1 Kings 13:1-10: An Interesting Story

Today we are looking at one of those odd stories in scripture that often don't seem to have a point. When we read the Bible, we must always ask ourselves, "Why did the author choose to include this story, and what how can it apply to my life?" Sometimes those questions are easy to answer. Sometimes, like today, they aren't. Nevertheless, let's see what we can find in the first portion of 1 Kings 13.

The narrative of 1 Kings 13 goes like this: Because of Solomon's sin, the kingdom of Israel was divided. Jeroboam became the king of the northern kingdom, Rehoboam the king of the southern kingdom. Jeroboam, fearing that the Israelites might go back to fearing the true God rather than fearing himself, set up false gods in order that they might partake in pagan worship (1 Kings 12:25-33). False gods lead to false priests, something which was also hated in the sight of god. Thus, God sent a prophet to prophesy about the destruction of all of these things here in 1 Kings 13.

A "man of God" (whom we do no have a name for) comes and prophesies to Jeroboam in 1 Kings 13 that Josiah (a future king of Israel) would "sacrifice" (that is, kill*) all of Jeroboam's false priests. Although Jeroboam tries to kill this man of God for prophesying such a horrendous thing, God's sovereign hand saves this man of God and causes a sign to appear in front of Jeroboam that the prophesy might be confirmed. In the end, God is sovereign over the situation, and the destruction of that which is taking his glory is inaugorated.

So what? It's an odd story, is it not? And to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what the main point of this text is (to find that out would take more than a 20-minute devotional reading). Nevertheless, there are a few smaller points that do stick out to me, that I encourage you to apply them to your lives today:

1) Realize that God will always get his glory. Either by your life being a sacrifice because of your disobedience or by your life being raised in Christ because of your faith and obedience, God gets the glory. The false gods in this text would not get the glory; God would destroy their priests.

2) Realize that God is sovereign even over evil. When it seems like falso gods are raging, God has a plan, and it will come to pass in time.

3) Don't commit idolatry; it will destroy you. God destroys the idolatrous. He will not let such an evil sin go unnoticed.

*Notice the irony here. Priests are supposed to be the ones offering sacrifices for sin, but because they were sinful in themselves, they became the sacrifice. Likewise, either we will have our sins paid for us by Christ, the true sacrifice, or we will be sacrifices ourselves.