6-21-13

6-21-13, day 172
As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a chariot of fire appeared, drawn by horses of fire. It drove between the two men, separating them, and Elijah was carried by a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha saw it and cried out, "My father! My father! I see the chariots and charioteers of Israel!" And as they disappeared from sight, Elisha tore his clothes in distress. Elisha picked up Elijah's cloak, which had fallen when he was taken up. Then Elisha returned to the bank of the Jordan River. He struck the water with Elijah's cloak and cried out, "Where is the L ord , the God of Elijah?" Then the river divided, and Elisha went across. When the group of prophets from Jericho saw from a distance what happened, they exclaimed, "Elijah's spirit rests upon Elisha!" And they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him. (1 Kings 2:11-15 NLT)

i like the symbolism in this passage. Did God have to use the cloak? Did that symbolism have to be there to show that Elisha was going to become God's new guy? The answer is of course, no. But God used the symbolism to show us, and to show the other prophets there that He had chosen a successor. One of the key things that I notice in this passage is that Elijah and Elisha's relationship follows in the same idea of discipleship. Elisha took on Elijah's yoke, his way of teaching, and he ran with it. This was the Jewish way. It was the way of a rabbi. So what Jesus did by choosing 12 close followers to himself was not a new thing. It was just the way things were. It was the norm. And so was it here with Elijah. God works through the idea of discipleship. He has worked this way for a long time, and he will continue to work this way. We need to embrace this idea. We need to be on the look out for our disciples. We need to be praying for God to be stirring hearts, and preparing people to follow our teaching. This is not a pastor led thing. It needs to be a everyone led thing. We all need to take people under our wing, mentor them, and show them God. We need to get back to the rabbinical way, and get away from leaning so hard on one person's teaching. It's about diving in to the Word, and bowing that word to people, then teaching a close group to do the same.