Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Kings 18-19.

I love the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel and the story of his trip to Mount Horeb.  However, I want to start by looking at Obadiah.  Obadiah was King Ahab’s palace administrator and a devout follower of the Lord.  This seems hard to reconcile.  How could a devout follower of the Lord serve as King Ahab’s palace administrator?  Nevertheless the passage tells us that such was the case.  More importantly, the passage tells us that Obadiah used his position to save 100 prophets of God from Jezebel’s persecution of them.  So, we do not know much about Obadiah except that he did this.  Not many of us are called to confront the powerful the way Elijah was, but we can at least be like Obadiah and use whatever power we have to aid others.

I also want to look at another part of this passage which is referenced a bit more than Obadiah, but even so not that much.  When King Ahab meets up with Elijah, he calls him a troublemaker.  I imagine that King Ahab did so because he blamed Elijah for the drought which he had predicted.  However, Elijah points out that King Ahab is the one bringing trouble on Israel because King Ahab has chosen to follow the path of idolatry rather than worship the Lord.  King Ahab’s Baal worship and support for Jezebel’s persecution of the Lord’s prophets was more disruptive to Israel than anything Elijah had done.    Similar things happen today.  Christians are often called divisive for calling people to traditional moral stances which have only recently been rejected,   If you are called, as Elijah was, to stand up and confront people over their moral failings, do not allow them to make you think that you are the one being divisive.  And, if you are called to be like Obadiah, do not let them convince you that the Elijah’s of the world are the one’s to blame.

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