This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing 
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s 
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Israel is in the middle of a drought.

It’s a natural disaster that mirrors the spiritual
state of Israel and her kings.

God’s word, like rain, brings life but Israel (and particularly
King Ahab) have rejected God's word as their source of life.

The drought is a rebuke of Israel’s 
rejection of God’s life-giving word and so,  

only at the word of God’s prophet 
Elijah, will rain fall on Israel again.

While the rest of Israel is hungry, 
God leads Elijah to a stream  

outside Israel’s borders and 
feeds him in the wilderness.

When the drought causes that stream to dry up,
God promises a widow will feed him in a nearby town.

When he arrives, the drought 
has all but starved her.

But at God’s word in Elijah's mouth, the widow’s
food is multiplied, and they both eat.

Later, the widow’s son tragically dies.

But in the first resurrection story in 
Scripture, the son is then raised from the dead.

God’s word in Elijah’s mouth brings 
life where everyone expected death.

This poor foreign widow now sees what Israel’s most
powerful monarch can’t—God’s word brings life.  

So, God tells Elijah to confront 
Ahab and bring rain back to Israel.

Elijah proposes a contest between 
Ahab’s false prophets and himself.

The true God is whichever god 
responds to their sacrifices.

For hours Ahab’s prophets beg Baal
to respond, but no voice is ever heard.

Elijah, on the other hand, does not beg.

At his simple prayer,
God speaks through fire.

Unlike Baal, God is loud.

Elijah kills the prophets who worshipped their silent god, 
and the God who speaks finally sends rain.

When Ahab tells his wife Jezebel what 
Elijah has done, she threatens to kill him.

Elijah barely escapes to the wilderness. 
But God meets him there and feeds him again.

Then, like Moses, Elijah makes his way
to Mt. Horeb, also known as Mt. Sinai.

When God spoke to Moses it was
through thunder and lightning—

and Israel officially became
God’s people through a covenant.

But now God’s people have abandoned that 
covenant, and God speaks to Elijah in a whisper.

But again, God’s words bring life.

God commissions Elijah
to a new prophetic task.

And God tells Elijah that he is neither God’s 
last prophet nor the last faithful Israelite.

God will yet bring life to dead Israel.

[music]

Israel’s drought proves that 
rejecting God’s word invites death.

Elijah’s miracles prove that
God’s words bring life to the dead.

In the beginning, God’s
words brought light to darkness.

And the apostle John tells us that God’s 
life-giving Word has now become flesh in Jesus.

Jesus picks up the prophetic ministry
of Elijah to bring life to the dead earth.

Like Elijah, Jesus was fed in a wilderness, he multiplied
food to the starving, he changed weather with just a

word, and he is the only other man in Scripture to
raise a widow’s son from the dead.

Like Elijah, Jesus was also rejected 
by both Israel and her leaders.

After Elijah’s rejection, God
comforted him with his still small voice.

But after Jesus’ rejection God is silent.

God’s silence, like Israel’s drought, proves that
rejecting God’s word invites death. But God’s
Word in the flesh brings life even to tombs.

Like the widow’s son,
Jesus rises from the dead.

Brighter than a pillar of fire and louder than
whisper, the Word’s empty tomb proclaim loudly

the good news of eternal life 
to all who take Jesus at his word.

So, I pray that the Holy Spirit would open your
eyes to see the God whose word brings life.

And may you see Jesus as the Word made 
flesh who brings life to the whole world.