Jesus: From Genesis to Revelation

Week 39 Discussion Guide: The Kingdom Divided

Opening

Begin by reciting this week’s memory verse together:

“And Elijah came near to all the people and said, ‘How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.’” – 1 Kings 18:21 (ESV)

Think about a time when you tried to keep two incompatible commitments – not because you intended to be dishonest, but because choosing one meant losing the other. What did the attempt to hold both cost you? The people on Mount Carmel said nothing in response to Elijah’s challenge. Their silence was its own answer. As we discuss this week, pay attention to the many forms that limping between two opinions can take – in ancient Israel and in your own life.

Review: The Big Picture

This week we watched the united monarchy shatter and the prophetic voice rise from the wreckage. Rehoboam’s arrogance – “My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” – split the kingdom in an afternoon. Jeroboam immediately erected golden calves at Dan and Bethel, using the exact words of Aaron’s golden calf in Exodus 32, institutionalizing syncretism as official state religion. A parade of kings followed – most faithless, a few faithful, all measured against David or Jeroboam. Then Elijah appeared, without genealogy or call narrative, and shut the sky for three years. On Mount Carmel he issued the challenge that defines the era: stop limping. Fire fell from heaven, consuming the sacrifice, the stones, the dust, and the water. The people fell on their faces. And the next day, the man who called down fire from heaven sat under a bush and asked to die. God’s response was not a rebuke but bread, sleep, and a whisper so quiet it could only be heard in absolute silence. The week ended with Ahab’s coveting of Naboth’s vineyard and his death by a “random” arrow – the sovereign verdict on a king who could never stop limping.

Discussion Questions

Day 1: The Kingdom Splits (1 Kings 12:1-33)

  1. The Counsel Rejected. Rehoboam’s older advisors tell him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them… then they will be your servants forever” (12:7). His younger friends counsel brutality. Why does Rehoboam listen to the younger advisors? What does this moment reveal about the danger of surrounding yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear? Where have you seen this pattern – in leadership, in the church, in your own life?

  2. Jeroboam’s Calves. Jeroboam’s golden calves at Dan and Bethel use the exact words of Exodus 32:4: “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” The repetition is verbatim and deliberate. Why does the narrator want us to hear the echo? What does it mean that Israel’s besetting sin is not inventing new idols but repeating old ones? What “golden calves” does the modern church keep rebuilding?

  3. Sovereignty in the Catastrophe. The narrator says the kingdom’s division was “a turn of affairs brought about by the LORD” (12:15) – the fulfillment of God’s judgment against Solomon’s idolatry. How do you reconcile God’s sovereignty over the catastrophe with human responsibility for the choices that caused it? Does knowing that God was at work in the division change the way you interpret painful disruptions in your own life?

Day 2: Prophets Against the Throne (1 Kings 13:1-14:31)

  1. The Man of God from Judah. An unnamed prophet confronts Jeroboam’s altar and predicts its destruction by name – a king called Josiah, three centuries before his birth (13:2). Yet this same prophet is deceived by an old prophet and dies for his disobedience. What does this strange, unsettling story teach about the relationship between receiving a word from God and obeying it consistently? Why does the prophet’s gift not protect him from his own failure?

  2. The Cost of Institutionalized Compromise. Jeroboam’s dynasty is condemned not for a single act of idolatry but for making compromise the permanent policy of the northern kingdom. Every subsequent king is measured by whether he “walked in the way of Jeroboam.” What happens to a community – a church, a family, an organization – when compromise is not a momentary lapse but an established pattern? How does institutionalized unfaithfulness differ from individual failure?

Day 3: The Parade of Kings (1 Kings 15:1-16:34)

  1. Measured Against David. Judah’s kings are evaluated by a single standard: “his heart was not wholly true to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (15:3). David – the adulterer, the murderer – remains the standard. Why? What made David’s heart the benchmark when his behavior was so deeply flawed? What does this tell us about what God ultimately values in a human life?

  2. The Few Who Are Faithful. In the litany of compromised kings, Asa stands out: he “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” (15:11) and removed the idols his father had made. What does it take to be faithful when the surrounding culture – and even your own family – has normalized unfaithfulness? What sustains the few who swim against the current?

Day 4: Elijah – Drought, Fire, and Whisper (1 Kings 17:1-19:21)

  1. “How Long Will You Limp?” The Hebrew pasach – “limping” – describes the unsteady gait of someone trying to walk two paths at once. Elijah’s challenge permits no neutrality: the LORD or Baal, but not both. Jesus will later intensify the same demand: “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). Where in your own life are you limping between two opinions – not rejecting God outright but adding other allegiances alongside him? What would it mean to stop limping?

  2. Twelve Stones, One People. Elijah rebuilds the LORD’s altar with twelve stones – one for each tribe – even though the kingdom has been divided for decades. The gesture is a theological statement: in God’s eyes, Israel is still one people under one covenant. Where do you see division in the body of Christ today that God still regards as one? What would it look like to rebuild with twelve stones rather than ten or two?

  3. The Prophet Under the Broom Tree. The day after calling down fire from heaven, Elijah sits under a bush and asks God to let him die: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life” (19:4). God does not rebuke him. He sends bread, water, and sleep. What does God’s response to Elijah’s despair teach us about how God meets us in exhaustion and depression? Why does God address the body before he addresses the soul?

Day 5: Ahab, Naboth, and the Arrow (1 Kings 20:1-22:53)

  1. Naboth’s Vineyard. Ahab covets Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth refuses to sell because it is his ancestral inheritance – the land the LORD gave his family. Jezebel arranges a judicial murder. What does this episode reveal about the nature of unchecked power? How does Naboth’s faithfulness to his inheritance – even at the cost of his life – challenge a culture that treats everything as negotiable and for sale?

  2. The “Random” Arrow. Ahab disguises himself in battle, but “a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate” (22:34). The narrator’s irony is deliberate: the arrow is random from the archer’s perspective but sovereign from God’s. How does this detail shape your understanding of God’s justice? Is there comfort in knowing that no disguise can hide a person from God’s verdict?

Synthesis

  1. The Voice in the Silence. At Horeb, God is not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. He is in the qol demamah daqqah – the thin whisper, the sound of almost-silence. The God who thundered at Sinai and sent fire on Carmel now speaks in a voice so quiet it requires absolute stillness to hear. What does this reveal about God’s character? Jesus, quoting Isaiah, is described as one who “will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets” (Matthew 12:19). How does the God of the whisper challenge your assumptions about how God speaks today?

  2. The Demand That Has Not Changed. Elijah’s question on Carmel – “If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him” – is the same question Jesus asks: “Who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29). Both demand a decision. Both refuse the middle ground. How do you answer – not in theory, but in the daily, practical choices of your life? Where does your answer in word diverge from your answer in action?

Going Deeper: Connections Across the Week

Application

Closing Prayer

Close your time together by praying through 1 Kings 18:21. Ask God to show you where you are limping – where your heart is divided, where your worship is syncretistic, where you have added convenient alternatives alongside the living God. Confess the tendency to keep options open rather than commit fully. Thank God that the fire on Carmel was not the last word – that after the fire came the whisper, and that the God who demands decision also feeds the prophet who collapses after making it. Pray for the courage to choose, the clarity to see what you are choosing between, and the perseverance to walk without limping toward the God who is God.

Looking Ahead

Next week we continue with the divided kingdom, following the prophets Elijah and Elisha as God’s voice speaks into an era of deepening unfaithfulness. Elijah’s departure – taken up in a chariot of fire – will pass the mantle to Elisha, who asks for a double portion of his spirit. The cycle of faithful prophets and faithless kings continues, but the prophetic word does not return empty. God has not abandoned his people. He has sent his voice ahead of him.