2 Kings 6
has some very unique stories with some fairly basic messages to us.
The Axe Head
In the
story of the axe head, let’s not miss the beginning of the story. One of the buildings housing a school of
prophets that Elisha was overseeing had gotten too small. That means that they were growing! In a time when the general faith of the
nations was in decline, there was a small bubble of faithfulness that could be
found among the Hebrew people. The whole
world may not be faithful, but that that doesn’t mean that there isn’t faith in
the world!
It would
seem that some of the students of the school were poor, because at least one of
the students had borrowed tools in order to work on the school. Of course, there is no inherent problem with
being poor and there is no inherent problem with borrowing tools. In fact, I think that it is neat that we have
a testimony here that Elisha took disciples who couldn’t even provide for
themselves. It demonstrates the lesson
we learned yesterday – accruing wealth was not a motivating factor for Elisha.
What is
important is that we are a responsible for what we do have – and if that means
borrowing something then we are careful to return it back in the same (or
better) condition than we got it. Of
course, when an axe head flies off the handle and into water, that makes it
tough to do. There can be little wonder
why this poor student was worried. If he
had to borrow the axe in the first place, how could he ever replace it?
What’s
pretty cool here is that God performs a miracle and it appears to be over
something of little consequence. I mean,
it is one thing to know a person is terminally ill – or even dead – and restore
them to full health. It is a big deal to
feed thousands of people with food that shouldn’t have stretched that far. But compared to those incidents making a
little axe head float for a reasonably insignificant student seems pretty
minor. Yet, God still cares enough to
perform a miracle. God doesn’t care
about how big the circumstance is; God cares about making His name glorified
through the things that He does. It
doesn’t matter to God that that axe head is insignificant and the borrower of
the axe head is poor. God still resolves
the circumstance.
Horses and Chariots
The next
story in this chapter is the story about the horses and chariots of Syria. As we read this story, we can see the true
agenda of God. God is not interested in
promoting the wars of mankind. In fact –
and be careful, I might go a little heretical here – God doesn’t care about
making His people the dominant people in the world.
Think
about this for a second. In the sum
total of human history, how many of those years have the Jews been the dominant
force over the face of the world? Let’s
talk about Christianity, even. Today,
how many of the “world’s most important people” are genuinely Christian? If God’s primary agenda was to promote His
people, then God is doing a pretty poor job of accomplishing that goal. The reality is that God has a different
agenda than promoting His people into high positions in this world.
God’s
agenda is about revealing Himself and His ways to the world so that the world
can be in relationship with Him. That’s
the really neat part of this story. If
God’s agenda was promoting “His people” then Elisha would have told the king of
Israel to slaughter the Syrians that had been delivered into his midst.
But that
isn’t what happens at all. Elisha tells
the king to feed them, give them water, and send them on their way. God isn’t interested in destroying the
Syrians even in the slightest! Instead,
God is interested in revealing His ways to them.
Now, we do
know that the Syrians don’t come to God as a nation over this event – although
it is certainly possible that some in the army got the message. But what we do see is that this particular
king of Syria learns to respect God’s ways and doesn’t send raiding parties any
more. The king of Syria understands that
the king of Israel could have slaughtered his force. Instead, the Syrian soldiers are cared for
and returned unharmed. Respect is gained
and earned. It is amazing just how much
respect we can earn from others by adopting a policy of loving our enemies
rather than fighting with them.
Sieges and Blame
Most of
the last story in this chapter ties into tomorrow’s reading, so I’ll leave a
good bit of the discussion for then. But
for now I will note that the king of Israel is quick to assume that the siege
of the city is Elisha’s fault. The king
looks for a scapegoat rather than turning to God.
This is
pretty common among the prophets. The people
turn from the Lord. To deal with this
reality, God asks the prophets to warn the people. Rather than seeing the error of their own
ways, the people assume that the prophet is responsible for the calamity that
is coming upon them because of their own choices. In a sense, it’s the whole “Don’t kill the
messenger” principle all over again.
In fact,
this is pretty common among humanity.
How many of us really enjoy hearing bad news or experiencing bad events
in our life? The first person who comes
along to try and tell us about our issues and how we might resolve them usually
gets our wrath and our defensive walls.
We like to “kill the messenger” when the truth is that the fault pretty
typically lies with ourselves and not the messenger. But since it is usually far easier to blame
them instead of listen to them, that is what we do.
People of
God – especially people who have the calling to be a prophet and bring God ways
to others – need to understand that sometimes it is part of the job. It’s a pretty bad part of the job, but it
happens pretty much every time God wants to prove a point to a rebellious group
of people. Human beings don’t like to
hear that they are wrong. We enjoy
rebellion if it means that we can be right.
<><
No comments:
Post a Comment