Today’s passage: 1 Kings 17:1-7
Helpful thoughts:
- Today, we get to meet the prophet Elijah. His name means, “Yahweh is God.”
- Baal was the god of storms, rains, and fertility.
- It did not rain for 3 years and 6 months (James 5:17).
- Elijah’s mission was to show who the real God of Israel is (Deuteronomy 11:16-17).
- God is alive, sovereign, and able to provide. Baal is an invention of the hearts of men.
Questions to consider:
- Why did God choose to prevent rain to come down on Israel? How did this cut straight at the center of their worship of Baal?
- With verse 7, what might we expect Elijah to begin to worry about? What might we expect God, who can command birds to supply food to a single man by a small brook, to do?
- Why did Elijah do what the first half of verse 5 says he did? When we obey God, what must be true of our belief/motives? When we ignore God and/or invent idols, what must be true of our belief/motives?