Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Recognize False Prophets | Historical Books | 2 Kings 4:38-44

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

How can you recognize a false prophet? What's the role of God's prophets? How does Elisha point to Jesus? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 2 Kings 4:38-44 reminds us that Jesus, the God-man, is the ultimate prophet to obey. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 4:38-44

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. How do you know if something is from the Lord? How do you know when a prophetic word is wise and from God? And how do you know when it's actually idolatrous or evil or misled? This was a pressing question in the time of the Kings. Maybe it's not for you.

Maybe you've never even asked it. But back then, people were asking it because there were prophets of me. many stripes claiming to speak on behalf of God. For example, we know from archaeological digs that many people worshipped Yahweh alongside a female goddess called Asherah. In their view, she was the divine consort of Yahweh. So imagine living in Israel. You have some prophets out there saying that you can worship Yahweh alongside a pantheon of gods. Many of those prophets were in positions of power. Many of them even served the kings of Israel. But then you also have to be a pantheon of gods. But then you also had these prophets saying to worship Yahweh alone. They claimed that the other gods were just so-called

gods, that they weren't God at all. And in many cases, these prophets, you said just worship Yahweh, no one else. Well, they lived on the fringes of society in caves or small communities. They often lacked institutional power. So before we judge the Israelites too harshly for their idolatry, we must realize that from their perspective, the true prophets looked like quacks and wildmen. The false prophets, they looked like the real deal. So if you were an Israelite, how would you know who spoke truth? Well, the Bible gives us two ways of determining false prophecy from true prophecy. The first way is this.

Never trust a prophet or a prophecy that denies God's word. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses described how to discern true and false prophecies like this. This is Deuteronomy 13. If a prophet or one who foretells dreams appears among you and announces to you a sign or a wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place, and the prophet says, let us follow other gods, gods you have not known, and let us worship them. You must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. Moses's point is clear. In God's word, he commands Israel not to worship idols. In fact, commands against idolatry are the first two commandments in the Ten Commandments. So I think he's trying to make it simple. If a prophet tells you to do something God's law bans, or if a prophet condones doing something that God's law bans, then you must not listen to anything that prophet says. An example of this today might be health and wealth prosperity teachers.

They promised that if you follow God and you trust him fully and then you obey him, well, then you'll be blessed with health and wealth. But that message, it runs contrary to God's Word. God's Word gives us countless stories about faithful, obedient, trusting people who experienced tremendous suffering, not health, not wealth. You think of people like Job, like David, and of course Jesus himself. Jesus' brother James wrote this and James, 1 verses 2 to 4.

Consider a pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything. So anyone who contradicts this teaching and suggests that faithful people don't experience trials and then denies that trials are an important tool in God's sanctification tool belt. Well, people who say that, they should be rejected. That's not all that Moses gives us.

He also tells us that often the greatest prophets will come with signs and wonders. The miracles they enact exist to affirm that God is with them and that God is behind their teaching. And that's exactly what we're seeing happening in 2 Kings chapter 4. Elisha is carrying forward the ministry of Elijah. But because he lives on the fringes and he's kind of easy to discredit, God allows miracle after miracle to show that Elisha is the real deal. He's not a fraud. He's not a false prophet.

For example, in today's passage, we read two stories of miracles by Elisha, and both of them center on food. Let's pick up in 2nd Kings 4 verse 38. Elisha returned to Gilgall, and there was a famine in that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to his servant, put on a large pot and cook some stew for these prophets. One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine and picked as many of its gourds as his garment could hold.

When he returned, he cut them up and put them into the pot of stew. Though no one knew what they were, the stew was poured out for the men. But as they began to eat it, they cried out, man of God, there is death in this pot, and they could not eat it. Elisha said, get some flour. He put it into the pot and said, serve it to the people to eat, and there was nothing harmful in the pot. So in this miracle, God turns a pot of accidentally poisonous food into nourishing food. What's the point? Well, perhaps it's that Elisha's prophetic words, they do the exact same thing. Whereas the false prophets offer poison, he offers nourishment.

whereas the false prophets speak carelessly and make foolish choices. Elisha speaks thoughtfully and guides people to wisdom. Let's look in the next miracle now, verse 42. A man came from Baal Shalashah, bringing the man of God 20 loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. Give it to the people to eat, Elisha said. How can I set this before a hundred men? his servant asked. But Elisha said, give it to the people to eat, for this is what the Lord says.

They will eat and have some left over. Then he said it before them, and they ate, and they had some left over, according to the word of God. So if you thought that Jesus was the first person to feed many people with a little, well, you'd be wrong. And this miracle also underlines that although Although Elisha's ministry might seem minor and meager, it's actually God's means of feeding hungry people. So how do we know a true prophet or a true prophecy? Well, first, he or she speaks in accordance with God's word. And second, it might come with signs and wonders. Now, if they just have wonders but contradict God's word, then they're still a false prophet. And of course, God's word without wonders is still true. But God's word, alongside wonders and miracles, are the

sign that God is moving in a tremendous way. Of course, when we hear the story, we can't help but think of Jesus. And we see the same pattern there. He taught the truth according to God's word. And his words were accompanied by tremendous miracles. Elijah fed 100 people with 20 loaves. Jesus fed thousands with just a few. And when Jesus did that, Israel was supposed to realize that someone greater than every prophet who had ever lived had come among them. someone greater than Elijah, someone greater than Elisha. And as a result, they were supposed to listen to him to understand that he was speaking true prophecy.

They were supposed to build their lives on his teaching. They were supposed to be transformed by the bread of life. But ultimately, God's people rejected him, as many other people have done since. So let that not be true of us. Let's remember that when we trust Jesus, we trust the God man who came with God's word and God's wonders. He is worthy of our ears and worthy of our obedience because there is no one else like him. And yes, there are lesser prophets than Christ.

And yes, God may even speak a prophetic word to you through them, but none of them compare to Jesus. His words are precisely what he said. They are the words of life. So feast on him. Feast on his wisdom, feast on his word, and let your heart wonder at his wonders.