Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Fear of Better Options | Historical Books | 1 Kings 18:16-46

Episode Date: September 12, 2025

Do you suffer from the fear of better options? Are you tempted to worship the gods of our culture? What's your Baal? In today's episode, Jeff shares how 1 Kings 18:16-46 reminds us there is one option for our worship: the true and living God. 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 18:16-46

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 Jeff Parrott. Do you suffer from FOBO? Now, chances are you've likely heard of FOMO, that frightening and precarious fear of missing out, when you realize that other people are having a lot of fun together without you. But alongside this social fear of missing out is the slightly less known, yet just as pervasive, fear. Fobo, the fear of better options. People living with Fobo become obsessive over researching and

choosing the best choice in an array of options. You can have a fear of better options when making innocuous purchases at the grocery store, like getting peanut butter. Fobo can show up when you're making plans on the calendar and can't choose between the long lineup of hotels to book for your trip. You might have Fobo when you're wavering between which plans. to make with which friends on any given weekend. And yes, of course, the pressure of FOBO is especially felt when making the more long-lasting decisions, like choosing a school for future education, a trajectory for your career, or a relationship worthy of your commitment. Now, here's the real difficult thing for people living with a fear of better options. It doesn't simply present you with the

challenging decision of choosing the right thing. It also creates the challenge. dynamic of getting stuck while trying to make a decision to begin with. The constant perseverating puts people into a pit of inaction and uncertainty about the commitments that shape their lives. In their fear of committing the choices, they actually are making a choice, the choice to remain stuck. Our biblical passage today strikes at a moment in time when Israel has to confront its own fear of better options. Yet the options facing them are far more significant than selecting peanut butter or finding a hotel for a trip. Israel is making a decision in the realm of allegiance.

It's an option they faced time and time again in the historical books and throughout the Bible overall. Will they worship and serve the true God, Yahweh, who not only created them but saved them and drew them into a mission to bless the world? or will they give their allegiance to the false gods among the surrounding nations? This ongoing fear of better allegiance among God's people keeps them stuck in the downward spiral of sin. In the second half of First Kings 18, that fear of better allegiance is confronted and conquered in one of the most memorable showdowns in the entire story of the Bible.

Now, as we get ready to approach God's word together, let's slow down and just ask for his grace, for his presence to be felt during our time. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the gift of life and for the gift of breath and for the gift of your word. We bring before you all of our experiences, all of who we are, our joys and our sorrows, our anxiety and our excitement, our calendars and our contingencies. Creator, would you meet us in this space? Jesus help us abide in you as we engage with your truth. Holy Spirit, we ask you to move in and through this time in First Kings.

And as we read your living word, may it read us and restore us to life with you. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, now let's set up some quick context before we dive into the passage for today. At this point in the history of God's people, they're facing some significant problems. First, there's a tangible physical problem of a famine in the land that's causing widespread fear and instability. The physical flourishing of God's people is in danger of collapse. And in the midst of this famine, Israel abandons its allegiance to the Lord to provide food and life for them. And instead, they choose to follow the Canaanite deity, but all.

Now, this creates a kind of spiritual famine for God's people that destroys the deepest flourishing, that they were meant to have with their Creator King. And our passage today picks up in verse 20 of 1 Kings 18 as the people of God gather at Mount Carmel for an epic throwdown. In some ways, this throwdown, this showdown between the true creator God and the false God but all is the thing that's at play here. Which God is real? Which one is really there? But in another way, this showdown is also between the Lord

and between his people who are stuck in the world. this captive fear of better allegiance. Who are they going to trust? Who do they really want to trust with their lives? That confrontation is at the forefront of Elijah's words to the people in verse 21. He says, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, if Yahweh is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. Here, Elijah is exposing Israel's fear of better allegiance. They're limping between two different opinions, two different allegiances, stuck in indecision. Who are they going to trust to provide flourishing and famine?

The God who made them and loves them? Or this Canaanite deity, this Canaanite god of fertility and power, Baal, whose name, by the way, means owner or master? That kind of gets to the point of this. The point is that God's people can only have one owner, one master. Who's it going to be? After Elijah's piercing question, the people respond with silence, a vivid picture of how stuck they really are in their indecision. But God works through Elijah to make this fork in the road a decisive moment revealing which master is worthy of their trust. Versus 22 through 24 set the

scene. So let's read those in full. Then Elijah said to them, I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left, but Baal has 450 prophets. Get two bowls for us. Let Baal's prophets choose one for themselves and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bowl and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your God and I will call on the name of the Lord. The God who answers by fire, he is God. Now this sets the stage for the showdown.

There are two potential masters to be called upon, to create fire on the altar. The one that creates the fire is the true master worthy of allegiance. That will be the God who can provide flourishing in the famine. Now the showdown here begins with a precarious start for the prophets of Ba'al. Let's pick up in verse 26 with their experience. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. Ba'al, answer us, they shall. shouted, but there was no response. No one answered, and they danced around the altar they had made.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. Shout louder, he said. Surely he is a God. Perhaps he's deep in thought or busy or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened. So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears as was their custom until their blood flowed. Such a vivid scene here. of Baal are so desperate that they're cutting themselves, harming themselves, just to get his attention. But it's all for nothing. There's a striking claim in verse 29. Midday passed and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there is no response. No one answered. No one paid attention. That's a huge statement. There's a theme of silence going on here

in this passage, Ba'al is exposed as an absentee deity. Even amidst the most vocal and violent cries for help from his hundreds of prophets, there is no response, no answer, no attention. There is nothing better with Baal because there's nothing there with him at all. At this moment in the narrative, Elijah doubles down in his confidence in the Lord and the creator in Yahweh. Versus 30 through 35 describe how he has four large jars filled with water and poured onto the altar three times over, soaking the wood and filling a trench that surrounds the altar. He's making this confident point about the power and the presence of the Lord.

Not only can he show up in this showdown, he can do it in a way that overcomes obvious obstacles. Even an altar, soaked in water, cannot withstand his power to create. Let's read through verses 36 to 39 to see the result. At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed, Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, the God of promise. Let it be known today that you are God and Israel, that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. answer me lord answer me so these people will know that you lord are god and that you are turning their hearts back again i love that statement verse 38 then the fire of the lord fell and burned up the sacrifice the wood the stones and the soil and also licked up the water in the trench when all the people saw this

they fell prostrate and cried the lord yahweh He is God. The Lord, he is God. That response from the people is the only fitting response in a moment like this. The Lord, the creator, the redeemer, the sustainer. He is God. He's not simply the better option to provide flourishing and the famine. He's the only option for life and breath and every good thing.

This extremely vivid and memorable moment from the historical books raises a question that cuts across the story of the Bible and cuts into our personal stories today. Are there ways that you, like me, are experiencing your own version of a fear of better allegiance? You're likely not tempted to trust in the Canaanite deity of Baal, but what else are you looking to putting your trust in to provide flourishing in your life? Maybe it's a person? maybe it's a status maybe it's even a good thing that's been turned into a godlike thing a dream job a dream school or a dream family that's become a functional deity that's become a master that's become an owner a thing that's become like a baal in your life the message of first kings 18 is that these gods are ultimately ineffective they are absent they are silent they cannot create fire on the

altar. They cannot provide flourishing in the famine. The Lord, Yahweh, the living God, is not simply the better of two options. He is the only option for life and breath. He's the one who creates fire on the altar. He's the one who is there and is not silent. He's the one who provides flourishing in the famine. Heavenly Father, as we continue into the plans you have for us today, we come before you with Elijah's plea in verse 37. Help us know that you, the Lord, that you are God. Turn our hearts back to you. Jesus, we praise you and we depend on you for the presence and power of your victory on the

cross and in your resurrection, where you not only show us that you are with us, but that you love us and you create life. Holy Spirit bind us together as your people. At the crossroads of allegiance, help us put our deepest trust in you, the one who creates flourishing in the famine. We pray this because of your grace, for your glory, and in your story. In Jesus' name, amen.