How to Recognize False Prophets | Historical Books | 2 Kings 4:38-44

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Ten Minute Bible Talks

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🗓️ 2 October 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

How can you recognize a false prophet? What's the role of God's prophets? How does Elisha point to Jesus? In today's episode, Patrick shares how 2 Kings 4:38-44 reminds us that Jesus, the God-man, is the ultimate prophet to obey. If you're listening on Spotify, tell us about yourself and where you're listening from! Read the Bible with us in 2025! This year, we’re exploring the Historical Books—Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, and 1 & 2 Kings. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 2 Kings 4:38-44

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life.
0:08.9	In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. How do you know if something is from the Lord?
0:15.9	How do you know when a prophetic word is wise and from God? And how do you know when it's actually idolatrous or evil or
0:22.8	misled? This was a pressing question in the time of the kings. Maybe it's not for you. Maybe you've
0:29.2	never even asked it. But back then, people were asking it because there were prophets of many
0:34.8	stripes claiming to speak on behalf of God. For example, we know from
0:39.9	archaeological digs that many people worshipped Yahweh alongside a female goddess called Asherah. In their
0:46.7	view, she was the divine consort of Yahweh. So imagine living in Israel. You have some prophets out
0:53.2	there saying that you can worship Yahweh alongside
0:56.1	a pantheon of gods. Many of those prophets were in positions of power. Many of them even served
1:02.1	the kings of Israel. But then you also had these prophets saying to worship Yahweh alone.
1:07.9	They claimed that the other gods were just so-called gods, that they weren't God at all.
1:13.6	And in many cases, these prophets, you said just worship Yahweh, no one else, well, they lived on the
1:18.9	fringes of society in caves or small communities. They often lacked institutional power.
1:26.1	So before we judge the Israelites too harshly for their idolatry,
1:31.0	we must realize that from their perspective, the true prophets looked like quacks and wildmen.
1:37.9	The false prophets, they looked like the real deal. So if you were an Israelite, how would you know who spoke truth? Well, the Bible
1:47.3	gives us two ways of determining false prophecy from true prophecy. The first way is this. Never trust a
1:54.5	prophet or a prophecy that denies God's word. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses described how to discern true and false prophecies
2:03.0	like this. This is Deuteronomy 13. If a prophet or one who foretells dreams appears among you
2:10.0	and announces to you a sign or a wonder, and if the sign or wonder spoken of takes place,
2:15.5	and the prophet says, let us follow other gods,
	...

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