Christian Perspective

- Keith Goudie -


When Jesus was on this earth, Jewish men thanked God in prayer that they were not born “a leper, a woman or a Gentile.” This was the thinking of those Jesus upset in Nazareth when He rejected that prayer.

He said “Listen to me: it is true that there were many widows in Israel during the time of Elijah when for three and a half years there was no rain and a severe famine spread. But Elijah was not sent to anyone in Israel, but only to a widow living in the Phoenician town of Zarephath. Secondly, in the time of Elisha there were many lepers in Israel, but not one of them was healed, only Naaman the Syrian.”

What was Jesus telling them? This - that God cares for women, for lepers and for Gentiles. One commentator says shrewdly “Jesus was cancelling out their daily prayers.”

Jesus was telling them, and us, not to focus our prayers on our own kind but on all around us because God cares for everyone, everywhere.