When I was in my late teens I attended a job interview for a TV rental firm. The interviewer was quite aggressive and plied me with all kinds of questions.  I don’t know quite what he expected, as by the time we were about 10 minutes into the interview I was convinced I didn’t want the job and no doubt he was convinced he didn’t want to give me the job!  However, one particular question has stuck in my mind.  What were my expectations of working for him?  I’m not sure he’d have appreciated me saying: “well I expect in six months I’ll have your job.”  On the other hand, I don’t think he would of have been impressed if I’d said: “well if I end the month with a few bucks in my pocket I’ll be happy.”  But it raises the question of what our expectations in life are, and in particularly, what they are in our Christian life.  You see I believe, a bit like my imaginary answers at my job interview, there are two extremes.  Some expect the Christian life to be a continual experience of near miraculous blessing!  On the other hand, some are happy to experience whatever blessing God gives them, whereas others would say such an approach lacks faith!  So what’s the right answer?  Although there are other examples in the life of the prophet Elisha, this particular episode is one that can help us understand how God might choose to work or what we might expect.

At this point in Elisha’s career as a prophet things are going pretty well. Firstly he’s recognised as Elijah’s successor.  People can see: “The spirit of Elijah” rests on him (2 Kings 2:15).  Secondly the Lord’s worked some amazing miracles through him.  So it makes sense that the widow of one of the: ‘sons of the prophets’ approaches him due to her desperate situation, and desperate it is!  The creditor was at her door and seems to be a pretty heartless individual!  Okay, he’s within his rights (see Exodus 21:1-11, Leviticus 25:39-41 and Deuteronomy 15:1-11) but without her sons and no social security she’s in a desperate state both now and then later in her old age.  So she approaches Elisha, for help as he clearly knew her husband and his godly character.

But this raises a question. Why is the Lord letting it happen to the family of someone who was such a faithful servant in his cause?  It’s the old chestnut, why do bad things happen to good people?  But this proves that Christians are not spared from being caught in the crossfire of living in a fallen world!  There are many examples of the Lord’s people suffering in Scripture!  Jesus himself told his disciples: “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33).  God’s people suffer and this is just another example to help us be realistic about the subject, but also to ultimately encourage us!  So how can it encourage us and help us when life, to put it bluntly, can sometimes seem to be unfair!

Well firstly we can learn a lot from the attitude of the widow. She’s desperate, but, as Dale Ralph Davis highlights: ‘hers is a faithful desperation.’[1]  How can we tell that?  Because, by approaching his prophet, she cries to the Lord for help.  In other words she seeks a word from the Lord, which, in its modern context means turning to Scripture!  If we want to hear the Lord speak, that’s where we should look first.  The Bible’s called God’s Word for a reason, he speaks through it!  The rather encouraging thing for her is Elijah’s response.  He is immediately concerned and seeks to be compliant in helping her as he recognises genuine faith that seeks an answer from the Lord!  We might think: “well he’s a prophet, isn’t he supposed to go around helping people and being compliant with their requests?”  Yet we only have to look back at 3:13 where the godless King Jehoram, who was living up to his parents Ahab and Jezebel’s legacy, is basically told by Elisha: “why should I talk to you, if you want help in this situation why don’t you go to those prophets your father and mother used to employ” (the prophets on Baal in his mother’s case or false prophets in his father’s case).  Elisha’s attitude is different here because this is genuine faith as opposed to the: “can you get us out of a tricky situation that we’ve got into because we haven’t consulted the Lord” attitude of King Jehoram!

This being the case, we might expect to see, in the light of Elisha’s ministry, an impressive miracle. So verse 2 comes as a bit of a surprise as Elisha asks her what she’s got around the house.  Her reply doesn’t seem to hold a lot of promise as all she’s got is: “a jar of oil” demonstrating her poverty!  Elisha seems completely unfazed by this and instructs her to go to her neighbours and get as many jars and utensils as possible (v3).  Jesus himself acted in the same way when he fed the 5000.  When his disciples come to him with a question as to how they were going to deal with the crowd. After throwing the question back at them he then asks them how much food they’ve got (Mark 6:38), that being the prelude to an amazing miracle!  But that’s often the way the Lord’s deals with us.  You may be praying for family or friends to come to know Christ.  Well who’s the best person to invite them to an evangelistic event at your Church?  It’s you!  By all means pray, after all, we’re dependent on Lord, but the answer is you’re the Lord’s instrument in that time and place!  Sometimes, even when we don’t think we got many skills to use in the Lord Service there may be a good number of ‘jars of oil’ that are available, but not being used!  Just as Elisha starts with what the widow has, the Lord often starts with the most basic gifts we possess and uses them for his service!  I’m sure the widow could have thought that that jar of oil was completely insignificant and hardly worth mentioning, but she trusted Elisha and he was able to use it in a remarkable way to solve her problems.

The widow, obeying Elisha’s instructions, shuts herself in her house, just as Elisha has told her to. She then carries out his instruction concerning her jar of oil which is to: “pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside” (v4).  After all the vessels are full she asks her son to bring another vessel, but he replies that all have been used.  At this point the passage makes it clear that then, and only then, is the oil used up (vs4-6)!  Some commentators suggest that the Lord’s blessing was limited by lack of faith in not getting more utensils.  However, this seems to be based on conjecture of what isn’t there!  It assumes there were more utensils around the village or town, but there seems no indication that she didn’t follow the Prophet’s instructions to the letter.  Indeed, when she reports back to Elisha he simply gives the instruction to: “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest” (v7).  It appears that he sees the mission as accomplished![2]  The point seems to be that the Lord has sufficiently provided.  But let us note it is sufficiently, not luxuriously!

So how should we understand this? Is there any evidence that she could have experienced a great deal more blessing if she’d only had more faith?  I’m in the camp that says no there isn’t and I’d go even further and say that to pursue such thinking misses some very important points concerning this woman’s faith and the wonderful miracle that the Lord brought about through Elisha!  Firstly, the Word of the Lord is always enough!  Now if we grasp that, it makes a major difference to us as Christians.  Very sadly there is teaching around that suggests that the Lord always works through the miraculous supernatural works and if those things aren’t happening in your Christian life then you’re missing out as you lack the sufficient faith to experience them.  Some Christians become dependent on this kind of experience.  So what happens when there’s an absence of such an experience?  Having counselled such people I find often depression and doubts set in as they don’t have the foundation, which incidentally, the Holy Spirit provides.  The Bible is a book inspired by the Holy Spirit, therefore, it is logical to draw the conclusion that he speaks through it!  In that sense it’s his greatest work!  In Hebrews 4:12 writer describes the nature and action of God’s Word in this way: ‘For the word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing the division of the soul and of the spirit, of joint and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.’ A sword like that slices and penetrates the human body!  Likewise God’s Word cannot be stopped from going anywhere or exposing anything, it’s that powerful!  But then we get a key phrase in the next verse: ‘And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account’ (v13).  Rendered in the original Greek this phrase contains a wrestling term which means to force ones opponents head back or throwing one’s opponent down and proving one’s dominance.[3]  This is if describing literally coming face-to-face with God in his Word each time we open the Bible. The Word of the Lord was sufficient for this widow and her two sons.  She could have said: “that’s the most ludicrous suggestion I’ve ever heard” in relation to Elisha’s remedy for her problems.  But she recognised this was the Word of the Lord and she took it seriously!  The question is do we?  Do we see the Bible as God’s Word and therefore sufficient for each situation we find ourselves in?  If we do we will never have an ordinary or routine Bible study again!

Secondly, God’s grace is always sufficient. The widow was able to pay off her debts.  I stress again this could be termed adequate or sufficient blessing, no more, no less!  But that can often be the way the Lord blesses.  In 2 Corinthians we find Paul under attack from false teachers who liked to give themselves the title of ‘Super apostles’.  One criticism was he wasn’t very impressive as a speaker.   Another (which turns out to be wrong) was he never had extraordinary revelations from the Lord.  Paul defends his ministry, incidentally commenting on an extraordinary revelation that he had experienced, but then refers to what is referred to as ‘Paul’s thorn’.  What exactly he’s describing in 2 Corinthians 12:7 is not clear.  Some think it was a physical problem or a temptation of some sort.  Paul prayed it would be taken away but received this answer from the Lord. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:8).  And do you know what?  He was content with that answer!  It was enough to know God’s grace kept him going.  He didn’t have the luxury of having the problem taken away, rather he experienced the grace and blessing of being able to continue in the work of the Gospel despite it.  That’s sufficient blessing!  There’s no indication the widow and her sons became rich through this miracle, but they were definitely provided for!

Lastly, God often works in miraculous ways which remain practically invisible. How many people do you think realised a miracle had taken place?  The neighbours probably had an-inkling something was going on, but the miracle unfolded behind closed doors so it’s likely only Elisha, the widow and her sons had any indication something miraculous had happened.  So what we need to ask is do we recognise this kind of thing as a blessing?  We must never neglect to thank God when we see sufficient blessing and grace in our lives or as a Church.  I think there’s a real danger that we can forget to thank God for his sufficient blessing and grace day-to-day.  We often make the mistake of the assuming the Lord owes us as Christians or Churches.  But to quote the verse that I partially quoted earlier Jesus, responding to the worried disciples in the upper room said: “I have said these things to you, that in me may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).  As that comes from the lips of Jesus we would do well to see it as summing up the Christian experience.  Sometimes the Lord chooses to bless us well beyond what is normal.  But let’s not forget to thank him for his amazing and sufficient day-to-day blessing!

Would you like to hear a sermon on this passage? Sufficient, not Luxurious, Grace! 2 Kings 4:1-7.

[1] Dale Ralph Davis, 2 Kings, The Power and the Fury, (Fearn, Christian Focus Publications, 2005), 55.

[2]Elisha had no problems pointing out that his instructions have not been followed to the letter as we see later in 2 Kings 13:19 where King Jehoash does not show sufficient faith in his excursion of Elisha’s instructions!

[3] Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews, The New International Greek Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1993), 264.