Don't tick off the Holy Man

I mentioned a couple of juicy Bible bits earlier. Elisha has had me thinking about being mocked. Now I would imagine that Elisha was probably a little odd looking. For one thing, he was a chrome dome. I'm imagining that there would have been more to Elisha's appearance than just his Kojak haircut. The story's described in 2 Kings 2:23-25 which I have mentioned simply because I wanted to show off my Theological proficiency by just pulling a Scripture out from the top of my head. Are you impressed? Don't be. I googled it. Anyway, back to Elisha:

I reckon he was probably fat and spotty with googly eyes and had a sort of limp - and quite possibly a Quasimoto-style hump. I firmly believe this because in the story he was mocked by not just a couple of spiteful larrakins, but at least 42 rotton teenage boys. I don't know, the youth of a few thousand years ago eh!  So there they were, hassling our heroic holy man with taunts about his physical appearance: "Go on up, you baldhead!" They really shouldn't have.

Since Elisha was cruising past Bethel towards Mount Carmel, I guess it was pretty heavy walking and his patience was bound to be wearing a little thin.  For those who don't know the outcome of the story, Elisha turned around, eye-balled the lot of them "and called down a curse in the name of the Lord".

Consequently two bears came out of the woods and taught 42 of those kids a darn good lesson. My guess is that they were probably she-bears. It sounds so much more dramatic to say she-bears.  I like to think that they didn't actually hurt those kids badly, just swatted them about a little. I'm certain they couldn't have eaten them because bears are omnivores and 42 teenagers would have given them a stomach ache for sure.

When I look at some of the today's rebels I think it's sad that we've got to be so politically correct about what we say to kids in school about God. Since I work at a high school I've often whispered a quiet prayer to the Big Guy to pleeeeeeease encourage these kids to shut the hey up and do some work. Please! Prayer in school! Somebody had better call the PC Police! But maybe I'm approaching this from the wrong angle. How about I just cut to the chase and get God to sick a couple of bears on them. Now that would be cool. It would certainly quieten the class down.  Or if God's short of bears in South Auckland, there are a few cows over the back paddock.

Elisha seriously impresses me, despite his unattractive appearance that I've convinced myself he was unfortunate enough to inflict on those who saw him. Firstly, he was courageous enough to turn around and face his bullies. Secondly, he didn't lash out at them. Thirdly, and most importantly, he left God to deal with them. This man knew how to trust God and boy, did He have his back covered.  42 plus hoodlums could have pummelled Elisha into the dirt and he'd have just faded away into the minor pages of history but the Lord had bigger plans for him.  I think it's kind of cool how God had it all sorted for him.

I hope those kids were okay but I might just pray about those cows stampeding through the school boundary fence. How cool would that be!