Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, “My master has not accepted what Naaman the Aramean brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I’ll run after him and get something from him.”
Now Elijah the Tishbite was a prophet from the settlers in Gilead. “I serve the Lord, the God of Israel,” Elijah said to Ahab. “As surely as the Lord lives, no rain or dew will fall during the next few years unless I command it.”
The man of God was angry with him. “You should have struck five or six times!” Elisha said. “Then you would have struck Aram until you had completely destroyed it. But now you will defeat it only three times.”
So she went to Elisha, the man of God, at Mount Carmel. When he saw her coming from far away, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, there’s the Shunammite woman!
Gehazi went on ahead and laid the walking stick on the boy’s face, but the boy did not talk or move. Then Gehazi went back to meet Elisha. “The boy has not awakened,” he said.
“You must not want to take your neighbor’s house. You must not want his wife or his male or female slaves, or his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
The Lord says, “Family of Jacob, listen to me. You are called Israel, and you come from the family of Judah. You swear by the Lord’s name and praise the God of Israel, but you are not honest or sincere.
“But you only look for and think about what you can get dishonestly. You are even willing to kill innocent people to get it. You feel free to hurt people and to steal from them.”
He kept back part of the money for himself; his wife knew about this and agreed to it. But he brought the rest of the money and gave it to the apostles.
As God’s managers, overseers must not be guilty of doing wrong, being selfish, or becoming angry quickly. They must not drink too much wine, like to fight, or try to get rich by cheating others.
shepherd God’s flock, for whom you are responsible. Watch over them because you want to, not because you are forced. That is how God wants it. Do it because you are happy to serve, not because you want money.