Elisha: the Non-Profit Prophet

2 Kings 5:5, Ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of clothing. According to the NIV Study Bible, this equates to 750 lbs. of silver and 150 lbs. of gold. By comparison, King Omri of Israel paid only two talents of silver for the hill of Samaria upon which he built the capital of his kingdom (1 Kgs 16:24).

In today’s market, that is $360,000 in silver (at $30 per ounce), and $4,080,000 in gold (at $1700 per ounce).

This raises two questions: First, what will a person pay to have good health? This is something that sometimes all the money in the world cannot purchase. If you are healthy, how thankful are you for it?

Second, how many ministers or ministries in the church are there who would turn down a $4.5 million charitable donation if YHVH said to do so? Would you?

Maybe such a heart of obedience and such ambivalence to wealth and materialism is what contributed to the prophet Elisha having such a powerful prophetic and healing anointing in the first place. What can we learn from this if we are seeking to be used of YHVH in a greater capacity in the ministry?

 

2 thoughts on “Elisha: the Non-Profit Prophet

  1. Of the “best” ways to put distance between yourself and Yehovah, the love of money has to be in the top 3. The thing about money is that you always have to take it from someone else. Whenever transactions happen, if you are trying to get the best of the other person, a minus big red sign shows up on your personal record book in heaven. So the most ironic Ponzi scam is when health and wealth preachers tell you that if you give them money, Yehovah is obligated to give you money in return. One famous preacher I knew always said that there are two ways of life—the give way and the get way. And he was quite right. But he laughed all the way to the bank.

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