The Living God, The Only Source of Life.
1 Kings
Zarephath was located 14
miles north of
So God was in control. It
doesn’t matter how unstable the economy looks, no matter how uncertain the
weather report is or how empty the pantry is. The widow’s pantry had just
enough to get them by for one more day, but what matters is what God’s
resources are and not what man’s resources are. So Elijah is going to again
learn what it is to walk day by day, to depend upon God in terms of the
faith-rest drill ion a day to day basis. 2 Peter 1:3 NASB “seeing
that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and
godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and
excellence.” He has given us the logistics we need to handle life—food,
shelter, clothing, finances. Whatever it is that we need to fulfill God’s
mission for our life He provides for us. If we don’t have it, then God says we
don’t need it in order to do what He wants us to do. “Godliness” is eusebeia [e)usebeia] and
this comes through the true knowledge of Him. In other words, through the study
of His Word we learn who He is, what He has provided for us, and we learn His
excellencies, His attributes. His character is what backs His promises. In the
faith-rest drill we are claiming His promises in order that by them we might
become sharers of the divine nature. This means that we participate in His
provision for us so that our character is transformed into the character of
Jesus Christ. This is exemplified in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians
chapter five.
Romans 12:2—we are exchanging
the concepts of worldly thinking for biblical thinking. That is an important
principle to understand. That summarizes the whole process of our spiritual
life. We are to learn to identify the elements in our thinking that come out of
the cosmic system around us. There are some elements in our thinking that we
easily spot from the beginning of our spiritual regeneration and we know that
it is pure relativism. We know some of the garbage that is there, the
rationalizations, the sins, the relativism of the culture, the lack of
absolutes, the sense of right and wrong that God has put into our soul that is
confirmed by the Word of God. But there are a lot of other things that are much
more subtle and much more deeply embedded within our thinking. We just pick
this stuff up from the culture around us and we think a certain way simply
because that is our upbringing.
Elijah has been through the
test of provision, now he is going to go through the test of opposition. This
is something we all have to learn to deal with. We are going to go through
times in life when we are faced with opposition and antagonism from family
members, from friends, from the culture around us, to our belief system and our
trust in God’s Word. False things are said about us and what we believe, our
positions will be distorted, but what else can we expect from the world that is
in opposition to everything that God is doing? In fact they are so opposed that
they crucified His Son of a cross. So this is Elijah’s third test, to learn how
to operate in the midst of hostility and contempt. That is the environment of
this woman. She is bitter towards God. We have to learn not to react to that
but to maintain a calm, relaxed mental attitude and demeanor when we are
dealing with those who oppose us, whether they are friends, family or people a
work, or whoever it might be. Elijah has to learn how to do this on this small
scale to prepare him for this large-scale opposition he will face on
1 Kings 17:17, 18 NASB
“Now it came about after these things that the son of the woman, the mistress
of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no
breath left in him.
Understanding apologetics
involves three things. It involves understanding the correct way to present the
arguments for the veracity of Scripture. There are right ways and wrong ways to
present a case. It may depend on the context and the people that the arguments
are being presented to. Secondly, the correct use of evidence within the Bible
must be understood for the truthfulness of Scripture. Evidence isn’t the final
court of appeal for the truthfulness of Scripture—historical evidence, logical
evidence; this has to do with the nature of how we present evidence. Scripture
presents the evidence as a confirmation of truth, not as the final arbiter of
truth. Third, we can say that apologetics is at its most simple form being able
to explain to people why we believe what we believe. 1 Peter
The word apologia is used several times in the
New Testament. In Acts 22 Paul is going to Jerusalem to fulfill a vow, he goes
to the temple and the forces there that are hostile to Christianity begin to
spread a rumour that he is taking Gentiles into the temple and so there is a
riot. As he is being led off he requests to address the crowd. He said:
“Brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now {offer} to you.” In reading
the rest of the chapter we see a great explanation of the gospel. This is his apologia. 1 Corinthians 9:3 NASB “My
defense [apologia] to those who
examine me is this.” There is nothing wrong with stating your case for what you
say, why you say it, what you believe. Philippians 1:7 NASB “For it
is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my
heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense [apologia] and confirmation of the gospel
…” [16] “…knowing that I am appointed for the defense [apologia] of the gospel.” So this is what the believer is
supposed to be engaged in. God never expects people to believe the gospel in an
intellectual vacuum (that’s mysticism). God always presents who He is and His
Word in a way that does not insult their intelligence of the believer. He
expects people to believe within an intellectual framework and belief is based
on knowledge that is rational, logical, and is also vindicated by God through
historical objective events. This is the role of signs and wonders, miracles
and the resurrection. It is confirmatory, it establishes credentials, it is not
the ultimate point of proof. Acts 1:3 NASB “To these He also
presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs,
appearing to them over {a period of} forty days and speaking of the things
concerning the
Polemics is where we may
get some reaction from people. The Bible is filled with polemics. According to
Webster’s Dictionary polemics are an aggressive attack on or refutation of the
opinions or principles of another. The Oxford English Dictionary says, polemics
is the art or practice of dispute or argument as in attacking or defending a
doctrine or belief. God is often on the offense against false belief systems.
Then the Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms defines polemics as: “A polemic
can also be aggressive refutation of another position or principle. In theology
polemics often refers to the attempt to show that the superiority of Christian
teaching over its rivals by means of a systematic, ordered delineation of the
Christian belief system.” That overlaps the whole idea of apologetics. Almost
every sentence in Genesis chapter one is a polemic against the false gods of
What is the role of these
miracles? They are not to prove as the final court of approval the proof of the
truth of Scripture. They are confirmatory. For example, 2 Corinthians
God allows things to
happen for the purpose for testing our obedience. What has happened in the
midst of the crisis in the northern kingdom is that rather than trusting in God
to provide for them they are trusting in Baal. So there is going to be this
evidence that is going to be presented through Elijah that Baal can’t do what
only God can do. Baal was the weather god of the Canaanite pantheon and he
controlled fertility. In an agricultural society he controlled fertility
through rain, and thus he was the god of thunder, the god of lightning, the god
of rain, productivity, prosperity, and the god who provides life. Also part of
another aspect of the myth of Baal was that he was part of the dying-rising god
pattern—the idea of resurrection—that at the height of the summer drought he
was slain by the god of death and then his mother would search for him and
eventually find him and restore him to life. So there is this resurrection idea
there. And how is this going to be countered?
1 Kings 17:19 NASB
“He said to her, ‘Give me your son.’ Then he took him from her bosom and
carried him up to the upper room where he was living, and laid him on his own
bed.
So the woman is confirmed
in her belief. 1 Kings
This is the first resurrection that we have in Scripture. There are numerous other resurrections that occur down through the Old Testament, leading up to the ultimate resurrection which is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.