Elisha's Ax Head: Does God Help Those Who Help Themselves?
Samson's Jawbone is about using the resources God has given us to fight the war being waged on our culture. Today I announce a new column in Samson's Jawbone called "Elisha's Ax Head." The column Elisha's Ax Head is going to be about common misconceptions, misunderstandings, myths or down right fallacies that people often live their life as if the Bible teaches.
This particular installment comes from the words of my Grandmother, who when faced with a crisis would say "The Bible says, 'God helps those who help themselves.' " Having spent a life time studying and teaching the scripture, I've discovered that my Grandmother was wrong about what the Bible says, It does not say "God helps those who help themselves." The Bible says "...apart from me, you can do nothing...' (John 15:5;) ...'for my power is made perfect in weakness...' (2 Corinthians 12:9.)" We are not dependent on our own strength and abilities. I once heard a Christian friend of my grandmother attempt to correct her with an equally fallacious retort, she said, "No Katie, that's not right. The Bible says, "God helps the helpless."Yet her friend was also misrepresenting what the Bible says. Passivity, inaction, helplessness is not the way we are to live our lives. The Bible says, " 'work out your own salvation... '(Php 2:12) 'if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat..' (2 Th 3:10)" We have inner strength, resolve, capabilities and gifts that comes from him. Whether we have exhausted all our strength or are resting in God's power, He is empowering all we do, and giving us power beyond our natural ability or inability. We are neither victims of circumstance nor need we to wait for a miracle to act. God has given us certain capabilities. He expects us to engage life and to work. The spiritual journey of a Christian is like the Psalmist says, "They go from [the full measure of our] strength to [the inexhaustible resource of his] strength; each one appears before God in Zion." (Psalm 84:7).
So to understand how God helps those who need help, and how we can help them I turn to the theme text of this column. 2 Kings 6: 1-7 is an account of the Holy Spirit's power to bring recovery to a person in crisis. The incident involves a group of students of the prophet Elisha building a dormitory because the current facility is "too small." While cutting wood for the project one of the ax heads flies off its handle sinking in a nearby river. The student who had borrowed the ax for the project comes to Elisha panicked over the its loss.
In the 21st century we have a hard time understanding why there is so much drama over an ax head. Had this happened to me when I went to seminary it is likely school insurance would have covered the ax head, minus a deductible, of course. If not, my dorm mates (if they had been so inclined) could have taken up a collection and replaced the ax head. I could have appealed to the school benevolent fund or even cajoled my parents out of money, then gone to the local Home Depot and bought a new ax. Although I would have been embarrassed and humiliated by losing the ax the owner would have gotten a nicer ax than the one he had lent me. It really would have been pretty insignificant in the greater scheme of my life. Alas, there were no Home Depots for this ancient young seminary student. The tools of artisans were carefully and rigorously hand crafted. Crafting a tool like an ax head could take years. Were this the primary tool of its owner's profession this loss could have impaired his ability to perform his trade. This loss could have completely redirected and changed the life of the owner, and the student who was responsible for it. This is an unplanned, unexpected event that has devastating consequence for the student, the owner, their families and even the school. It is a story of recovery from tragic loss and crisis. This student certainly needs help far beyond his ability to help himself.
In the ancient world losses were compensated through an indentured servant system. Were it not for the Divine Intervention through Elisha this student would have been placed in the service of the owner for as long as it took to help recover from the loss. He would have become the slave of the owner for many years to come. This is why the student called the owner "his master" because borrowing property carried with it the possibility of being enslaved to the owner. In all likelihood it still would have taken years to retool a new ax, then several more years to recover the lost business. The student's education would have been disrupted, God's call on his life subverted; this was a tragedy. This accident could have tragically redirected the lives of many. The student did what many of us do when facing an epic crisis. He called his pastor.
The student appealed to his prophet, professor and mentor Elisha, who strangely throws a stick in the water and, miraculously, causes (he's the mediate causes, not the ultimate one) the ax head to rise to the surface of the water and float there. It is a great story of God's deliverance, and of the Holy Spirit's power to bring recovery to a person in tragedy, and yet a careless exegesis or a mere perusal of the text can lead to a misunderstanding or a misapplication of some of its important sub points. The story is about more than the Spirit's power to work a miracle. It is also about how the prophet applies it and the student's responsibility to participate in it. Verse 7 is perhaps the most important verse in the text, "And he [Elisha] said. 'Take it up.' So he [the student] reached out his hand and took it.' " The miraculous work of the Spirit and the effective pastoral care of the prophet required the student's active engagement in his own help.
The God who made this ax head rise was capable of empowering the ax head to float through the air and attach to its ax handle and let the student go back to work. Wouldn't that have been a more spectacular display of God's power and the student's faith?Why not just create a new ax and handle from nothing? If you are going to suspend the law of physics, why not? One could argue that what Elisha did really helped very little. He left the ax head floating down river. What the Holy Spirit did in this miracle was suspend the laws of physics, but only to the degree that the student was unable to work within them. He empowered the student, but did not enable him. The student had to reach out and take the ax head, reattach it to the handle and go back to work.
There is also a lesson for any person who is caregiver: Elisha certainly could have recovered the ax head for the student and put it back on the handle. Or he could have worked a subsequent miracle restoring it to the ax head. Why not make the ax head just appear on the handle and wipe away all the nicks and scratches on the ax, sharpen the edge, repaint the surface and return it to the owner in better shape then when it was borrowed? How impressed the owner would have been with the power of God, Elisha and the school of the prophets? What a great opportunity for Elisha to ask for a donation to his school building project. Instead, Elisha put boundaries on the use of his own gifts for the empowering of his student's faith.
For me as a professional care giver this is the ultimate display of effective pastoral care. Elisha only asked the Spirit to do for the student what he was unable to do for himself. Nor did he step in and do it for the student. Once the ax head surfaced the student had to engage in the Spirit's work. He had to show his faith by his work. We can assume he had to wade into the water, get the ax head, wade back out of water, fix the broken ax, so that it could be returned in full working order, and he had to go back to cutting wood. Faith meant the student had to take responsibility for his own God empowered recovery.
The reading of this text as merely a record of the Spirit's power at work in the prophet misses the full meaning of the text. Equally significant is how the prophet uses the abilities God has given him to bring recovery to the student, and how the student engages his faith in God's work. A misapplication of this text can result in one of two errors: one, my grandmother's; that God helps those who help themselves. He puts us in the world gives us abilities and then we are on our own. God does put us in the world and give us abilities to use by his power, but we also live in a fallen world where often the task is bigger than us, where the help of his people or a miracle is needed. The other error is that of my grandmother's friend: God helps the helpless. We can do nothing for ourselves. Anything more than basic survival we depend on others to do it for us or God. The idea of God giving you gifts presupposes you can chose to take some action. Biblical faith is a transaction. It involves our being engaged and responsible in the world.
So my grandmother and her friend expressed ideas that were basic to what the Bible teaches but incomplete. God does expect those who can to helps themselves, but his power is neither limited by or dependent on what anyone can do for themselves nor is it restricted by what we can not do. God does help the helpless, yet he lifts us beyond helpless dependency to the point where what ever he calls us to do, whatever crisis we face or valley we walk through, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Phl 4:13)
This particular installment comes from the words of my Grandmother, who when faced with a crisis would say "The Bible says, 'God helps those who help themselves.' " Having spent a life time studying and teaching the scripture, I've discovered that my Grandmother was wrong about what the Bible says, It does not say "God helps those who help themselves." The Bible says "...apart from me, you can do nothing...' (John 15:5;) ...'for my power is made perfect in weakness...' (2 Corinthians 12:9.)" We are not dependent on our own strength and abilities. I once heard a Christian friend of my grandmother attempt to correct her with an equally fallacious retort, she said, "No Katie, that's not right. The Bible says, "God helps the helpless."Yet her friend was also misrepresenting what the Bible says. Passivity, inaction, helplessness is not the way we are to live our lives. The Bible says, " 'work out your own salvation... '(Php 2:12) 'if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat..' (2 Th 3:10)" We have inner strength, resolve, capabilities and gifts that comes from him. Whether we have exhausted all our strength or are resting in God's power, He is empowering all we do, and giving us power beyond our natural ability or inability. We are neither victims of circumstance nor need we to wait for a miracle to act. God has given us certain capabilities. He expects us to engage life and to work. The spiritual journey of a Christian is like the Psalmist says, "They go from [the full measure of our] strength to [the inexhaustible resource of his] strength; each one appears before God in Zion." (Psalm 84:7).
So to understand how God helps those who need help, and how we can help them I turn to the theme text of this column. 2 Kings 6: 1-7 is an account of the Holy Spirit's power to bring recovery to a person in crisis. The incident involves a group of students of the prophet Elisha building a dormitory because the current facility is "too small." While cutting wood for the project one of the ax heads flies off its handle sinking in a nearby river. The student who had borrowed the ax for the project comes to Elisha panicked over the its loss.
In the 21st century we have a hard time understanding why there is so much drama over an ax head. Had this happened to me when I went to seminary it is likely school insurance would have covered the ax head, minus a deductible, of course. If not, my dorm mates (if they had been so inclined) could have taken up a collection and replaced the ax head. I could have appealed to the school benevolent fund or even cajoled my parents out of money, then gone to the local Home Depot and bought a new ax. Although I would have been embarrassed and humiliated by losing the ax the owner would have gotten a nicer ax than the one he had lent me. It really would have been pretty insignificant in the greater scheme of my life. Alas, there were no Home Depots for this ancient young seminary student. The tools of artisans were carefully and rigorously hand crafted. Crafting a tool like an ax head could take years. Were this the primary tool of its owner's profession this loss could have impaired his ability to perform his trade. This loss could have completely redirected and changed the life of the owner, and the student who was responsible for it. This is an unplanned, unexpected event that has devastating consequence for the student, the owner, their families and even the school. It is a story of recovery from tragic loss and crisis. This student certainly needs help far beyond his ability to help himself.
In the ancient world losses were compensated through an indentured servant system. Were it not for the Divine Intervention through Elisha this student would have been placed in the service of the owner for as long as it took to help recover from the loss. He would have become the slave of the owner for many years to come. This is why the student called the owner "his master" because borrowing property carried with it the possibility of being enslaved to the owner. In all likelihood it still would have taken years to retool a new ax, then several more years to recover the lost business. The student's education would have been disrupted, God's call on his life subverted; this was a tragedy. This accident could have tragically redirected the lives of many. The student did what many of us do when facing an epic crisis. He called his pastor.
The student appealed to his prophet, professor and mentor Elisha, who strangely throws a stick in the water and, miraculously, causes (he's the mediate causes, not the ultimate one) the ax head to rise to the surface of the water and float there. It is a great story of God's deliverance, and of the Holy Spirit's power to bring recovery to a person in tragedy, and yet a careless exegesis or a mere perusal of the text can lead to a misunderstanding or a misapplication of some of its important sub points. The story is about more than the Spirit's power to work a miracle. It is also about how the prophet applies it and the student's responsibility to participate in it. Verse 7 is perhaps the most important verse in the text, "And he [Elisha] said. 'Take it up.' So he [the student] reached out his hand and took it.' " The miraculous work of the Spirit and the effective pastoral care of the prophet required the student's active engagement in his own help.
The God who made this ax head rise was capable of empowering the ax head to float through the air and attach to its ax handle and let the student go back to work. Wouldn't that have been a more spectacular display of God's power and the student's faith?Why not just create a new ax and handle from nothing? If you are going to suspend the law of physics, why not? One could argue that what Elisha did really helped very little. He left the ax head floating down river. What the Holy Spirit did in this miracle was suspend the laws of physics, but only to the degree that the student was unable to work within them. He empowered the student, but did not enable him. The student had to reach out and take the ax head, reattach it to the handle and go back to work.
There is also a lesson for any person who is caregiver: Elisha certainly could have recovered the ax head for the student and put it back on the handle. Or he could have worked a subsequent miracle restoring it to the ax head. Why not make the ax head just appear on the handle and wipe away all the nicks and scratches on the ax, sharpen the edge, repaint the surface and return it to the owner in better shape then when it was borrowed? How impressed the owner would have been with the power of God, Elisha and the school of the prophets? What a great opportunity for Elisha to ask for a donation to his school building project. Instead, Elisha put boundaries on the use of his own gifts for the empowering of his student's faith.
For me as a professional care giver this is the ultimate display of effective pastoral care. Elisha only asked the Spirit to do for the student what he was unable to do for himself. Nor did he step in and do it for the student. Once the ax head surfaced the student had to engage in the Spirit's work. He had to show his faith by his work. We can assume he had to wade into the water, get the ax head, wade back out of water, fix the broken ax, so that it could be returned in full working order, and he had to go back to cutting wood. Faith meant the student had to take responsibility for his own God empowered recovery.
The reading of this text as merely a record of the Spirit's power at work in the prophet misses the full meaning of the text. Equally significant is how the prophet uses the abilities God has given him to bring recovery to the student, and how the student engages his faith in God's work. A misapplication of this text can result in one of two errors: one, my grandmother's; that God helps those who help themselves. He puts us in the world gives us abilities and then we are on our own. God does put us in the world and give us abilities to use by his power, but we also live in a fallen world where often the task is bigger than us, where the help of his people or a miracle is needed. The other error is that of my grandmother's friend: God helps the helpless. We can do nothing for ourselves. Anything more than basic survival we depend on others to do it for us or God. The idea of God giving you gifts presupposes you can chose to take some action. Biblical faith is a transaction. It involves our being engaged and responsible in the world.
So my grandmother and her friend expressed ideas that were basic to what the Bible teaches but incomplete. God does expect those who can to helps themselves, but his power is neither limited by or dependent on what anyone can do for themselves nor is it restricted by what we can not do. God does help the helpless, yet he lifts us beyond helpless dependency to the point where what ever he calls us to do, whatever crisis we face or valley we walk through, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Phl 4:13)
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