Remember when you were a kid and you complained to your parents that other kids were being mean to you at school. “They are calling me names!” you tattled.
It’s likely that your parents advised, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Or your friends may have suggested another retort, “I am rubber, you are glue; whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!”
At any rate, once we become adults, most of us can handle the name calling in a mature manner.
Now, let’s look at a passage of scripture from the Old Testament. 2 Kings 2: 23-24.
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. “Go on up, you baldhead!” they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!” He turned around, looked at them, and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of the youths.”
Mauled by bears for simply calling a guy baldhead?
Did God really cause the bears to maul the kids because they merely insulted Elisha?
Does this punishment fit the “crime?”
What is the message or lesson here? If somebody makes fun of my thinning hair, I can call down a curse and God will have bears hurt them?
Poor, baldheaded prophet. Those youths were so mean to him.
Come on, Elisha…sticks and stones, man….sticks and stones.
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