Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.

 

Thursday, October 19, 2023


Psalms 110; 111

2 Kings 4:1-17

Matthew 13:44-58


Observance: Henry Martyn, missionary and Bible translator in India and Persia (d. 1812)


Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.


We bring so little to the Lord. Consider the words of the prayer spoken by the priest over the Lord’s Table: even the bread and wine which we offer was first given to us by God, laboured over with human hands, only to be given back to God. We wake up in the morning: the first breath we consciously take is because God gives us the breath of life. As the Holy Spirit has gone before us, preparing the day ahead (also known as prevenient grace), all our work is what God has laid out for us to do.


The woman cries out to Elisha: she has a debt to pay, and all she has is a little oil. We cry out to God: our sin has put us in debt, the wages of which is death. All we have is a little faith.


Elisha responds to the woman with a two-fold miracle: first, there is enough oil to sell and pay the debt. God responded to us and paid the debt in His own body when He hung on the cross and cried out “It is finished”.


Then, something even more incredible happens in this woman’s life: in verse six, it literally reads “the oil stood up”. Jewish commentators interpret this to mean that the price of oil shot up in value – an economic miracle that meant not only did the woman have enough to save her family in their immediate crisis, but God was looking after their future as well. After Jesus laid in the tomb for three days, He rose again, and then after forty days, ascended into heaven. By this He secured for us not only the payment of the debt we owed in our sin, but drew all of us into His eternal and glorious life with Him.


This overflowing grace, this multiplication of free gifts from God, will never cease to be amazing. Truly this is the treasure buried in the field, a treasure of such value that everything else can be done away with – the love of God that surpasses all understanding. All we bring to God is our trust in His word (and is even this of our own doing, but a gift from God too?). Bring even that little trust to God, and He will increase it, not only the amount, but the value of it as well.

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