Unpacking Truths
Dive deep into God's word and unpack divine truths for today's life journey. In a world where everyone is seeking, join us as we guide you to find hope and power in God's timeless wisdom. If our discussions spark questions or ideas, reach out to us at UnpackingTruths@LOCChurch.com. Don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe, allowing us to continue helping people unpack God's truth for their lives! Hosted by Pastor Kendall Koenig and Pastor Maureen O'Connor of Light of Christ Church in Algonquin, IL.
Unpacking Truths
Ancient Lessons for Modern Life: Elisha’s Tale and Redemption Stories in Scripture
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https://youtu.be/Y7siGpprux0
What if ancient scriptures still hold valuable lessons for our modern lives? In our latest episode of "Unpacking Truths," Pastor Kendall and Pastor Mo explore the unsettling tale of Elisha and the two bears from 2 Kings 2. With a mix of humor and deep reflection, we pull back the layers of this curious story, examining Bethel's idolatrous history and the consequences of mocking divine figures. Not only do we wrestle with the cultural and symbolic significance of terms like "na'arim" and the number 42, but we also consider how these ancient narratives can serve as cautionary tales for today's world. Prepare for an engaging conversation that blends historical context with contemporary moral insights.
Our exploration doesn't stop there. Inspired by Phyllis Tribble's "Texts of Terror," we venture into more emotionally charged stories, focusing on the challenging narratives of violence against women in the Old Testament. We look at these stories through the lens of redemption, struggling with their discomfort to uncover deeper truths about brokenness and divine grace. By drawing parallels with personal stories and figures like Jonah, Jeremiah, and Esther, we aim to reveal how these scriptures continue to resonate, offering hope and redemption. As you listen, we invite you to confront these difficult stories alongside us, reflect on your own role in the grand narrative, and share your thoughts on the scripture that speaks to you.
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Welcome everyone to our next episode of Unpacking Truths, where we are going to take a few minutes to unpack some creepy, scary, disturbing Bible verses and Bible stories. So we are going to come at this both in a serious way with some of them and maybe a playful way with some of the others. So you may guess who's going to come at them, which way by, maybe, if you've gotten to know us already. I'm Pastor Kendall and I'm Pastor Mo. Welcome to Unpacking Truths, where we dive deep into God's timeless truths for our lives today.
Speaker 2:Grab your coffee. Open your hearts and your minds. Come take this journey with us, as we unpack God's truths.
Speaker 1:Pastor Mo, I am going to ask you to be the first one up. Which one do you want to start with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's unpack. What is more fun than one of my favorite stories, bible stories that I read to my children when they were young? It comes out of 2 Kings 2. It is the one where Elisha has the two bears come out and maul some kids. So I'm just going to dive into this scripture reading before you're all too disturbed, but actually let me give a little bit of a background of what's going on during that time. So what had happened was they? You know, elisha is walking to Bethel and Bethel is known for its idol worship. It is a people that have stepped away from God and the king Jeroboam I, he actually instilled golden calf worship as a way to deter the people from worshiping the one true God. Okay, and Elisha? It may sound a lot like Elijah, and that's because Elisha was the disciple of Elijah and, if you want to think of this, so Elijah was actually like he's, like the Obi-Wan of prophets. Yes, so we can liken Elisha to like Luke, right.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And so here he is. He's going into Bethel, and let me go ahead and read. So this comes out of 2 Kings 2, 23-24. Elisha left Jericho and went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, a group of boys from the town began mocking and making fun of him. Go away, baldy, they chanted, go away, baldy. Elisha turned around and looked at them and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them. Now some actually translations say she bears, so they're female bears. Because you know what? You don't mess with a mama bear. You better not play or you could get mauled. That's all the message to the children.
Speaker 1:So what do you make of that scary, creepy, weird story Mo?
Speaker 2:You know there are severe and immediate consequences if you want to make fun of, if you call someone bald, no, Don't mock bald people, bad things happen.
Speaker 2:If you want to mock a prophet of the Lord, be prepared to be mauled. No, yeah. So what kind of helped me feel a little bit better, right, as I dived into? I can't just present this to you and be like, and there you go, but I looked into this a little bit and what made me feel a little better is the Hebrew word for these young boys, right, or often children. Sometimes in some translations it's na'arim, which actually means young men. So I don't this is still horrible, but it made me feel a little better to think these guys are maybe in their twenties rather than like little children. These guys are maybe in their 20s, rather than like little children.
Speaker 1:So I'm not saying it's still great, but yeah, yeah, you know, and Mo, this is the reminder that there are accounts in scriptures that sometimes are weird or disturbing. We don't know what to really do with them.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes there may be things that are lost on us, that are just confusing to us trying to look back over this much time Because, yeah, not a lot of morals or just sort of a scary sense of how to take an account like that.
Speaker 2:Is this one you read to your kids too?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, of course no, I jumped over this one, Mo yeah, and the children's Bible that we give out at baptisms does not include this story. Let me tell you a story of Elisha. This is not in there, no Well oh, go ahead. No.
Speaker 2:I was going to say there is some significance too with the 42, because I was kind of like, why 42?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And only 42 of them are mauled. Which I learned as I read deeper into it is that there were a lot more young men and 42 of them sadly got taken down. But so 42 does represent within scripture. Several times in scripture it means a time of testing, judgment and punishment. So we see in the Israel's wilderness wandering, the Israelites encamped in 42 different places during their 40-year journey. And then it was 42 months of tribulation, we see in Revelation 11. And it's a significant period. Like I said, tribulation, persecution, it's an opposition to God's people by evil forces. And so what it's saying is like there's a bigger understanding here that when you know when you mock the ways of God, when you mock God's prophetic word or God's guidance in your life right and turn from it hardheartedly, like there's consequences, there's, you know, severity in your life that could come like in the form of two she bears mauling you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have yet to see that, but you know hey I first for everything why I carry bear spray when I am up at glacier national park. So that might be wise it might be, and and not because I mock profits yeah, and don't call anyone baldy no, ever. Well, we did not share with each other in detail. We sort of named this.
Speaker 2:So it's going to be fine.
Speaker 1:One of the ones that I chose also has a death theme to it.
Speaker 1:We're going dark, you guys yeah we are dark this week, but it is from the New Testament, from the book of Acts, the fifth chapter, ananias and Sapphira. And let me just read this. But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife Sapphira, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife's consent, he kept the rest. Then Peter said Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit and you kept some of the money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell as you wished. And after selling it, the money was yours, was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us, but to God. As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Oh, that's rough. Everyone who heard about it, everyone who heard about it, was terrified, no doubt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his wife didn't die, though, right? Oh yeah, she died later too.
Speaker 1:She died too, oh, later Later because she does the same thing, and so, first of all, this is one that. I have tried to build into-.
Speaker 2:Is that like meet your tithe, or else?
Speaker 1:Well it is. I try to build this into every financial stewardship. Sermon series that I've ever preached on.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:So no, I have not, but this is one of those stories.
Speaker 2:It might work. Maybe we should try it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but what strikes me about this passage is and in the New Living Translation it really comes out in that way it's not simply that they sold this property and didn't give all of it for God's work, it's that they said they were doing that but then, like, tried to lie to God.
Speaker 2:See, they should have just worked in like the word maybe or might, like I might give it all. You know, maybe I'm going to sell everything and give it. You know, like just work in a word that like leaves a little wiggle room.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, ananias didn't leave himself any wiggle room, and at least I like it's not that the apostles said you will die and he died. It was almost like he was so caught in his lie that it just so overwhelmed him, his heart gave out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, could we just say he had a heart attack, because I don't want to think about God striking somebody. I mean I shouldn't laugh. That's even horrible. I'm laughing, that's a little dark.
Speaker 1:Well, it just is. There are some parts of scripture that are just kind of heavy and hard and confusing. And no, I don't think it is that if you sell property and only give 70% to God and keep 30% to yourself, that you know some rare disease is going to come and get you immediately or in the next months. I don't think this is, but I think it is about we got to that God is concerned about the truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that we've got to be real with God and real with, and part of being real with God is being real with other people. Right or living into our word Living into our word, living into what we say.
Speaker 2:we're going to do and if we don't, maybe just like being honest about it, like, hey, I know we said we're going to give it all, but we kind of reconsidered, had a chit chat, wifey's on board, we're going to keep 20%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, you bet.
Speaker 2:I mean, come to terms with what your plans are, yeah. Or it reminds me of Jesus when he says anyone who puts their hands to the plow and turns around like looks back isn't fit for the kingdom of heaven, and it's. You know. Don't say you're all in and going to do this and live this way and walk this way, but really you're not. You're like if it's convenient for me, but if it's not, I'm going to, you know maybe that's more the Well I think it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, or Lot's wife who turns back and becomes a pillar of salt, that it's sort of like if you're going forward, then go, yeah, and if not, yeah, no, looking back so well you got another one for us.
Speaker 2:Oh, I got some good ones. I got some good ones.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, hold it. Which one are you going to now?
Speaker 2:I'm going to my my.
Speaker 1:Ezekiel.
Speaker 2:No, I'm doing the yes, ezekiel.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:My human poop campfire one. It's good, it's good stuff, right? So I'm just going to go right into this scripture, ezekiel 4, 12. Prepare and eat this food as you would barley cakes while all the people are watching. Bake it over a fire using human poop and then eat the bread. And you know, the first thing I thought about with this is that I when do you find this stuff, mo, in the Bible. It's the word of God professed. And the first thing I thought about was you know, when I was younger, if I cussed, I got a bar of soap in my mouth and I thought, you know, what might have really helped is if my mom made me eat a dung cake. You know, I mean, if there was poop cake, I would have definitely, maybe never, ever done that again. So I don't know there's.
Speaker 1:Mo's parenting tip for the day my parenting tip yeah.
Speaker 2:So as I kind of looked into this a little deeper, like what is the purpose of this? It doesn't even make sense. So Ezekiel was a young contemporary of Jeremiah right, and so Jeremiah was ministering to those in Judah, and Ezekiel he was prophesying to those who'd already been taken down to exile in Babylon after the defeat of 597. And so it was very customary in the East for pagans, those who worshiped many gods, to cook their food with human poop, I guess it was a good fuel source.
Speaker 2:I mean you can try that at home, or if you're doing a campfire, you know you just actually, yes, please leave a comment If you decide to do this. Let us know if it works as really good fuel. I'm intrigued, but I'll let you guys do that and let us know. But anyway, sorry, I digress. So yeah, so this also violates their laws of purity, and so Ezekiel, being, you know, a priest at that time, he actually begged God, please don't make me do this, right, I mean, partially probably didn't want to eat it, but also because it's against their laws of purity, and so it really would have painted a picture for the people of that time of ruin. That's what it would have said. It would have been a symbol to the people that you are so spiritually unclean I'm making my prophet, who is speaking out my truth eat poop and so, yeah, pretty serious stuff.
Speaker 1:Well, and throughout the prophets, they often used dramatic actions to get people's attention. I mean when Hosea was ordered by God to marry a prostitute, when Jeremiah I think it was Jeremiah walked through with the oxen yoke on his shoulders and said you're going to be yoked like this.
Speaker 2:Was it Isaiah who was naked for like 40 days or something?
Speaker 1:I don't remember that one. But I mean they would use. They didn't have the internet back then, so you would do dramatic actions to grab people's attention, to get a message out. So you did do that. So some of these sort of over-the-top things that the prophets did, it was because they were trying to bring it was shock therapy. That's a great way to put it. It was shock therapy, yeah, and for them that would have been shock therapy Us it just sounds disgusting.
Speaker 2:It would have been disgusting. Come on yeah.
Speaker 1:Something other than that.
Speaker 2:Someone else eat it.
Speaker 1:Well and yeah, so these sort of strange stories are there in scripture too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, when we talked before this, I said, Mo, I was wrestling with this one to go. What sort of tone are we going to have? Because some of this, you know having to, you know cook something over a dung fire is, you know you can be kind of playful with that and you know we can laugh at of playful with that and you know we can laugh at that. Some of the others of these are very serious and I want to just name that. When we were talking about creepy or scary or disturbing ones, I, just when we talked about addressing this, I just thought of a book that I remember reading some in years ago at seminary, by Phyllis Tribble, entitled Texts of Terror. She used this phrase and it was scriptures where women experienced violence in their lives and she spent some time exegeting those scriptures and wrestling through the story of Hagar who Abraham uses his concubine to have Ishmael and then sent her into the wilderness.
Speaker 1:And terrible, certainly the rape of Tamar and some of these other texts of terror.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're hard to sit with.
Speaker 1:They're hard to read, they're hard to reflect on, they're hard to name. But as I was just reflecting on that and doing a little research online, I ran upon, or came upon, a woman who had written about Phyllis Tribble's book and I just was so moved by some of the words that she said. So this isn't scripture, this is a woman's reflection on it, hannah Godini, and she wrote in a blog post, a website called the Junia Project, about one of the apostles in the New Testament who's female, junia. But here's what she wrote about these scriptures, the texts of terror, she said. These horrific stories, spoken aloud as sacred text, invite broken and abused people to be a part of the narrative. The fact that these women occupy the same place in the space in the Bible as the renowned patriarchs reminds me that our God invites the broken to be an essential element in the redemptive narrative and demands that they be remembered and honored. Today, we have largely let go of the Israelites' oral traditions. However, these narratives must not be forgotten, lest we forget and repeat the mistakes of the.
Speaker 1:Loved how she said that and that these stories are named and that some of these stories of brokenness, of evil, of violence towards an individual or a group of people, recognizing that even in the darkest days, in the worst things, God hasn't given up on his world and that is our sin, seeing writ large and yet that will still be part of the story of what God will redeem in the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I've always loved the Old Testament because I think it has spoken into brokenness, that, whether you're male or female, that you've experienced, and it allows us to go okay. So I see myself in the scripture and when you can see that, then the scripture offers me something and that's the wisdom of God and that's the beauty of it is like, where are you, god, in this? And you can see it through some of the stories and how they play out, and just the story of what God is doing, that big redemption picture making all things new, what is broken making whole, showing us that scars are on resurrected bodies, like we see on Christ. Right, it's a part of our story, it's what it means to be human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is an earthiness to the Old Testament that didn't sort of get sanitized out all of the brokenness or the messiness, and I also find the Old Testament so powerful in that way and the figures in the Old Testament. I often sort of see my life through boy. This is a Jonah moment where I'm wanting to run away because I'm scared of what I have to face. Or this is a Jeremiah moment where I'm going to do an act of hope but I'm not feeling very hopeful and those Old Testament figures and individuals can be so powerful and we can see ourselves in their stories and in the goodness of them and in the brokenness of their stories.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And, like you know, I just think of Esther too and like, created for a time such as this, like every position, we're in the power we have in that position, even if you're checking someone out and you're a clerk at a store, like you have the power to smile at someone that day, you have the power to be loving, you have the power to meet them with. You know kindness, even if they're not acting. You know very kind to you and so you know how that impacts the world. And what are we doing with what we have? And, yeah, letting God, surrendering to God right in and through it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean, you just bring up Esther and wasn't on mine here, but here was this woman who, literally, the Jewish people were, at this point of, about to be genocidally wiped out, and she was in a position to stop that from happening, and she goes.
Speaker 2:I don't have the power To attempt stopping it because she could have died.
Speaker 1:Oh, she could have she risked her life to try to be able to do that and that classic line for such a time as this, you may be in this place and that all of us, for such a time as this, may be in places where God wants to use us in an important way.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And we should never minimize the moments or the gifts or the opportunities that we have before us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know what this is. What it's about. It's about, I think, with integrity as pastors, as fellow Christians, coming to the scripture and saying you know what this is uncomfortable, this is weird, this is goofy, right, but yet we're going to continue the work of unpacking it, of seeing ourselves in these stories, of understanding. How are you speaking to us today, god? What is your spirit saying to us? Because it is moving and living and breathing the scripture, and so I love that we're doing this and I love that you're all joining us. So, those who are watching us or those who are listening, thank you for being a part of this, and we'd love to hear some of the scriptures that you think are maybe disturbing or creepy or funny or weird. Let's have a conversation about that and drop your questions as well on unpackingtruthscom. We'd love to answer those. We always enjoy that too.
Speaker 1:Unless they're too hard, then I'll just have my do them. Oh, great then.
Speaker 2:I'll just have my do them, oh great, you know, and I'll just make them funny. So I don't know, you know it's at your own risk. So all right, take care. And thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:Next time on Unpacking Truths. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies, and so exactly what that is like.
Speaker 2:It's a spiritual body. You get to walk through walls.
Speaker 1:You get to walk through walls, yeah, but you still get to eat food.
Speaker 2:So it's worth it.
Speaker 1:It's a win. It's a win. Walls, don't stop you. Food still tastes good.
Speaker 2:I'm in. Who cares if we're married? Thanks for joining us on this episode of Unpacking Truths. If anything that we discussed sparked any ideas or you have any questions, we would love for you to go to unpackingtruthscom, or you can also email us at unpackingtruths at locchurchcom.
Speaker 1:And don't forget to like, share or subscribe to the podcast, because you doing that allows other people to connect to this content and grow with God as well.
Speaker 2:Until next time, we hope you know that you are loved.
