Commentary on "Gehazi: Missing the Mark"

RICHARD PEIFER

 

Day 6: Thursday, December 16, 2010 - Living on Leftovers

 

Overview

“Many years have passed since the great miracle of the raising of the Shunammite’s son. Gehazi’s skin disease must not be too disfiguring, for we now find him in the royal court. Gehazi, Elisha’s ‘ex-servant,’ is talking about what has been. He is bragging about Elisha and his miracles, and in doing so he is most likely reflecting on his own importance by his connection to Elisha.” (Adult Teachers Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, Oct. Nov. Dec. 2010, page 146)

 

Problems

A couple of details need to be clarified. First, most Bibles have footnotes that tell us the Hebrew word used for leprosy is used for any number of skin diseases, all of which resulted in the uncleanness of the sufferer according to the Mosaic covenant but not all of which caused the horrible deformity and eventual death common to what we know today as leprosy. Therefore, we should not read into the passage in 2 Kings what isn’t there.

Second, 2 Kings 8:4 clearly says that the king specifically asked Gehazi to tell the stories. Claiming that Gehazi is bragging is, again, reading into the text. Could he have been bragging? Yes, but this possibility should be stated as such instead of being asserted as fact.

Let me offer a different “what if”. This, too, is not in the text, so I offer it only as an alternative to be considered.

What if God, in His mercy, worked things together for Gehazi’s good? What if He made certain that Gehazi’s curse was not life-threatening? What if Gehazi had learned his lesson, but needed some confirmation that God really had used him in a positive way while he was Elisha’s servant and that he had not been cut off from Israel? If so, then the unbelievable timeliness of the Shunammite woman’s appeal to the king could have been just what Gehazi needed exactly when he needed it.

This is why I prefer grace to law. Law can demonstrate only that I fail and deserve death. Grace, the empowering presence of God Himself in our lives, reaches into the most wretched of us to restore, renew and recreate. Far from living on crumbs, Gehazi may have been reseated at the banquet table that day, because where sin abounds grace superabounds.

 

Summary

1. This addendum to Gehazi’s story is simply stated in 2 Kings 8.
2. The what-have-you-done-for-me-lately approach of legalism presumes Gehazi is forever condemned, lost, and incapable of receiving either forgiveness or eternal life.
3. The view of grace allows for the possibility that, regardless of the physical curse of being forever tainted by whatever form of leprosy Gehazi and his family had to live with, it is possible that God brought Gehazi back to Himself over the years, restoring him spiritually in spite of his terrible failure.

 

GO TO DAY 7

 

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Official Adventist Resources

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