40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Kings 5:1-14 (Episode 326)

Episode Date: August 17, 2022

Chad and Daniel talk about the recent events in Chad's life and the relationship between grief and the promises of God. The commander of the Syrian army has everything going for him, but he is a leper. Elisha has a way for him to be made clean, but is this commander willing to do it? Have a listen! HWSS National Conference 1517 Podcast Network 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast, network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. For you regular listeners, you will have known that we have been on, I guess, three or four week hiatus. Last episode, I had an announcement at the beginning of the episode about Chad and the loss of his son. So Chad is back. And Chad, if you want to say a few words about what the last three weeks has been for you and how you're doing before we get into this. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Dan. Yeah. So if you're a regular listener, you heard about Luke's death, which was on July 16th. And the day we're recording this is August 16th. So it's been exactly a month since his accident when he fell during a hiking trip in Chile.

Now, we were talking about this before we started recording, just what a strange thing that grief is. My typical response to people when they ask me how I'm doing is I'll say, well, I have okay days, I have bad days, and I have really bad days. And those are unpredictable as to when they're going to arrive. And sometimes, in fact, frequently, one day will be kind of a mixture of those three kinds of emotions. And it's been, I mean, I've never gone through anything like this. I've never even lost a parent. So I've never deeply grieved the loss of someone close to me until now. So this is all new territory for me.

But it's also strange too, because our circumstances, because Luke died out of the country, were a little bit different too. You know, typically funerals happen within a week or so of the death of a loved one. But we didn't even get his body back for almost three weeks. And we don't have one funeral, but we're going to have two funerals for him. So we had one funeral here in Indie Braunfels, which was a wonderful, wonderful service. A lot of people there. Of course, Dan, you were there, as were some of our other 1517 family and a lot of other friends as well. but uh tomorrow uh we will fly to annapolis to the united states naval academy where luke was

a midshipman and we'll have his second funeral there on thursday and his his burial will be there as well so you know between the the period of waiting for all the red tape uh to get his body out of chile and then two funerals and uh just this long gap between death and burial it's been it's been a period of uh of waiting and just kind of going through the emotional upheaval of everything but i do want to thank uh all the people many of whom are listeners to the podcast who have uh who have reached out i've heard from i don't know how many uh people expressing their condolences, letting us know that they're praying for us. A lot of people have reached out who have lost sons or daughters themselves and been a source of comfort and sometimes just truth

to us as well. So we're very grateful for that and just grateful for all of our vast family of brothers and sisters in Christ out there who have been there for us. I know we have a long way to go in this grief process, and I know that, lack it or not, my life will never really be the same. That's a hole that cannot be filled. But we rest in the saving work of Christ, And we know that our son is with his Lord. He no longer believes in him. He doesn't have to believe in him. He sees him face to face.

So in the midst of our grief, we have that unshakable hope in his presence with our Lord and his resurrection on the last day. Well, because of that, Chad, you do have the, you say never, but except for all of eternity, that hole will be filled. That's a long time. Yeah, yeah. You know, I was just thinking about that yesterday, too, that, you know, at Christian funerals, we don't say goodbye. We say, I'll see you again. Now, when that will be, you know, who knows? It might be a short time. It might be 30 years. But whenever that gap of time closes, we know that we will be reunited. And that's exactly right. That hole will certainly be filled. Yeah, I had to speak at a funeral, actually, this last weekend. I talked about how for the person who is in Christ, they are not gone forever. They've just simply gone before. To walk a really well-trodden path into the arms of Jesus,

and that's a path that you'll walk and I'll walk, and all of us who are in Christ will walk, but it's just that they've walked it ahead of us. But we're all going to the same—the destination is the same. They just happen to beat us there, and that feels wrong, particularly in this case. You know, sometimes it feels appropriate, sometimes it feels wrong, depending on what you're talking about. But at the end of all things, you are talking about all people heading to the same place where all things are made new. You find a lot of comfort in the fact that God promises to make all things new, but not all new things,

because the love that you feel for the things here that while being broken and marred by sin and stuff, you still have this deep affection, and you can still tell that those things were good. They weren't perfect as they ought to be, but they were good, and I find a lot of comfort in knowing that that's why Jesus says, yeah, I'm going to make that thing new. I'm not going to give you, I'm not going to give you a new, a different thing altogether. I'm just going to give you that thing. Perfect. And, uh, and that's, that's wonderful. Yeah, it is. Yeah. And that's really a, it's a beautiful way to think about it. There is a certain continuum between this present imperfect life and the perfect resurrection life to come, you know, because

it's not like we're going to be, uh, completely different. No, we'll just be completely perfect as we reflect the life of our Lord. It's a weird concept, right, to make something new? Yeah. Things in this life only, you might get something new, and then it gets old. And as time goes by, it gets older and older and older and older. There's no way to, you can try to upcycle something

or get an old car and fix it up, but it's not actually new. So this is the, God is different in that way, where he says, no, no, no, I take old things and actually make them new. Yeah, new in such a way that they will never become un-new. Yeah, they never get old. They will never grow old. Yeah, that's the beauty of recreation.

Yeah. Well, it's good to have you back, man. I know that you received an insane amount of love and support, and then there were all those people that didn't want to bug you, so they bugged me instead. uh told me to tell you make sure you tell chad this this and this and this and i probably didn't uh tell you all that probably i probably lied to a lot of those people and said i will tell them it probably didn't uh but the amount of that sort of thing was uh kind of staggering

yeah it was it was to me too uh and i haven't even had a chance to get back with everyone who who reached out uh but if you did and you didn't hear back from me know that your words were uh were a gift were a gift to me um in fact those first especially that first week was just a blur i i don't there's very few things that i even remember about that about that first week that was so uh kind of uh kind of shocking but but yeah we did hear from from so many people and we definitely felt we definitely felt the love and uh that has been a tremendous help to us as we just kind of struggle our way forward yeah well shall we pick up where we where we left off then at second kings chapter five yeah yeah let's uh let's do it as as it as it turns out it's sort

of a i guess you could say the lord's lord's gift in the midst of everything that we are where we are uh for a couple different reasons one for those who listened to the last episode you know how just strangely fitting it was that we talked about the resurrection of the Son. And in that podcast, I even talked about a hike that Luke and I took this last summer. But it's also fitting that we're beginning where we are, because in this next chapter, which is 2 Kings chapter 5, it just so happens to be one of my favorite chapters in the Old Testament. I've written about this i think maybe it was in your god is too glorious i can't remember exactly which book but i've written about this uh this episode with with naaman and uh his skin disease before and

it's one of those old testament passages that just begs to be linked up with uh with the new testament and uh especially what god does in and through through water through the water of baptism So one of the big reasons that you have hope and it links up to to baptism, it links up to, hey, maybe take God at his word and everything's going to work out the way he says, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So God graciously had us stop where we did and then start where we where we are today. It is sort of a beginning of a different story, too. It was probably good for the listener that we didn't stop right in the middle of some discourse or something, which sometimes happens to us. This is a sort of transition into something else. right yeah yeah there have been times where like we start out episode we think oh we're going to cover this chapter and then 40 minutes gets there and we're like oh i guess we're two thirds the way yeah so this is a good point uh good point to jump in so second kings 5-1 we meet

this guy called naaman uh and we we find out quite a bit about him in just the opening verse we're told that he is the commander of the army the king of syria we were told that he was a great man with his master and that he was in high favor literally the hebrew there that he was lifted up with respect to his face so he uh he was we might say he was good in the face of his master. He was held in high favor with him. Why? Because, we read, now this is kind of striking, because by him, the Lord, that is Yahweh, because by him, that is by Naaman, Yahweh had given victory to Syria. That in itself is a striking theological statement, because what the narrator is saying is that, hey, unlike all the other gods and goddesses of the ancient world who were

geographically circumscribed to their particular god region, gods in Egypt, you know, gods here, gods there, with the Lord, it's different. We're not talking about a local deity. We're talking about the Lord of heaven and earth. So just as he was controlling events in Israel, so also he was controlling events in syria or in philistia or in egypt or wherever it might have been and it's also striking because this happened and naaman at this point in his life anyway was completely oblivious to this i mean when he won a victory it wasn't like naaman went home and told his wife well i'll tell you what yahweh gave me a great victory today against so-and-so yeah that would have been really weird i don't know if he would i don't know how long he would have held that

position as commander of the army if he was going around doing that yeah yeah he would have been uh demoted demoted quickly uh so what what he was unaware of was the fact that all these great things which which he either ascribed to his own military prowess or to his uh his favorite god he was mistaken because by these victories uh god was at work the lord is the one who had given victory victory to syria so he was the one who was uh behind all these events whether whether people acknowledge it or realized it or not so he was uh he was commander he was a great man he was in high favor he had won these victories and then we're told one more thing we're told that he was a a mighty man of valor so quite you know quite the pedigree he's uh he's got a list of uh

of achievements he uh he's had all these military successes he's he's highly favored by his by his master by the king i mean the guy has all has all this going for him and you might say that he kind of he typifies the best that a natural man we might say could accomplish he's like he's at the top of his game he's he's no doubt famous in syria he uh he has his high rank he has this great resume. He's got all these things, and yet, despite the fact that he has all these things, despite all his accomplishments, in the end, he is still dead. In this way, the verse ends, after all these accolades, it says, but he was a leper. We've talked about this many other times, but just for those of you who might be new to the podcast, the Hebrew word that's translated

either as leper or as leprosy is a bit ambiguous, and you will see this translated different ways in some translations. This is kind of the traditional rendering of it as leper or leprosy, but the Hebrew is not describing what is known today as Hansen's disease or as leprosy where you have leper colonies and you have all of the various conditions related to leprosy. This is more of a general term for some sort of serious skin issue, whatever that might have been. Now, that being said, this skin disease, which we'll just call leprosy just for the sake of convenience, was in the Old Testament, as well as into the New Testament as well, was sort of emblematic of being cut off from God's people,

of, as it were, being dead, not just unclean, but you're kind of outside the realm of the living, as it were. You're the living dead, right, in kind of the zombie kind of state. So because he was such a great man, but he was a leper, means that no matter how many great things he may have accomplished in his life, In the end, what he was lacking was the one thing that he truly needed. What he was lacking was the God who could give him life, the God who could give him healing. So no matter how great a man he was in the end, he didn't have that one thing that he truly needed, that we all truly need.

In the New Testament, I think the thing that is sort of directly associated with leprosy or, you know, whatever this is, is uncleanness. So you can have all these things that you've got disposition, you've got all these, all these wins, man. This guy's just racking up the W's, but he's got one big, huge L on his resume, which is, but you're not clean. You're not a clean person. And I think that that uncleanness aspect is important because what God is going to have him do to try to get clean in an unlikely place to get clean as well. And so I think that cleanness, even though it's not—

we'll see sort of him talk about some cleanness, which is ironic coming from him. But I do think that if you kind of hold on to that for a second and know that this is a very accomplished, he's a famous, successful guy who needs something that he cannot achieve on his own. There's no amount of battles he can win that's going to get him this. There's not an amount of stations he can rise to that are going to get him this. He needs something outside of him done to give him the one thing he really needs,

which is how does one who is unclean become clean? yeah that's one of the reasons i love this chapter so much this is such a great setup for the entire biblical message i mean he's like the perfect person to be to be in this position and to to be drawn to where god actually actually does his work so so that's just the first verse i mean it kind of set the stage here for what's coming up so that's who he is that's his condition That's his need. Now, in verse two, we're told the very beginning of how God is going to kind of inch by inch lead Naaman to where he wants him to be. So what happens in verse two, we're told that the Syrians on one of the raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel and that

she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. So I'm going to come back to this a little bit later in the chapter uh but i'll just kind of put it out here now uh that there's going to be a there's going to be a play between how this little girl is described and how naaman is going to be described at the end we'll we'll see after all the events transpire that this little girl which in hebrew is naara katana that she is going to be in the end paired up with naaman who becomes like a little child as well, a na'ar katon. So he starts out a great man, but we're going to see how God brings him to the point to make him into a fitting recipient of the kingdom of God, that is, as a little child. So she worked in the service of Naaman's wife, this little girl who

we don't know anything else about. We know that she is a captive. We know that she's young. and we know that because of what we're about to see now that she is bold in her witness of where truth and healing and the one god is to be found so verse three tells us that she said to her mistress that is she said to to mrs naaman would that my lord were with the prophet who is in samaria he would cure him of his leprosy some of that childlike faith right there i'm just like oh yeah that's just what would happen yeah that's just what would happen yeah childlike faith and and also i i love the fact that this little girl does not shockingly to me anyway does not seem to be embittered by her condition yeah i mean i can imagine if i were in her shoes i'd be like uh

i'm glad that my lord is not with the prophet in samaria so he can rot away in his leprosy because i've been stripped away from my family stripped away from everything that i know here i am in the service of a foreign wife's foreign general's wife and yet it's a bold witness but it's also an incredible act of love she actually actually cares about him and tells him where where he should go or tells his wife where her husband should go yeah i'd be like i'd be saying And, oh, that I was with the prophet, so I wasn't here. Yeah, exactly. Not, oh, that my Lord was with the prophet, so he could be healed of his leprosy.

I mean, if anyone's going to get out of here and be delivered from something, how about me? Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's also, we don't see this in the English. I've worked through this chapter before, but I only found it this morning as I was working through this text. And so that phrase, she worked in the service of Naaman's wife, and then that phrase, with my Lord, were with the prophet who's in Samaria, both those use the same Hebrew phrase of Hebrew word lifne, which means before. So literally, it's she worked in the presence of or before Naaman's wife.

And then she says, with my Lord, were before the prophet who's in Samaria. The reason that's important is because when you, especially when you stand before someone, that's typically the posture of servitude. So she stands before Naaman's wife. I mean, yeah, she stands before Naaman's wife. That is, she is her maidservant. And she says, you know, what would be good would be that if my master were in a subservient posture before the prophet, that is to say, if he went there to receive from him what the prophet could give to him. I don't think she means it negatively, just in the sense of, I'm a servant here to my Lord and to you, my mistress. But what would be great would be if my master were in a position of servitude before the prophet,

because then he would be in the posture of reception before the one who could cure him of this leprosy. So that's what she says. And then, obviously, Naaman's wife tells him. And so Naaman went in and told his Lord, thus and thus spoke the girl from the land of Israel. and so his boss the king of syria says well get going go now and i will send a letter to the king of israel now that's a little bit off the girl has said with my problem with it master we're not the king she said but with the prophet who's in samaria and when the king finds out about it he says oh i'll tell you what i'll just uh i'll send an email here to uh to the not

the prophet but to the king of israel it's like they don't get it the servant girl gets it she knows where her master needs to be but the kings are like well we gotta you know we'll just go from king to king we'll kind of work through these through these yeah you know elisha you know kings loving him oh yeah yeah all the kings love you all the kings love elisha yeah the the troubler of israel so uh he uh he packs up and uh he makes a trip but he certainly is not going alone it says that he went taking with him a bunch of money so 10 000 i mean 10 talents of silver he's got 6 000 shekels of gold he's got uh 10 changes of clothes and we find out a little bit later back down to verse 9 that he doesn't go just with a couple of people but he goes with his horses

and chariots so just kind of picture a large military retinue that's working its way from Syria southward down to the land of Israel. Now, why would he bring all this stuff, the silver and the gold and change of clothing? Obviously because, you know, quid pro quo. Gotta buy a miracle here, man. Gotta buy a miracle, yeah.

I can't just show up empty-handed and expect the prophet or the king to do that, which I want. I gotta pay for this. You know, you gotta give in order to get. Yeah. He obviously didn't sit down with the Israeli girl

and have a little theological conversation about how the God of Israel operates, or you might have known that this is not how this is going to happen. Yeah. Well, that's another beautiful part of this narrative is he's going to realize when he gets there and when he gets healed that that's not how God operates. God's not a you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-transactional kind of God.

Yeah, God has no itches for you to scratch. yeah that's right no witches uh needs nothing from us uh so um naaman's going to find out he's going to have a very uh a quick introduction into into the theology of exactly what kind of god he's dealing with here so he shows up he brings a letter to the king of israel which read so this is the letter that the king of syria wrote to the king of israel When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman, my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy. This just seems like a king who, you know, he's sitting there like, well, you know, I really like this commander of my army. He's really good, makes me look good.

Of course, I take credit for all of his victories. And so you've got this prophet that is some kind of healer guy. I'm going to go ahead and give you credit. this is like when two people in authority are trying to you know pat each other on the back for stuff that they didn't do you know not that that ever happens today yeah all right you know you hire the right person they do a great job and everyone like you know pats in the back like good job yeah well you know i am i am in charge after all and that's what it seems this seems like one king telling another king like hey great job with that prophet yeah not not realizing uh that

the uh the relationship between the king and the prophet here is not that not that great yeah well it's also a king trying to tell another king that i know who's really in charge i'm a man who is not i'm not gonna i'm not gonna go to this guy without going to you like i wouldn't like it if somebody do that to me it's the whole thing is like very political oh yeah yeah it is you can you can see how the kind of the political mind is is at work here well it doesn't work out great uh with regard to the king of israel because he he misses the whole point of this verse seven says that when he read the letter he didn't say oh okay great let me uh let me tell you what you need to do? You go to the prophet, blah, blah, blah. No, he, the very first thing that he does

after he finished his letter is he tears his clothes. And then he says, am I God to kill and make alive that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Only consider and see how he's seeking a quarrel with me. This is a great example. And we've seen many others of these in the past. We'll see many of these in the future where it seems like the higher in position of power a person is, the less they realize how God is at work. He completely misunderstands this entire scenario. He reacts. He thinks it's a trap. Yeah, he thinks it's a trap. So he misinterprets everything. He doesn't do what is right. He doesn't say, well, it's actually not me. It's the prophets. I'll go to him. He misinterprets the letter. He misinterprets the entire intent

of this and so he he tears his clothes which typically in the in the old testament is a sign of grief it can also be a sign of just despair or frustration so he tears his clothes and then uh he says oh i i'm not god so how can i how can i do this this guy is just trying to seek a fight with me which which means that you know that there had to have been at least a modicum of peace between the two nations to allow naaman to actually travel there right but it was an uneasy piece because he immediately interprets this as provocative on the part of the king of israel yeah he interprets this as uh you need i'm sending you someone to heal of leprosy or else yeah right right do this or or there will be repercussions uh so after he says that

verse 8 shifts scenes and we are now with elisha when elisha the man of god heard that the king of israel had torn his clothes he sent to the king saying why have you torn your clothes let him come now to me that he may know that there is a prophet in israel so there's a king in israel big deal but but let's make sure this guy knows that there is a prophet in israel well how is he going to realize that well that's what we're going to find out in the verses that follow verse 9 says that naaman came with his horses and his chariots and he stood at the door of elisha's house and verse 10 tells us that elisha sent a messenger he didn't come out himself he sends a messenger to him saying go and wash in the jordan seven times and your flesh will

be restored and you shall be clean. Let's read a little bit more here so we can get Naaman's reaction. Verse 11 tells us, but Naaman was angry and went away saying, behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord as God and wave his hand over the place and cure the the leper are not avana and far par the rivers of damascus better than all the waters of israel could i not wash in them and be clean so he turned and went away in a rage well you know if you want to boil this down this is what uh nam does he says I'm not going to be healed by any means. There's not going to be a means.

God's not using means to heal me. Just come out here and wave your hand and just do it. Not knowing that that's not how God does stuff. No, he's got a lot to learn. First of all, he thought in verse 11, when he says, Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me. You can't see this in English word order, but in the Hebrew word order, that to me is fronted.

So behold, to me, I thought he would surely come out like, look at me. I mean, I'm a general, I'm accomplished, I'm a great man. So he should come out to me. But first of all, he doesn't. He sends a messenger. and then he has this foolish instruction that i'm supposed to go to that muddy creek called the jordan and wash in it i mean we got far far superiors rivers in in damascus uh than the jordan river and the jordan river by the way is is just kind of a muddy creek at least when i was

in israel it was just like yeah yeah no it wasn't like you know a beautiful blue lush water that's that's wide and deep no it's just like a you know 15 20 feet across muddy creek basically that's that's all that you're looking at nothing nothing impressive about it there's certainly nothing about the jordan that just that just communicates this divine power it's just water not even really clean water clean water at that uh so who naman is is like you say he's he's thinks that there's no way that i can get healing through this right so i need something i need something more direct i need something uh better uh this is sheer foolishness what he what he's telling me today well he hasn't even seen the prophet i mean i mean we're gonna get there chad but the reason

this is such a perfect setup is that this man wants to be made clean. He does not hear the word directly from the prophet. He hears it in the mouth of another. And what is that? What are the words of that person tell him to go and be washed in this subpar river? So I've not seen the prophet i've not heard his words i just i just have a messenger that's telling me that this is how this is going to happen i just reject all of this uh and this is it's almost like you know it's almost like when when martin luther was writing his catechism he like pulled the sentence how can water do such great things like right out of this text yeah yeah you can that's what you see naaman asking right frustrated angry how can the water of the jordan do such great things yeah

come on i don't have the prophet in front of me just got some guy some some messenger telling me that this is how it's going to work i hear this all the time when we're talking about baptism like that's not that's not how god would do it you sure that's kind of how he does it it's kind kind of hell he doesn't yeah so verse 13 tells us that his servants finally are the ones uh again it's it's the it's the lower people uh the the seemingly unimportant people who get it just like the little girl did his servants came near and said to him my father so this kind of term of respect for him my father it is a great word that the prophet has spoken to you there's a beautiful contrast here, too, because Naaman is called an Ishkadol, which is a great man. But then his

servants come to him and say, you know, Father, you might be a great man, but what has been spoken to you, what the prophet has spoken to you, is a Devargadol, is a great word. That's what you need. Forget about your greatness. What you need is this great word that he's spoken to you. Will you not do it? He has actually said to you, wash and be clean. So, verse 14 tells us that he does. He went down, he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, this great word. And what happened?

His flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. That's that word play between the little girl, the Naarakatana, and now Naaman's flesh when he becomes a Naadikaton. It's almost like he becomes like her. That's exactly it, yeah. The greatest become least, right? Well, you might become a believer after this. You might have some of that childlike faith after this whole thing,

which, of course, is what something like baptism would give you. Yeah, and that's why, as has often been said, all baptisms are infant baptisms, right? That's right. It doesn't matter if you're 85 years old. We all become children. We're all babes when we're born again. So this great man, this accomplished warrior, this famous general,

when he goes down into the water, according to the great word of the man of God. And only his words. That's all you have is his words. one of my favorite parts about this is that Elisha doesn't do anything but speak what is to happen he doesn't show up, he doesn't go

with him down there, he does nothing he puts his words in the mouth of somebody else and this is exactly what baptism is, I mean Jesus says go and baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, he doesn't come and do it himself, he has somebody else

deliver this message to you And this person, maybe this messenger is not great. I'm sure you would much rather have the prophet, the man of God, I'm sure you'd rather have him do it. But that's not how he's going to set it up. He's going to have someone else do it. But what's important is that what he says does happen. Yeah, yeah. He who hears you hears me, right?

Yeah. So when that preacher, when that pastor stands there and says these words, when that servant stands there and says these words, and the water of baptism is given to the person in this Jordan-type water, well, then that's God at work in a seemingly foolish way. My pastor likes to put it this way. He talks about simple water and strong word, which is what's happening here with Naaman. It's what happens in baptisms. Yeah, I love this part where the servants say, hey, this is a really great word.

You know, the prophet has spoken to you. Will you not do it? And then I like that there's a question mark on the end of the next sentence, which is, has he actually said to you, wash and be clean? In other words, let me ask you this question. What was it exactly that he told you was going to happen if you did? Is this not what you were trying to get? Yeah.

Did I miss something? Yeah, didn't he actually give you exactly what you asked for? Yeah. Did that prophet say something? Did that servant say something else that I didn't hear? Like what I heard was you could be clean if you went down to the Jordan and washed seven times. Is that not what was said? So the only real objection here, my father, is what he told you to do,

that you don't think that's good enough or you don't think that's how God would work. Well, he said it. You wanted A. He promised A. He told you to do this, so why won't you go do that? When he does that, then the gift is given and received. That's it. And that is it, man. We are at 40 minutes, so we'll leave it right there.

We did get, not through the chapter, but we got through the story. So we will pick it up next time as we wrap up 2 Kings 5. Chad, it's good to have you back. Good to be back. And we will see you guys next week. All right, see you then. .