1 Kings 19:12-16

1 Kings 19:12

I. Consider the character of Elisha. He is not a dwarfed and flaccid Elijah. The "still small voice" of which we read just before his call is the emblem of the younger prophet. Gentleness is his characteristic help, and deliverance and salvation are his work. His very name signifies "God's salvation." He is no cloistered ascetic, no head of the Carmelite brothers, no monk of the Old Testament. In Elisha the practical and the contemplative are most exquisitely balanced. He pauses in the Shunammite's house, as if he loved to hear the stream of family life rippling beside him and to feel its spray upon his face. His character is full of the most refined humanity.

II. Consider the messages to this age which are conveyed in Elisha's message to his own age. (1) The first, and not the least important, of these is directly connected with his prophetic office. The prophet is the interpreter of God, the solemn witness against wrong, the remembrancer of right. The modern statesman claims to be the exponent of the popular will, and thus to enjoy the privilege of being always on the winning side.

But the prophet of old is the stern opponent of popular or royal will, and is always for a time on the losing side. (2) The other lessons which Elisha teaches are: (a) a warning against the spirit of mockery so prevalent among the young; (b) a warning against the spirit of irregularity in religion; (c) a warning against the opposite spirit of formality; (d) a warning against overaddition to old modes of conveying religious truth; (e) a warning against trusting in new and sublimated forms of Christian thought.

III. No single type fully represents Christ. But all these isolated types of moral beauty, of king, or priest, or prophet, find their centre in the incarnate God.

Bishop Alexander, Oxford Lent Sermons,1869, p. 137.