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.

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

In yesterday’s passage the writer reported that Jeroboam set up a golden calf in Bethel and in Dan to discourage those in the Northern Kingdom from going to Jerusalem to worship God.  In addition, Jeroboam had shrines built at many high places and appointed people with no background in Scripture as priests (perhaps I am misinterpreting what the writer meant by what he wrote, but that is what I understand him to mean when he says that Jeroboam appointed priests who were not Levites).  Then, when Jeroboam was conducting sacrifices to the calf at Bethel, God sent a man to prophecy against him.  Jeroboam extended his hand to order the man’s arrest, but when he did so he suffered some kind of episode which prevented him from putting his hand down.  In response Jeroboam asked the man to intercede with God to restore the functionality of his hand.  However, Jeroboam did not recognize his sin and turn from it.  Rather, he asked the man, “Intercede with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.”  Jeroboam recognized God’s power, but refused to turn from the politically expedient idols he had chosen to worship and return once again to worshiping God.  God healed him, but the kingdom which Jeroboam had established and hoped to pass on to his descendants was given to another.  I want to make this point clear.  Jeroboam had set up the two golden calves to keep the people of his kingdom from going to Jerusalem to worship God, and deciding that they really owed fealty to the king in Jerusalem.  And he did this in order that his descendants might rule over those people.  While David’s descendants did not regain control of the territory Jeroboam ruled over, Jeroboam’s descendants were killed and another took the throne there.

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

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

When I read this passage I wonder about what motivated the “old prophet” to pursue the “man of God” who prophesied against Jeroboam in front of Jeroboam’s altar in order to convince the man of God to break God’s command to him.  I also wonder why the man of God listened to the old prophet.   I really want to write about the lesson we need to take from this episode, but it feels both obvious and like it can be taken too far.  So, here is the lesson: be careful when someone who claims authority from God tells you something contrary to what you understand God to have said to you directly.  I struggle with this lesson because I also believe that we should test what we believe the Holy Spirit to have told us against what others hear God saying.   In this case I think I understand where the man of God in this story went wrong.  He did not know this “old prophet” and had no basis for believing that God had spoken to him.   Another aspect of this is that we do not know why the old prophet lied to the man of God.  We need to remember that some people who we believe to honor God will seek to cause us to go against God’s will for reasons of which we will never be aware.  I hope my point comes through.  It is clear in my head, but I do not feel like it is coming through in the words I have written.

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

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

We can learn an important lesson from the man of God who prophesied against Jeroboam’s altar.  When offered reward from Jeroboam to violate a command which God had given him, the man of God refused.  I want to note that when Jeroboam made the offer he did not know that God had commanded the man of God to turn down any such offer.  Yet, a short time later, the man of God allowed someone who claimed to be a prophet to convince him that God had given the prophet a different command than the one He had given the man of God.  The prophet claimed that God had told him to bring the man of God back to his home and feed him.  The passage tells us that the prophet lied when he said this, but even if what he said was true, it does not change the fact that God had given the man of God a different command.  We must be careful not to allow those who claim to speak on behalf of God to convince us to do that which God has commanded us not to do.

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

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

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

The story about the man of God who came from Judah and prophesied against the altar which Jeroboam had built has a feature which always puzzles me: why did the old prophet mislead him about God’s will to get him to eat before leaving the Northern Kingdom?  I don’t have an answer to that question.  However, the story has a lesson for us.  When Jeroboam offered the man of God food and drink, he refused it.  But when the old prophet claimed that an angel of God had told him to bring the man of God home and give him food and drink, the man of God never questioned what the prophet said.  If someone tells us that God told them to have us do something that goes against what we have heard God tell us, we should not just take them at their word.  First, if God told them to do as they are doing, He may have done so to test us.  Second, they may be making up the message from God which they are telling us.  We should always seek God’s guidance before accepting what someone else tells us is God’s will.  Or, to put that another way, when someone claims to speak on God’s behalf we should check what they say against what God had told us.