Sunday 5th January 2025
Read Psalm 90
If you don’t have a bible at home you can find the readings on a website such as www.biblegateway.com or an app such as YouVersion
Could we have had a better Psalm to start the year with? “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations” (v1), “A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by”(v 4), “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures”(v10), and finally, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v12).
How do we do that? Undoubtedly it means attending to the Word of God and managing our lives accordingly. A daily ‘Quiet Time’ to read the Bible and to pray is still the best guidance for 21st Century people as it was in the past. If not already, start this year as we close with the final verse of the Psalm which begins, “May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us” Amen.
READINGS FOR THE WEEK AHEAD
As you read the Bible Stop; Read; Ponder; and Pray.
Monday 2 Kings 2:19-25
We see Elisha healing and being jeered at in this passage. The people of Jericho appealed to Elisha about their water and the land being bad an unproductive. Elisha gave them an instruction to bring him a new bowl with salt in it with which he healed the water of the spring and promised that the land would never again be unproductive. I wonder why they hadn’t asked Elijah. Was it because he seemed much fiercer and more distant??
The next event seems rather harsh and course and probably requires some reason other than just the youthful penchant for making a fool of people with a difference. Bethel, which was where Elisha was headed, had a school of prophets, but It also had Jeroboam’s calf for worship and it may be that the school of prophets were mocked because they wouldn’t fall into line with the worship of the Calf. The mocking of the faithful man of God wasn’t going to be left unpunished and so Elisha called down a curse upon them but it was at the paws of the bears that their end came.
Tuesday 2 Kings 3:1-27
After the little interlude in Chapter two about Elijah and Elisha, we return to the kingship of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. After the short reign and death of Ahaziah (see Chapter 1) we come to Joram, his brother, who reigned in Samaria over Israel for 12 years. He wasn’t as bad as his father and mother, Ahab and Jezebel, but he was still a king who clung to the idolatry of the founder of the kingdom, Jeroboam, who broke away from the house of Solomon to create his own kingdom consisting of the North of the land, ever after being referred to as Samaria or Israel because it was the largest part of the original kingdom of Israel under David and Solomon.
A little history is given about the kingdom of Moab which was to the East of the Dead Sea and which had been a vassal state to Isreal supplying it with wool and rams. It rebelled against Israel and Joram wanted to teach it a lesson but he also wanted allies and spoke to Jehoshaphat of Judah and and to the king of Moab which was to the South of Moab. The three kings agreed and but after doing a round about march found themselves in a barren situation and seeking help Jehoshaphat asks if there was a prophet somewhere who they could enquire of. An officer in Joram’s army tells of Elisha and so they went to him to seek a word from the Lord. He is only willing to deal with them because of Jehoshaphat, the good king of Judah, and gives them a prophecy of water coming for them.
The prophecy comes true but it also has a double effect in tricking the Moabites into attacking but it leads to failure despite the king of Moab sacrificing his son on the city wall. The Israelites decided to withdraw to their own land but leaving Moab with stony ground, useless for their flocks.
Tuesday 2 Kings 4:1-7
This story, called the Widow’s oil, begins a series of stories of Elisha’s miracle working power which fills in his name of Elisha as “Jahweh is my help or salvation”. One of the things we should remark on is that there were throughout the land in various places groups or schools of prophets to which this widow’s husband belonged. It was Samuel who started them and they seem to be places like seminaries or monasteries where the religious gathered for mutual support and learning. The woman spoke to Elisha about her dead husband who was one of the group and whom she says Elisha knew (v1).
The woman tells the tale of er hardship since her husband died and a cruel creditor coming to take away her sons into slavery to pay her husband’s debt. Elisha gives her instructions which are personal and not for public view, she had to take the little bottle of oil she had ad fill as many empty containers she and her sons could source. The miracle was that the bottle of oil never failed but kept filling the flagons. Jesus performed miracles which were personal where he took the people aside and we should remember that general rules that we can follow are not necessarily the way God will deal with us for he relates to each one of us in an individual way.
Wednesday 2 Kings 4:8-17
We find a well-to-do woman in the village of Shunem who recognises Elisha as a man of God and in his travels she wants to honour him by providing him with free lodgings and goes to the extent of building an extra room on her house for him. It’s always good to shop appreciation to servants of God who do the things we can’t do.
Elisha calls her and asks what he could do for her. I wonder if we ever tell God what we would like? Perhaps we think God isn’t willing to give us things we desire – we ought to stop and remember Jesus saying, “if a son asks for a fish will his father give him a stone?” Don’t assume God is not willing to give you good things.
The woman was granted her great wish of a son
Thursday 2 Kings 4:18-37
The story of the Shunamite woman continues only some years later. I wonder what Elisha was doing in the interim? Scripture doesn’t give us a bit by bit account of all that was going on in God’s plan of salvation and neither does it show miracles happening on every page. We shouldn’t get into our heads that amazing things should happen on a regular monthly basis.
When the child had grown and went out to see his father and the reapers at work, he was struck down with a great head pain. After being sent to his mother she took him up to the prophet’s room, laid him down on the bed, and saddled the donkey and set off to see Elisha. The story has many interesting parts to it about the woman, Gehazi, and Elisha that Let the parts linger in your mind for they may have something to say in situations in your own life. For example, Where can I take my problems? Can things still be well with me even when I am in deep anguish about something? What does ‘well’ mean in the Christian life? Should I give up if an initial short-term measure doesn’t work? The Apostle Paul reminded us that these things were written for our learning – “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. (Roman 15:4)
As we mentioned earlier, there were schools pf prophets throughout the country and Elisha returned to the one in Gilgal where there was a famine. Meeting with the company of the prophets he said to his servant to put on a large pot and cook some stew.
During the preparation, one of the prophets who went out to gather herbs from the field for the stew, picked up, unknowingly, some things that were poisonous and put them into the pot. As the stew began to be consumed it was realised that something was amiss and the men cried that “there is death in the pot”. Elisha called for some flour which was put into the pot and all was well.
It can often be the case that something harmful, be it natural or spiritual, can be neutralised in some way such that harm doesn’t come about, but it will often take the wisdom given to the spiritual man or woman to do it.
As soon as we read these verses at the end of the chapter our mind springs at once to Jesus and his feeding miracles. He fed the five thousand (Matt 14:13-21) and twelve baskets full were left over and in Matt 15:29-39 he fed four thousand with seven baskets full left over. All three events mention leftovers which, if there is any implication in that, it is that God doesn’t do measures by half but gives to his people abundantly. In Psalm 81:10 God says, “Open your mouth and I will fill it”
The man from Baal Shalishah is like the disciples too, in feeling that what he has is not enough to do what God/Elisha requires, but in the doing of what is required lo and behold, the gift is made more than satisfactory. God is able to make weak and insignificant acts that we can do much bigger than they are when given to him in trust.
