Dr. Manny Arango (0:00)

Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. Welcome to day 172. We're going to go through three chapters of two kings today. Two kings, chapter three, four and five. To give you, like, a broad overview in terms of context clues and where we're going. Two big things at hand that we're going to look at. The first one are the political dynamics of Israel, Judah and Edom, who are actually allied together to fight against Moab. Now, all of these words are familiar. You've heard them before. You know exactly who Israel is. They're the northern Kingdom, Judah's the southern kingdom. Edom would be the descendants of Esau. Okay? These are the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. And there's a nerdy nugget associated with the Edomites that we'll go through today. And they are allied against Moab. The Moabites remember when Lot's daughters seduce their father and have incest babies, okay? With their dad. One of those boys is Moab. Okay? So the Moabites are going to be a part of this little political situation. And actually, the brunt of what we're gonna talk about is the miraculous prophetic ministry of Elisha. Elisha. Now, in this section, just to give you context for where we're going, we are going not in depth, but we're going to see minimum six miracles of Elisha's ministry. So just in these short couple chapters, we're going to see the miraculous provision for the widow for her oil, the Shunammite woman's son. We're going to see a poisonous stew reversed so that. So that people can actually eat that. That's a miracle of the pot and the stew. Then we're gonna see feeding of a hundred men, which foreshadows Jesus's feeding of the 5,000. We're gonna see a military commander by the name of Naaman is how he's called in the wider cultural Christian world, but Naaman is would be a more accurate pronunciation. And then we're gonna see Gehazi is cursed with leprosy. So multiple miracles from Elisha in this section. So we got some political dynamics going on in Israel. And then we've got miracles of Elisha. So this section of Reading is really gonna focus on Elisha coming to the forefront in the same way that the Bible established Elijah as a legitimate prophet, with the prophet, the mark of legitimacy being signs, miracles. Same is gonna happen with Elisha. The proof that his prophetic words are true is that the prophetic words are gonna be followed with miracles, with signs. They are going to be the proof of authenticity that Elisha is actually speaking on behalf of God. So let's get into some nerdy nuggets. The first one that I want you to see is that Moab is at the beginning of the story that Moab is paying tribute, okay, in sheep and in wool. I want you to go to verse four, chapter three. Now, King Mesha of Moab was a sheep breeder who used to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams, okay? So this is called tribute. This right here means that Moab is a vassal and that Israel is a suzerain, okay? So tribute being paid is what happens in a normal suzerain vassal treaty, okay? Or suzerain vassal subjugation, okay? Hey, I'm not going to attack you. I'm not going to kill you, but you owe me 100,000 lambs a year and wool from 100,000 rams a year. So the annual tribute from king of Moab to the king of Israel is going to be both sheep and wool. Okay? Next. It is quite ironic that they. That they choose they got to fight against Moab because Moab does not want to be suppressed or oppressed, and they choose to go through the desert, okay? Of Edom. Don't know why they chose to do that, but here's what I want you to remember, and here's what's really, really necessary to remember for the story is that the Edomites are descended of Esau. What do we know about Esau? He was hairy. And what's also true, it's not just hair, but it is that that hair is red, okay? So the thing that we know about Esau is that he's red, okay? And so what's ironic is that the land of Edom is going to have this red dirt, okay? And when it's a desert, so not a ton of water in this area, but when water does hit this red dirt, it looks like blood. Now this is going to work out perfectly, okay? Because they're going through the desert, they think, you know, they've lost. Actually, which king actually says it there? Here we go. Then the king of Israel said, this is verse 10 Alas, the Lord has summoned us three kings, only to be hand over to Moab. Okay, because there's no water. But Jehoshaphat, this is the king of Judah said, is there no prophet of the Lord here through whom we may inquire of the Lord? When you're in a jam, who do you call? You call a prophet. And this may sound wild to us, but that's actually the answer. What happens? The prophet is gonna declare that God is gonna provide water. And because the dirt is red, it is. The Moabites are going to assume that there's blood. Verse 22. When they rose early in the morning and the sun shone upon the water, the Moabites saw the water opposite them as red as blood. Verse 23, they said, this is blood. The kings must have fought together and killed one another. Now then Moab to the spoil. But when they came to the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and attacked the Moabites, who fled before them. As they entered Moab, they continued the attack. The cities, they overturned. And on every good piece of land, everyone threw a stone until it was covered. And every spring of water they stopped up, and every good tree they felled. Okay, so that's not gonna make sense if you don't know that Esau is known as the red hairy man. The land that he occupies has red dirt. And because God provided miraculous amounts of water in the middle of this desert, the water looks red. So the reason the Moabite think there's blood is because the dirt is actually red. So that's a context clue so that you can actually know what's going on in the story. Okay. Without that context clue, this story doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold, literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an angel ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy Today. All right, back to the episode that gets us squarely into chapter four. I'll kind of give you some nerdy nuggets. Last thing you need to know. Okay? Extra biblical. Okay? This will be my first nerdy nugget about this extra biblical. You can look up the Mesha stel, okay? The king of Moab is Mesha. The Mesha Stel actually confirms everything in this biblical account, okay? And I love it when there's extra biblical evidence. Extra biblical means just stuff that's outside of the Bible that confirms or backs up what we read in the scriptures. Let's get into some nerdy nuggets around Elisha's miraculous ministry. So, number one, the widow that Elisha begins to provide oil for. First thing she says, you, servant, my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves. Okay? This is what's known as debt slavery. Okay. In the Old Covenant or just in the ancient Near East. This doesn't have anything to do with what the Bible says. It's just culture. The only way to pay back a debt is with indentured servitude, is with you essentially saying, well, I'll work it off. The only way for me to pay back my debt is to work for you is to loan myself out to you as an employee. And that's slavery. So this is debt slavery. And so Elisha's miracle here is actually saving these two boys from debt slavery, from being enslaved because their mother was. Is in debt because she's a widow. Next we got the Shunammite son. Now, there's a lot of scholars who believe Elisha doesn't really hear from God to provide a son for this woman. This is a high ranking, powerful woman. A lot of scholars actually believe that Elisha is just going out on a limb and God's honoring it. But then God's humbling Elisha by causing the boy to mysteriously die, then forcing Elisha to really. To really work to bring the boy back to life. Okay? So it's a miracle. But you could see how maybe Elisha is really trying to garner favor with this woman instead of do what the Lord's telling him to do. Okay. He seems to be going off on his own. On his own kind of freestyling a little bit. Verse 33 is one of the first times that we're gonna actually see Elisha praying. Okay. Verse 32 says, When Elisha came into the house, he saw the young, saw the child lying dead on his bed, verse 33. So he went in and closed the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Okay, so he doesn't pray to the Lord when the woman's says that they're not able to have children. He prays the Lord now, though. So there's a lot. I think there's a lot going on in between. In between the lines. Essentially two miracles that involve food. And then we have Naaman. Okay, so let's. Let's get to chapter five. Okay. Naaman or Naaman, this is the big kind of thing, the nerdy nugget you need to know is that the ancient near east or the. As a lot of the Bible is going to operate on what is called an honor shame, cultural context, honor shame. So the thing that's actually going on here is that Naaman expects an elaborate healing ritual that befits his stature. Okay. And his status. He's an important person. Why in the world would you pick me up in a Honda Civic? You should have picked me up in an Escalade. He's like, the Jordan river is nowhere near as luxurious as the waters that we got up here in Syria. And so the issue here is humility. And Naaman does humble himself so that he can actually walk in healing. But if you don't know that there's an honor shame culture at play here, then maybe you're wondering what in the world, like, why is Naaman so upset he just gotta dip himself in the Jordan? There's also another theme emerging here, is that oftentimes servants know more than really powerful people who are in charge. And so Naaman is not healed because he has a bright idea to go find Elisha. Actually, it says that when the Arameans were on one of their raids, they had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. And so she's got the idea that Naaman should actually go get healed or seek healing from the prophet Elisha. Trying to think Gehazi is gonna get cursed with leprosy, which is ironic because it is actually Naaman who just got cured with leprosy. And since Gehazi wants something from Naaman and doesn't have the integrity to refuse the gifts from Naaman, then Elisha's gonna go, since you want something from Naaman, you can get something from Naaman. Okay. Later on, we're gonna get another story about Gehazi, which actually shows us that these stories are not in sequential order, because once Gehazi's got Leprosy he can't. He can no longer be in service, actually, to Elisha. The stories aren't necessarily in perfect sequence, but they fit the narrative sequence in the agenda of the Authority. Okay, last nerdy nugget for you is Elijah's ability to raise the Shunammite woman's son mirrors Elijah's resurrection of the Widow's son in 1st Kings 17. And it's further proof that Elisha has indeed received a double portion of Elijah's spirit. Okay, so tons of miracles here. It's actually provides a great narrative break to just all the political stuff that's happening, because up until this point, really, you're just keeping track of who's the king of the north. The north is not going to have any good kings. Literally, all the kings are going to be wicked and bad. And by wicked and bad, that means idolatrous and unjust. And then eight of the kings in the south are going to be. Are going to be good kings, are going to be great kings. All right, okay, last thing I got for you. And it's our timeless truth. And it actually is going to come from chapter three, verse 15. So if you go up to chapter three, verse 15, you go back to the moment where King of Israel, King of Judah, King of Moab, or the King of Israel, King of Judah and the king of Edom are all fighting against the king of Moab. And finally someone says, there's gotta be a prophet who can, like, help us out here. And it says, actually, the King of Judah says, there's got to be a prophet who can actually, like, give us. Give us some help. And I love. They finally get Elisha, and Elisha's got some harsh words for the king of Israel. I love what Elisha says. Says, what have I to do with you? Go to your father's prophets or to your mothers. So what he's saying is that you're. You're wicked. You know what I'm saying? Like, go. Go ask BAAL what you should do, since you like baal. So since you love baal. And then he makes it clear, if King Jehoshaphat of Judah wasn't here, I wouldn't even look at y' all. Okay, that's verse 14. And I love this verse 15, but get me a musician. But get me a musician. And then it says, and then while the musician was playing, the power of the Lord came on him. And then he begins to prophesy. What does he prophesy? Thus says the Lord, I will make this wadi full of pools I'm going to miraculously provide water for this army who's going through the desert of Edom. Okay, get me a musician, man. If there was a timeless truth in this whole list, that's the timeless truth right there. That music has the ability to bring the anointing and the power of God and the peace of God, man. I've yet to just preach without amazing worship. Like, worship doesn't just bless God. It also empowers the minister so that people can do ministry from a place of not having to conjure up the power of the Holy Spirit. But music begins to facilitate an atmosphere where ministering becomes easy and you can start to flow in grace. And so get me a musician. You know, Elijah, Elisha is asked to prophesy. And he goes, let's start with some music. Let's set the atmosphere. And as the musician plays, it says, the power of the Lord came on him. And I've experienced that so often where. Where, man? The right. Not even singer, just the right musician. That music carries a spirit with it. And there's a young man who, like, works for us. And I remember when he moved to Dallas to work for Arma, I remember saying, hey, you gotta stop listening to secular music. It's feeding your spirit. And it's not feeding your spirit like protein and nutrients. It's feeding your flesh. It's feeding your pride. It's. It's feeding your lust. It's feeding all the things in you that you actually don't want to grow. And whatever you starve will die, and whatever you feed will grow. And the instrumentals have a spirit. So all these people who are like, no, but the lyrics do. No, no, no instrumentals. The spirit of the musician is carried through the music. And so what does Elisha say? Says, if you want me to prophesy, I'll prophesy to go get me a musician. And as the musician begins to play, the power of the Lord falls on Elisha. So we don't just do worship at the beginning of a church service because that's just a cool order of service. We do worship at the beginning of a worship service because we're ushering in the power of the Lord, the power of God. The. That's. That's a timeless truth. Sometimes I ask people, like, hey, so when you're depressed, what do you do? And they say, well, I just listen to sad music when I'm depressed. I'm like, what? You're just making the depression worse By. By whatever you feed will grow. So you feel sad that that's not what you should do. Hey, get a. Find a musician. Find a musician. Because music affects your mood. Music begins to usher in a different spirit. Spirit of gladness, a spirit of joy, spirit of praise, and ultimately a spirit of power which empowers Elisha to prophesy. And that prophecy becomes the thing that determines the outcome of the struggle between Judah, Israel, and Edom against Moab. So that's my timeless truth for the day. I've got a ton more, but that's the one that I really want it to focus on today, is the power of music. Not just lyrics, but it's the power of music. And I know a lot of pastors who are like, you know, I don't care what the musicians are doing. I don't care if they smoke weed or have sex outside of marriage or, you know, as long as they're gifted, you know? And I go, hey, man, they're not just transferring their gift. They're transferring their spirit. You're allowing someone to hold an instrument and have spiritual authority in a worship service. Yeah, I think their lifestyle matters. Like, I think. I don't know, I'm just gonna go on a limb and say, you know, we don't want to multiply a spirit of pride or a spirit of lust or spirit of rage or anger in the congregation. I think that musicians have spiritual authority with or without lyrics. Music has the ability to carry the spirit of the person that is playing the music. So I think that's really, really, really powerful. So I don't know if you've ever gone to Orange Theory, but guess what? The better the music, the better your run. Okay? Because really, you're not just there for a trainer. That trainer's also a dj. The playlist that they create, there should be a playlist to the season of your life that you're in right now. And maybe if you're struggling with depression, you're struggling with anxiety, maybe you may want to change the playlist that is accompanying the season of your life in order to change what's going on in that season. All right, tomorrow we're going to dive into day 173. We're going to continue our trek through two kings. I'm proud of you. If you're on a streak, you better not break it. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we continue walking through Two Kings. I love you so much. So proud of you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebibledepartment if you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow. Sa.