Elijah, Role Model of Obedience
By Kirk Browning | September 11, 2007
Do you feel like you need big miracles in your life? Are you maybe a little bewildered about the direction your Christian walk has taken? Maybe Elijah’s life in 1 Kings 17 and 18 would provide some answers. Even though Elijah was a mature adult, look at the events through the stages of “The Complete Guide To Living With Men” by Dr. E. James Wilder.
Stage 1, Infancy – learning to eat. God told Elijah to go to the Brook Cherith, where ravens will feed him. There were several problems in this for Elijah.
· Who would think that a raven would bring food to someone? Ravens need to eat food equivalent to most of their body weight every day. They typically eat everything they find.
· Even if a raven brought me food, should I eat it? Who knows where his beak has been?
· In Leviticus 5:2, 7:21, 10:10 11:1 and 20:22 (a.k.a. THE LAW), ravens are described as unclean. It says that anyone touching an unclean thing becomes unclean and is to be cut off from his people, so it’s probably convenient that if he is to be fed by ravens, that it happen away from people.
· Elijah’s home town was near the Brook Cherith. He knew the dry season was coming for that area. Not only would he not have water to drink, he wouldn’t have water to purify himself from interacting with the ravens.
All this means that Elijah was put in a huge mental and spiritual bind. These events in the context of everything he knows means he has to be asking if he really heard from God.
Stage 2, Childhood – learning to take care of himself. In 1 Kings 17:7, the brook dried up, so Elijah had to think about a new source.
Stages 3 & 4, Adulthood & Parenting. Now that the ravens-and-brook test is over, life should get better. But in 1 Kings 17:9, God told Elijah to go to Zarephath, which means “a workshop for the refining and smelting of metals.” Elijah will be refined there. God told Elijah that a widow would care for him. The widow turns out to have a son. But Exodus 22:22, Deuteronomy 14:29, Deuteronomy 24:19 and Deuteronomy 27:19 tell people like Elijah to care for aliens, widows and orphans, not to be cared for by them. Elijah had to go from one difficulty, cross Ahab and Jezebel’s territory from Gilead to Zarephath to intentionally experience yet more difficulty.
Leviticus 21:1-4 says that a godly Jew unrelated to the deceased, was prohibited from touching the deceased. With water in short supply, Elijah couldn’t cleanse himself from touching the dead boy. Normally one would shrink back from stretching out on the body of a dead boy, but Elijah became so able to identify with pain that he became a parent in the spirit, interceded for the boy and identified with the corpse. Elijah has started to have so much faith in God’s plan and purpose that he looks past the demands of his religion and lives by faith.
Stage 5, Elder – Preparing to sacrifice for the community. In 1 Kings 18:19, Elijah asked for “all the people of Israel” to come to Mount Carmel. In front of that very thirsty crowd, he commanded that about 40 gallons (152 liters) of water be poured over a sacrifice, and onto the ground. The 40 gallons wasn’t enough to satisfy any one individual, family or community but the apparent waste of it would have angered many of the crowd into a murderous frame of mind. But the whole community had plenty of water after the fire fell and consumed the sacrifice.
How does someone like Elijah have the faith and courage to stand there in front of the nation and antagonize them, knowing that it is the way God will deliver them? Because Elijah had learned to trust God despite logic, religion and adversity. Many of us thought of ourselves as adults, spiritually mature, but we also recognize signs of the times. Though the steps of your Christian walk might seem to contradict some of what you were taught, are those steps preparing you for further steps and producing progressively more life?
Topics: Thoughts on Bible passages |