Tag Archives: cross-cultural

Unexpected preparation

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I’ve been studying how God provides for his mission—sometimes surprising the recipient and the provider of that resource. There are few more surprising examples than one that Jesus comments on when trying to make a point to the Jewish leaders of his day:

There were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon (Luke 4:25-26).

As I studied the story he’s referring to, in 1 Kings 17, I had to set aside my Sunday School understanding of the story. Reading it through a traditional Western lens wasn’t much better, so I intentionally sought other perspectives—especially sources in Africa and Asia, as you can see in my reference list. Many are not from my denominational segment, and I admit I’m not entirely comfortable with all that these authors write. But their perspective helped challenge my assumptions and fill in what I might be missing from my cultural lens.

Let me start with a leadership principle: Leaders sometimes fail to think of those who live downstream from their decisions or actions. 1 Kings 17 is set in a larger context, as the end of chapter 16 begins to explain. Queen Jezebel and King Ahab are leading the people of Israel to worship a god from the nearby land of Sidon, the god of rain and harvest: Baal. God’s intent to expose Baal’s actual powerlessness leads to a political and religious battle between representatives of God and Baal. But rather than focusing on those in power, this passage zooms in on the story of two people caught downstream from that battle: Elijah, the unwitting victim of his own action, and a widow and mother caught in the crossfire. So the story selection itself lifts up the weak and marginalized, which was part of Jesus’ point as well.

If you are familiar with the prophet Elijah, you likely picture characteristics like moodiness, fears, inspiring faith, living in the moment, and a sense of theatre. But all the character development in this story takes place along the way; he gets no introduction. So I want to encourage you to look at the chapter with fresh eyes. The reason we know Elijah is a prophet is because of his name and his first words. For a Jewish reader, the story starts this way:

Now Yahweh-is-God… said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” 

Yes, Elijah’s name gives away his purpose. God intends to show that he is above all other gods by attacking the source of Baal’s power and identity; he will withhold rain. 

Immediately after this proclamation, God tells his man to run and hide, and then offers a series of provisions to get him through the next 42 months. God has an intentional season of preparation in mind. First, he offers the prophet a hiding spot by a brook (v5). There Elijah discovers a ready supply of food Jews were expressly forbidden to eat. The means of delivery, a raven, will make him unclean1 (Lev. 11:15), and the food any scavenger delivers would have unknown origins or preparation methods. So the first thing to consider: What did it take for a kosher Israelite to receive food from a scavenger?

For that matter, why would the God who gave the Law intentionally ask Elijah to defy the Law? He does the same with the apostle Peter in Acts 10, and that gives us a clue: God prepares both men ahead of time to minister in a foreign environment. They could never engage cross-culturally if they were sticklers who couldn’t even set foot in a Gentile house or eat their food.2 

There’s another lesson for Elijah during this period. He can’t look too far ahead, because relying on a brook during a drought is a losing proposition. He has put all of his trust in God, and God seems to have only anticipated some months of provision.3 Elijah watches the water level drop day by day, not knowing how God will meet his needs in the future. 

Having learned the life of a fugitive and daily dependence on God4, Elijah is now ready for the mission God is sending him on. That’s right: God’s goal isn’t just to meet Elijah’s needs while he waits for Jezebel and Ahab to soften; God intends to use him as a cross-cultural missionary, to meet the needs of someone else hurt by the drought and famine.

Only after the brook dries up does God reveal phase 2 of his plan. God’s solution for his prophet’s needs means sending Elijah:

  • Over 75 miles away, on the opposite fringe of Ahab’s kingdom, a journey either through a hostile kingdom or around it. No doubt fraught with danger.
  • Into the heart of Baal-worshiping Sidon, the land ruled by Jezebel’s father (16:31, 17:9). This location was no less safe for Elijah than staying in Israel.
  • To a widow preparing her last meal before giving up.

Can you feel the objections and questions rising in Elijah? Before experiencing and receiving God’s provision, he has to overcome his own mental blocks. 

Have you ever gone through a season that in retrospect, seems designed to break your previous patterns of understanding? God can use failure to do that. Or a cross-cultural clash. Or a crisis. It’s painful in the moment, but God’s plan for your next phase wouldn’t be possible without it. For Elijah, it’s going to get even more challenging.

References (intentionally seeking non-Western views)
1. Ruolngul, James R. (India) “The Wisdom of God in His Providence.” Independent Church of India. 11 November 2022. https://www.ici.net.in/the-wisdom-of-god-in-his-providence/
2. Compare the centurions in Mathew 8:8 and Acts 10:24-26, for example.
3. Seifert, Marlon. (Brazil) “Elijah and The Widow.” Sermon. 2 Oct 2025. https://prmarlon.com/blog-2/elijah-and-the-widow
4. van der Walt, J.S. (South Africa) “The recipient becoming a participant and the participant becoming a recipient: A strange encounter in 1 Kings 17 with a not so strange outcome.” Acta Theologica, University of the Free State. 10 December 2021. https://scielo.org.za/pdf/at/v41s32/13.pdf. 
Quoting Wyatt, Stephanie. (South Africa) “Jezebel, Elijah, and the Widow of Zarephath: A Ménage à Trois that Estranges the Holy and Makes the Holy the Strange.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. SAGE Publications. 15 May 2012. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309089212438020

    Elijah series:

    An overlapping circle model for mission

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    In my previous post, I introduced a way of seeing Acts 1:8 as a call to global Church partnership through the idea of overlapping circles. Like intersecting ripples that radiate across a pond from a rain storm, the location of one church’s “ends of the earth” might be another church’s “Judea,” and one church’s “Samaria” might be another’s “Jerusalem.”

    Jesus’ plan for mission could be summarized by four concurrent strategies:

    1. Local, indigenous evangelism. Local people have real advantages to being missional in their own context. Instinctively, they know the community and the language. Travel costs are reduced and they don’t need cross-cultural training. The problem is that they lack the ability to step back and notice things that would be obvious to an outsider. In other words, they have blind spots about their own language and culture. To expose those blind spots, it takes a visitor from another ring with fresh eyes showing up and asking dumb questions or breaking the culture and language down through analysis.

    2. National outreach. Likewise, everyone has a pretty good grasp of the surrounding and near culture, and some of the same savings in travel and training apply here as well. Certainly local citizens need less help to understand and relate to their culture than a foreigner would. However, there are some problems. They are vulnerable to absorbing the surrounding culture without question or noticing how it’s changing them, perhaps developing nearsightedness or even nationalistic tendencies. One specific trap is that they might gloss over differences like regional biases and flavours. Missions within their own country might still require cross-cultural skills to bridge gaps to their neighbors.

    3. Marginalized reconciliation. To my mind, Samaria refers to the groups anyone marginalizes or has trouble getting along with. These are the places where regional biases cross the line into prejudices, and generations of pain and even hatred may need to be unraveled. Ministry in these contexts therefore begins with truth-telling reconciliation. Only after addressing woundedness can individuals or churches be effective witnesses. The good news is that other nations and cultures can act as a neutral third party to set the table. In fact, others’ experiences can help churches with their tensions and struggles if they can learn from and honestly apply the others’ lessons to their own failures and successes.

    4. Expatriate missions. In order to reach every nation, some will need to leave their home country to go overseas. This is the costliest approach to missions, but we shouldn’t underestimate the way the gospel has spread and brought transformation around the world because of the faith and risks taken by foreign missionaries. To do it well requires a great deal of understanding in order to fully contextualize the gospel and Scriptures across cultural borders without adding our own cultural ideals and historical assumptions. We go in as servants to the local community or local Church. It also requires making long-term commitments and taking the long view in expectations and metrics.

    Bottom line: mission is most effective when the global Church comes together and works together—in local evangelism, national outreach, reconciliation and cross-cultural mission, but also mixing roles like prayer, funding, and other forms of resourcing—to participate together in God’s purposes to draw all people to himself.

    Acts 1:8 Series