes. But it is interesting when we get to the New Testament, the lot one of the lines uh that the writers draw to us is not necessarily back to the military hero kings. It’s to the prophets who connected back to life to connected back to ideas of abundance. Those are the links that they want us to see. So not Ahab or Hezekiah or any of these. Maybe a little bit, I’m sure we’ll get into that. um as we go further in the reading, but Elijah, Elijah, people who were told that are anointed with God’s Spirit. And of course when somebody has God’s Spirit, there’s going to be life, abundance, joy, peace, all of these things. So I think this is one of those things where that didn’t pop for me until probably a a pretty recent readings. Even this last one, I think those lines are even drawn a little bit brighter for me.

Hannah • 41:47
Yeah, I mean the Davidic covenant was all about this promise to David that he uh the Messiah would be a king from his line. So like just taking that at face value, you would expect a legitimate, like earthly king taking a earthly throne. Um so that was the expectation was kind of I could see how you would expect that to happen. And that’s how these kings tend to come to power is through military force and defeating their enemies.

Matt • 42:26
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So it’s really interesting. Yeah, there’s so many interesting connections here. And and as you alluded to, the first and second kings can be a little bit confusing to read and a little bit uh pedestrian to read because we’re just slogging through names we don’t recognize and but there’s some interesting connections there. When you have eyes to see, like Jesus is showing up again and again and again. Sometimes in our failure, but sometimes in the way that God intervenes in the story to call out and rescue his people. So it’s it’s really amazing. Yeah. So in the after Elijah exits the scene, um we go we we get a little bit more list of kings. So some good kings, some bad kings, some in-between kings. There’s a couple that I like. I like Hezekiah. There’s some some thing. I thought we’re gonna get to Hezekiah next week, though, right? Yeah, I think so.

Hannah • 43:19
Yeah, he might show up right

Matt • 43:26
But he of course is one of the kings of Judah. The kings of Israel, it’s not good. It’s just keeps spiraling. And so that leads to Uh I think we’re gonna finish this week’s reading with sort of the the first wave of exile to uh Syria. And we’ve been told this is coming. So here it is. Yeah.

Hannah • 43:45
Yeah. Yeah, the king of Assyria invades and captures Samaria, the capital city, and then exiles the Israelites to go live in Assyria. And this is exactly what was promised as one of the covenant curses if Israel disobeyed the covenant and wasn’t faithful. to the Lord’s commands. So we see that in Deuteronomy twenty eight, those covenant curses. And exile is one of the biggest uh things that’s described that would happen. Oh, and you know what? I really wanted to um Uh uh note at least one okay, two times in Second Kings 17. Okay, okay my favorite word has showed up.

Matt • 44:31
Oh boy, okay. I can’t wait.

Hannah • 44:32
Not my favorite word, but uh the the word that I’ve been talking about that I’ve been noticing a lot through this reading. Okay. So uh to listen. So Chapter seventeen, fourteen explains that um even though well before that it explains that the Lord warned Israel that if they continued in their sins, they didn’t turn back. um that this was gonna happen. But um verse 14, but they would not listen.

Matt • 45:01
Yes.

Hannah • 45:02
Right? And then um Uh verse 40 also says the nations would not listen. So it’s describing the nations that occupied that land, too. So yeah, not listening to the voice of the Lord is equivalent to not being faithful to his covenant and disobeying his commands. Yeah, which leads to the inevitable consequences of your actions, which are all described really as the Lord just handing Israel over to the natural consequences of their own actions.

Matt • 45:40
Yeah, it’s essentially giving them what they want.

Hannah • 45:42
Yeah.

Matt • 45:42
Right. Yeah. And that it’s the same for us. You know, so often God’s uh discipline or punishment for me is giving me what I want. Like you want this thing instead of me. Okay. Take it. It’s not going to satisfy you. It’s going to lead to really hard things for you. But if that’s what you want, take it. And uh you know, pay for it every time. It’s yeah. Again, same kind of thing. We look at a text and we be like, oh, those silly Israelites, don’t they know better than to chase after idols and all this? Pfft, I do the same thing. I do the same thing. We just call it different things here in the Right. Twenty twenty-first century in the good old US of A.

Hannah • 46:19
So Yeah.

Matt • 46:20
Yeah. Well more to come on a lot of that, because especially when we start going through the profits, as we’ll start doing in what probably a a couple months here A lot of the prophets, uh, you know, certainly Isaiah and some of the others, they’re gonna come back to this time frame. So I think we’re gonna get a lot of flavor in terms of what those interactions were and some of the more specific uh sort of things that God wanted to do with the people were. But that’s a great overview of this time frame. We met a couple of the prophets and we’ve seen some messianic connections to the person of Jesus. So we can see that story. leading us more and more to Messiah, the rightful king who’s gonna come. And it sort of starts to whet our appetite a little bit. Uh you know, I I’ve seen life uh after death, I’ve seen abundance. I want to see more, right? I I want to s this looks like the good life. This is what I want for them. This is what I want for me. So I’m I’m ready for more. I’m not going to get it for a little while, but uh but I want more.

Hannah • 47:14
Well, next week we start Isaiah

Matt • 47:17
We do.

Hannah • 47:18
Yeah, because they Bible Project pushes uh chronicles to the end of the Old Testament. Because it uh it’s kind of like a review, an overcap of the whole story so far. Yeah. So yeah, we’ll start Isaiah next week. And Isaiah portrays the Messiah in a in a pretty different way than How we’re seeing all of these kings act. So that is gonna add some context.

Matt • 47:43
And Isaiah is a book the last couple of years that has really, really captured me. Uh I’ve actually even considered maybe I just do a year long read through Isaiah. It’s just so rigid. It’s long. You could, it’s really long. Um But yeah, so rich uh and deep. So I’m excited to get through that one. Well, we’re about at time here, so let me pray for us uh and then we’ll uh we’ll get you off this podcast. Thanks so much everyone for being with us. Let me pray for us and then we’ll uh We’ll get it, we’ll get out of here. Uh Heavenly Father, we just praise you. And Lord, we don’t want anything else to compete for our affection or attention, Lord. We don’t want to give our worship to anyone or anything but you. Because you alone are worthy. Lord, who loves like you love? No one does. Who made us? No one else made us. Lord, who gives out abundance and generosity and who fills us with joy and peace and who is gentle and kind like you are. There is no one. And Lord, we look at these ancient Israelites and we might uh scoff at them for creating idols, but oh Lord, our hearts are not that different than ours, and we just make idols that look a little bit different and Take different forms. But oh Lord, we let other things compete for our attention and our affection just as much as they do. But Lord, thank you for your patience with us, for not turning your back on us, for sending your son. uh to to die for our sins and redeem us and restore us and bring us back to you, to bring us back into full fellowship with you So Lord, let us not turn to idols. Let us not give anything our affection or attention or our worship other than you, because you and you alone are worthy of it. So we give it to you freely as we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Hannah • 49:21
Amen.

Matt • 49:21
Amen. Thanks, Hannah.

Hannah • 49:23
Thank you.

Matt • 49:24
All right. Talk too soon, everyone