3 Lessons from Elijah
The Bulletin, 4/22/26
These articles are written to encourage Christians, and to be used by churches for their weekly bulletin.
All I ask is that credit is given with my name and the web address, bible101.substack.com
We’ve been working through 1&2 Kings for the next volume of our A Closer Walk with Thee devotional book series at Focus Press, and I can’t help but be impressed by Elijah. Chapter for chapter, he was one of the Bible’s greatest miracle workers, and as a prophet he took one bold stand after another.
Here are three things I’ve learned from studying Elijah:
The comfort of accepting your role
Ahab called Elijah “you troubler of Israel” in 1 Kings 18:17. Like many prophets, his reputation was tarnished and he was treated as a social pariah by those in power because they didn’t like the truths he spoke. And yet… that didn’t stop Elijah.
When you do the right thing, at some point in your life you’re going to run into people who don’t like you for it. Their guilty consciences would rather blame you for making them look bad than themselves for actually doing bad. They might call you names, drag your reputation through the mud, and do whatever they can to tear you down.
But even though that will hurt, it’s not what truly matters, is it? We’re not here to please men (Galatians 1:10). Accepting that role takes a lot of weight off our shoulders.
The surety that comes from Divine guidance
When you know that you have God’s full blessing, and you know that God is going to carry out His will, you can confidently do what needs to be done. No, we can’t ask God to send down fire from the sky like Elijah did on multiple occasions, but we know that God is with us as we do His will.
Yet, it’s so easy for us to shrink back out of fear of what others think and censor ourselves from saying what others need to hear. Elijah, on the other hand, could tell the king and queen to their faces that they were in the wrong, because it was God’s word and not his own. Knowing God is backing us, and knowing He will handle the results, we can walk around with a boldness that is not our own.
The value of teammates
Though he showed great courage and did many great things for God, Elijah was not immune to discouragement. In fact, Elijah’s lonely lament in 1 Kings 19 might be the best-known thing about him, unfairly or not.
But God’s answer for that was not to just say “It’s ok, I’ve got your back.” Instead, He assured Elijah that there were 7,000 with him who had not bowed to Baal, and that he would have an apprentice in Elisha.
When discouragement sets in, and we have to do hard things, and others want to tear us down, there is no substitute for a good teammate. Not just a friend, but a teammate—a co-laborer who is on the same path we are. Sometimes it takes effort to find such people, but as we see with Elijah, it is more than worth it to have the encouragement of knowing we’re not alone.
Once again, we might not have the ability to perform miracles, and we may not be called to confront powerful rulers. But we are called to do things that might make us uncomfortable, and might make us a target for those who oppose God.
Looking at Elijah, we can see that that’s just fine: we’ll keep doing what God says, team up with those who walk alongside us, and shake off the barbs thrown by those who stand in our way.