Multiplication

Living the principle that when we add, God multiplies!

Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.   And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full.   So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out.  II Kings 4.3-5

I still remember when multiplication was first introduced to me in school.  With addition and subtraction firmly in my grasp, our third grade teacher opened the flood gates to this new-fangled math, complete with it's charts, tables to memorize and staggering patterns.  Life, as I knew it, would never be the same! I was now a multiplier!  I was a genius!  I could conquer the world!  Nothing could stop me!  I'm over-exaggerating the excitement, of course, (if you are catching my sarcasm), but it did change the game a bit when it came to my understanding and appreciation of numbers (so humor me).

But, in light of the above passage, I am still quite amazed by the power of multiplication.  In particular, with how God can take our simple faithfulness and obedience and multiply it far beyond what we could ever imagine!  Simply put, we are called to add to our faith (II Peter 1:5-7) and God takes our efforts (which don't add up to much) and multiplies them for his glory.  The woman from II Kings 4 was asked to do a simple thing - borrow as many empty vessels as possible, take the little bit of oil that she had and pour it out into those vessels until all of them were filled.  Consistently in scripture, oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit and the vessels picture the lives of people (empty until they are filled with the Spirit of God). But did you notice what God did in this story?  He did the real work - multiplication of the poured out oil! This is exactly what we are called to do.  Pour out the gift of the Holy Spirit through sharing the gospel and sharing God's goodness in our lives with others. This is the responsibility of every believer.