Then take the flask and pour the oil on his head and declare, 'This is what the LORD says: I anoint you king over Israel.' Then open the door and run; don't delay!" – 2 Kings 9:3

Today's Scripture Reading (January 25, 2023): 2 Kings 9

Sue Grafton (1940-2017), an American author of Detective Novels, argued that "Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats." I couldn't agree more. I have books filled with ideas, but my execution has always been more than a little suspect. I have a list of things I want to do, and yet there are only a few ideas I can declare to be accomplished. And every year, I promise myself that I will complete at least one of the ideas from the past during this revolution around the sun. Maybe this year. I guess we will have to wait to find out.

Ideas are easy, but sometimes they are also hard, especially if it is an idea that is outside the box, about things you have never really considered. As Christians, a significant portion of what we believe is actually not biblical. Somebody has sewn an idea into our lives, and that idea, like a noxious weed, has killed every other thought. We can't seem to imagine Christian life any other way. For instance, why do we believe that the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexuality when, if we read the text, it seems to be much more about rape and violence than the threatened homosexuality present in the story? In our mind, are they the same thing? The reality is that someone gave us an idea, and we don't seem to be able to shake it or accept any other concept that might challenge the one that we hold. And sometimes we are vessels just waiting for someone to implant an idea.

Elisha has a job for a young prophet. He is to run to Jehu, the son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi. We know relatively little about Jehu's ancestry. Some have argued that Nimshi was the son of King Omri, although the biblical text does not support that. But if he were, then Jehu would have been a cousin of the ruling kings.

We know Jehu was a military commander, and God had decided that Jehu would replace the current line of kings. But that is not an idea that Jehu had conceived. And so, Elisha orders the young priest essentially to do a hit-and-run. He tells the prophet to isolate Jehu and anoint him as King over Israel. And then, the prophet is to leave and return to Elisha immediately. There is to be no discussion and no extended question-answer period. And Jehu is not to know who it was that had sent the young prophet. What the prophet was really doing was implanting an idea.

Originally, Jehu thought the man who had anointed him King was a lunatic. But he told his friends about the strange meeting, and the idea began to grow into a plan, one that Jehu and his compatriots wouldn't have likely considered if it were not for the hit-and-run idea drop of Elisha and his young disciple. And although Jehu missed it, his strange meeting with Elisha's protégé indicated that while Israel had turned away from God, God had not turned away from Israel.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: 2 Kings 10