4:24-27
Jesus now comes to the nub of the matter. “No prophet is accepted in his hometown”. The words “isn’t this Joseph’s son” sound quite innocuous, but behind it was a deep rooted unbelief. Jesus points out that this reaction was quite common in the Bible. There was nothing unusual in the way the people reacted to Jesus, it was entirely in character. During the drought in Elijah’s time, Elijah was sent to the widow at Zarephath in Sidon. And the healing that Elisha carried out was for Naaman the Syrian. Such a problem in Israel, from the religious leaders down to the common people, was that they mistook their privileged position. Much of the Old Testament is about Israel’s sin and God’s judgement upon that sin, yet they could not see that there greatest need was to be forgiven for sin, and set free from sin. There are repeated examples in the Old Testament of God going to Gentile people, and of prophecies concerning the Gentiles. Jesus knew that the gospel would find greater reception among the Gentiles.
4:28-30
The people were not best pleased! They even tried to kill Him, but could not do so, Jesus simply walked right through them. We are used to reading about conflict between Jesus and he religious leaders, especially so in John’s gospel, but the “bad” reactions also came from the ordinary people as well. All of us are sinners and need the grace of God to change our hearts.
No comments:
Post a Comment