Obadiah’s fearful faith.

1 Kings 18.7-16.

Last Elijah article we got to Obadiah—not the prophet, but the man who ran Ahab ben Omri’s house; his butler. Ahab and he were looking round the land for any water or vegetation. 1Ki 18.5-6 And likely unbeknownst to Ahab, Obadiah was secretly hiding the LORD’s prophets in caves because Ahab’s queen, Jezebel bat Ethbaal, was killing them. 1Ki 18.4

So as Obadiah is on his quest, he runs into Elijah, who was coming from Sidon to Ephraim after the LORD’s word sent him to speak to Ahab. Obadiah recognized him, though not entirely, because you notice he had to ask Elijah if it was actually him. Some commentators claim Obadiah likely knew Elijah from seeing him in Ahab’s court. More likely Obadiah knew of him; knew him as a guy with a leather belt and a unique robe, and here was a guy who looked like he might be Elijah, so Obadiah asked.

1 Kings 18.7-8 KWL

7Obadiah came to a path

and look: Elijah met him.

Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face,

and said, “Are you¹ my lord Elijah?

8Elijah told him, “I am.

Go tell your¹ lord Ahab, ‘Look, Elijah!’ ”

Sounds simple, right? This is the prophet Ahab’s been searching for over the past three years; he’d be delighted, or at least satisfied, to hear Obadiah found him back in Ephraim. But Obadiah’s response is… well, it strikes a lot of commentators as really weird.

1 Kings 18.9-14 KWL

9Obadiah said, “What wrong have I done,

that you¹ give your¹ slave to Ahab’s hand

to kill me?

10By the life of YHWH your¹ god,

is there a people or kingdom where my lord Ahab

hasn’t sent people to seek you¹ there?

And they said, ‘He’s not here,’

and he made the kingdom and people swear

he shouldn’t be able to find you¹ there.

11Now you¹ say,

‘Go tell your lord Ahab, “Look, Elijah!”

12Let’s say it happens I’ll go away from you,¹

and YHWH’s Spirit carries you¹ off—

I won’t know where—

and I came to tell Ahab,

and I won’t find you,¹

and he kills me, your¹ slave,

who respected YHWH since my childhood.

13My lord, weren’t you¹ told what I did,

when Jezebel killed YHWH’s prophets?

I hid YHWH’s prophets—

a hundred men, fifty and fifty men, in a cave,

and provided bread and water.

14And now you¹ say,

‘Go tell your lord Ahab, “Look, Elijah!”?’

He’ll kill me.”

“No, you’re gonna disappear on me and Ahab will kill me. Why would you do this to me? I’ve been faithful to God all my life!” Obadiah simply presumes Elijah by default can’t be trusted. Where’d this attitude come from?

Duh; the prophets Obadiah knew. He was hiding 100 of them in caves, remember? And if they were near-unanimously ill-behaved, Obadiah couldn’t help but come to the conclusion ill behavior is simply how prophets are. If Obadiah’s prophets were never where they were supposed to be—and even worse, regularly blamed the Holy Spirit for not being where they were supposed to be—stands to reason Obadiah wouldn’t trust any of them. Not even Elijah.

I know how Obadiah felt, ’cause I’ve known Christians who are just the same way. Flakey and spiritually immature, and try to justify this inconsistent behavior by saying they’re just so zealous for God. Which isn’t a valid excuse! Especially since the fruit of the Spirit is good character and behavior, i.e. spiritual maturity. If we’re listening to the Spirit we oughta see some of that, and certainly not the foolishness we see in both manic Christians and Obadiah’s prophets. Human nature hasn’t changed in 28 centuries, which is why the bible’s stories are still so useful.

Prophets with ungodly behavior.

When a prophet’s behavior isn’t godly, isn’t led by the Spirit, it’s entirely reasonable if we conclude their prophecies aren’t trustworthy, and God’s not gonna fault us for it.

Now, every time I say this I get pushback from Christians who are outraged I’d dare suggest we dismiss a prophet and their prophecy. Didn’t Paul, Silas, and Timothy tell the Thessalonians to not have contempt for prophecy? 1Th 5.20 Yes they did. Even so, Paul and Sosthenes also told the Corinthians a prophet without love is nothing, 1Co 13.2 and this is exactly what a fleshly prophet is—a prophet who’s not sharing God’s messages out of a love for God and others, but for the honor they think prophets are due. A prophet who can’t be bothered to work on their own good character, despite God’s mandate for every sort of Christian in leadership to be people of good character.

So if prophets can’t exercise self-control, don’t make excuses for them; don’t accommodate them. Definitely don‘t put ’em in leadership roles. Rebuke and reject them till they repent.

Problem is, people do put them in leadership roles, because they hear the Spirit. But one’s skillset is not a valid reason to give ’em authority. It’s character, not ability. And the ability to hear God has been granted to every Christian; the Spirit talks to all of us. A prophet might be better at recognizing when it’s really God and when it’s really not, but when a prophet is an unreliable human being in every other way, their lack of character means people won’t believe ’em. It nullifies the message. That’s why Paul and Sosthenes said they’re nothing. That’s what they made themselves.

And don’t give me that rubbish about how the Spirit sometimes has to test our faith by putting treasure in earthen vessels. The Spirit’s messages are meant to test our faith. Not his unclean vessels.

Anyway you’ll see in the scriptures Obadiah’s attitude is, from time to time, shared by other people. Others are familiar with fleshly, loopy, misbehaving prophets, and presume all God’s prophets have their screws loose. Christian commentators will pick up on this, and if they lean cessationist, or otherwise have no respect for today’s prophecies, they’ll perpetuate this idea in their books and sermons: “You know, if God ever talked to you, you’d be completely discombobulated, and getting discombobulated all the time really messed up these prophets. They were known for their odd behavior.” No; their odd behavior was because sometimes the Spirit made ’em do weird things, like shave their head or eat “Ezekiel bread,” to make a point. They weren’t all oddballs. Moses probably interacted with the LORD more than any of ’em, and the only weird thing the scriptures mention about Moses is how, after speaking with God, he gave off light. Ex 34.29-35 Did Moses exhibit any weird behavior? Nope. And neither, really, did Elijah.

Elijah wasn’t flakey like the prophets Obadiah knew. And no doubt their misbehavior bugged him too; they made his job harder. But this wasn’t the time to start ranting about such prophets, same as I just did. Elijah simply swore to God he wouldn’t disappear on Obadiah.

1 Kings 18.15 KWL

Elijah said, “By the living YHWH of War,

before whose face I stand,

today I will be seen by Ahab.ᴾ”

Brave deeds don’t always lead to brave faith.

Obadiah’s almost-panicked response to Elijah suggests he was desperately afraid of being found out and executed. He’d been hiding these hundred unruly prophets for years now, and under the nose of his bosses. At some point one of them would—as Obadiah fretted Elijah might do—be “carried off by the Spirit,” get caught, give away Obadiah’s hiding places, and Obadiah and his prophets would be dead. Ephraim just wasn’t a safe place for the LORD’s followers anymore.

Notice, much like the Sidonian widow, Obadiah worries calamity has come to him because of some unknown wrongdoing he should be punished for. 1Ki 17.18, 18.9 It makes one wonder whether everybody in this part of western Asia had this karma-based mindset about God—and how much his saving a hundred prophets had to do with filling up his karmic bank, rather than doing it out of love for God.

If Obadiah’s actions were only the result of trying to accumulate good karma, it’s no wonder he was so fearful. The pursuit of good karma is filled with fear. Fear of not doing enough to please God, fear of getting caught, fear of bad luck so that even though he did everything right he still died. Fear tends to drive out faith, or make it very small. There’s this assumption Christians have that persecution will increase our faith greatly, but that’s only true if we trust God more than our fears. If we trust our fears more than God, faith won’t grow. There were probably a lot more Christians hiding in the Roman catacombs who capitulated under pressure, than Christians who persevered till the end. People are weak. Obadiah is to be commended for what he’s done so far, but it didn’t turn him into a mighty giant of the faith.

If you get the idea acting in faith will make us never doubt again, or never worry again, or never have fears again… well, you have a pretty skewed perspective about Christianity. In a few chapters, Elijah himself is gonna flee Ephraim in sheer panic. Everyone is capable of having a lapse of faith. The point is to cling to that trust in God, as best you can, despite circumstances. Serve and trust him with all your might. Serving God will only develop us as far as Obadiah got. Trusting him will get us further.