Alright, so I'm excited for lesson six. It's entitled Elijah the father of prophets. It's a title that is given to him by the catechism referencing a scripture passage. We'll talk about that passage in just a second.
We're gonna be covering chapter 17 through 22 and we're gonna finish the book of first Kings as it transitions to the next lesson, second Kings. We're doing 17 through 22 and in reality it's really going to be 17, 18, and 19 because that's all the fun, fantastic, extremely significant and extremely typological stories of Elijah. Now there's so many miracles that Elijah performs. We're gonna talk about Alicia next time, either more miracles with Alicia.
But they're not random. They're not out of the blue. They're very, very intentional. And I'm really excited to talk about that with you.
So before we dive into the story of Elijah beginning in chapter 17 verse 1, what I'd like to do since he's so important is give you a brief biography of who Elijah is. I got various references put down here in your footnotes for you to consult it beginning with the Catholic level dictionary. But I like doing that when we talk about important characters such as Joshua, for example, in that Bible setting on Joshua. I spent some time doing a biography on him.
Same thing is true with Elijah because he is really, really important. He is the first major prophet that we see here in salvation history. So I want to talk about him, a brief biography, and a little bit of clarification as to what prophecy is following the lead from the Catholic level dictionary. Alright, so Elijah, what does his name mean?
It means the Lord is God or the Lord is my God. That's what his name means. Elijah the Tishbai. Now, by the way, names mean stuff, right?
Names are significant. Names point to vocation and to mission. The Lord is my God is a very important title because Elijah is trying, well, first off, the God of Elijah is Yahweh, and that's very, very clear. But he's trying to get Israel to go back to worshiping the God of Israel.
And so we're going to see this come back full circle at the story of Mount Carmel. I got a cool little connection for you on that. So the Lord is my God. He's at the Tishbai.
We don't know where Tishbai is, but you're having enough of the Old Testament as well as the other resources I have for you. They all pretty much say it's across the Jordan River. You can consult any map in the back of your Bible or in your Atlas that I recommend. It's across the Jordan River in the area of Ruben-Gadam and Asa.
We don't really know where Tishbai is, but he's called it Tishbai in Gilead. And that's where Gilead is across the Jordan River. Alright, so he is well known for his clothing. He doesn't wear very fanciful clothes at all.
In fact, he has a very distinctive garb, very recognizable garb. And we'll point this out when we get to Second Kings chapter one of the next lesson. Very humble clothing, right? He very much looks like John the Baptist actually with his hair cloth and he's really dirty and probably long hair and stinky maybe a little bit.
That's all very much evocative of John the Baptist for reasons I'll get to when we conclude the life of John the Baptist and all of his stories in the next lesson. There's a reason why John the Baptist echoes Elijah, why Elijah points forward John the Baptist. So hang tight there. I'll mention a couple of points on that in just a little bit.
So he looked really strange, very humble, very austere, very penitential. And he ministers primarily during the reign of one king, that's Ahab, and his pagan evil wife Jezebel. So we introduced Ahab and Jezebel very briefly at the end of last lesson. But the majority of this lesson is going to be focused on Ahab and Jezebel.
In fact, the south is like barely mentioned in the shenanigans with the southern kings of Judah. We're really focusing on the evil stories of Ahab and Jezebel. And in the meantime, Front and Center really is the ministry of Elijah. In the ninth century, he is fighting against Jezebel's state-sponsored worship of all.
And of course Ahab follows to Jezebel. There's a lot of echoes there I think of Solomon. Solomon follows so for so many reasons, but he follows because his pagan wives turned away his heart. I think that's kind of a northern echo of what's going on here.
Ahab is really bad for sure. The Jezebel seems to be influencing him in very evil ways. Well, you got the state-sponsored idolatry of the two golden calves, what we call the sin of Jeroboam. Well, now we have more state-sponsored idolatry thanks to this pagan Jezebel, marrying Ahab, their worshiping, Baal.
And there I have all kinds of priests to Baal. And the Ashar, we'll talk about all that pretty soon here when we get to the big contest of champions here pretty soon. Alright, so ninth century against Ahab, that's pretty much what his emphasis is on. In contrast to Alicia, by the way, some people call them Elisha, or Elisha.
I just, I've heard both. So Elijah makes more sense with Elisha, but that's so close. I'm going to mix them up. So inhabit, I just call them Elijah and Elisha.
So bear with me on that. But Elisha serves, in his ministry, over many kings. So that's kind of a contrast between the two. Elijah serves over the reign of the king Ahab and Jezebel, but Elisha over many kings.
And we'll talk about him later. Alright, so he's super faithful. He's Elijah's amazing. He is just one of those amazing characters with hardly any flaws.
If anything, if anything, I might say he's a bit of a winder, and I'm going to explain that a little bit later, but that's pushing it. You know, he's just tremendous. He's faithful to God. He's extremely bold.
He really insists on following God and trying, working so hard and willing to give up his life, although he does run for his life at times. He really wants to get Israel back on the straight in the narrow. So here's a little quote here for you from your Catholic Bible dictionary. Says, Now this is really important.
So first one, this quote says, He demanded not merely the repudiation, but the hour extermination of idolatry. That very much is a Moses echo, because he is a new Moses. Like this last line says, he stresses fidelity to the law of Moses and to the covenant. So that is a very important point that leads to the next number five, your point number five in this biography, is that he in order to stress fidelity to God to destroy and to exterminate idolatry like the law of Moses commanded.
God gives them the ability to work these certain miracles. And so he's a prophet, but he's not just any old prophet. I'm going to share with you down below. There are many prophets even before this time, but not of the same category at all.
So he's a prophet, but he's a special category. He's a miracle at working prophet like Moses. Many other prophets didn't work miracles in the same way, like Samuel or Nathan or Gad, for example. So this is very, very significant.
And I'd like to read another quote here for you. Says, Do not. Elijah is a kind of prophet Israel has not seen since the time of Moses and Joshua in quote. And this is really important to stress, which is why I share the quote for you, because people do have the mistaken impression on people who don't really read the Bible or study it.
They have this caricature that every page of the Bible, no matter where you flip open it randomly and you've got all these fantastical, legendary stories going on over and over and over again and every single generation throughout salvation history. And that's not the case at all. As this quote is indicating, Elijah is performing miracles that really go back to the time of Moses and Joshua. And that's important because if you really study the scriptures, there are only three main periods of miracles that take place.
First, it's Moses and Joshua as this quote indicates. Now there's Elijah and Alicia that we're going to see in this lesson and next lesson. And then Jesus and the Apostles, three main periods. And I'm going to talk more about this when we introduce Alicia in the next lesson, we conclude Elijah's life and talk about Alicia and the transfer of spiritual power in the prophetic office to Alicia.
That's why I want to make some connections for you. But right now, this, as we talk about Elijah and his miracles, this is something that hasn't really happened since Moses is time and Joshua's time. So what that means, therefore, is that Elijah is evoking and echoing Moses. And that's crucial because everything that Elijah is doing with Alicia afterwards is bringing about a new Exodus.
And therefore, Elijah is a new Moses. That is so important for understanding the biography and the mission and the nature of Elijah. He is just not performing these random miracles in a vacuum without any context or continuity with salvation history that went before him or after him. He is a new Moses, trying to bring about a new Exodus.
Why? Because Israel has fallen into spiritual bondage again. Their worshiping goes to golden calves, which is evocative of Egyptian worship as well as Canaanite worship. Because even Baal's animal, his deity is depicted in the form of a bull.
So it's kind of a bull and scenario right there. So what I'm really excited about for you, or with you, is to go through Elijah's life here showing I'm going to do this all the time with all the miracles that he performs. I'm going to do two things. Number one, I want to show you the echoes to the Exodus.
How are Elijah's actions and his miracles and his words and his deeds pointing backwards towards Moses and the Exodus? Because again, he's trying to get Israel out of spiritual bondage. So echoes of Exodus is the first thing that we want to see in all of his life. And then the second thing is all the typology pointing forward to Jesus.
Because Jesus brings about the definitive Exodus from Satan's sin and death. So that's what makes the story really fun and really interesting. It's not just great stories for kids and he does this and he does that and he moves on and he gets taken up into the whirlwind into heaven, which we'll see next week. No, he is a new Moses figure bringing about a new Exodus and that is really, really exciting stuff.
Alright, so we'll unpack that as we go along even into the next lesson. Alright, so number six here in his biography, he begins what is called the cycle of major prophets. And again, I'll talk about the role and function of prophecy briefly in just a little bit, so hang tight for a second. But he begins what is called the cycle of major prophets and begins with him and he goes all the way to John the Baptist, right, who is himself a new Elijah figure more on that to come.
But if you can just imagine this new era in salvation history where the prophets really come on stage in full force. Alright, so this doesn't happen before the divided kingdom, like I shared, I believe in the last lesson before the divided kingdom, before the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah split and they fallen headlong into grave idolatry and sin. You don't really have prophets like this. Alright, that lead into Isaiah and Jeremiah and the rest of the canonical prophets.
So we're in a new stage of salvation history, who that calls Israel's repentance and then it concludes with John the Baptist himself. So that's a little bit of the reason why John the Baptist looks like Elijah talks like Elijah, preaches like Elijah addresses like Elijah because he is the leader of the Bible. He is the capstone. He's the conclusion of this long cycle of prophets.
So more on that to come. So by the way, of course, Elijah is a type of Jesus naturally. There's a lot of overlap with the typology. Elijah is a type of Jesus.
Yes, but he's also a type of John the Baptist. Alright, so on that point, the catechism says paragraph 2582, Elijah therefore, because we consider him part of the first of the cycle of prophets and prophetic office here in a major way, Elijah is the father of prophets. The catechism says the generation of those who seek him who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Elijah is the father of prophets.
That's the title of this lesson. The generation of those who seek him who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Elijah's name, the Lord is my God, foretells the people's cry in response to his prayer. I'm not Carmel.
Saint James refers to Elijah in order to encourage us to pray. He says the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. So Elijah is a big deal in the catechism and I have some more quotes for you later on here. He is the father of prophets.
He's the beginning of the cycle of prophets that goes to Elijah. He is a new Moses figure who brings about or attempts to bring about the deliverance from spiritual bondage. Just with this little biography here, we spent the past, what is it? 10, 15 minutes, whatever time it is right now.
Talking about this, you can see we're embarking on a very new and exciting stage in salvation history. Let's talk about prophecy then. If he is the first prophet in this cycle, if he's the father of prophets, if a prophet's canonical prophecy really begins at this stage in salvation history, what's going on with what does a prophet do? Abraham technically is the Bible trivia for you.
Abraham was the first person in scripture to be called a prophet back in Genesis chapter 20%. So the title prophet goes all the way back to the patriarchs. So Moses is the greatest, the grandpuba prophet in the Old Testament. He is the model of all future prophets that come after him because he has this line in Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 17.
He says, after me God will raise up a prophet like me from among you, listen to him. So really all the prophets that come after Moses are little mini miniature Moses. So that's the kind of the initial fulfillment. Like I said, Elijah is a little miniature Moses.
In fact, we spend a lot of time in the Bible study on Joshua sharing how Joshua is a little miniature of Moses. And then Samuel we talked about is a little miniature Moses. And now Elijah is and so on and so forth. So they're all really kind of continuing this prophetic spirit of Moses as they're trying to apply the mosaic law to the life of Israel.
So that's the initial fulfillment that ultimately Jesus is the capital, super capital in Moses figure who brings about the definitive Exodus. But Moses is the gold standard, you can say from which all, he's the mold. He's the golden mold. He's the golden mold from which all of the prophets are cast.
So then you have, if you remember when we introduced verses 2 Kings and even for 2 Samuel in that Bible study, I shared with you how the Hebrew scriptures call our historical books, the former prophets, right? Because Joshua really is technically the first of the former prophets in the line of Moses. But Samuel is the first of the former prophets in the Davidic era, right? In the era of the United Kingdom.
Not divided kingdom because he died. Remember back in 1 Samuel 25. So Samuel is the first prophet in the era of the Kings. If you have other prophets as well, remember Nathan confronted David for his sins.
There's the prophet Gad. There's other prophets, a hygien, other unnamed prophets who pop up. So prophecy has always been around. But now you have this whole new category.
We're going to a whole new level with Elijah and Alicia who don't have their own canonical books. Technically speaking, right? We don't have the book of the prophet Elijah. But we have all of his stories here reserved for us in 1st and 2nd Kings.
So the classical prophets, the canonical prophets of the era of the divided kingdom begin with Elijah. And then they go into the canonical prophets that we know of. Isaiah and Jeremiah is equal. They're the four major prophets and there's the twelve minor prophets as well that you have all different kinds of guys listed there.
Like Micah and Jonah, Amos. There's twelve of them. Four majors and twelve minors. So those are the most well known of the prophets.
But it begins with Elijah. Now what do they do? What do prophets do? Another mischaracter or misunderstanding is people think, well number one they think that these miracles are all over the Bible, all over the Old Testament, making it sound like Asop's fables are some sort of, I don't know, some sort of work of ancient literature.
It was very fantastical, nonsensical. That's not true. As I said, there are three major stages of miracles and why those stages exist. I'm going to share with you next week.
One of the major things that I'm going to share with you is that prophets, when they show up on the scene, they're like telling the future all the time. They're like, hey, don't take the fork of the road, take the left fork, don't take the right fork, because there's a big old rattlesnake on the right fork. And so he's telling the future and it's kind of reduced to reading poems or like a crystal ball kind of a thing. And that's not true.
Sometimes yes, God does give a profit, the ability to proclaim a future event. But usually it's already been told in the Mosaic law because there's blessings for obedience to the law and curses for disobedience to the law. So yes, you do have a hygien for example saying that Jeroboam's son is going to die. So you do have a future event, but predominantly and go to your Catholic Bible dictionary, they got a great article on profit.
But a prophet basically just calls God's people to repent based on the Mosaic law, based on the law of Deuteronomy. The prophet calls them to repent to inhibit Shuv, S-H-U-V to Shuv. I always like to think mnemonically, so Shuv kind of sounds like Shuv, like if you take S-H-U-V and pronounce it Shuv, the people are trying to shuv or to Shuv, sorry, excuse me, the prophets are trying to shove the people back to God. And they call them to repent and if they repent, then they will receive blessings from God and renew peace and prosperity.
So they do not repent, well then there are the curses of Deuteronomy. So that's essentially what happens and this is true even in the New Covenant era. So Jesus is the priest's prophet king in perfection, right? But Christians when they're baptized, they're united to the mystical body of Christ and they participate in the three-fold office of the priest's prophet and king.
Well the prophetic role is just simply to call our family and our friends and our communities to worship God and to repent of sin. That's really what it is and even it's teaching, like what I'm doing right now, when I do for a living, teaching scripture and other people who teach or catechists, they're exercising that prophetic office in their lives. So we still do this even today calling people to repent and to embrace the love and the mercy of God the Father. Okay, so that's enough then for our 20 minutes just introducing who Elijah is, his role in this new age in salvation history during the period of the divided monarchy, why he's important, the typology of his office, going back to Moses, pointing forward to Jesus and a light end to John the Baptist.
And of course the function of prophecy is calling the people back. So that is the essence of Roman numeral one here. And now without any further ado, let's dive into chapter 17 verse one and look at his ministry. Remember, I'm just really excited about this.
I love preparing this lesson. It is when we go through all of his miracles, we're going to see echoes of Exodus number one because we're in a new Exodus period, basically a spiritual Exodus going on. And then we're going to see typology, how it points forward to Jesus. And I think that's going to make every single one of his events and the narrative of his life were really awesome.
Hey, this is Doc Neck. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at Scripture and Tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much.
God bless you and keep setting your Bible.