1 Kings 13?

[tentex25]

1 Kings chapter 13 makes absolutley no sense to me. It talks of a man of God from Judah. The man of God was instructed by God not to eat or drink and not to return home on the same road he had taken out of his hometown. When the man of God was on his way home an old prophet caught up to him, stopped him and told him that an angel told him to bring the man of Judah back to his house and feed him. When the man of Judah refused and explained that God had instructed him not to go back anywhere, the prophet explained that an angel appeard to him and told him to retrieve the man of Judah. The man of Judah went back, but later was killed by a lion sent from God for going back. The only reason the man of Judah went back is because he thought an angel instructed the prophet to tell him to. This passage is bothering me. Someone please help me.

 

[daveleau]

This is a statement about obedience. The man disobeyed, and he paid for it with his life.

Here's what one commentator says about it (Henry Concise):
The old prophet's conduct proves that he was not really a godly man. When the change took place under Jeroboam, he preferred his ease and interest to his religion. He took a very bad method to bring the good prophet back. It was all a lie. Believers are most in danger of being drawn from their duty by plausible pretences of holiness. We may wonder that the wicked prophet went unpunished, while the holy man of God was suddenly and severely punished. What shall we make of this? The judgments of God are beyond our power to fathom; and there is a judgment to come.

 

[paulnoel]

This Prophet had been given strict orders from God not to eat or drink anything while on his mission (13;9) He died because he listened to a man who CLAIMED to have a message from God.

I think the lesson from the story is not always to believe what other's tell us, but to check it out through the Bible, prayer, etc. We have to be very careful of what we are told is the truth. There are many times in the bible about false prophets.

Jeremiah 14;14
Ezekiel 13;9
Matthew 7;15
Matthew 24;11
Mark 13;22
2 Peter 2;1
1 John 4;1

Takethe time to read these verse's, I am sure they will put 1 Kings 13 into more perspective.

 

[dcyates]

While I agree with the responses above, it may also be worth noting that, at that time, sharing meals with others signified allegiance with them. Covenants made between two parties were often accompanied with the sharing of a meal. So, as God's representative, the prophet from Judah was to travel straight to Bethel to communicate God's utter repudiation of Jeroboam, his illegitimate place(s) of worship, and the false priests he had consecrated, and then to head straight back--even taking a different route. So when the lying prophet of Bethel (who later speaks truth) persuades the Judean prophet to stay and eat with him, because this made it look as though God may have relented in his condemnation of Bethel (as he had earlier relented in his curse of Jeroboam by allowing his shrivelled hand to be restored) and so had perhaps even entered into some sort of agreement with them, just as God made it clear that he rejected Jeroboam and his alter at Bethel by destroying it, so also did he need to make it clear that there was no covenant between him and them by destroying his ultimately disobedient prophet.