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Episode 614: In this episode, Chris and Jeff explore the biblical account of Elisha and the Shunemite woman from 2 Kings 4. Chris reads the passage, detailing how the woman recognizes Elisha as a holy man of God and decides to build a room for him in her home, providing him with a place to stay whenever he passes through. This act of kindness leads to a miraculous blessing when Elisha promises her a son, despite her husband's old age.
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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Good morning, good morning, talk the whole morning. Good morning to you and you and you. Okay, well you got that out of your system. That's it. That's a job. Thursday thrilled. This riveted. They are thrilled. Your fan base is thrilled, which is both of them. Both of them are going to send us an email today. My wife, yeah, and my daughter. They love it. That's funny. Hey, well listen, good morning to you. Welcome to the Bible guys. We are Christian, Jeff and we are or Jeff and Chris. You know Chris as the sign says, never know, the sign says Jeff and Chris. Yeah, but you're the one talking, so you get to do it. Okay, So Chris and Jeff and Jeff and we have a great segment for you. I think people really know it's Chris and Jeff, it's not Jeff. Whatever. Hey, to be truth be told. We don't really know how this segment's. Going to go. We've never done it before. Yeah, it's a new one. Yeah, I'm kind of looking at this segment skeptically. Skeptically. Yeah, I don't know how it's going to go either, but you know we did. We played along with that other segment on Tuesday, right, which is that weird share name thing. We'll get through that, okay, yeah, so we'll see how this goes. Let's see. Oh, this is called story time but wrong. So Jeff will start to tell a well known story and then Chris will interrupt with lines altering the story and completely unexpected ways. How do we know when we're done? I don't know. You just just twenty four minutes. Of No, it's just a few minutes. Okay, all right, So tell me a common story, Jeff. Actually, you know what, don't tell me, tell the audience. Tell the audience a common story. Yeah, have you ever heard the one about the what the Okay? Once upon a time? Yep, there was a farm girl in Kansas. Oh yeah, sure, Yeah. They had a puppy. Yeah, and the neighbor lady next door was particularly mean to her. Right, and then I remember this, the lady took the puppy and put it in a bag and threw it in the lake, and that puppy died. Wow, I know. So then she got another puppy, and the lady hated that one too, and she named that one Toto. Okay, keep going, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then she was dreaming of somewhere over the rainbow. Yeah. But on the way to this place, the house stopped and landed on Mars. I'm not sure many people understood this. Mars that actually the tornado. Well, I mean, where's where's Oz? Where's Oz on Mars? Apparently? No, no, no, it's it's it's on Mars. Is on the way Mars is on the way to Oz. Correct. Yeah, so the house, but many people don't realize that the Wizard of Oz just sort of skips over this part. Oh okay, but. It landed on Mars, and it actually the house landed on a Martian, So go ahead. Okay, green Martian. Yeah, and this Martian had red shoes? Is this is this the one that landed. On Uh, it's up to you. You tell the story, dude. You know, our listeners are like, what the heck is happening right now? I don't know where that came from. It just came out of my brain. So they take the red shoes and they have to get to the Wizard of Oz. And so I guess what you're trying to tell me, which we never knew up to this point, was that the yellow brick road led from Oz all the way to Mars. Wow. That that is not where I. Was because Oz is Oz is a green city. Wow. Wow, is that what you're saying? Wait a minute, So are we concluding this terrible segment by saying that that Emerald City is actually a Martian city? This is what I think you just taught us. Wow. Well, congratulations for this terrible lightning segment. Yes, if anybody is still listening after four minutes of that, right, we are not talking about Martians in the next sege. Wait. Hey, by the way, to get off of this segment, I did have about ten or twelve people or so approached me and say thank you for promoting Wicked because they went and saw it only because we talked about it. Oh wow, and I was so passionate about it, and they said it was unbelievable and they came up and thanked me. We also had people file complaints on it too, so both sides talk complaints about us surprise that we would promote it. So it's both sides. We got it both ways, well, people love us and hate us. That's what happens all the time, even as if Wicked's bad. Yeah, you mean. Like Harry Potter, which, oh you're inviting all kinds of junk right now, dude, just leave it, That's what I would do, all right. Yeah, Well, I was just saying, there's the people who are fans of what you say, and there are people who don't like what you say. I understand. And that's that's for both of us. It's true. Okay, all right, that's all for. Both of us, Just people who like what we say and what we don't say. Sure, there's people who like what we like, and there's people who don't like what we like. I understand. You particularly like Wicked. Yes, I'm on the record of saying I've never seen it. Yes, that is so funny. It's not a Broadway show. But I've literally watched it twenty times. I bet you have. It's only been out ten days, but you've seen it twenty times. Right, Okay, all right. Second, King's chapter four talking about Wicked. Elisha's not wicked. He's a good guy. That was a perfect, terrible transition speaking Wicked. There's no wickedness in Elijah, and. He's with this woman from Shunam, the Shunamite woman. And I bet all the anti wicked people love. That, that's right. One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to come to her home for a meal, and after that, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there for something to eat. She said to her husband, I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. Let's build a small room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp, and then he will have a place to stay whenever he comes by. One day Elisha returned to Shunam, and he went up to this upper room to rest, and he said to his servant Gahazi, tell the woman from Shunham, I want to speak to her. When she appeared, Elisha said to Gahazi, tell her, we appreciate the kind concern you have shown us. What can we do for you. Can we put in a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army. No, she replied, my family takes good care of me. Later, Elisha asked, Ahazi, what can we do for her? Gayzi applied, she doesn't have a son, and her husband's an old man. Call her back again, Elijha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, next year, at this time, you'll be holding a son in your arms. No, my lord, she cried, Oh, Man of God, don't deceive me and get my hopes up like that. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant, and at that time the following year, she had a son, just as Elisha had said. Wow, I'm reading a long passage here. Yep, you're going to thirty seven. One day, when her child was older, he went out to help his father, who was working with the harvesters, and suddenly he cried out, my head hurts, my head hurts. His father said to one of the servants, carry him home to his mother. So the servant took him home and his mother held him on her lap. But around noontime he died. She carried him up and laid him on the bed of the Man of God, and then shut the door and left him there. She sent a message to her husband, send one of the servants and a donkey so that I can hurry to the Man of God and come right back. Why go today, he asked, It is neither a new moon festival nor a sabbath. But she said it'll be all right. So she saddled the donkey and said to the servant, hurry, don't slow down unless I tell you to. As she approached the Man of God at Mount Carmel, Elisha saw her in the distance, and he said to Gahazi, look, the woman from Shunam is coming. Run out to meet her and ask her. Is everything all right with you, your husband and your child? Yes? The woman told Gahazi everything is fine. But when she came to the Man of God at the mountain, she fell to the ground before him and caught hold of his feet. Gahaze began to push her away, but the Man of God said, leave her alone. She's deeply troubled, but the Lord has not told me what it is. Then she said, did I ask you for a son, my Lord, and didn't I say? Don't deceive me? Get my hopes up. Then Elisha said to Gahazi, get ready to travel, take my staff and go. Don't talk to anyone along the way, go quickly and lay the staff on the child's face. But the boy's mother said, as surely as the Lord lives and you yourself live, I won't go home unless you go with me. So Elisha returned with her Gahaz. He hurried on ahead and laid the staff on the child's face, but nothing happened. There was no sign of life. He returned to meet Elisha and told him the child is still dead. When Elisha arrived, the child was indeed dead, lying there on the prophet's bed. He went in alone and shut the door behind him and prayed to the Lord. And then he laid down on the child's body, placing his mouth on the child's mouth, his eyes on the child's eyes, and his hands on the child's hands. And as he stretched out on him, the child's body began to grow warm again. Eliicia got up, walked back and forth across the room once, and then stretched himself out in the child again. This time, the boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Then Elijha summoned Gahazi called the child's mother, he said, and when she came in, Elisha said, here, take your son. She fell at his feet and bowed before him, overwhelmed with the gratitude. Then she took her son in his arms and carried him downstairs. Wow. I've always thought that this is one of the most peculiar miracles in the Bible. Yeah, Like, you know, remember how like when Jesus healed the blind man, he spit in the dirt and rub mud on his eyes. I always wondered like, yeah, I always not like, why why just speak the words? Why the spit and the mud? Right? And and but you know who can tell, right, who can tell why the spit was necessary? Uh? You know what was the significance of it? Right? And in this one, I'm like, why, why why the mouth against the mouth, the eyes against the eyes, you know, laying on top of them, which again, he's been dead for days, right, this child's been dead for days, and so you're laying on a you know, have you ever felt a dead corpse after a couple of days? Right? It doesn't feel great? And then uh and and so yeah, so's he's doing all that and uh, but yet, you know, you can't overlook the fact that it's just this unbelievable miracle that once again God does the impossible in this case, it's the miracle of all miracles, right, bringing somebody back to life. What a strange and yet wonderful thing. And by the way, I got emotion when you read that, did you I did I get emotional? Yeah? This woman who you know. She's just don't get my hopes up? Yeah, she just she falls in front of Elisha and and and she says, didn't I tell you, doctor, get my hopes up? I didn't ask you for this. You're the one that did this. And now he's dead. And and then and he says, okay, go back, and you know, go in my name and lay the staff. And she's like, it's just just think about the love of a mother. Yeah right, yeah, yeah, it just gets me emotional. The thing I read, the thing that really stood out to me is, you know, the Bible only tells us some of the highlights, correct, but it doesn't tell us everything. Like John says at the end of the Book of the Gospel of John. John says, if I tried to write everything that Jesus did just in these three and a half years, the world couldn't contain the books, right, right, It's what John's saying, is what I wrote here. It was like that all day, every day, all the time, right, right, I couldn't possibly write everything. I just wrote the highlights. So in this situation, Elisha says to Gahazi, hey, get ready to travel, take my staff. Just late on his face, he'll be fine. Gahazi doesn't even question. He goes, oh, okay, because this is what we do, right, This is what we do right, And he goes, oh okay. So apparently Elisha was in the habit of doing miracles, you know, long distance. He's doing these long distance miracles with a Gahazi. Hey, take the staff. Elisha's probably getting towards being an old man or whatever. He take the staff and go heal this kid for me, because you know, this lady's been really good to me, and hell this kid. And he doesn't he doesn't even go, what are you talking about? I can't do that. He goes all right, and he goes all the way from Mount Carmel all the way to shoot him. Right, it's quite quite a wayte this is going to take a good journey, and that idea is just hysterical to me. He goes, okay, this is what we do. We you know, Elisha and me, we we just raised dead kids, right right, So so again we're only getting little glimpses of the things that God did through Elisha and this power that God had in Elisha's life at the time. But he gets up and he goes and why did all this happen? It start off because this woman show, a wealthy woman, saw Elisha coming through shun him sometimes and needing a place to stay. Yeah, you know in in Israel, I've noticed. And then this is true out west too, as a matter of fact, here in Michigan. So you know, Michigan used to be the where we live now. Michigan used to be the northwest. Right. When when you hear that phrase go west, young man, remember that ye from Horace Greeley. He was talking about going to Michigan. There was jobs here, logging here, all this stuff. Right, So our towns tend to be half a day's journey between towns is where the town's in. The rural communities in Michigan tend to be. And so you can go to one town, refuel and get to the next town in a day's ride on a horse. And it's that way throughout the West. They're about a day or half a day in between towns. That's that's so shoot him. It was kind of in one of those places where for Elisha, if he was heading in that direction, it's not uncommon for him to want to stop off and shoot him. And you know they didn't have you know, Mary up back then, and so you know where you're going to stay. And so this woman says to her husband, I think this is a man of God. We should we should honor this man of God. Let's just put a let's build a room up on the rooftop, and let's put a bed there and a chair there and a lamp there. Let's just make it comfortable for him when he comes by. And she saw the benefit of having a man of God, the access to man of God for her family, right, And that's where you get the This is where you get the idea of the prophets chamber. A lot of churches will have profits chambers, and it's it's this idea of let's have a place that when people of God are travel link somewhere they need to somewhere to stay, they stay there. Right. Don't judge me for this, but I've never heard the term profits chamber in my life. Never heard it never, oh, man, that was that's a Baptist thing. Man, every independent Baptist church. It seemed like head of profits chamber. If they love missionaries, So if you're in a high missionary kind of environment or a lot of evangelists, yeah, they use them. What do they call it when we've had people personage? Yeah, I'm familiar that. Yeah, that's that's a home for the pastor. But then oftentimes they would have a room many many churches still do. We'll have a room set aside for pastors and missionaries and people cutting through travel, save them money. Yeah. So my wife and I in our house, we have begun working on our guest guest rooms specifically for that purpose, so that when people of God are coming in the town, need some place to stay and stay spending two hundred bucks in a hotel, come and stay with us, right, Yeah, And my mom and dad did that, And in fact, the trajectory of my life has changed because my mom and dad set aside We had a very small house, so they set aside my bedroom as a prophet chamber. And they explained this story, and they explained this idea that hey, we want to have access to the men of God and women of God who come through our area, and so we wanted to make an offer. And my mom is a tremendous cook and so in great hostess. But we had a very small house. I think my house when I was growing up was eight hundred and something square feet. That's pretty small. Pretty small. And I hit my bedroom. I could stand and I could, I could. I could touch the walls like this and like this, so north and southeast west, I could touch the walls. It's like a Harry Potter under the stage kind of thing. So my dad built in my bed with all of my storage was underneath, and then I had a little little closet. I could hang out a couple suits in the thing. And then he built a bowed window and that's where I kept. All my stuff was there. So basically I could walk in turn the corner in my bed. That that was it. But we would use that for pastors and stuff that would come along, and I would say six to eight times a year we would have a missionary and evangelist, a traveling singer, somebody a preacher staying in our home. And so I wound up becoming friends, even as a teenager with a bunch of godly men who began to kind of take me under their wing, encouraged me. I had one guy would offer to take me to different conferences or events that he was going to be at. I'd just ride along and be me and a bunch of adult preachers going somewhere. One of these men was the one who told me about the opportunity to win a scholarship for college. Because he asked me, where are you going to go? I said, oh, no, I don't know how I'm going to afford school, and he goes, I know, you can go win a scholarship at this school in a music competition. And it was the men of God in our house all the time, and they had a huge impact on my life and on my brother's. Let my mark the next one down our lives and it was because of this idea. So something to that about getting access to your family, getting your family access to godly people. I'm not saying me as a preacher, saying godly people in general. Yeah, yeah, yeah, see I would never would have had that angle, not angle, But like, like immediately your first phrase was this woman who was a wealthy woman knew the benefit of having access to the man of God. And she thought there was benefit yeah. Yeah, And I would never have thought that ever, because I would have thought that what she's saying is, hey, I've been blessed with a lot. Let me be a blessing to this man of God with nothing, expecting absolutely nothing in return. So when he went to her and said, hey, what can I do for you, She's like nothing. Yeah. I don't know that her intent was what she could get, yeah, correct. Yeah, And my mom and dad read this story and said, hey, there's benefit o having access to that men and women of God? Got it? Yeah, right, because there was for this woman. Yeah right. He did two miracles for this woman, right. Right, right, yeah, which you know quite the miracles, right right, pregnancy and resurrection right. So yeah, so holy cow. But yeah, okay, so I see what you're saying. So the uh so. Your listeners are doing this with you right now. They're giving you access to their home right now, or their car or wherever they're spending time with godly people. And I think that that's really the issue. Back in that day, you didn't have, you know, podcasts, You didn't have the ability to watch online or to connect with people you know from a distance. And so her only way is when he's cutting through town. We want access to him, we want to be with him, we want we want to be a blessing to him. Yeah, you know, I guess I never really sat. Fighting people into your life. They have an impact on you. I was just going to say, And it's also a great honor, right, one hundred percent to host somebody is in the Middle East is radically different, right, It's an honor to have him in your home, right, So yeah, I thought, yeah, that's that's a really good point too. Yeah. So so this idea that Elijah comes through town, excuse me, elishah, all the Elijah's gone. Elijah's gone, Chris. Jerebaums, It's so cool. We're on Alisha now, Okay. So anyway, the fact that the fact that he uh takes it upon himself and says, hey, I want to give back to this lady. I want to bless this lady. What can I do? And then and somebody says, well, she's always wanted a son, her husband's old, and and then he just he says, okay, okay, God, let's let's do this for her, and and uh and and does that. I just love the fact that, you know, let's just pretend for a moment we don't know the inner workings of her mind or heart, but we're assuming that she just wants to be a blessing. She wants, you know, she wants to be around the men of God. She wants it to be a great honor. She wants to honor, you know, maybe him to bless her home something like this. But what she didn't ask for was what she got. She didn't ask for major blessings like this. Right, she gave with not with the expectation of getting back. And so there's a sermon in there somewhere about about you know, you know, we give, we give our tithes and our offerings, not with the expectation expectation of giving back. But yet God sometimes gives back, right, and he promises to bless us, and so we know blessings are coming. That's not our motivation. But we give because we honor and so just like this woman, and you know, and even in the Testament, Jesus says, hey, if somebody borrows, uh, don't borrow with the intent of getting something back. Borrow with the intent of just giving loan, just loan, just loan. Out and uh. And so it's just this idea of like like you know, hey, just give to God, but you can't outgive God because God's going to continue to bless you. He's going to continue to be with you. You're going to get his favor, You're going to get his blessings. Sometimes it's you know more than you give. Right, when you align yourself with what God loves, you're going to benefit because God's always going to bless what he loves, right, It's important to him, his agenda, his mission, the other God's allies. When you align yourself with God's allies. Every single time in the Bible, when you find the people who align themselves with the people who are allied with aligned with God, they get blessed. Think of Rehab in Jericho, right, Jericho is getting wiped out. Reab goes, no, I'm on their side. You protect me and my whole family. Right. Everybody else gets wiped out except her and her family, and then she winds up being in the family of Jesus, the family lineage of Jesus. You can go down the line every time in the Bible when people who are aligned with God are when people align themselves with those who are aligned with God and on God's mission. God blesses all of them, and it's just an overwhelming amount of blessing. And so when you learn to love the things God loves, when you decide to make priority the things that God's made a priority, of course, everything is going to be provided that you need. But then God's never going to be a debtor to you. You're never going to give more to him than he's going to give back to you. Right, there's never a time. And so this is what happens for this woman is she goes, I think that's a man of God. We should take care of him. We've got plenty. God's blessed us. Let's be a blessing to him. And then she could not fathom the blessing. And this is that idea. Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Is what the Bible says. Whatever you plant, you're going to get back. But you plant one kernel of corn and you get a six foot stock with two or three ears of corn, with hundreds of kernels of corn back from one right, And this is what happens for her, And she goes, let's make a little room. Let's make life comfortable for him. Let's just make his life easier. Let's be a blessing. And then he goes, what do you need? He's trying to figure out which, By the way, there's a lesson there for us too. He's sitting there contemplating, this woman's been good to me, how can I be good back? Hey, what's his name, Baghazi? What's the name Gahazi? He says, Hey, Gahazi, go find out how we can take care of this woman. He come back out. She has one anything, he said, go ask her again. So he goes back again, and then finally Gahazi says, well they don't have any children. Okay, God give him children. And so that his gratefulness also was a part of the miracle. You know, when you and I decide to be grateful to the people that are are being good to us, right, there's usually something really good that's about to happen when we express gratefulness back. So it goes both ways here in this story. That's great, really amazing. Well, hey, that is our time, so hopefully we will see you tomorrow as you join us for the babble. Guys,