Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 13-14.

The account of the otherwise unidentified man of God who testified against Jeroboam, and his altar, always strikes me as strange.  Why did the old prophet deceive him into breaking God’s command?  Why did the man of God not follow the commands God had given him?  Why did God allow the man of God to be deceived?  I have never been satisfied by any of the answers I have come up with to those questions.  However, the story does act as an object lesson for us.  When the man of God spoke the prophecy God had given him, as God had commanded him, Jeroboam ordered him seized, but God intervened and Jeroboam relented.  So, the man of God demonstrated that he was a man of God.  When the man of God allowed himself to be deceived into violating the command which God had given him, God sent judgement upon him.  So, we see that God will protect us when we do His will, but when we go against His will, we will suffer the consequences.  Even when we are encouraged to go against what God has told us by those who have spoken God’s word in the past.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.