Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Should Christians Marry Non-Christians? | Historical Books | 2 Kings 8:16-29

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

What makes a bad leader? Why does God allow evil leaders to gain power? Should Christians marry non-Christians? In today's episode, Keith shares how 2 Kings 8:16-29 reminds us that God's grace is even greater than our sin. 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 8:16-29

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 Keith Simon. Leaders have a profound and lasting impact on the people they lead, whether it's a nation or a business or a school or a nonprofit or a church. Leaders matter. A good leader can help people flourish, and a bad leader often leads to strife and suffering. Proverbs 292 says, when the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power, they groan.

Think of good leaders you've experienced in your life. Was there a good pastor or Sunday school teacher who helped you learn the Bible or modeled what it looked like to follow Jesus? Was there a good boss who helped you develop professionally? Maybe a good teacher who gave you a passion for learning. Or maybe a good parent who created a secure and loving environment for you to grow up in. Unfortunately, bad leaders have the opposite effect. They create division, strife. They often use their power to oppress people.

Sadly, history is littered with all kinds of, evil leaders, people like Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin, who starved, imprisoned, and killed millions of people. But bad leaders aren't only a modern problem. Israel had its share of bad leaders who didn't walk in the ways of the Lord. They built unholy alliances. They worshipped false gods. They participated in child sacrifice. They got Israel involved in needless wars. Why does God allow evil leaders to gain power, whether we're talking about ancient history or modern America? When we have ask that question, we recognize that God is sovereign and ultimately in control of all things, including human kings and leaders. Here's Daniel 2. Daniel praised the God of heaven. He said

praise the name of God forever and ever, for he has all wisdom and power. He controls the course of world events. He removes kings and sets up other kings. According to Daniel 2, it is God who sets up kings. And Paul says the same thing in Romans 131. Listen to what he writes there. everyone must submit to governing authorities for all authority comes from God and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. Now when Daniel claimed that God sets up and removes kings, Nebuchadnezzar was in power. And when Paul wrote that people who are in positions of authority have been placed there by God, well, at that point Nero was the emperor of Rome. Now you might remember that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and Nero violently persecuted the Christians.

We don't know why God allows evil rulers, but then there's a lot of things. Now, we don't know why God allows evil rulers like Nebuchadnezzar and Nero, but we know there's a lot of things that God does, and we don't know why he does it. We're on what you would call a need-to-know basis with God. There's a lot we would like to know, but God says you don't need to know it. The infinite God is always doing things that finite humans can't understand. But there are occasions God tells us why he establishes wicked leaders. For example, in 2nd King 20, it tells us that God raised up Nebuchadnezzar to punish Judah

for their repeated idolatry. In Acts 8, we find evil rulers persecuting Christians in Jerusalem. And God used that persecution to drive the Christians out of the city so they would begin to follow his plan of spreading the gospel all over the world. So God appoints all rulers, and he accomplishes his will, through them, whether they are godly or ungodly. This is all relevant to 2nd Kings chapter 8, because there we find more corrupt and evil rulers.

In the last episode, Jeff covered the first half of the chapter. Today, we're in the second half of 2nd Kings 8. It's the account of the wicked king Jehoram and his wicked son, Ahaziah. Amid the darkness, we will find a little ray of hope to sustain our faith. So we read in 2 Kings 8, verse 17, that Jehoram was 32 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem for eight years. But Jehoram followed the example of the kings of Israel and was as wicked as King Ahab, for he had married one of Ahab's daughters.

So Jehoram did what was evil in the Lord's sight. Okay, there's lots of interesting things there. First, notice that Jehoram was the son of the good king Jehoshaphat. In the Bible, you see what you'd expect, which is bad parents raising bad children, or good parents raise good children, but you also see what you might not expect, which is that bad parents can raise good children and good parents can raise bad children. And all this shows us that grace isn't hereditary. It's not passed through biology. And it also shows us that no parent is in control of their child.

Parents have a huge influence on their children, but their hearts are in God's hands. Back to our story. Jehoram was a bad son and a wicked king. We're told that he's slaughtered all his brothers to eliminate potential rivals to the throne. At the core of his evil leadership is that he turned away from worshipping the true God, Yahweh, and instead worshipped the false gods of the Canaanites. The prophet Elijah wrote a letter to Jehoram that we find in Second Chronicles, and let me tell you, it's brutal. Here's what Elijah wrote in his letter to Jehorum. This is what the Lord, the God of your ancestor, David, says. You have not followed the good example of your father Jehoshaphat or your grandfather King Asa of Judah. Instead, you have been as evil

as the kings of Israel. You have led the people of Jerusalem and Judah to worship idols, just as King Ahab did in Israel. And you have even killed your own brothers, men who are better than you. So now the Lord is about to strike you, your people, your children, your wives, and all that is yours with a heavy blow. You yourself will suffer with a severe intestinal disease that will get worse each day until your bowels come out. Wow, that's rough. But if you can imagine, it gets worse. Here's verse 19 telling us what happened in Johoram's life. The disease grew worse and worse, and at the end of two years, it caused his bowels to come out and he died in agony. One thing that we can learn from this is that God holds leaders accountable.

In this world, it is impossible to get justice. But eventually, all of us stand before God, not just leaders but also followers. In other words, every individual stands before God and God has promised us perfect justice. Well, after Jehoram's death, his son Ahaziah rises to power. Again, we're in 2nd Kings 8. Here's verse 26. Ahaziah was 22 years old when he became king,

and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother was Athelia, a granddaughter of King Amri of Israel. Ahaziah followed the evil example of King Ahab's family. he did what was evil in the Lord's sight, just as Ahab's family had done, for he was related by marriage to the family of Ahab. So both Ahaziah and his father Jehoram married women who didn't follow Yahweh, the God of Israel. This is a huge problem in Israel. It's a huge problem in the New Testament or in the church today. See, some of Israel's kings were tempted to marry outside the faith as a way of building political and economic power. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul tells Christians

in 1 Corinthians 6 to not be unequally yoked to a non-Christian. Here's what Paul wrote, do not be yoked together with unbelievers, for what do your righteousness and wickedness have in common, or what fellowship can light have with darkness, what harmony is there between Christ and Belial, or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? Well, obviously Christians and non-Christians have a lot in common, and yet at a fundamental level, they have huge differences that make marriage between them unwise. Now, I have friends who got married when one of them was a Christian and one wasn't. And for some of them, things have worked out really well.

The spouse that wasn't a Christian became one and they are both following Jesus today. I'm very thankful when that happens. But that isn't the normal story. When a Christian marries a non-Christian is far more common for there to be strife over faith, over core values, over how to pass those values onto their children. Or what happens in other situations is that the Christian's faith weakens over time. There's no conflict over faith because there's no deeply held faith. 2 Kings 8 is a chapter recounting the moral degeneracy of Israel's leadership.

What started in the northern tribes has now infected the southern tribes. No one was exempt. But I told you when we started our conversation today that there was a ray of hope. And I want to end with that. In 2 Kings 819, it says, But the Lord did not want to destroy Judah, for he had promised his servant David that his descendants would continue to rule, shining like a lamp forever.

God's grace is greater than our sin. God kept his promise to David, so he didn't destroy Israel, even though they deserved it. Even in the darkest days, the light of the gospel wasn't extinguished. In the fullness of time, David's son and Jehoram's heir

came into the world to deliver it from evil. Jesus is the light of the world. We hold on to that same promise. We live in dark times, but we don't lose hope because God has promised that when Jesus, Jesus returns, he will bring justice. He will right every wrong.

He will repair what is broken with us and our world. He will reclaim and renew a lost world. Jesus will defeat every king, every heart that opposes him in his kingdom. King Jesus will sit on his throne and all will be well. All will be as it should be. Let's pray. Father, we look forward to the day that Jesus reigns and rules. And until that day, we pray that your kingdom would come.

in our heart and your will be done in our life just as it is in heaven. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.