I think this is how our service of God often works. There are of course the obvious things: that terrible effort to explain the gospel that just went horribly wrong, the advice we gave that blew up in somebody’s face, the action we took that we look back and think was actually wrong. All well-intentioned mistakes in the service of Jesus.

I am just preparing a sermon on a funny little episode in 2 Kings 4Open in Logos Bible Software (if available). It is one of a series of miracles done through Elisha. It is the curing of the stew. It is only a short episode, which I include in full here:

38 When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. The sons of the prophets were sitting before him. He said to his attendant, “Put on the large pot and make stew for the sons of the prophets.”

39 One went out to the field to gather herbs and found a wild vine from which he gathered as many wild gourds as his garment would hold. Then he came back and cut them up into the pot of stew, but they were unaware of what they were.[a]

40 They served some for the men to eat, but when they ate the stew they cried out, “There’s death in the pot, man of God!” And they were unable to eat it.

41 Then Elisha said, “Get some flour.” He threw it into the pot and said, “Serve it for the people to eat.” And there was nothing bad in the pot.

 

There are various things we might say about this little episode. Perhaps a few questions we might have about it too. I just want to land on one thing that struck me.

It is hard to ignore that the poor soul who went out to gather food for the sons of the prophets to eat in the midst of a famine did so with every good intention. Elisha wants to make stew and the forager did his best to bring back whatever he could find. Little did he know that what he brought back was so seriously problematic that he might have wiped out the whole camp. No small matter either given that these were the faithful remnant.

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