2 KINGS 4 (PART 2)
Read 2 Kings 4:38-44
Here we have two stories of the Lord carrying out miracles through his servant, the prophet Elisha.
The first is a little story about a poisoned stew being made safe by the intervention of Elisha. By accident (maybe the man concerned wasn’t from the area) some poisonous vegetable was added to a stew and put the whole group of God’s people in danger. They called on Elisha who added some flour to the stew and all was alright, the stew was safe. A very brief story, but it speaks of God’s grace and provision. We are told that there was a famine in the land, so the fact that this group of people had provisions was quite important. God had provided for them. But when that provision was tainted, the food wasn’t wasted, God made it safe to eat – God not only saved his people from possible death by poisoning, he also continued to provide for them. We might wonder why Elisha put flour into the stew. Surely that would not counteract any toxins in the food. But we quite often see visible signs accompanying God’s miraculous works in the Bible. In John 9, when Jesus gave sight to the man born blind, he put mud on the eyes of the man. Maybe the visual aspect helps people remember God’s grace; “remember that time when Elisha heaved a load of flour into the pot and God saved us from poisoning” they might reminisce when they are older. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper the visible signs of bread and wine remind us of God’s grace in the salvation we have in the cross of Christ.
In the second story a man arrives with a small amount of bread and Elisha told his people to feed the assembled company of a hundred people with it. “Impossible”, they said, “there’s not nearly enough to go round”. But Elisha had word from God that there would be enough; and there was, and there was some left over. This all rings bells, doesn’t it? We seem to have here a foreshadowing of Jesus feeding the five thousand, a story we all know very well. In both cases we see that God can provide and provide abundantly more than we can ask or imagine. And God’s word is central to the situation. Elisha, confronted with what seemed to be an impossible situation, consulted the Lord, and when the Lord replied, he had faith and carried out the instructions. But, of course, the story does point forward to Jesus and I think when Jesus fed the five thousand those who were there (and those who heard about it later) would immediately cast their minds back to the Old Testament story of Elisha feeding the one hundred, Elisha was known as “the man of God” and the people of Jesus” time would know that they were now in the presence of someone who was like Elisha, but even greater, feeding many more people with even more slender resources.
The stories of 2 Kings Chapter 4 show the greatness of our God. He has power over danger (38-41), deficiency (42-44) and ultimately, as we saw last time, death.