Twisted Stories and the True Story

Scripture: From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 2 Kings 2:23-24

Observation: Elisha is now, without question, the prophet of Israel and has inherited the Spirit of the Lord from Elijah. This has been shown by his acts and validated by other prophets and believers. Then, we have a strange encounter. "Some boys" come out and insult him by calling him "baldy," so Elisha curses them and 42 are killed by bears.

At first, this seems like a wild overreaction at best, and perhaps even a terrible abuse of the power the Lord has given Elisha. He effectively pronounced death on some kids because they called him names. However, there is certainly something else going on here, and the first hints are the place where this occurs, and the number of boys killed.

The location context reminds us that this is occurring in Israel, which has completely rebelled against Yahweh, and is in active worship of the baals. The king especially hated Elijah, and now hates Elisha. Certainly the people know this, and they are not just telling some random prophet to go away. Rather, they are actively rejecting the true representative of the Lord himself, looking to drive off the one person and one voice that speaks the truth of Yahweh into their nation.

And yes, "drive off" is the right term, for this is not just some collection of "boys". With 42 killed, likely meaning there were WAY more participants, this is a mob. This is a scene of threatened - if not soon-to-be-actual - violence. These boys are behaving more like a large gang, arriving in force, with a coordinated plan to threaten and intimidate, all directed at the one individual about whom the king would likely reward any her perpetrate violence. They are the next generation of baal-worshipping, Yahweh-rejecting, hate-filled thugs, and they are not calling Elisha names, they are inciting him to confrontation and thus justification for a deadly attack.

It is in that context that we see not a violent overreaction from Elisha, but rather we see a faith-filled and patient response. Elisha absorbs the insults without defense. He perceives the physical threat without fear or action. Instead, he calls upon the Lord ... and two bears appear and take care of the situation. Elisha prays for an appropriate response against this threat, and the Lord provides it.

Application: I was thinking this last night as I was falling asleep - thus perhaps inspired by the Spirit - about how often non-believers have been lied to about what the bible really says. This may be one (albeit much, much lesser-known) example. I once heard a non-believer ask about story ... paraphrasing it as "a few young boys called a prophet names, so God had bears kill them, how is that the action of a loving God?"

Seriously, that isn't what's happening here. Though the truth isn't immediately obvious without some context and understanding, the "summary" version is a lie, just like non-believers have been told so many lies about the bible by the enemy. The enemy takes part of the bible, removes all context, paraphrases what's left completely wrong, adds one false detail ... and feeds the non-believers a resulting logical question that calls God into doubt (either by character or existence). This happens all the time.

Here is what I believe about these types of interactions. It is very, very good for Christians to know the truth about these stories. However, it is wrong (or at least too complicated) to interact with non-believers who cite these lies by correcting them about such stories. It is far better to engage in conversations about Jesus. We should set aside the wrong story ("your summary of that bible story has inaccuracies, but let's come back to that later") and turn the conversation to "Christ crucified" ("the bible story we should FIRST discuss is Jesus").

The bible is full of awesome stories about the Lord's love, authority, mercy, judgment, patience, and power. The enemy twists those stories into lies about the Lord. However, the truth is that all the stories actually point to one great story ... God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to die for our sins, so that by faith in him we can have eternal salvation.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for Jesus, and Jesus I need you more and more in my life. I do believe in you, and desire the Holy Spirit to govern and guide my daily walk. May I do your will today, for your glory. Amen.