DC ~ 2 : He did WHAT???
Well, if Elisha's first recorded miracle on the west side of the Jordan was ... crazy/unexpected, the second one is definitely shocking!
2 Kings 2:23-25
One day Elisha was was in Bethel. . .
Bethel --
Bethel was, we remember, the place where Jeroboam had set up one of the golden calves to keep his people from going to Jerusalem to worship YHWH. So we cannot expect this is a hub of goodness and righteousness. But we see also, from verse 2 of 2 Kings 2, that Bethel was also the location of one of the schools of the prophets. Hmmmmm!
So Elisha goes out for a walk and a group of young men...probably the rowdy teens of the city...come out and begin to mock and ridicule him. They call him "baldy". He turns and looks at them, and calls down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Wow! And...two bears come out of the woods and maul 42 of these young men.
WHAT??
This story I think, hits most people's 'politally correct' sensibility buttons and alarms begin to go off. So these teenager die -- die the very ugly death of being mauled by a bear -- because they called Elisha names?? It doesn't say they attacked him or threw rocks or, really, did anything violent. They call him "Baldhead". Hadn't Elisha ever heard "sticks and stones will break your bones, but name will never hurt you"? What?
OK ~
Ever seen a group of guys who are wild, and full of themselves? They are common today -- you see them in the extremes that run from the streets ruled by the violent gangs of Southern California, to the playgrounds where bullies rule the roost. There is an ugly bravado that happens in the "group personality" that develops. This is not merely a modern phenomenon -- clearly. But we don't see weapons in this story. There is no background given for these guys being involved in dangerous or evil antics. We get one bite of a story : young men ~ if 42 were mauled, there had to be a pretty large gang of them ~ call a prophet mocking, ridiculing names.
Two things strike me as I ponder this. Mocking and name-calling doesn't seem to me to be a 'death-penalty' offence. But Elisha ~ and it seems God ~ thought differently. We think of mocking as a 'no-big-deal' event. But scripture has pretty harsh things to say about ridicule and mocking.
1) Read Psalm 1. A contrast is given between the wicked and the righteous. One of the specific examples of people to be avoided are mockers. The psalm compares the righteous to a tree planted by water...in a desert community like Israel this image is rich. It shows someone who is blessed and secure, prosperous, stable, strong and beneficial to those around them in every way. But the wicked are compared to chaff...that papery covering on the outside of grain -- think the papery brown covering on the outside of a peanut. Chaff is so worthless it is blown away in the wind. So ... mockers ~ bad and worthless.
2) Proverbs is sprinkled with comments about mockers -- none of them good: Proverbs 9:7-12, 13:1, 14:6, 21:24, 24:9 to mention a few.
3)What do you do with Jesus' assessment?
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' {Raca means 'empty one, or worthless'} is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' {literally that word means dull or stupid} will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Matt 5:21-22
"in danger of the fires of hell" ! ? !! ? !
OK, we have gone from "avoid mockers" to Jesus saying "you could go to hell". So God clearly doesn't think mocking is 'no big deal.' To Him it is a VERY big deal. My very first pastor, George Caywood, one of the wisest men I ever knew, told me 'If your ideas and God's ideas differ...if you and scripture disagree then you change. When Scripture makes you uncomfortable, do not try to explain it away ~ don't say, "well what it probably meant was ...". When that happens : repent! Ask God to change your heart and mind.' So while I do not think we should give the death penalty to all the smart-mouths and bullies we come across, I do see that I should take mockery and ridicule much more seriously. When I see it in myself, at any level, I need to take it seriously and seriously repent.
The second thing I see is that Elisha cursed these young men . . . and . . . something happened!
Blessings and curses in the Bible seem to carry weight -- they are not just words, sounds uttered to compliment and encourage or conversely to insult, as they are today. Consider: in the story of Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau, what Jacob stole from Esau in Genesis 27 was a blessing...words spoken by his father Isaac. WORDS! When you read the story and really think about it, it is pretty surprising. After Jacob has taken the stew to his father, all dressed up in goat skin so he would feel like Esau, then Isaac blesses Jacob (thinking he was Esau).
May God give you of heaven's dew
and of earth's richness--
an abundance of grain and new wine.
May nations serve you
and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed
and those who bless you be blessed.
Gen 27:28-29
Then Esau shows up, and Isaac and Esau realize Jacob's treachery. Isaac tells Esau
I blessed him--and indeed he will be blessed!" . . .
"Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing." . . .
I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?"
Gen 27:33 - 37
The language makes it sound like the blessing was a 'thing'...something of substance. Isaac says "I blessed him -- and indeed he will be blessed." And when Esau asks Isaac to give him a blessing too, Isaac cannot ... he had given it to Jacob. Something substantial was gone. It couldn't have been 'well-wishing' or just 'words' ~ Isaac could have said more words. There was more to these particular words than mere sound and wish.
My husband has a teaching that comes from a revelation God gave him. God spoke this verse from James to him:
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
James 3:9-12
God told him that if you have clean water and you add a little dirty water -- even a little -- the water is polluted. If you have salt water and you add plain water to it, it is diluted. He told him that is what has happened to the power in our words. We have polluted the authority of our words with our curses and diluted the authority of our words with meaningless, faithless well-wishing. We saw that because we do not keep our tongues pure, because we give vent to anger and spite . . . and mocking . . . we cannot be trusted with the kind of authority that brings substance to our blessings and curses. When, as men and women filled with the Spirit of God and the LIVING Word of God we bless someone or something ~ shouldn't there be effect? something tangible! And the world is full of things that actually SHOULD be cursed: cancer, gang violence, pornography...real evil. Shouldn't we be able to call down real curses? Sadly we curse each other -- without thinking anything will happen. Think about it: "damn" means something. It means something: 'ETERNALLY CONDEMN THAT PERSON OR THING TO ETERNAL PUNISHMENT AND SEPARATION FROM GOD' -- when we (not you personally, of course...but someone/anyone) says "Damn it to Hell." Who means it when they say that? Even our curses have no faith. Story: when my mother-in-law was pretty newly saved and the mother of young children, a porn store opened a couple of blocks from her house. Every time she drove near it she cursed it. The business failed. I am sure there were lots of reasons...but I KNOW one of the reasons was that she called a curse down on the evil in that business.
So for me...the moral to this story:
Don't mock -- and REALLY don't mock prophets. See...I told you Elisha was a man to be taken seriously!
2 Kings 2:23-25
One day Elisha was was in Bethel. . .
Bethel --
Bethel was, we remember, the place where Jeroboam had set up one of the golden calves to keep his people from going to Jerusalem to worship YHWH. So we cannot expect this is a hub of goodness and righteousness. But we see also, from verse 2 of 2 Kings 2, that Bethel was also the location of one of the schools of the prophets. Hmmmmm!
So Elisha goes out for a walk and a group of young men...probably the rowdy teens of the city...come out and begin to mock and ridicule him. They call him "baldy". He turns and looks at them, and calls down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Wow! And...two bears come out of the woods and maul 42 of these young men.
WHAT??
This story I think, hits most people's 'politally correct' sensibility buttons and alarms begin to go off. So these teenager die -- die the very ugly death of being mauled by a bear -- because they called Elisha names?? It doesn't say they attacked him or threw rocks or, really, did anything violent. They call him "Baldhead". Hadn't Elisha ever heard "sticks and stones will break your bones, but name will never hurt you"? What?
OK ~
Ever seen a group of guys who are wild, and full of themselves? They are common today -- you see them in the extremes that run from the streets ruled by the violent gangs of Southern California, to the playgrounds where bullies rule the roost. There is an ugly bravado that happens in the "group personality" that develops. This is not merely a modern phenomenon -- clearly. But we don't see weapons in this story. There is no background given for these guys being involved in dangerous or evil antics. We get one bite of a story : young men ~ if 42 were mauled, there had to be a pretty large gang of them ~ call a prophet mocking, ridiculing names.
Two things strike me as I ponder this. Mocking and name-calling doesn't seem to me to be a 'death-penalty' offence. But Elisha ~ and it seems God ~ thought differently. We think of mocking as a 'no-big-deal' event. But scripture has pretty harsh things to say about ridicule and mocking.
1) Read Psalm 1. A contrast is given between the wicked and the righteous. One of the specific examples of people to be avoided are mockers. The psalm compares the righteous to a tree planted by water...in a desert community like Israel this image is rich. It shows someone who is blessed and secure, prosperous, stable, strong and beneficial to those around them in every way. But the wicked are compared to chaff...that papery covering on the outside of grain -- think the papery brown covering on the outside of a peanut. Chaff is so worthless it is blown away in the wind. So ... mockers ~ bad and worthless.
2) Proverbs is sprinkled with comments about mockers -- none of them good: Proverbs 9:7-12, 13:1, 14:6, 21:24, 24:9 to mention a few.
3)What do you do with Jesus' assessment?
"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca,' {Raca means 'empty one, or worthless'} is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' {literally that word means dull or stupid} will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Matt 5:21-22
"in danger of the fires of hell" ! ? !! ? !
OK, we have gone from "avoid mockers" to Jesus saying "you could go to hell". So God clearly doesn't think mocking is 'no big deal.' To Him it is a VERY big deal. My very first pastor, George Caywood, one of the wisest men I ever knew, told me 'If your ideas and God's ideas differ...if you and scripture disagree then you change. When Scripture makes you uncomfortable, do not try to explain it away ~ don't say, "well what it probably meant was ...". When that happens : repent! Ask God to change your heart and mind.' So while I do not think we should give the death penalty to all the smart-mouths and bullies we come across, I do see that I should take mockery and ridicule much more seriously. When I see it in myself, at any level, I need to take it seriously and seriously repent.
The second thing I see is that Elisha cursed these young men . . . and . . . something happened!
Blessings and curses in the Bible seem to carry weight -- they are not just words, sounds uttered to compliment and encourage or conversely to insult, as they are today. Consider: in the story of Isaac and his sons, Jacob and Esau, what Jacob stole from Esau in Genesis 27 was a blessing...words spoken by his father Isaac. WORDS! When you read the story and really think about it, it is pretty surprising. After Jacob has taken the stew to his father, all dressed up in goat skin so he would feel like Esau, then Isaac blesses Jacob (thinking he was Esau).
May God give you of heaven's dew
and of earth's richness--
an abundance of grain and new wine.
May nations serve you
and peoples bow down to you.
Be lord over your brothers,
and may the sons of your mother bow down to you.
May those who curse you be cursed
and those who bless you be blessed.
Gen 27:28-29
Then Esau shows up, and Isaac and Esau realize Jacob's treachery. Isaac tells Esau
I blessed him--and indeed he will be blessed!" . . .
"Your brother came deceitfully and took your blessing." . . .
I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?"
Gen 27:33 - 37
The language makes it sound like the blessing was a 'thing'...something of substance. Isaac says "I blessed him -- and indeed he will be blessed." And when Esau asks Isaac to give him a blessing too, Isaac cannot ... he had given it to Jacob. Something substantial was gone. It couldn't have been 'well-wishing' or just 'words' ~ Isaac could have said more words. There was more to these particular words than mere sound and wish.
My husband has a teaching that comes from a revelation God gave him. God spoke this verse from James to him:
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.
James 3:9-12
God told him that if you have clean water and you add a little dirty water -- even a little -- the water is polluted. If you have salt water and you add plain water to it, it is diluted. He told him that is what has happened to the power in our words. We have polluted the authority of our words with our curses and diluted the authority of our words with meaningless, faithless well-wishing. We saw that because we do not keep our tongues pure, because we give vent to anger and spite . . . and mocking . . . we cannot be trusted with the kind of authority that brings substance to our blessings and curses. When, as men and women filled with the Spirit of God and the LIVING Word of God we bless someone or something ~ shouldn't there be effect? something tangible! And the world is full of things that actually SHOULD be cursed: cancer, gang violence, pornography...real evil. Shouldn't we be able to call down real curses? Sadly we curse each other -- without thinking anything will happen. Think about it: "damn" means something. It means something: 'ETERNALLY CONDEMN THAT PERSON OR THING TO ETERNAL PUNISHMENT AND SEPARATION FROM GOD' -- when we (not you personally, of course...but someone/anyone) says "Damn it to Hell." Who means it when they say that? Even our curses have no faith. Story: when my mother-in-law was pretty newly saved and the mother of young children, a porn store opened a couple of blocks from her house. Every time she drove near it she cursed it. The business failed. I am sure there were lots of reasons...but I KNOW one of the reasons was that she called a curse down on the evil in that business.
So for me...the moral to this story:
Don't mock -- and REALLY don't mock prophets. See...I told you Elisha was a man to be taken seriously!
In Jesus we have either lost or diluted the terror of God. Not his fault. We have made the Christian experience wimpish by believing that being on the train is all that there is. We are shocked by the events of the Old Testament because violence has been made so foreign to God in Christ. We have focused all our attention on love and God becomes a nirvana experience where we just float in goodness. But then, if we focus on the terror of God we'd just go to the other extreme and beat each other over the head with righteousness. If they never really learned the awesomeness of God in the Old Testament, why do we think we will ever learn God in the New Testament. Humility is our only hope.
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