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

Every year when I read this I am struck by two aspects about it: the old prophet who deceived the “man of God”, and the “man of God” taking the old prophet’s word about God telling him to contradict what God had told the “man of God”.  Their interaction reminds me of a tweet from Christianity Today on Easter this year where they said that the Bible does not say that Jesus was nailed to the cross.  Many people pointed out that the Gospel of John explicitly quotes Thomas as saying that he would not believe unless he saw the imprint of the nails and put his fingers where the nails had been.  The important point is that a voice which purports to speak on behalf of God directly contradicted the Bible.  Other men and women who have in the past spoken the word of God have lied to God’s people about what God’s message to them is.  We must be careful to not make the mistake which the man of God in this passage made.  We must not allow ourselves to be tricked into violating the commands which God has given us by those who lie abut what God has told them.

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