I’ve continued reading from the books of Samuel, through into 2 Kings. There are so many passages that have stood out to me over the past few weeks, from disturbing stories to shocking ones to inspiring ones.
This morning I was struck by how so many of Jesus miracles are foreshadowed by the prophets. In 2 Kings 4 v 42 to 44 we’re told a man brings twenty loaves of barley bread and some ears of new corn to Elisha. Elisha tells his servant to give it to the hundred assembled prophets. The servant questions him saying, in effect, there’s no way this is going to feed so many men.
Elisha insists, saying “they will eat and have some left over.”
And they do.
A parallel story can be found in Matthew 14 where Jesus sees the need for 5,000 men to be fed. He gets by with just five loaves of bread and two fish and again there is food left over.
Both Elijah and Elisha raised people from the dead as did Jesus. Both Elijah and Elisha commanded the Jordan to dry up so they could walk through on dry land. Jesus simply walked on the water…
Elijah caused a drought, Jesus commanded a storm to calm.
Maybe there are more parallels, but these are a few that occurred to me after reading the initial passage today. What parallels do you see between the old and the new?