There are a number of “difficult” Bible passages buried amidst the rubble of the glorious stories of Moses and Elijah. There are a number of reasons I resisted dealing with these, but that’s for later. Let’s look at one, not as end unto itself but rather as a commentary on the use of difficult passages to challenge Christians and what the practice says about both sides.

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.  2 Kings 2:23-24

Ruh roh, Elisha calls out bears to attack “boys” and he does so “in the name of the Lord”. What happens? Bears run “out of the woods” and maul 42 of the “boys” who had “jeered at him”. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my …

COSMO headline:

Christians Discover Obscure Passage, Renounce Faith in Droves:

Teens Murdered by God for Teasing Bald Prophet

What is the rest of the story?

• There’s nothing here to indicate whether Elisha was bothered or not by the jeer; there’s plenty to indicate that he felt threatened by what he saw.
• There were 42 or more in this group that left town to search out Elisha. 42+ to 1, hmmm, not good odds even if Elisha is into martial arts. I’m feeling threatened just imagining the situation.
• What did he see? Was it a low-tech lynching in the making, were they carrying swords and sticks and Davidic sling shots? I don’t know, neither do you, in fact, we cannot know one way or another so we cannot but presume one or another.
• The youthful group “came out of town”. Do you have teens? Do you know any? I wouldn’t trust a large group of them out of town even if they hopped off a multi-colored bus humming Enya and brandishing an Up With People sign while their hippy-ish driver leaned over the peace-sign steering wheel revealing her Make Dove Chocolate Not War headband.
• Old Testament prophets held a very specific office in ancient Israel. They were often held in great disdain by those who disagreed with them. More often than not, when an individual or group was looking for them, they were on a spiritual quest or a quest for the prophet’s head. I’m not recalling a lot of examples where groups went to “hang out” with a prophet just to kill time.

It’s common in social media to have Christian-haters bring up these kinds of passages thinking they finally have proven themselves right and can now advance human knowledge by reclaiming truth one soul at a time.  Christians hold to a system of belief with all kinds of cross checks in it. One passage whether obscure or not is just one more piece of evidence in a trial loaded with technical testimony. Do you think you’re that clever? Have you asked your mom?

Stupid is as stupid does.  If you’re a Christian, what do you do when you happen across something that doesn’t seem right at first glance, or second or third … ? If it’s a Biblical passage, an idea or a person, you check it out, right? You look at it closely and evaluate it, right? If you don’t, I’m guessing you believe all those commercials that claim their product is #1.

As for two groups of anything that presume the other group is stupid, didn’t we do that in the 60′s already?

A few years ago I was sitting outside on my deck having a cold one with my wife. Late in the evening our back gate flew open and a teenage boy sprinted into our back yard, then another … then another. I was good until the third passed through the gate, then instinct took over. I recall having a brief thought that I was outnumbered and that I had to defend my spouse. That was my last thought for a few seconds because I sprung out of my chair up onto a bench and into the air toward the intruders.

According to my wife, about three seconds later, two had escaped over the fence in a wild panic abandoning the unfortunate one I was “subduing”. My thoughts returned and I let him go. I tell part of the story from my wife’s point of view because my brain entered “fight or flight” mode when I felt we were threatened, all I remember is things looked oddly reddish. My wife saw green, she said it was like watching The Incredible Hulk. I’m not sure that’s a compliment so I’m not asking.

I can imagine how Elisha may have felt on that day, but I cannot know he felt that and I won’t impose my experience on this passage. Why should you?

This post was inspired by a lifetime of looking at Christian issues from both sides of the fence and by CARM, the world’s #1 online apologetics clearinghouse. They take the time to carefully respond to lots of these “difficult” Bible passages. I don’t have the patience for it, so I hope this peek in my method of dealing with any Bible passage, difficult or not, will help you to imagine how I might respond to others.

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