THE MITES OF GOD
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6).
“A certain poor widow...threw in two mites…And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury” (Mk. 12).
“A little maid...said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria for he would recover him of his leprosy” (1 K. 5).
“God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty” (1 Cor. 1:27)
“My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9)
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Christians can never make themselves believe that they’re it, that they’re all God has in their area, that since they so obviously do not have the required gifts, the mountain-moving faith, the zeal, the backing, etc., they cannot be held responsible for “settling on their lees.” The remnant “7000” probably didn’t have a higher opinion of themselves than did Elijah when he asked to die because his ministry seemed to be going nowhere. If you would have asked the little maid, she would have told you that Samaria is where God is doing His work, because that’s where “the prophet” is. Yet it was she who put two kingdoms on the move. Naaman the pagan had no doubt that Elisha would do his tricks with the usual dramatic flourish, worthy of his trade---by the time it was over, his cure was so unspectacular that people would have wondered if anything actually happened. “The Kingdom of God cometh not by observation.” God dropped in on Abraham in a very casual manner, unexpectedly, and gradually revealed who He was, when He could have sent a legion of angels with trumpets. Elijah expected God to be in the earthquake, in the wind, in the fire. But how are you to know that God is in “the still small voice?” Little did the little maid and the widow know that they themselves were “the Kingdom that cometh not by observation,” that their day to day “well-doing” was the “still small voice.” The huge sums thrown into the treasury were very observable. But there, Jesus said to his disciples, pointing to barely noticeable “two mites,” is “more.” They were busy admiring the huge stones ("they the living stones" "whose House are we") that made up the Temple. He could just as well have picked up a pebble and said “this is greater than all these huge blocks.” Such is the foolishness of the Cross. “Am I God,” the Israeli king cries out in fear when the little maid’s utterance showed up in the form of a letter from his greatest enemy. Israel was full of lepers and here he was asked to cure leprosy. This captive little maid would have been one of the (“reserved”) 7000 believers that made up the Kingdom of God in Israel in the last days of Elijah--now gone to his reward. She was a victim of the endless wars between Benhadad of Syria and the house of Ahab. Jews in Babylon “wept when they remembered Zion,” and who knows what happened to the rest of her family. “But all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” God will now use her mightily even as she does nothing more than what she does every day. God did not tell Abraham he was coming (Heb. 13:2), and did not explain to Job the reason behind his suffering, as if to say, “all those who live godly will suffer.” “Watch, therefore,” the Bible warns, “for you never know….” It is the constant watching that causes “the hands to hang down and the feeble knees.”
When opportunity presented itself, the little maid was ready. How effective would she have been among Israel’s many lepers? But they had the Book of Moses, and they certainly had great prophets. Like Naaman, they would have demanded a sign. “Shall I smite them with the sword,” asks the Israeli king when Elisha captured the entire Syrian army? “Feed them and send them on their way,” says Elisha, having healed their top commander of leprosy. Later, when Paul was led blind down the street called Straight, he may well have met some of the descendants of these soldiers, “for other men labored and ye have entered into their labors.” What would have been the counsel of Jonah regarding these enemy foreigners?
The spiritual life of Israel was at a low ebb, so much that Elijah was ready to throw in the towel after the fire on Mt. Carmel did not bring about repentance--and asked to die. And this after one of the greatest displays of prophetic power ever. It had zero impact. It only made Jezebel worse. Signs and wonders do no more than create an appetite for greater signs and wonders--Jonah did not do signs and wonders in Nineveh. It couldn’t have been that Elijah did not know about the 7000. Rather, he couldn’t imagine that God would settle for something so insignificant in the onward march of the Kingdom: 7000 believers who amounted to no more than 7000 believers not being “weary in well-doing,” until “they rest from their labors” when they hear the final “well done”--that is, “well done” for not being weary in well-doing. At this point in time, Elijah was still a political activist who demanded dramatic social change in his lifetime (the Reformation hitched its plow to Caesar to create observable change). Which is why God summoned him down to Mt. Sinai (the Ten Stone Tablets are the backbone of the written record of God’s revelation) to demonstrate the nature of the Kingdom of God as “a still small voice” (“by preaching was Israel preserved”) that is so unlike the wind/earthquake/fire (Elijah took refuge in the cave in fear) that at the End of Days the Saints will wonder if they had somehow missed it: for how could the Kingdom of God consist of clothing the poor, feeding the hungry, etc.--what is there to observe here? 100 years later in the time of Jonah (2 K. 14:25), “men would have waxed even worse....” But it is precisely at this low ebb in Israel's history, that the greatest repentance on record took place far away in the city of Nineveh. And Jonah preached with the hope that they would not repent. When they did, he wished to die. Elijah wished to die because the fire did not bring about repentance. Jonah wished to die when “the still small voice” of preaching did. Dramatics made things worse. Plain preaching exceeded beyond measure. John the Baptist (the second Elijah) saw Christ’s underwhelming work and wondered if he, the forerunner, had been deceived when he pointed to the Messiah with the words, “Behold the Lamb of God.” His own ministry was over at the young age of 33, and he was left to watch the barely observable Kingdom of God march onward from his prison window. Like all who had gone on before, he was now left to die in faith “having seen the promises afar off.” If anyone deserved closure it was Moses, who gave up everything for the Kingdom of Christ. On the brink of his triumph he was told, “Joshua will take over from here.” As if to say, there are no great and no small members in the House of God (“whose House are we”), only “well doing,” that “they without us should not be made perfect. Faith the size of a mustard seed is what moves mountains. The arm of God is moved by widow’s mites and “little maids,” and of course, the prayers of Moses, Aaron and Hur.
What, in the larger plan of God, did Jonah make of the 120,000 who repented in Nineveh? Would there have been even 7000 believers in Israel at this point? Why did Jonah’s preaching not bring about 120,000 converts in Israel? Or did he already assume that all Israel was Israel, that circumcision is what makes a Jew a Jew, and not a Ninevite “who is a Jew inwardly.” Later they would have the Samaritans to despise. There is something of this in Gahazi’s words “this Syrian.” A chapter later when Elisha blinded the entire Syrian army, he was asked after the manner of Peter, “Shall I smite them” (2 K. 6:21)? “Feed them,” Elisha says, “and send them on their way.” On the day of Christ’s Ascension, the disciples still dreamed of a political Kingdom of God,” with (but who else) Israel at the helm. It was not until Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit reenacted the preaching of Jonah on a much smaller scale, that they understood that chosen Israel had been rejected and the kingdom of God was to consist mostly of despised Gentiles. But Jonah was angry at God because He did not despise foreigners as he did. This is spiritual suicide, and accounts for the scarcity of Jews in the early church and since. But this, like Elijah and Elisha’s constant presence in Syria, was a foretaste of things to come, when “the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness.” Some of those Ninevites may have become Samaritans when the Persians imported foreigners later. The Samaritan “fields white unto harvest, ” and all the way up to Antioch, are where Elijah and Elisha labored. Israel had already become a walled-up spiritual graveyard, for the Church must keep moving to thrive: “from Jerusalem, to Judaea, to Samaria,” etc. Perhaps God was already building a corridor that would extend all the way to Babylon. He tells Elijah to meddle with Syrian politics by anointing the cruel Hazael to succeed Benhadad, and even “gave deliverance” to the Syrian commander Naaman when he invaded Israel. In fact, “the little maid” was a victim of this latest war. This area, by the time we find Paul on “a street called Straight,” will become a major artery for the Gospel, when the Church will consolidate at Antioch before pivoting sharply to the West. We hear of no great works eastward toward Nineveh.
When we read later that Benhadad was told that Elisha “tells the king of Israel everything you say in your bedchamber,” we are led to believe that Naaman the cured leper was providing that information to Elisha. “By a prophet Israel was preserved.”
But it all began with “the little maid.” Here’s how all this came about: Naaman, the Syrian commander invades Israel and brings back “the little maid.” She tells her mistress that there was a genuine prophet in Samaria who could heal her husband’s leprosy. The little maid’s words of faith must have sounded like a thunderclap to a court official who informed the king. King Benhadad was always looking to trade insults (this is where the famous insult “let not him that taketh off his armour” originates) with the House of Ahab, writes the Israeli king asking him to heal his top commander. This is all Jewish superstition to him, and he doesn’t even bother to mention God at all. The Israeli king sees it as no more than the latest provocation and cries out in utter unbelief, “Am I God?” Obviously, he doesn’t believe that there is a prophet in Israel. Samaria was full of prophets and a “prophet besides” (I K 22). And Samaria was full of lepers. How could there be a real prophet in Israel if Israel was full of lepers?
Why did Nineveh repent at the ill-willed preaching Jonah, and Israel not at the preaching of two of history’s greatest prophets? Jesus could not do many miracles because of their unbelief. Faith is the gift of God, so why did God give faith to non-chosen Nineveh and not to chosen Israel, for by now it was obvious that most of “Israel if not Israel,” and that “the sons of the kingdom were about to be cast into outer darkness.” Elisha’s servant Gehazi acted very Jonah-like at the healing of “this Syrian,” and he was not moved spiritually when God revealed Himself through this act of Elisha. "I have bread to eat you know not off" was far from Gehazi's thoughts. Elisha himself refused the rewards of divinity lest he detract from the work of God. He and his school of the prophets were at that time existing on “wild gourds” (“death in the pot,” 2 K. 4), and had to “borrow” an ax (2 K. 6). The work of God is easily hindered and made of none effect by even the suspicion of “the rewards of divinity.” The
The irony here is that the King of Israel saw nothing out of the ordinary at being asked to heal his enemy’s top commander, which is like King Jung Un sending his rockets to President Biden asking him to fit them with nuclear warheads and send them back so he could bomb American cities. The Israeli king could have looked at healed Naaman and rounded up all the lepers to rid the land of leprosy. They would likely have demanded a sign first. Then there is Gehazi, Elisha’s worldly servant, who comes across as little more than a Judas, grieved that his master refused a very sizable donation. Like Abraham, Elisha wouldn’t accept a penny. People have always understood the “rewards of divinity,” and are always on the lookout for cupidity in the preacher. Samuel the prophet reminded the people how carefully he had avoided that stain. The people demanded an end to the rule of prophet-judges because his sons did not and took bribes. This is why Elisha ate “wild gourds,” and made do with a “borrowed’ ax. And now pagan Syria had one less leper and Samarria one more (carnal Gehazi). “For,” Jesus says, “there were many lepers in Israel,” and, undoubtedly far fewer converts in Israel than in Nineveh.
How do you explain all this? “Because of their unbelief,” Jesus says. Israel had already become hardened to the Gospel. That is, the heart which is “desperately wicked” had found a way to dismantle the faith mixer, and given itself immunity. “The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” The Gospel bears fruit quickly on fresh soil like Syria and Nineveh, and cannot take root in hardened Europe. After all his preaching, Noah’s church consisted of eight people. Despite everything he did, Elisha and Elisha fared no better than Enoch or Noah--they barely registered in the hardened society around them. “Am I God,” cried the politician with not so much as a thought of Elisha--the 7000 were “the quiet in the land.” Meanwhile, the pure faith of a little maid put two kingdoms in motion. “I believe and therefore have I spoken.” “The effectual fervent prayer of a rights man availeth much.” This is how the Kingdom of God marches. While His disciples marveled over the perfectly fitted stones of the temple, Jesus sat over against the treasury watching the “rich cast in much.” Then, finally, he saw what He had been waiting for: two mites of pure faith. This is the mustard seed that says to the mountain “remove from thence and be cast into the sea.” As soon as the little maid spoke the army of heaven began marching. “Am I God,” cries the king in unbelief. And he, undoubtedly, “cast in much.” This is why I call my blessed Aunt Rachel frequently to remind her to remember me in prayer throughout the day. “His ears are open to their cries.” The court official told the king, “thus and thus said the maid.” Imagine wasting a king’s time with what a captive little maid said.” But God was listening. "She believed and therefore, she spoke.” God is always waiting for someone “to cast in the next two mites.” Why doesn’t God just do what He wants done instead of wasting time like this, says the unfruitful steward. And yet, there Jesus sat, over against the treasury, waiting for His two mites.
There are “wheels within wheels” here. The offense here is that God would stoop to such petty maneuvering to accomplish the designs of Heaven. Why wouldn’t God “just do it,” and be done with it? The unprofitable steward took exception with God’s manner of dealing and accused Him of being a “hard man.” “Here,” he said, “is your talent back." Because I know that, no matter what I do, you always make things come out in your favor, and I refuse to participate in this senseless game. You can solve all this with the canned books of the Calvinists. But you’ll be left with a few scraps of the Bible. Calvinists see little sense in studying the Bible: why bother trying to sort all this out, when the books of the Elders have done the work for you. But things like repentance in Nineveh with poor preaching, and wholesale rebellion in Israel with good, is what drew the ire of Mark Twain. And God makes it very plain that every detail of the Kingdom of God is meant to “confound the wise.” Because the unprofitable steward is right: “God reaps where He doesn’t sow,” without telling you why. The other two servants knew this and continued in their “well doing,” nonetheless, doubling their talents. It drove Twain to mockery. Others take refuge in books, and remain equally unfruitful.