By Roy E. Ciampa, Ph.D., S. Louis and Ann W. Armstrong
Professor of Religion, Samford University
SERVE THROUGH PRAYER
1 Kings 17:17–24
While we should pray at all times, it is especially challenging times in our lives or in the lives of those around us that provide particularly important opportunities to trust God and to entrust ourselves and others to God in prayer.
Hardship is an opportunity to trust God. (17–18)
Sometime after the Lord had saved the widow and her son from starvation (vv. 8–16) the son became deathly ill and died. The poor mother wondered (as people often do) if she might have brought about her calamity through some sin.
When we face particularly difficult times it is certainly appropriate to consider if God is trying to get our attention (see 1 Cor. 11:30). But it is just as important to remember that sickness and challenges are not necessarily or usually caused by our sins. They are simply a reality of this fallen world.
By referring to the prophet as “man of God” the woman raises the question of whether he really represented God’s agenda and power.
Elijah encourages her to continue to trust God, even in this most difficult of circumstances.
Service to others includes interceding on their behalf. (19–21)
Elijah asks the mother to trust him (and the Lord) once again by giving him her son’s body. By taking the boy and laying him down on his own bed and stretching himself over the boy three times, Elijah was symbolically pleading with the Lord to treat him as though he were Elijah himself, as essential to God’s plans as the prophet was.
Elijah’s prayer was clear and simple: “Please let this boy’s life come into him again!” The Lord is mentioned four times in verses 20–21 to remind us that no other supposed god or deity has the power to restore life: It is only the Lord, the God of Israel, Who has the power of life and death. Only He is worthy of our worship and able to respond to our prayers in our time of need. And by calling Him “Lord my God,” Elijah was once again affirming his exclusive loyalty to the Lord in the midst of an idolatrous society. Through his passionate intercession, Elijah demonstrated his commitment to helping the woman in her time of desperation.
God’s answers to our prayers can lead others to turn to God. (22–24)
The wording of the second half of verse 22 closely follows the precise wording of Elijah’s concise prayer to stress that the Lord responded precisely as His prophet had requested, with the added note, “and he lived.”
Through his intercessory intervention, Elijah established several things: The Lord, the God of Israel, is the One with ultimate power over life and death; Elijah is the Lord’s prophet, one through whom the Lord is prepared to do powerful miracles; and that both the Lord and Elijah are for the woman and her son, not against them.
The widow’s response shows God’s answer to Elijah’s prayer has confirmed her faith in the Lord and in Elijah as His prophet: He is a man of God after all.
You and I are not Elijah, but that doesn’t matter. The Bible holds Elijah out to us as a model of prayer: “The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit” (James 5:16–18).
Elijah’s prayer was powerful because he was a righteous man who knew the power of prayer is based on the power of the God to Whom we pray, not some inherent power of the one who prays.
How different would our lives and churches be if we were known for our Elijah-like commitment to intercession?
Share with others: