Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is There One Way to Engage Culture? | Historical Books | 1 Kings 18:1-15

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

How do Christians change the world? Is it an individual task or a group project? Is there a right way to engage culture? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 1 Kings 18:1-15 reminds us that God uses insiders and outsiders to serve his kingdom. 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: 1 Kings 18:1-15

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 should Christians respond to a world that's set itself against God in his ways? Is there one right way to respond? This makes me think of a story from about 10 years ago in Bremerton, Washington. That's a small suburb in Seattle. At the time, it's October, and the Bremerton High School football team has just ended its game.

Burminton's coach, a guy named Joe Kennedy, is now doing exactly what he's done for the last five years. He walks to the center of the field, he takes a knee on the 50-yard line, and he thanks Jesus. Normally, these prayers only last about 30 seconds, but this one was different. Some students, coaches, and fans from both sides join him there to pray. But other people looked on in dismay. They thought that this prayer was grossly inappropriate for a public event. disgruntled spectators bold over members of the marching band, their shouting curses at Kennedy and the other coaches.

And if you hear this, you might be wondering, why was there so much fervor? Well, it's because Kennedy's prayer wasn't just a prayer. It was an act of protest. A week earlier, the district superintendent, Aaron LaValle, had ordered Kennedy to cease and desist his regular end of game prayers because, quote, it exposed the district to significant risk of liability. But Kennedy refused. After his protest, he was placed on paid administrative leave.

He wouldn't return to the field for another eight years, during which he was embroiled in a court case that made its way all the way to the Supreme Court. But there's one part of this story that's rarely told. The superintendent was also a devout Christian. In fact, the superintendent and the coach, they attended the same church. That had to be a little bit awkward. So think about this. They're both Christians.

They're both trying to navigate. a complicated world and to engage it with the love of Jesus? The question we want to ask is, who was right? Because there must be a right answer, isn't there? Well, I can make a case for both people. The superintendent's position is actually in line with many historic Christian traditions. You might not know this, but Southern Baptists famously celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to ban prayer in schools. Maybe LaValle knew that. Or maybe he was simply trying to follow Jesus's teaching about public prayer in Matthew 6. This is what Jesus said. And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by

others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward and full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. But you know what? I could also defend the coach. I mean, Didn't Jesus also say this in Matthew 10? Whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my father? Wasn't the coach trying to say, I won't disown Jesus, and it's wrong to do so? So who was right? Who was wrong?

What do you think? In today's passage, we encounter a somewhat similar situation. There's a protesting prophet who meets a administrative leader in the idolatrous king Ahab's entourage. The protesting prophet, his name is Elijah, and the administrator, he's named Obadiah, and Elijah and Obadiah obviously see the world differently. They engage the world differently. And I wonder, who is right and who is wrong? Let's read this passage together. First Kings 18, verse 7. As Obadiah was walking along, Elijah met him. Obadiah recognized him, bowed down to the ground and said, Is it really you, my Lord Elijah? Yes, he replied,

go tell your master Elijah is here. What have I done wrong? asked Obadiah, that you are handing your servant over to Ahab to be put to death. As surely as the Lord your God lives, there is not a nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to look for you. And whenever a nation or kingdom claimed you were not there, he made them swear that they could not find you. But now, you tell me to go to my master and say Elijah is here.

I don't know where the spirit of the Lord may be. carry you when I leave you? If I go and tell Ahab and he doesn't find you, he will kill me. Yet I, your servant, have worshipped the Lord since my youth. Haven't you heard my Lord what I did while Jezebel was killing the prophets of the Lord? I hid a hundred of the Lord's prophets in two caves, 50 in each, and supplied them with food and water. And now you say to me, go to my master and say Elijah is here, he will kill me. Elijah said, as the Lord Almighty lives whom I serve, I will surely present myself to Ahab today. Now, did you notice there are two different approaches of engaging with the world? Elijah is a prophet and a protester. I mean, he's kind of like the coach Joe Kennedy. He speaks the

truth to power. And as a result, the powers are after him to kill him. If you asked Elijah how to change the world, he'd have a clear answer. Confront, challenge, and protest idolatry. So what do you think he thought of Obadiah? Well, I think maybe he thought that Obadiah would was a bit of a poser. Maybe that he was at the risk of becoming corrupt and deeply compromised, that Obadiah wasn't willing to say or do the hard things. But let's flip the script. But what would Obadiah say? I mean, I think he'd say something different. He'd say that he's an advisor to the king. He's a man on the inside. So he can't protest everything, but he can use his power and influence to mitigate the evils of the regime. He'd say to Elijah, while you're out there shouting into the wind,

changing nothing, I'm actually doing the hard work, the hard work to protect and feed the prophets. I'm actually in here stopping bad men from being as bad as they could be. He might think that Elijah is an idealist, full of wind, but able to accomplish little. So who is right? Who's wrong? Maybe you've already guessed the answer. It's clear that the text commends both men. They're both right. They're both doing what God has called them to do. but their calling is different. What does this mean for us? It means that we live in a complex world,

but God doesn't give us a one-size-fits-all solution for every situation. In fact, he often gives us different callings, and sometimes those callings look opposed to one another. But somehow, in God's wisdom, he's designed people to work precisely this way, because situations often require multiple approaches at the exact same time. Sometimes you need profits to protest and to create heat because the heat they create it makes hardened systems malleable.

But that's also the point at which you need insiders who can use their influence to bend the system once it's become malleable. You can't be both. If an insider is a prophet and a protester, he'll be cast out. If a protester tries to be an insider, he'll create no heat. He'll compromise. But I think God wants both. So what if we saw our engagement with the world, not as an individual task, but as a group project?

What if you showed grace to the person who is different than you by understanding that maybe the way they engage the world is right for their personality? And it's part of the way that God designed them. And so you don't need to judge them because God's designed you differently. Jesus has called us to both love and challenge the world around us. Let's encourage one another to engage. of that world and the way God has uniquely designed each of us.