The Message Remix (106 page)

Asahel brother of Joab;
Elhanan son of Dodo of Bethlehem;
Shammah the Harodite;
Elika the Harodite;
Helez the Paltite;
Ira son of Ikkesh the Tekoite;
Abiezer the Anathothite;
Sibbecai the Hushathite;
Zalmon the Ahohite;
Maharai the Netophathite;
Heled son of Baanah the Netophathite;
Ithai son of Ribai from Gibeah of the Benjaminites;
Benaiah the Pirathonite;
Hiddai from the badlands of Gaash;
Abi-Albon the Arbathite;
Azmaveth the Barhumite;
Eliahba the Shaalbonite;
Jashen the Gizonite;
Jonathan son of Shammah the Hararite;
Ahiam son of Sharar the Urite;
Eliphelet son of Ahasbai the Maacathite;
Eliam son of Ahithophel the Gilonite;
Hezro the Carmelite;
Paarai the Arbite;
Igal son of Nathan, commander of the army of Hagrites;
Zelek the Ammonite;
Naharai the Beerothite, weapon bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah;
Ira the Ithrite;
Gareb the Ithrite;
Uriah the Hittite.

INTRODUCTION
01//02KINGS

 

Sovereignty,
God’s
sovereignty, is one of the most difficult things for people of faith to live out in everyday routines.
But we have no choice: God is Sovereign. God rules. Not only in our personal affairs but in the cosmos. Not only in our times and places of worship but in office buildings, political affairs, factories, universities, hospitals—yes, even behind the scenes in saloons and rock concerts.
It’s a wild and extravagant notion, to be sure. But nothing in our Scriptures is attested to more frequently or emphatically.

Yet not much in our daily experience confirms it. Impersonal forces and arrogant egos compete for the last word in power. Most of us are knocked around much of the time by forces and wills that give no hint of God. Still, generation after generation, men and women of sound mind continue to give sober witness to God’s sovereign rule. One of the enduring titles given to Jesus is “King.”

So how do we manage to live believingly and obediently in and under this revealed sovereignty in a world that is mostly either ignorant or defiant of it?

Worship shaped by an obedient reading of Scripture is basic. We submit to having our imaginations and behaviors conditioned by the reality of God rather than by what is handed out in school curricula and media reporting. In the course of this worshipful listening, the books of Kings turn out to provide essential data on what we can expect as we live under God’s sovereign rule.

The story of our ancestors, the Hebrew kings, began in the books of Samuel. This story makes it clear that it was not God’s idea that the Hebrews have a king, but since they insisted, he let them have their way. But God never abdicated his sovereignty to any of the Hebrew kings; the idea was that they would represent
his
sovereignty, not that he would delegate his sovereignty to them.

But it never worked very well. After five hundred years and something over forty kings, there was not much to show for it. Even the bright spots—David and Hezekiah and Josiah—were not
very
bright. Human beings, no matter how well intentioned or gifted, don’t seem to be able to represent God’s rule anywhere close to satisfactory. The books of Kings, in that light, are a relentless exposition of failure—a relentless five-hundred-year documentation proving that the Hebrew demand of God to “have a king” was about the worst thing they could have asked for.

But through the centuries, readers of this text have commonly realized something else: In the midst of the incredible mess these kings are making of God’s purposes, God continues to work his purposes and uses them in the work—doesn’t discard them, doesn’t detour around them; he
uses them
. They are part of his sovereign rule, whether they want to be or not, whether they know it or not. God’s purposes
are
worked out in confrontation and revelation, in judgment and salvation, but they are worked out. God’s rule is not imposed in the sense that he forces each man and woman into absolute conformity to justice and truth and righteousness. The rule is worked from within, much of the time invisible and unnoticed, but always patiently and resolutely
there
. The books of Kings provide a premier witness to the sovereignty of God carried out among some of the most unlikely and uncooperative people who have ever lived.

The benefit of reading these books is enormous. To begin with, our understanding and experience of God’s sovereignty develops counter to all power-based and piety-based assumptions regarding God’s effective rule. We quit spinning our wheels on utopian projects and dreams. Following that, we begin to realize that if God’s sovereignty is never canceled out by the so deeply sin-flawed leaders (“kings”) in both our culture and our church, we can quite cheerfully exult in God’s sovereignty as it is being exercised (though often silently and hiddenly) in all the circumstantial details of the actual present.

 

 

From:
The prophet (or group of prophets) who wrote 1-2 Kings knew how grim the actual present could be. He lived in Babylon, exiled from his ravaged homeland. The Babylonians had invaded his country, burned its farmland, and reduced its capital city to ash and debris. From four centuries of court records, prophets’ journals, and other documents painstakingly salvaged from the wreckage, he pieced together the evidence of God’s sovereignty amid his nation’s tragedy.

 

To:
Forced from their burning homes to walk hundreds of miles as prisoners of war, the surviving Jews questioned whether God was really sovereign. It looked as though a ruthless king and his army had defeated God, or as though God had abandoned his people. If God is in charge, they wondered, how could this happen?

 

Re:
About 975-586 B.C. The books of Kings detail the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, prophets of the ninth century B.C. Neither of them wrote down what they said. However, sixteen prophets of the seventh and sixth centuries did write down their oracles in the biblical books that bear their names (Isaiah through Malachi). Of these sixteen, 1-2 Kings mention Isaiah and Jonah briefly.

During this period (between around 1100 and 750 B.C.), the Greeks stopped trading with Egypt and the Middle East, and retreated to small farming and fishing settlements. Many citizens of the old Mycenean cities fled, and new migrants moved in. They built no cities, told stories but wrote nothing down, and made no artwork that survives. Luckily for these Greeks, the empires that plagued Israel left Greece alone to slowly rebuild an urban culture.