Be God's Family
S3 E29. The Miracles and Message of Elisha
This is the Begoth Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark Elsasser. Here in 2024, we are taking a deep dive into the Old Testament and we're quite a ways into it. Actually, we've been going at it for a while and we're up to the time of the Divided Kingdom in the north. It's called Israel in the south, it's called Judah, and there are various prophets. And today we're looking again at the prophet Elisha. He followed Elijah, which we heard in last week's podcast. And now Elisha is in full ministry. So, why do you think it is that Elijah is more famous than Elisha in church circles? Or do you find that to be true? I just have found, like I always hear about Elijah, but not that much about Elisha, even though Elisha's got more years and more kings and influences and more miracles and all that kind of stuff. Is that true for you as well? Yeah, absolutely. I think that part of that revolves around Elijah's battle with the prophets of Baal. That's pretty amazing. His interaction with Jezebel and Ahab and also being taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, essentially. And he shows up at the Transfiguration of Jesus. He shows up at the Transfiguration, Elijah in his ministry, it's kind of a forerunner to John the Baptist. And so, I think some of it actually is more tied to Elijah in the context of the New Testament and how often he's mentioned, especially in the gospel accounts and the New Testament, that might have something to do with it. Because it does seem strange because Elisha has this amazing ministry, and in some ways, even though Elijah was faithful, the end of his ministry, when God calls him upward, he kind of ends, I hate to say strangely, but kind of on a down note because he's really at that point and maybe somewhat understandably, don't want to bag on Elijah, but he's kind of whiny at the end. Yeah, he's pretty wiped out and maybe a bit depressed there and there's a lot going on in his life, which makes it even more interesting that he's not only known today better, but in the New Testament, he's referenced more. Yeah, you know, there's always somebody in whose shadow you live under in whatever life or career or in ministry as well, you know, and so I always think about that in terms of being a pastor. And there are pastors who have gone before me and done amazing things. And sometimes people still, they tell me they long for those years when pastor so-and-so was here. And I guess I was supposed to say, "Yeah, that's awesome." Which it really is because that means that person had a deep impact in their lives and it's probably a good... Maybe Elisha was just a humble guy to a degree and was willing to live into that, but he did want to double portion. It just seems like he got a half portion in terms of longevity or the heritage he left behind or whatever he went to call it. I don't know. Well, let's take a look at good old Elisha. We're in 2 Kings 4 today and there are a handful of different events that take place here. We'll see which ones we can get into and get through and they're like these miraculous moments that there's a message behind them of the things that he's doing and saying. So let me just jump in 2 Kings 4, the first 7 verses are about Elisha showing up where there's a widow. In verse 1 it says, "The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant, my husband, is dead and you know that he revered the Lord. "But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves." Elisha replied to her, "How can I help you? Tell me what you have in your house." She said, "Your servant has nothing there at all except a small jar of olive oil." I guess the thing I want to start with is this guy who died was a prophet. He was part of the company of the prophets. I don't fully understand like that was an organized method of training prophets, I believe. I don't know if it's like going to seminary when you're broke or what, but this guy died penniless. I mean he died and left nothing but debt and a little tiny jar of oil and two boys for his wife to take care of. That's the story of a lot of people I know. They've got very little or they haven't managed it well. I don't know if this guy didn't manage it well or if he was in training and just didn't have an income. I don't know how it goes, but I think this part of the story it resonates with people, doesn't it? Yeah, and you have to think that at this time the prophets of Israel weren't always welcomed among the people of Israel. Definitely not among oftentimes the leadership whether in Judah or Israel because they were constantly calling the people to repentance. And so these weren't, you know, whether you think about Jeremiah, you think about potentially this prophet here, you think about the host of prophets throughout the Old Testament, especially during the time of the divided kingdom, those prophets weren't welcome most of the times. And we're oftentimes thrown in jail, suffered persecution. Jeremiah has a count of a particular prophet being killed. So there are prophets are constantly suffering and enduring persecution during this time within the context of the divided kingdom, which may have been one of the aspects that led him into this debt or this poverty that he is suffering through to such a degree that whoever he owed money to didn't excuse the debt, but sought to take this prophets to sons into slavery in the midst of his wife's grief over her husband's death. And they clearly don't show much respect for the prophetic office at this time. Several years ago, I was asked to give a talk on discipleship on the stage of our annual conference meeting. The annual conference in the United Methodist system is a gathering of all of the pastors of the churches in that conference plus one lay leader for every pastor. So at that time, Indiana had a thousand churches, you know, so there were a lot of people that were going to be there and I was asked to give a talk on discipleship. And I remember being backstage before my time to go up and do my presentation and it kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed and my time kept getting shortened. And the main reason was is that the people at our conference gathering pastors and lady alike were having a debate over the moving expense for pastors. And I thought about that a lot like the priority of our conference, our people, was making sure that pastors got compensated really well for moving and moving expenses. But let's, so in order to have that discussion, we're going to squeeze out talks about discipleship. I'm guessing it was the opposite for this guy. They probably didn't have a moving expense account or a pension account or a reimbursement account or a salary or who knows what, but he's a, he's a profit. And as you say, he's in the northern kingdom where all the kings were rotten and were idle worship and all these things. So he dies penniless. Yeah, but I'm, I'm grateful for moving expense. You know what I'm saying? I mean, amen to that. But I do wish we had more focus on things like leading people to Christ and helping people become disciples and, and I wish those were more the focus. And then we'd say, if we have left over time, we'll talk about moving expense. But I'm not in charge. So anyway, I guess this guy wasn't either and he dies with nothing. And the story goes on in verse three, Elisha said, go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars and as each is filled, put it to one side. She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. So we already know that all she had was a small jar, it says, of olive oil. And with that small jar of oil, she just pours and she's filling up all of her neighbor's jars. It's an interesting miracle that takes place. She went inside, she shut the door, she shut out Elijah, Elisha, I'm sorry, I guess, and just her and her boys in there. And they're just filling up their neighbor's jars. It's an interesting miracle that takes place. Obviously, she's going to, later we see, sell the oil and provide money to raise her family because women didn't have a lot of means of making money. So this was a miracle of money, really, of provision for the family. But it's an interesting miracle for God to do through Elisha. How do you look at this one and see it from a way that we today can say, right, let me think how this applies to my life or to the world around me today. What do you see? I believe there's like two sides of this. One is the provision of God for his people. And so there are times when God miraculously provides. I remember one time when this is well over 20 years ago, but when I was in seminary in Dallas, Sherry and I had a car insurance payment that was due. And car insurance in Texas, car insurance in Louisiana is a lot different beast than car insurance in Indiana because you pay about six times more than what you pay. Oh, no, wait a minute. There's no snow and ice in Louisiana. So what's the deal? There's a lot of uninsured drivers in Louisiana and in Texas. And so that our car insurance is insane. And so Sherry and I were in seminary, you know, we haven't hit the magic threshold of 25 when you become that safer driver. And even then it still would have been expensive. So we owed at our six month point, like owed like $2,000 for car insurance had no clue how we were going to pay for our car insurance. And I thought I'd have to call up my mom and my mother in law and be like, Hey, can you front us some money so that we can cover our car? Did you go around your neighbors and get jars of money or? No, because we lived in a neighborhood in Texas. I'll just put it this way that or the apartment complex. The Dallas Police Department helicopter was overhead a lot. There were times that come home from school and one of my neighbors would be faced down in the parking lot with a Dallas police officer on top of him. So that's where we that's where we lived for a while. There was excitement every night. I didn't have to watch like cops because it was out in my front parking lot. But so we're in Dallas. We can't pay for this car insurance. Like, what are we going to do? And my mom calls me one day and she says, Hey, some distant relative on your dad's side that you never heard of before died like 20 plus years ago. Well, one of this, this distant relatives sons discovered that this person had the stock that nobody knew about that I was entitled to some of it. And so mom caught my mom tells me, look, you're going to get a check in the mail. It'll probably be, you know, $100 or something. Well, I get a check in the mail that covered every ounce of my car insurance on top of, and I mean, my car insurance do the next week. I get this check in the mail, like the wait before. You should have had a Maserati. I tell you covers every check covers every ounce of my car insurance and then also provided for a couple of date nights. I think to chedders or someplace. And so you see God's like provision through that. The other side of it, though, is I think about the immensity of our blessing within the Western world. And so there are moments when people come to us, people come to the church and they say, you know, something has happened in their life, whether it's a family member who has passed away, maybe a job loss. They're short on cash. They're short on material provision. And when they come to a brother and sister in Christ, oftentimes our response is to say, well, let's pray for God to show you his provision, not necessarily always considering the fact that maybe we are God's provision. And so I think there's the two sides of this one. It's God's provision for us. The other part of it is maybe we are the means by which God is going to provide. And maybe those means God has already blessed us with that we can share with those in need. That's pretty awesome. And certainly this woman listened and she had faith. She also had neighbors. They had jars. She had sons. Like all of these things were involved. I think it's a little bit what you're talking about because she could have said, you're a crazy man, Elijah. That is not going to help me at all. But she obeyed and she did it. She went and got these jars. And the story goes on that she's pouring. And taking her little jar and just keeps filling up the neighbors jars until the jars ran out and then the oil ran out. She tells her sons, get another jar and we're out of jars. And that's the last drop of oil that comes out of her little jar. And so I've always wondered, like everybody else, I'm sure that's read this, like if she had gotten more jars, would there have been more oil? But it seems to have been just enough that she sold the oil and provided money and had enough money. To take care of her and her sons. So she didn't go out and buy the maserati of donkeys, whatever that would have been in the day. She didn't, you know, didn't gather 20 times more jars than she did. It seemed to be enough and God provided for her, right? There's something to that part of the story to I think that's worth thinking about. Like, would she have gotten more if she got more jars or did she get exactly what she needed? And that's God's provision for her. You have any thoughts on that? I think that's the element of contentment that comes with God's provision as well. Is that what God has provided? Are we ultimately content with it? And I think of Paul's words, you know, in Philippians 4 where he talks about whether in times of, in essence, immense blessings or in times of poverty, he has found contentment in Christ. And I think that the same is true for us is where does our true contentment derive from? Because again, oftentimes, and even among many Christians within the Western context, we always think, or sometimes we tend to lean upon the material aspects of this world for our source of contentment. So it's like, well, when I'm able to move into that neighborhood, then I'll find contentment. When I'm able to buy that particular car, then I'll find contentment. When I'm able to, you know, when I reach this particular position in my job, then I will find contentment. So rather than seeking to find contentment in God's provision, seeking to rest in the contentment that God's love and grace and redemptive work provide us, we oftentimes go looking in other directions. And one of the things that I do believe is inherent to the text is this level of contentment with that this is what God has provided. And God has provided what is needed. And I can't think of it off the top of my head, sadly, at the moment. But one of my favorite proverbs speaks to this about the longing for our daily bread. That God would not give us, you know, so much that we would, in essence, find the contentment in the material provision of life. And that God would not give me so little that I would seek to steal or something for my daily bread. But the sense of, you know, God, what you give me, you know, provide my daily bread, and I will find contentment in that. Because at the end of the day, if our true contentment isn't found in Christ alone, we are going to go looking for it in other places. That seems to be pretty elusive for most people, honestly. When we think about finding contentment in Christ alone, I want to be honest, I don't see that most of the time in most people that I know. I see people worried that they're not going to have enough money for life, enough money for retirement, enough money to leave some money behind for their children and grandchildren when they die. And I started ministry, I started ministry in the county in Indiana that has the lowest per capita income. And so I've kind of moved through these past 40 years in various economic conditions around me. And the story always seems the same. And it doesn't matter how big the house is, how new the car is, how big the bank account is, how early someone retired. I always seem to hear the same story. I'm concerned there won't be enough. So I haven't heard the contentment piece a lot. And if there is contempt, it's because they've got a really big nest egg. Don't you think that some of this, not so much in word, but maybe in some ways in what is projected throughout the years. Sometimes I think that the American church is kind of acquiesce to the consumers bent of the American populace to where we seek to, we seek to create ministry, not necessarily like almost around people in the wants and desires of people. Rather than sometimes maybe doing a better job of prophetically challenging, existent belief. So we almost can feed the consumer monster and consumer is bent of people, which then leads people toward if the church itself is feeding into that mentality of we're going to give you what you want. Because we're here to, in essence, meet your need, then that kind of bent then takes hold in every other area of life as well. And so I think that's one of the things within, again, the Western context, and not to be cliche about it because I know many churches talk through this, many of people within the Christian community speak into this. But I do think that the church is in some ways liable to think that overall consumers bent that we see where people continue to go, even from a church standpoint, the number of people that a church doesn't meet a specific need, and not that there's never a reason to leave a church. But oftentimes the reasons are more rooted in, well, I don't like that, rather than, well, the church has completely gone on biblical or something, so I have to leave. It's usually some sort of personal preference reason for leaving, which, again, is at the root of the consumer's mentality. Which, in fairness, flipping around a lot of the times, pastors leave is because there's a better opportunity, a bigger salary, more people to preach to at the next spot. And all of those things are, they're just part of our world, especially as we think it from the Western mind, right? Absolutely, and I actually crazy enough, this was one of the things when I initially started in the United Methodist Church, not to go on a complete tangent here. But when I spoke to the district superintendent, like one of the kind of carrots that they put in front of me, and I know it was an aspect of this person's heart for me, like really wanted me to become a United Methodist, and this is someone who gave an immense amount of time to me. So I'm not in any way speaking maliciously toward the person, but the carrot that they dangled was that, "Hey, if you stick with us at some point in your ministry," because we see the fruit of your ministry, we see your gifting, one day you will have a really large church. You could potentially have the largest church in our conference, and so one of the carrots that they dangled was the idea that if you stick with us and you become a Methodist, then you're going to climb, in essence, the corporate ladder, and one day you will reach the pinnacle of success. Well, that is a Western ideal at its root. And here you are, you're in your back half of your 40s, and you're an associate pastor with me. And I will say that what that guy spoke into you, I would agree with, that you have the skill set to be the senior pastor of almost any size church. Yet here you are doing this for our church with me as an associate pastor, and I sense deep contentment in you in that role. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and part of it has been, I think of Paul and Philippians when he speaks to, you know, he talks about his life as a Pharisee. You know, that, I mean, in every way he was succeeding in his life as a Pharisee. Life was good for the Apostle Paul, and then he makes this point about how in Christ he considers all of that rubbish or dung, really. And I think, you know, I look at life through the lens, which you do too. I mean, honestly, it's one of the reasons why I enjoy working with you is your humility. It's the sense that, you know, we're here to make much of Jesus Christ, and that's it. It's not about me, it's not about, you know, pastoring a massive church. It's about living into God's call, whatever that might be, and finding contentment in that. You know, I could care less, honestly, what the world thinks of me. What I care about is, am I living into the call that God has placed upon me, where God wants me to be? Am I being the husband and the father that God desires for me to be? Am I being faithfully present with the community of faith that God has led me to? Because at the end of the day, my joy has to be found in Jesus Christ and in Him alone, or I will live persistently in want. And that is no way to live because then life becomes about me rather than Christ Jesus. I totally agree. Yet in this story, it says in verse six that we looked at, her son said there is not a jar left. Then the oil stopped flowing. I just have to wonder if in that moment she'd said, oh, why didn't we get some more jars? Or the sons, you know, they don't give their age, but they were young enough that they couldn't go out and get jobs and provide for her. So I just have to wonder if the human nature part, because you know, I look at the Bible and I think it's there for a reason. And these people weren't fools. They were these people that wrote the scripture were wise and scholars and they put things in for honor for a reason. And so they put this in. They didn't just say, and she took all the jars she had and she filled them up. They put this piece in like bringing me another one. There isn't any more the oil stopped. And so it seems to have been there for a reason. And I have to ask myself, what's the reason? And as it draws us into that story of the conversation that we've had today of saying, should she have gotten more? Or is this a sign that God gave her just enough because the next line in verse 7, she went out and told the man of God. And he said, now go sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left. So you have enough money to pay your debts. Your sons won't become slaves. And you have enough money to live on what you need. So you've raised them up and they can get jobs, I guess. So there's a lot to draw us into this story there. And I would hope that beyond you and I talking about being pastors, the listeners can think about their own lives and what it means to have enough jars. To have enough oil, to have enough and to be able to live on what we have and to be content in that. You know, there's three more miracles in here and we're not getting to them today. We got to one. But I think it was a really worthwhile talk. So we encourage those who are listening to pick up 2 Kings 4 and take a look at these other miraculous stories. They're all just back to back to back to back in here in this chapter. And they give a sense of Elisha's ministry in rapid fire order and ask yourself, why is this in the Bible? Why are these parts of this story in the Bible? What is God saying to the people back then? What is God saying to us here and now? Well, we're going to take a look at another prophet next week. It's going to be the prophet Joel and his call to repentance. So we encourage you to tune in next time and listen to that. And if you want to jump in deeper, go to our church's website fishersumc.org and click on the Be God's Light link. That'll take you to more elements in this year-long study of the Old Testament. And if you want to stay up to date with these Be God's Light podcasts, we encourage you to follow and rate wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening today. Until next time, God bless. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
Mark Ellcessor and Ben Greenbaum discuss Elisha through some of his miracles and messages to the kings and people of Israel.