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Can You Take Up Your Pastor's Mantle? What The Bible Says · The Christian Podcast Community

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Can a pastor actually pass down their spiritual mantle?
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A lot of pastors use the example of Elijah and Elisha for the foundation of this teaching.
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When we examine the Scriptures, does it actually teach that your spiritual leaders can transfer their anointing or their authority to get a better idea of where all this comes from, and also to begin breaking this all down, we're
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going to start at first Kings, chapter 19.
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We're going to start around the 15th verse.
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But just to get some context, with Elijah, this is after he encountered Jezebel and he fled from her and he was hiding, he went out into the wilderness.
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Then he goes into a cave.
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And every time he went into these two places, God asked him, what are you doing here?
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And Elijah's response was the same.
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In verse 14, he says, I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the sons of Israel, have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and killed your prophets with sword, and I alone am
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left, and they seek my life to take it away.
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Elijah feeling like he's the only one who's still serving the Lord, like there's no one else that's still trying to hold to the covenant of God.
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But this is what God said to him.
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In verse 15, the Lord said to him, go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazel king over Aram, verse 16, and this is the key.
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And Jehu, the son of Nimshi, you shall anoint king over Israel.
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And Elisha, the son of Shafat of Abba Mohela, you shall anoint as prophet in your place.
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And so here you have.
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God is the one who chooses Elisha.
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This wasn't.
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Elisha was just this great servant to him who served alongside Elijah all this time.
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And now, you know, he's going to be the one to take on the mantle.
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He's earned it, in a sense, because in today's churches, the people who are trying to take on the, the mantle of their leader are people who are serving them and doing this and doing that and that.
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Pastor is looking for people who are serving him, who is waiting on him.
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Usually this kind of go into my study dealing with the armor bearers, like it's usually the armor bearer, right?
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Who's in a position, who's saying, hey, I'm, I'm.
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I'm Elijah, and I'm waiting for my leader to be caught up so I can take on that mantle, right?
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And get that spiritual blessing.
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But look here, Elisha wasn't even next to Elijah when he was going through all this, when Elijah was fleeing from Jezebel, Elisha wasn't there.
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That wasn't the servant that Elijah had with him.
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He had another servant that was with him who walked alongside him.
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Yet that person was not chosen.
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If we go back, right, just the beginning of the chapter, we're going to see how Elijah flees.
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Jezebel, we started verse one.
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Now, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword, his false prophets, right?
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Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, so may the gods do to me, and even more if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.
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And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and.
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And left his servant there.
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But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness.
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Okay, so he had his own servant.
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He had someone who was walking alongside him, serving him.
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Yet that wasn't the one who was chosen to take on his mantle.
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It was Elisha.
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But who chose Elisha?
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And what was Elisha doing at the time that Elijah met him?
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So it goes on.
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Verse 19.
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So he departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, while he was plowing with 12 pairs of oxen before him, and he with the 12th.
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And Elijah passed over to him and threw his mantle on him.
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So Elijah, minding his own business, not thinking about Elijah, not serving him, not waiting on him, he is working.
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Verse 20 says he left the oxen, this.
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So Elijah, Elisha, he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, please let me kiss my father and my mother.
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Then I will follow you.
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Even though Elisha wasn't with Elijah at the time, he understood what it meant.
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Somehow he knew what it meant when that mantle got thrown on him.
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And he knew he was supposed to follow Elijah.
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And so his request was that he just wanted to go and say goodbye.
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Let me go say goodbye, and I will follow you.
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And he said to him, go back again, for what have I done to you?
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So Elijah, I feel like Elijah.
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Elijah was a character, all right?
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If you.
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If you read through kings, if you see how Elijah was and Elisha, to, you know, to.
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Yeah, they were characters, all right.
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But Elijah was a character.
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And so he's like, hey, what have I done to you?
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Go do what you got to do.
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Because my thing is, God already told Elijah who was going to succeed him, right?
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God is once Again, God is the one who called Elisha, not the other way around.
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All right?
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Elijah didn't ask for this position.
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He didn't serve Elijah to be in position to have the mantle down.
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See, this is what's taught in these churches where there's a transfer of anointing, that you got to be in position.
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Elijah wasn't thinking about that.
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Elijah was working, working, tending to the herd.
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That's all.
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And then Elijah came to him, but it was because God had already called him, no one else.
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And keep in mind, as we stated before, Elijah had a servant.
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He had someone who was serving him, who was in position.
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Right?
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But he wasn't the one to succeed.
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It was Elisha by the choice of God, his sovereign choice.
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So he returned from following him and took the pair of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the implements of the oxen and gave it to the people and they ate.
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Then he arose and followed Elijah and ministered to him.
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So after he took care of his business, he got up and followed Elijah.
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And there you have it.
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And he served with Elijah for the rest of the time that Elijah was alive.
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Now, what I want you to get here from looking at the Bible, what the Bible describes is that this passing down of the mantle from the beginning, it was not because of Elisha's position.
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It wasn't because he was serving close to Elijah.
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It wasn't because that he was doing the work in ministry.
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It was none of that.
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All it was was God chose him.
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Elijah was discouraged.
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He was discouraged.
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He was done.
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He didn't want to be this prophet no more.
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This was a heavy burden for him to bear.
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And he was done.
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He just wanted to be done.
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He said he's been very zealous for the Lord.
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He see all what's going on and he is tired.
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And God said, you know what?
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Okay, all right.
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I got somebody who's going to take your place.
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I got somebody who's going to take your place.
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Go to Elisha.
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Elisha is going to take your place.
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And that's what happened.
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Now we're going to fast forward to Second Kings, chapter two.
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Guys, this is what the go to passage is for.
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The people who teach that they can transfer their anointing, they can pass down their mantle to their followers.
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Okay?
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It is Second Kings, chapter two.
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Now, I wish that people would take the time to start at first kings 19.
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But that's not the case.
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People start here.
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It's because they see Elisha, how he's been serving alongside Elijah all this Time, right?
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And he's close by his leader, his master.
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And so the relationship that Elisha has with Elijah is evident.
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And we want to draw from that.
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And that's what these leaders do.
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They draw from that and teaching their congregation that, hey, you be close, you serve, you get.
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You be close to your leader.
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And therefore, when that, hey, when that.
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When I'm.
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Hey, when I'm caught up, you get it, you get that double portion, okay?
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Forgetting the fact that it was all ready for Elisha to be the next major prophet, there was nothing anybody could have done to change what God had already spoken.
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Elisha.
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And if he would have stayed with his family and Elijah went on his way, he still would have been the next prophet to succeed him.
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That would have been the case.
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But it was for Elisha to pass it to him, to go to him, to make it be known.
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But if Elisha stayed with his family, he still would have been prophet.
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You got to understand this.
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It had nothing to do with what Elisha has done or it has anything to do with the choice of Elijah.
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It wasn't his choice.
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It was God's.
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But in these churches, the leaders, in my opinion, manipulates people into serving them because, hey, I want that anointing.
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I want that special anointing that you have, Pastor.
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So I'm going to serve close to you because I want to be near you when you're caught up.
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But let's look at the text to see what's really going on here, because I don't think the pastors who use this teaching are thinking about the implications.
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But let's look at it.
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Let's look at it.
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All right, so we're going to start at verse one.
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And it came about when the Lord was about to take up Elijah by a whirlwind to heaven, that Elijah went with Elisha from Gilgal.
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Elijah said to Elisha, stay here, please, for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel.
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But Elisha said, as the Lord lives and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.
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So they went down to Bethel.
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Now, right here is where these leaders use this.
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And they say, see, they didn't leave.
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Don't leave Elijah.
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Elisha stayed by his side.
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That's the.
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That's the servant's heart.
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To stay by his leader side.
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He didn't leave.
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The leader said, hey, he was just trying to test them.
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He was just trying to test him to see if he would go.
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No, because keep in mind, in chapter 19 of First Kings, Elijah told his servant to stay back and Guess what his servant did?
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He stayed back.
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He stayed back.
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So this is something that Elijah does.
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He wants to be alone.
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He didn't want Elisha to go with him, but Elisha said, no, I'm going with you.
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I'm going with you.
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And that was his choice.
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So they use it to say, well, hey, that's.
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That's how you have to be.
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You have to be where you're not going to want to leave your leader side.
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You know, you're going to just be.
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You want to be by your leader no matter what.
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You're going to stand by him as he live and as the Lord lives.
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You're not going to leave your leader's side.
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That's how you're going to get this mantle.
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That's how you're going to get this transfer.
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Because of what happens later.
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What happened with Elijah?
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Is this the case for your leader and yourself?
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Ask yourself the questions as we're reading through this text.
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Verse 3.
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Then the sons of the prophets who were at Bethel came to Elisha and said to him, do you know that the Lord will take away your master from over you today?
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And he said, yes, I know.
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Be still.
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Actually, yes, I know.
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Be quiet.
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And that happened a couple times.
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But let's jump to verse eight.
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Elijah took his mantle and folded it together and struck the waters.
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And they were divided here and there so that the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
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When they had crossed over, Elijah said to Elisha, ask what I shall do for you before I am taken from you?
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And Elisha said, please let a double portion of your spirit be upon me.
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And this is the thing once again in today's churches, this is what is used.
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You want that double portion of my anointing?
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You see the.
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You see the power of God in me.
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You see what I do.
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You see how God anoints me.
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Well, you want that double portion, don't you?
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Well, you got to follow close to me.
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You got to get that.
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And it going to come a time when I'm going to ask you, what shall I do for you?
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And this is what they using the churches, drawing from the example of Elijah and Elisha, thinking that these things are prescriptive when they're really descriptive.
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Elisha said, you have asked a hard thing.
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Nevertheless, if you see me when I am taken from you, it shall be so for you.
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But if not, it shall not be so.
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Now you have Elijah saying, hey, if you're with me when it happens, you can have a double portion.
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It's going to be granted to you if you have a double portion.
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But if not, then it won't be so.
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So that's the declaration of the prophet.
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That's the prophetic proclamation given from Elijah to Elijah.
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If you see me, what you have asked, you can receive.
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But we already see the heart of Elisha.
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He's already not wanting to stay behind, right?
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He's already shown Elijah that, hey, I'm going to follow wherever you go, I'm going with you, right?
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And so Elijah's saying this knowing that Elijah's gonna be there.
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He's gonna be there.
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And he's also saying that he already knows that he's going to succeed him as being the Prophet.
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Verse 11.
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As they were going along and talking, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire, which separated the two of them.
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And Elijah went up by a whirlwind to heaven.
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Elisha saw it and cried out, my father, My father.
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The chariots of Israel and his horsemen.
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And he saw Elijah no more.
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Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces.
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He also took up the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and returned and stood by the bank of the Jordan.
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He took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him and struck the waters and said, where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?
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And when he also had struck the waters, they were divided here and there, and.
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And Elisha crossed over.
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Elijah passed down his mantle to Elisha, Right?
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But who did Elisha pass his mantle down to?
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Because this is supposed to keep transferring, right?
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Isn't this the case when leaders use Elijah and Elisha as a prescription of how servant leadership is supposed to be?
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The spiritual covering is supposed to be.
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They're missing key elements of what scripture actually teaches.
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One, that God is one who chose Elisha from the beginning.
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Two, Elisha wasn't a servant of Elijah.
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And three, Elisha didn't pass down his mantle.
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It stopped with Elisha until God called his next prophet.
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That's the key.
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See, Elijah was caught up with a whirlwind, but Elisha dies and he also has a servant.
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But no mantle was passed down.
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Now, I want to take a brief moment and pivot to discuss the servant of Elisha Gehazi.
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Now, there's not much of mention of him in the Bible.
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However, he is listed as the servant of the man of God as seen here as in 2 Kings 4:12.
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Then he said to Kazi, his servant.
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Well, who is speaking here?
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This is Elisha.
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And we can do that by looking at the context.
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We go to chapter four.
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This is the full context.
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This is when Elisha is dealing with the Sunamite moment.
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He said, now there came a day when Elisha passed over Shunam where there was a prominent woman, and she persuaded him to eat food.
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And so it was, as often as he passed by, he turned in there to eat food.
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She said to her husband, behold, now I perceive that this is a holy man of God passing by us continually.
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Please let us make a little walled upper chamber, and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand.
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And it shall be when he comes to us that he can turn in there.
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One day he came there and turned into the upper chamber and rested.
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Then he said to Gehazi, his servant, call this Shunammite woman.
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And when he had called her, she stood before him.
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All right, so we see there that Gehazi is his servant.
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So he had his own servant.
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Elisha, the man of God who succeeded Elijah, has the mantle of Elijah, the double portion that he asked for of his spirit.
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But here is Gehazi, the servant of Elisha.
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Let's look at what happened at the passing of Elisha.
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Now this happens in Second Kings, chapter 13.
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Around the 14th verse, when Elisha became sick with an illness of which he was to die, Joash the king of Israel came down to him and wept over him and said, my father, my father, the chariots of Israel
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and his horsemen.
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Notice that this is the same thing that Elisha said to Elijah when he was caught up.
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Now you have Joash the king of Israel, saying the same thing to Elisha, not Gehazi, who's a servant, right, Joash, king of Israel.
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Elijah said to him, take a bow and arrow.
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So he took a bow and arrows.
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Then he said to the king of Israel, put your hand on the bow.
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And he put his hand on it.
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Then Elijah laid his hands on the king's hands.
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He said, open the window toward the east.
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And he opened it.
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Then Elijah said, shoot.
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And he shot.
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And he said, the Lord's arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Aram.
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For you will defeat the Arameans at Aphek until you have destroyed them.
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Then he said, take the arrows.
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And he took them.
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And he said to the king of Israel, strike the ground.
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And he struck it three times and stopped.
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So the man of God was angry with him and said, you should have struck it five or six times.
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Then you would have struck Aram until you would have destroyed it.
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But now you shall strike Aaron only three Times Elisha died and they buried him.
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Now the bands of the Moabites would invade the land in the spring of the year.
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That's it.
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That's it.
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We don't see any passing of the mantle.
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Gehazi wasn't even there.
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And Joash, who was there with Elijah at the time, he wasn't trying to get a double portion of any type of anointing.
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He's the king of Israel.
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He was receiving the last prophetic proclamation from Elijah.
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And notice that Elisha received the last prophetic proclamation from Elijah.
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From Elijah, it was you receive the door of portion that you asked for.
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If you're with me when you see me caught up.
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Well, when Elisha is on his deathbed, he is sick and ill.
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He gives his last prophetic proclamation to Joash, the king of Israel.
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And even then got on his nerves because he should only struck the thing three times when he should have did five or six.
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But no passing of a mantle.
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God didn't tell Elisha who was going to succeed him.
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Elisha wasn't hiding in a cave or going in the wilderness, or regretting the office or feeling the burden of the office.
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No, he served until he died.
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And after he died, you know, God called another prophet, right?
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That Elisha wasn't the last major prophet.
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In conclusion, I want you to see that when it comes to receiving this transfer of a spiritual anointing from your pastor, it's something that's not biblical, especially based on Elijah and Elisha.
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You can't use that.
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That's not prescriptive, that's descriptive.
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And we have to get away from because we see things mentioned in the Bible that we can automatically take that for ourselves.
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Guys, your pastor is not the modern day Elijah.
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And you serving alongside your leader, you're not the modern day Elisha.
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You're not.
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You are.
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If you are, you are a born again believer in Christ.
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Why isn't that enough?
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You have what they hoped for, what Elijah and what Elisha were hoping to see one day, what God was speaking to them about.
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You have it today.
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If you are born again, you're filled with the Holy Spirit.
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You don't need anyone else's spirit because you have God's spirit.
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So you may not be having a mantle, smacking the water with it and causing it to divide.
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You may not be raising the dead, right?
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You may not be calling she bears to go take out people calling you bald head.
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But guess what?
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You are filled with the Holy Spirit of promise.
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And if you are filled with the Holy Spirit of promise.
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Then you have whatever you need pertaining to life and godliness and the word of God.
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You got the word of God.
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Something that they didn't have the complete narrative of.
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They didn't have the complete canon.
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They didn't have it.
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You have it.
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They needed the prophets because they didn't have the word of God to carry with them every day.
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The prophets declared to them, thus says the Lord.
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But you have the word of God.
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You have.
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Thus says the Lord in your Bible.
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Jesus was our final prophet and something I'm going to bring up here.
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Jesus being our final prophet, being the chief cornerstone, didn't pass down mantle to the apostles and the apostles didn't pass down mantles to the other elders and pastors.
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Timothy served under Paul, but there's never been a mention of Paul passing down a mantle to Timothy, never a mention of John passing down a mantle, never a mention of Peter passing down a mantle.
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Why is it that our apostles and our Lord did not pass down mantles and neither did their followers look for a mantle to be passed down because they had the Old Testament Scriptures.
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Why is your leader telling you to look forward to these things?
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Some could do it out of good intentions, some could do it out of ignorance, and some can do it out of just wanting to be manipulative.
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It's not my job to determine what the motivation is.
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My job is to come on here and to give you the truth, to diagnose the error and give the truth from what the doctor prescribes.
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This teaching is unbiblical and should not be followed.
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Serve your pastors.
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Guys, I mentioned in my armor bearer video, your leaders are worthy of honor.
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They labor over the word of God.
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They're worthy of honor.
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But the kind of relationship that Elijah had, we said, as the Lord lives and as you live, I won't leave you.
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You don't have to have that particular relationship with your pastor.
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But if you do, that's fine.
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That's okay.
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Just know that it's not for you to get a double portion of his anointing because are you looking for your pastor to die?
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Are you waiting for them to get caught up?
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Because a lot of these churches, the caught up is that they're getting caught up to another spiritual place.
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And if you're close by your leader at the time he's gone up to his next level, then you get a double portion of his anointing.
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That's not what the Bible teaches.
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That is false.
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That is false.
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God calls us to serve one another.
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God calls us to love one another, not just your leader.
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I will challenge you with this.
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If you're going to have this type of love and relationship with your pastors, I'm going to challenge you to do that with your other brothers and sisters in Christ as well.
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Because that is what God calls us to not to think of ourselves, but to consider others as well.
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Let it be said of you how loving you are, how hospitable you are.
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Those gifts that God gives into the body of Christ, don't just use it for your pastor.
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Your pastor needs your prayers, your pastor needs your support.
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They need all those things.
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Yes, that is true.
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And you should give it, but not at the point where it becomes borderline idolatry.
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Because you're looking for something that the Bible never, never promises.
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And I'm sorry to beat that dead horse, but I'm really hoping that I'm speaking to somebody right now who is serving in a church like that and who's been thinking about these things.
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And probably you've been feeling discouraged because maybe you don't serve your leader like you ought to.
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Maybe you haven't been following behind everything like you ought to, right?
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Maybe because you're feeling like, man, I'm not going to be caught up with him.
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I'm not going to get that, that double portion.
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I'm hoping to help you to see that that double portion ain't promised to nobody.
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The only person that was given to was Elisha.
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And even then, only thing he received was what God had already promised to him, what God had already given to him by his sovereign choice.
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Your God in heaven is sovereign.
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He is in control.
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You don't choose for yourself.
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He has chosen it.
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And what God says will be, will be.
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As it was with Elisha, Elisha did not choose to follow Elijah.
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God chose Elisha to succeed Elijah.
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Remember, this world is full of errors.
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But the only thing that the doctor prescribes is truth.
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Blessings prescribe truth.
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We giving you what the doctor ordered.
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Jamal Bandy, apologist, the Lord's servant We undeserved, but Christ changed our mind frame.
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In a world full of errors, the only thing the doctor prescribes is truth.