Welcome to our newest post about Sharing Your Faith! In his regular posts, Ryan Bentley will be stirring us to share our faith with others, by looking at passages of scripture and giving practical tips. We hope you enjoy the blog below!
I hate bow ties and I love rap music.
Bless the staff at Redeemer for putting up with me.
Formality is lost on me. I ignore a lot of social norms. I often think of it as a good thing. It’s almost like my super power.
A new normal
Social Norms are developed to make everyone safe and to structure society but sometimes that structure is an impediment to God moving. Sometimes, it’s the have not’s who have the most to give, and the haves who have the most to loose.
Like we see in 2 Kings 7, sometimes it’s people outside the structure of social norms that bring us good news. I think it’s time we all brush up on Kings, because I wouldn’t have seen this story this way without listening to a Christian hip-hop song from 2007. (I know right! When was the last time a rap song got you to read your Bible)
In 2 Kings Israel is in quite a pickle. They’ve got a king, Joram, who has beef with Ben-Hadad of Syria and doesn’t take good care of his people or the land that God gave him. So we’ve got a bad king, having a bad time with the countries surrounding him, and Elisha is representing the Lord in all matters.
Setting the scene; Israel is surrounded. #typical. There is a severe famine to the point people are eating their own babies. The king is freaking out, his main guard is concerned and not letting people into the protective walls of the city. The world is literally crumbling around them. Then these two words come out of nowhere and save the day, much like they always do. Two words that set humanity free, raise people from the dead, and brought hope and freedom to millions of people.
But God…
God did some trickery and made the Syrians leave, they left so quickly they weren’t even able to grab their food, water, or animals (2 Kings 7:7) The camp is obviously outside the city but so are the lepers. There are 4 lepers who are hanging out and they’re SO hungry that they’re risking everything to go into AN ENEMY CAMP for FOOD! (2 Kings 7:4) They come across the camp and find all manner of goodies left waiting for a new owner to pick them up. They begin to loot the camp (How are 4 lepers going to loot a camp of a couple thousand soldiers I don’t know, but I like their moxie.) and they have an epiphany.
“We’re not doing this right. Today is a day of good news. If we are client and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king’s household.”
Culturally, this was not okay. There is a reason lepers lived on the outside of the city walls. There is no way they would have been able to see the king. They went anyway. Earlier they were talking about how they would DIE if they went into the city, but there is such good news happening outside that they risk it, to go to the king, and deliver good news.
Delivering the good news
It’s time to examine where we fit in to the structure that surrounds us, and if necessary kick the legs out from underneath that structure. It’s time to be socially awkward, be a little more forward and be unashamedly weird. To most of the world, Christians and people of faith are like lepers. But that shouldn’t stop us from going and telling them the fantastic news.
Note also that the lepers didn’t take a 6 week course on how to share good news. They didn’t get dressed up. They knew, THEY KNEW keeping this to themselves was a bad idea. So, with little regard to themselves, knowing they could die, they went, told people the good news and an entire city was saved.
I wonder what would happen if we as a church, knowing we were lepers, knowing we have this amazing news decided to tell someone else about it.
Ryan Bentley
Ryan moved from Birmingham in 2020 to be part of Redeemer along with his wife Sarah (our families worker) and his two kids, Rhys and Torah! He serves the church full time and his aim is to equip each of us to share the gospel with those around us on a daily basis. You can join his Faith Sharing meetup HERE or find more of his wisdom on Instagram.
