besquared.org Blog

Today’s Text

This is a healing story of course. It shows the power of Jesus over the world and how that power is expressed in just just cosmic but also personal ways. So lets assume that we all recognize that.

I notice two other things. This story serves an important narrative function for Luke. We have already seen that Jesus has an agenda that is larger than the nation of Israel. Here the elders come thinking they will need to convince Jesus that he should heal a non-Jew. Of course we know that Jesus is all about this. There is a name for this literary device when the readers know more than the characters. I forget what it is called. But anyway, the ignorance of the elders reminds us as readers of what we know.

Then at the end of he story, we see that Jesus takes this opportunity to re-clarify that the old criteria for inclusion has been abandoned, and we see the growing suggestion that faith is the new criteria for inclusion. In that sense, Jesus is suggesting that the blunt and abrupt faith of this man is a model for people. He is not on the edge of the new kingdom as the elders imagine. He is at the center.

That is a radical new thing.

Some of these implications carry over into the next pericope. So we will talk about them more.

See you soon,

-Ethan