Hey, this is A Year in the Bible with Daley Grace. This is Shelby and Paul. Today, we are jumping into the book of Second Kings. And so, if you've been following along with us, you know that First Kings is really just continuing on into the second book, Second Kings. But Paul, we'd still love if you could give us just a little bit of an intro since we're starting a new book. Yeah. So, like you said, there's a lot of continuity here. And I've mentioned this before, but First and Second Kings were once one book, or they are considered one book in the Hebrew Bible. And so, it's usually considered to be one author that wrote the whole thing. But what we're going to see here is in Second Kings, an increasing deterioration of these two kingdoms. And so, that's kind of the big theme from Second Kings that's not as present in First Kings. And then also, we're going to see a whole lot more of Elisha particular narratives of Elisha doing prophetic activity throughout the kingdoms. So. Yeah. Great. So, I know that there's a really peculiar story in this book. Yes. Can you walk us through that? Because it might have been alarming to read if you haven't read it before. It is definitely difficult to understand, but involves Elisha, a group of young kids and bears. Yes. Yeah. So, the context for this comes from chapter two. So, we have what's basically this narrative of passing the torch from Elisha to Elisha, where the mantle of prophecy passes to Elisha. And Elisha actually ascends into heaven and doesn't really die necessarily. He ascends kind of like Enoch and Genesis. And so, that's essential context here. And there's another piece of important context in Second Kings one eight that describes Elisha's appearance as being a hairy man with a leather belt around his waist. So, then we get Elisha's mantle passing to Elisha. And so, he encounters these youths when he's on his way back from Jericho to Mount Carmel. And he's at Bethel. And if we remember, Bethel was one of the central places in the Northern Kingdom of pagan worship. So, there's probably not a whole lot of people that are really like committed to Yahweh here. And so, when the youths come out and call Elisha bald, which is kind of funny to our modern consciences, this wouldn't have been an attack on like his manliness or even his appearance. Instead, it's actually saying, you're not in the line of Elisha. It's basically denying that he is actually the true prophet, because Elisha was hairy. So, you're bald. So, you're clearly not the next prophet. And the interesting thing is Elisha probably would have been wearing some kind of head covering. So, it's meant to be more of a direct attack on his prophetic ministry here. Okay. Thank you for providing all that context. I feel like the pieces are already starting to come together more than just reading it through. And I'll be honest, this is one of the stories in scripture that for the longest time was hard for me to make sense of. But why does Elisha curse them for that comment? I mean, couldn't he just have been like, hey guys, cut it out? Would that not have been enough? Yeah. So, it's the fact that they are denying his prophetic ministry as a person that communicates God's words. And he's bringing a curse, not unlike one that we find in Leviticus 26, 21 through 22, which says, if you walk contrary to me and will not listen to me, I will let loose the wild beasts against you. So, not listening to God's prophet is basically not listening to God. And so, by denying his prophetic ministry, Elijah's calling a curse that the Bible kind of says, hey, this is going to happen to you, right? And one commentator actually equipped that these are covenant bears, that they're enforcing the covenant. And so, even though we've seen kind of some more humorous moments throughout 1st and 2nd Kings, and this might seem to be that way initially, it's actually not. It's actually a pretty intense moment of, hey, they were not being committed to the covenant and listening to God's words. Yeah. And I'm sure that this served as a signal to anyone who heard about it or maybe even was there that, hey, Elisha is God's mouthpiece to us, and we should take his word seriously. Thank you for explaining all of that. We've got just like a minute left of this episode. So, what do we take away from this passage? Yeah. So, even though we may not be walking around calling God's prophets bald ourselves, there is kind of an impetus of the young boys that we might find within ourselves. And I think it's similar to what we see from Hesaiah from the beginning of this section of 2nd Kings. And it's that he calls for his messengers to ask Baal whether he will recover from an injury rather than asking God, and thereby rejecting God's true prophet, Elijah, who he should have asked, just like the boys reject Elisha, God's true prophet. And so, I think in that, I see my own impetus to prefer certain helps before I think about Jesus. And so, this might be things that are actually good, things like self-help books or asking a mentor or considering what the internet might even have to say sometimes, which may not be as helpful. But I do that before I pray or before I talk to Jesus. And unlike them, we don't just show preference to someone or something other than a human prophet. We show preference to something other than God himself, because Jesus is fully God. And the thing to take away there for me at least is that Jesus does provide everything we need. Colossians 2.10 tells us that we are complete in Christ. And I've mentioned this in a few episodes. 2nd Peter 1.3 says that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. And so, again, it's not that self-help books and asking advice from friends is bad. It's just that, hey, going to Jesus first is often the better option. Yeah, absolutely. Just coming out swinging on this first episode. My toes are a little tender at the moment, even step John. But that's a great reminder. And that's got to be my takeaway from this episode. What is my gut instinct when I need wisdom, when I need strength, when I need help? Where am I going? And if it's not to the Lord, what might it look like to rearrange those priorities in my life? So great reminder. Thanks for walking us through a difficult text. We are going to continue walking through 2nd Kings. So we, back tomorrow to talk through the next few chapters.
