Recap 04-09-2008

Last night I heard the name Naaman for the first time ever. He's a person* that was involved in a story documented in a book called 2 Kings. The story is found in chapter five.

Some observations about the people and places in the story:

People - Naaman, Naaman's wife and her maidservant, Elisha the prophet, God, King of Aram, Elisha's messenger.

Places - Abana, Pharpar, Jordan (all rivers), Temple of Rimmon, Aram, Damascus.


We listed some characteristics of the people involved:

Naaman - Great and highly regarded, commander of the army, valiant soldier, enemy of Israel, protagonist, rich, prideful/lazy, worshipper of Rimmon, desperate.

The maidservant - Heroin, caring, daring, abducted, served Naaman's wife.

King of Israel - Rips his clothes to shreds, thought the king of Aram might be picking a fight by asking him to do something impossible, which might say something about the way the king views God.

Elisha - Prophet, man of God, humble, not all about the benjamins.


Some of the themes discussed were:

Pride - Naaman assumed that Elisha would know who he was and heal him in such a way that was worthy of his stature. He also thought he could purchase his healing after he returned from the river.

Grace - God's grace in healing an enemy of Israel. The maidservant's grace in offering a way for Naaman (her captor) to be healed.

God's power - God's ability to use even the "smallest" of people. Also God's ability to heal a leper.

Listen to the little guy - Going along with the last theme, God uses the "little" people in the story to impact it the most (the maidservant, Naaman's servant...)

Don't be showy - Going along with another scripture that warns against doing your acts of devotion in public to be praised by man, this passage seems to suggest that God isn't really into healing as a party trick or a way to gain man's favor. He had Elisha tell Naaman to wash in the river while Naaman expected Elisha to put on a show in order to heal him.

Healing - Sort of obvious.

Misguided Expectations - Naaman had some preconceived notions about what it means to be healed by God. We should take this example and realize that maybe God won't always do things the way we expect him to.

Humility/Faith - It took both of these things for Naaman to wash in the Jordan. He had to put aside his expectations and have faith that Elisha heard from God. Elisha also showed humility by not trying to put on a show to heal Naaman as well as by refusing the money Naaman offered.

Forgiveness - The maidservant showed incredible forgiveness by offering Naaman a way to be healed.


We also tried to draw some paralells to Christ through this story:

King = Pharisees
- The king was supposed to be the one showing the people of Isreal the way of God, but instead the word of God was "spoken from the margins" as Corey put it.

Jordan River = Baptism
- The paralell is pretty easy to draw here.

Leprosy = Sin
- Leprosy is a disease that turns your body calloused and eats away at you (literally). It was mentioned in the childrens' bible that Naaman has leprosy of the heart, which is why God told him to go to the river instead of having Elisha heal him in some spectaular show of power. Naaman needed to humble himself.

Maidservant = Jesus
- The maidservant found it better to forgive her captor and offer him healing. This paralells to Jesus offering us salvation from our leprosy (sin) while were yet enemies of his.


What did we learn?

-One person really can make a difference.
- God's word comes from the margins. Who is marginalized in our culture?
- Be open to God working in different ways than you expected.
- Simple obedience.
- Have faith that God can do the impossible.



Wow. That was long, but it was a great dicussion.










* I say person and not character because it helps me to realize that this story actually happened. It's really easy to relegate stories like this to the part of my brain that's not the "fact" part and right next to the "fiction" part so that I can not really believe it, but still say I do because it's in the bible. Make sense? Good.