Week 34 Luke 4
Quite a bit of Jesus’ activity took place in Galilee – the northern section of Palestine – and Matthew Mark & Luke all tell a story about Jesus going back to his hometown there. The stories are similar and sound like they’re describing the same event:
• the location is Nazareth
• the townspeople are surprised when they hear Jesus
• they’re skeptical – him being a local boy and all
• they take offense
• Jesus refers to the familiarity-breeds-contempt proverb
With Matthew & Mark the point seems to be Jesus’ reaction to being rejected – he accounts for it by quoting the proverbial saying: a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown.
Luke’s much longer account agrees but has another point to make. Jesus reminded the crowd of two famous OT stories:
1. Elijah’s miracle for the widow of Zarephath (a Sidonian)
2. Elisha’s miraculous cure of Naaman (a Syrian).
The thing worth noting in both cases is that Elijah & Elisha reached out past national borders to help foreign people. There were plenty of destitute people in Israel…but Elijah helped an alien. There were lepers galore in Israel…but Elisha cured a foreigner and an enemy.
So right at the front-end of Luke’s gospel there’s a subtle tip-off that the intensely nation-centric view of Israel in the OT is set for a reboot. From the look of it Israel wouldn’t be absolutely excluded. But soon enough they won’t be the exclusively privileged ones anymore.
Note: quote from Matthew 13:57 & Mark 6:4 (ESV)