2023—Week17: 1Kings21-2Kings19; John03-06
Is it fair to say that there’s a parallel between the distinct ways God appealed to the apostate Northern Kingdom of Israel vs. the merely unstable Southern Kingdom of Judah and the ways Jesus appealed to the people who sought Him vs. the people who opposed Him? 1 Kings 21-2 Kings 19: This is a period of rapid decline in the northern kingdom of Israel. As if Jeroboam’s launch of the nation in pragmatic, syncretistic calf-worship wasn’t bad enough, Ahab has brought new lows to the kingdom with his persistent Ba’al worship. His wife Jezebel is worse still, for the exploitation of religion in to murder an innocent man in order to confiscate property he desired didn’t even occur to him until she suggested it in Chapter 21. God is greatly offended by this hypocrisy, and thus the valley of Jezreel becomes a continual motif throughout the rest of Scripture for judgment of religious hypocrisy. It was where the prophets of Ba’al were slain in 1 Kings 17. It’s where Jehu kills Joram and Ahazi