Daily Devotional · 2 Kings 7:3–9
This Is a Day of Good News
Reflection
Samaria was under siege. The famine was so severe that people were paying enormous prices for almost nothing — the head of a donkey for 80 shekels of silver, dove dung for 5 shekels. The city was desperate. Four men with leprosy sat at the entrance of the city gate. They reasoned together: why stay here and die? If we enter the city, there is famine and we will die there too. If we go to the enemy camp, the worst they can do is kill us — we might as well try. They arose at dusk and went to the Aramean camp. When they got there, the camp was empty. The Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army — they had fled in panic, leaving everything: tents, horses, donkeys, food, silver, gold, clothes. The four men ate and drank and carried silver, gold, and clothing and went and hid them. Then they said to each other: "What we're doing is not right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace." They went. They told. The city ate. The siege ended. Four leprous men — marginalized, diseased, excluded — were the first to receive the news of deliverance. And their theological instinct was exactly right: good news kept to oneself is a kind of wrong.
Background
The four lepers' reasoning ("why sit here until we die?") represents a kind of practical theology: when all human options lead to death, the logical choice is to attempt what God might use. Their decision to tell the city, rather than keep the windfall to themselves, makes them an unlikely model of evangelistic impulse — people who discovered grace and could not keep it to themselves.
Truth
Good news that is found and kept to oneself is a kind of injustice to those who are still starving. The discovery of grace creates an obligation: go and tell. This is the evangelical impulse at its most basic — someone outside the gates discovered food for the hungry, and they could not justify keeping it to themselves.
Application
Who around you is starving spiritually while you are sitting on good news? Ask God today to give you the four lepers' clarity: this is a day of good news, and I am keeping it to myself. What is one way to share it this week?