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Enjoy Life, Enjoy God


Dale Patterson

LOCAL GODS

February 3, 2010

21st century wisdom tells us that the gods we worship are local; they reflect who we are, and the common value of tolerance demands we respect each person's local gods.

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Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, "Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel."
- 2 Kings 5:15 TNIV
 

 

Naaman believed in his local gods as well, even though he suffered a lifetime with leprosy. Yet friends told him of a man of God, Elisha, one from a different locale, and who served a different god, that he could heal Naaman's leprosy, if he would but wash seven times in the Jordan River. "Jordan River? Why not my own river, why that foreign river, and the foreign God?" But Naaman finally relents, and is washed per Elisha's instructions in the Jordan, and is healed. Not only does Naaman live free of leprosy, he casts aside his local gods, and worships the one true God.

Yes, Naaman is healed by an act of a merciful God, not a local creation. And he learns a new theology: "That there is no God in all the world except in Israel." Truly, the Lord is one.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson