Elijah’s hidden figures, rope-a-dope maneuver, and super bowl ring
Welcome to the House that Dignity Built. I’m Dr. Daintee Glover Jones, and I consider it an honor and a privilege to have a moment to speak with you for our February 5th message of our 2016-17 series called “The Sum of Peace”. For the months of January and February, our speakers will be on one accord by speaking and teaching about the power of protection and peace in our land. The title of today’s message is called “Elijah’s hidden figures, rope-a-dope maneuver, and super bowl ring”. May God add a blessing to this word, and may He use me to encourage, empower, and inspire towards peace. Amen.
In the 2016 smash hit movie, Hidden Figures, Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monae, and Octavia Spencer portray real life African American women (Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson) who were instrumental in launching the astronaut John Glenn into space. Who are the hidden figures in 1 Kings 18? Are they at all like the characters of Hidden Figures, who excelled in math, engineering, and computer science? No. The hidden figures of 1 Kings 18 are prophets who believed in the Lord during a time when the rulers of the land believed in other gods. Verse 4 reads, “While Jezebel was killing off the Lord’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water”. Now, Obadiah worked for King Ahab and Jezebel; however, he believed in the Lord, so he saved the lives of the remaining prophets who shared the same belief system. These men were the hidden figures during the time of Elijah.
Not only does this scripture mention hidden figures, it shows that the great boxer, Muhammad Ali, might have learned his style of ‘trash talk’ and rope-a-dope strategy from Prophet Elijah. How can one prove this assertion? Well, Ali is known for stating claims such as, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am”, or “If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize”. Centuries earlier, Elijah taunted Baal’s prophets by saying, “Shout louder!…Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened” (1 Kings 18:27). Can’t you just imagine the prophet dancing around his opponents as he trash talked about the lack of Baal’s power?
Also, Elijah showed a rope-a-dope strategy when he let the false prophets spend all day shouting to their god and slashing themselves with their swords until they finally made a sacrifice with a bull at evening time (1 Kings 18:28). A rope-a-dope strategy is what Ali used to tire out his opponent as he pretended to be trapped against the ropes. Elijah was by himself without the help of the 100 other prophets who were still in the caves while 450 of the false prophets worked on their sacrifice to their god. Elijah let them take all that day to appeal to Baal, but he quickly showed that them that they were part of a holy rope-a-dope maneuver because he wasn’t at all tired and neither was his god.
In addition to having rope-a-dope skills, Elijah had his own super bowl ring. Let me step back a bit to give some context for this assertion. February 5th is Super bowl 2017, and so many people are excited. The city of Houston is filled with football aficionados. Some have rented out their homes to out-of-towners. Some have paid thousands of dollars for seats that are close enough to touch the players. And then, there are those like me who come to the television set in time to see the Super Bowl half-time performances. I have always been attracted to music. My mother says that when I was a toddler, I would run from my room to the television to hear music from the commercials, and when the commercials ended, I would head back to my room. This year; however, I have been watching more football in order to obtain an understanding of why people love it, and what it could signify for them. When I think of the super bowl game, I can see that the prophet Elijah had his own form of a super bowl ring.
His ring was not like Roger Staubach’s, the Dallas Cowboy’s ring with a blue-‘blinged’ star, or Peyton Manning’s one with a bronco’s profile. His ring was a trench that he dug around the sacrificial altar that held a burning bull. The trench was a ring that was filled with water. Instead of diamonds in his ring, he placed twelve stones from the earth around the altar, one for each of the twelve tribes. His super bowl was a battle of a holy god against a demonic one. Since a bowl is defined as a contest that happens at the end of a season, one can argue that this is a bowl contest because God had just told Elijah that the drought season was coming to an end in verse 1 of 1 Kings 18. This bowl is super because the opponents are supernatural beings.
This was a super bowl of fire. Elijah built an altar of wood and doused it with water three times until the water filled the trench (verse 35). In verse 37, He prayed these words: “Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are god, and that you are turning their hearts back again”. In response to his prayer, “…the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench” (1 Kings 18:38).
Elijah had peace because the Lord had been faithful to him.
Elijah felt protected because the Lord has provided for him.
Elijah was obedient, boastful in the Lord, filled with faith, and prayerful. Don’t these attributes remind you of Jesus? Jesus was obedient to each of His father’s laws. He boasted in the Lord even when being taunted or tested. He ministered about faith as he performed miracles, and reminded people that their faith had healed them. He was so prayerful that He taught his followers how to pray for power, protection, and for peace. He was so merciful when He died for us as a precious sacrificial lamb.
Jones sings,
Now behold the lamb
The precious lamb of God
Born into sin that I may live again
The precious lamb of God
Ooh (repeat) (by Kirk Franklin)
So you see, there’s not much that is new under the sun. The holy book works as a point of origin for many of our cultural aspects of today. The truth of the word stands firm.
As we come to the end of this message, stay tuned for lecture notes on this coming Tuesday, February 7, at our website http://www.dignityshouse.org. I’m Dr. Daintee Glover Jones, and this has been a message from the House that Dignity Built. I bid you peace and protection.
Amen and ashe’.
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