The story about Naaman, the Aramean general, always seemed odd to me. It didn’t really attract my attention other than to pique my curiosity a bit, until I focused on Luke 4, describing how Jesus announced his public ministry in his hometown synagogue.
Because Jesus referenced the healing of Naaman in the context of announcing his own purpose, the story takes on new significance. The story is not just an oddity. It should command our attention for the purpose for which Jesus referenced it – related to his earthly ministry. (Luke 4:16-30)
I have written about Jesus mentioning the healing of the pagan general in Luke 4 many times since 2020 when I first became intrigued with it. The mere mention of the healing in connection with the ministry of Jesus is intriguing. The intrigue is bolstered by the reaction of his hometown synagogue – they tried to march him out to a cliff and throw him to his death! (vv.28-30)
Until recently, I had spent much time reading the story itself. The fact that Naaman was an Aramean (Syrian) general, that Jesus made a peculiar point of saying Elisha could have gone to any one in Israel with leprosy and healed them, but he healed the foreign general, seemed to stand on its own. In New Testament theology, we would say that Jesus was tipping God’s hand about salvation for the Gentiles.
We might simply check the theological box and move on, but I think there is a deeper message here.
If we put ourselves in the shoes of those first-century Jews hearing the story, it takes on new significance. They and their ancestors had been God’s people for roughly 2000 years since Abraham and 1500 years since Moses. Their outrage at the suggestion of Jesus that he might bypass God’s people and go to the Gentiles is understandable.
Scripture is rich and the story itself is worth examining in more detail. It appears in 2 Kings 5. The details of the story add more nuance in the context of Luke 4 that has application for us today. It deepens and expands the significance of Jesus mentioning it in his home town synagogue when he announced his public ministry.
The contrast between the ministries of Elijah and Elisha provides insight that carries into the coming of the Messiah, the ministry of Jesus, and the New Covenant. The contrast between Elijah and Elisha is a contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. It is a contrast between an emphasis on the judgment of God and an emphasis on the grace of God and salvation.
In my ignorance, Elijah previously stood out more to me than Elisha, even though Elisha famously asked for and received a double portion of the spirit Elijah had. The spirit of Elijah passes to Elisha as seen in the miracles each of them performs. Scholars often highlight the fourteen miracles performed by Elisha versus the seven miracles performed by Elijah as an example of the double portion, but the differences between Elijah and Elisha go much deeper than that.
The character of the miracles is different. This is something I might not have noticed but for a focus on the details in the story of Elijah over the last few years. Those details led me to see some lessons from the story of Elijah that do not stand out at first blush.
Elijah was an oppositional prophet. He was the antagonist to Ahab and Jezebel. He challenged the prophets of Baal and smoked them in a fiery display of God’s power over the impotent idol (Baal) that Ahab and Jezebel worshipped.
Elijah had all the prophets of Baal slaughtered, but Jezebel was not impressed. She called for Elijah’s head, and he fled in fear. He sulked in self-absorbed pity. He complained to God that he was the only one who was faithful, and he seemed to come close to finding fault even with God for the anti-climactic outcome.
When God tried to show Elijah that God was not in great displays of power like wind, fire, and earthquake, Elijah seemed incapable or unwilling to acknowledge what God was saying. Twice God asked why Elijah ran away to Mount Sinai. Twice Elijah gave God the exact same answer.
Elijah protested to God that he had been zealous, and he insisted that he, alone, was faithful to God in all of Israel…. But clearly, he was not alone. Multiple times the text tells us that Obadiah was faithful; he saved 100 prophets from Jezebel’s decree of capital punishment; and God found 7000 people left who had not bowed to Baal.
Elijah seemed not just disappointed, but upset (with God?) that judgment had not rained down on Ahab and Jezebel and all of Israel. It wasn’t that judgment didn’t loom over their heads; it was that God controls the timing – not Elijah.
God told Elijah to go back and anoint Hazael king of Aram and Jehu king of Israel and to pass his mantle to Elisha. Elijah passed the mantle to Elisha but he never followed through with the other instructions God gave him.
Elijah continued in ministry even after he passed his mantle to Elisha, but he seems to take a back seat to other prophets, and he did not change his attitude. God told him to meet the messengers of the King of Israel to deliver a message. After they delivered the message to the king, the king sent them back to summon Elijah, but he smoked them by calling down fire. The king sent another envoy of messengers, and Elijah smoked them with fire also – killing 50 people at a time.
Though God told Elijah to confront the king’s messengers with his own message, the text is conspicuously silent about Elijah calling down fire on the envoys who came to summon him. The King sent a third group of messengers to summon Elijah, and this time God told him to go with them.
Now that I have spent some time meditating on the stories of the two prophets, Elijah stands out for his brashness, but Elisha stands out as the prophet who is more true to who God is. He is the one whose ministry is more characteristic of God, and his ministry stands out in the way way it bridges the narrative arc of Scripture between Old Covenant and New Covenant, from a focus on Abraham’s descendants to all the nations, from the Law of Moses to the Law of grace, love and Christ.
Elisha signals the change from the old covenant to the new covenant. Elisha points the the direction that the arc and sweep of Scripture will take us. Elisha is the link in this point in the narrative to God’s ultimate plans and purposes in the world.
For at least 7 years, I have been drawn to the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus gives perhaps the earliest description of his public ministry. Jesus introduced his intentions by reading a select passage from the Isaiah scroll, rolled it up, sat down, and announced, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21) These were the words that he read:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Luke 4:18-19
Immediately after this announcement, Jesus began demonstrating in Galilee what he came to do – teaching with authority (Luke 4:31-32); setting people free from demonic spirits (Luke 4:33-35); and healing the sick (Luke 4:36-40). At the end of this flurry of divine action, Jesus said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:43) In this statement, he clarified that the good news he came to proclaim is the coming of the “kingdom of God.”
This short passage from Isaiah 61 that recalls the Year of the Lord’s Favor (Jubilee) focuses our attention back on Leviticus 25, which is the framework for the communal life God desired His people to embrace when they settled into the land of God’s promise.
The context of these words in Isaiah 61 remind of us the significance of these words that defined the ministry of Jesus and the Jubilee principles that characterized his life and message. When Jesus quoted from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue, he was incorporating God’s great plan and purpose into the announcement of his ministry.
Isaiah 61 cannot be understood apart from Isaiah 59, which recalls the iniquities of the people that separated them from God and the blood that was on their hands. (Is. 59:1-2) They abandoned the way of peace and justice. (Is 59:8-9) They walked in darkness. (Is. 59:10) No one was available to intervene. (Is. 59:15-16), so God said He would step in (Is. 59:17) with a Redeemer for those who would repent. (Is. 59:20)
Isaiah 60 announces God’s plan of redemption: “arise, shine, for your light has come.” It presages that “nations will come to your light.” (Is 60:1:3) Isaiah 60:4-16 announces God’s intention that all the nations will come to Israel “bringing your [Israel’s] children from afar” (v.9), and “foreigners will rebuild your walls” (v.10) , and “you will drink the milk of nations and be nursed….” (v.16) Isaiah 60:17-22 promises peace, no more violence, everlasting light, and righteousness.
In that context, Jesus read the opening verses of Isaiah 61 – announcing that the time had come for proclaiming good news to the poor, binding up the brokenhearted, proclaiming freedom to captives and release from darkness for prisoners, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favor.
Significantly, the Jesus left out the concluding words: “and the day of vengeance of our God….”
In doing that, Jesus signaled that he did not come for judgment. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17) Jesus came to proclaim the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God predicted in Isaiah 61 – healing, freedom, release, and blessing – because God’s people had failed to live into and live up to the plan God had for them.
The words Jesus read culminate with a proclamation of the “year of the Lord’s favor” from Leviticus 25. This is where it gets interesting to me. I have not focused on this part of what Jesus said before, so let’s dive in.
The Book of Jonah is an important story, but not for its historical significance. Whether the story is historical fact is not what’s important. If that is our only focus as we read and think about Jonah, we are missing the point.
Jonah is the story of a reluctant prophet. When God commands him to go to the wicked City of Nineveh and warn them to repent to avoid judgment, Jonah heads the opposite direction by ship. God stirs up a great storm, and Jonah is swallowed by a whale. After three days, Jonah prays and submits to God, and the whale vomits him up on the shoreline.
Unable to run from God’s command, Jonah heads off to Nineveh where he delivers the warning. The wicked people of Nineveh repent, and God relents from the judgment He planned, but God’s mercy on Nineveh causes Jonah to be bitterly disappointed and angry.
Jonah was disappointed because Jonah wanted what Jonah wanted. He didn’t want what God desired. He was focused on what he thought should happen. He thought Nineveh should pay the price for its wickedness, but God had different plans.
God was patient with him and went to great lengths to show Jonah His heart for a people Jonah despised. We might credit Jonah for his (reluctant) obedience, but Jonah doesn’t understand God’s sovereignty, mercy, and compassion, even at the end.
God’s determination to spare the people of Nineveh “seemed very wrong” to him, “and he became angry.” (Jonah 4:1) If it were up to Jonah, the people of Nineveh would have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. Jonah identified with God’s judgment, but he didn’t understand God’s compassion.
Jonah reminds me of Elijah, who was known for his boundless faith in (and preoccupation with) God’s power. Elijah is known for calling down fire to consume a sacrificial bull that he soaked with water, showing up the false profits who could not get their gods to consume a dry sacrifice. When Elijah exposed them for the false prophets they were, he agitated the crowd to march the false prophets down the mountain where Elijah slaughtered them.
I imagine Elijah and Jonah would have gotten along well…. Or maybe not. Though they are much alike, Elijah was a loner, and perhaps Jonah was also. Elijah complained that he was the last of God’s prophets, though 100 of God’s prophets remained in the land. Perhaps, Elijah thought he was too good for them.
Jonah and Elijah wanted to see God’s judgment. They wanted the people to burn for their wickedness. They were personally affronted when God showed patience and reluctance to rain judgment down on the people who deserved it.
Despite the awesome display of God’s awesome power summoned by Elijah’s undaunting faith before King Ahab and his prophets, the wicked Queen, Jezebel, was not moved. She ordered Elijah to be arrested and killed on sight.
When Elijah heard her decree, he fled into the desert, where he sat down under a broom tree in bitter disappointment and anger at the way things turned out.
Couldn’t Elijah call fire down on Ahab and Jezebel? Why didn’t he do it? Elijah had just slaughtered all the King’s prophets after showing them up with fire from the heavens. When Jezebel wasn’t phased, Elijah fled in fear.
Elijah may have run in a moment of fear, but his fear turned to anger and disappointment, like Jonah. Both of them ended up under a tree that provided them shade. God ministered to both of them in their dejected state.
Elijah kept going south, all the way to the mountain where God met Moses on the Sinai Peninsula. In the cave where he took shelter, God came to him, asking, “Elijah, why are you here?” Then, Elijah let God have the full weight of his disappointment and anger:
“I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”
1 Kings 19:10
But, God was patient. He told Elijah to stand at the mouth of the cave so the Lord can “pass by”. “A strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks” came, but the Lord wasn’t in the wind. Then an earthquake came, but the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. After the earthquake, came a fire, but the Lord wasn’t in the fire. (1 Kings 19:11-12)
Finally, “a light silent sound” came, and the Lord said to Elijah, again, “Why are you here?” God was not in the mighty displays of wind, earthquake, and fire. God was in a still, small voice.
Yet still, Elijah was fixated on his own disappointment and anger and responded exactly as he did before:
“I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, but the Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have destroyed your altars and murdered your prophets by the sword. I alone remain, and they seek to take my life.”
1 Kings 19:14
Elijah’s disappointment, anger, and indignation turned toward God. “They destroyed your alters and murdered your prophets!” Elijah said. It’s everyone’s fault but his. It’s ultimately God’s fault, right? Because Elijah knew what God could do. God could have destroyed Ahab and Jezebel in a ball of fire, but He didn’t.
In similar fashion, God asked Jonah twice, “Why are you angry?” (Jonah 4:1 and 4:9) Twice Jonah responds exactly the same way: “It is better for me to die!” (Jonah 4:3 and 4:8) It’s the same pattern for Elijah and Jonah.
At the end of Jonah, God asks the rhetorical question, “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh?” But, Jonah doesn’t respond. (Jonah 4:10) Jonah didn’t want God’s compassion for Nineveh. He wanted them to burn.
We don’t know what became of Jonah, but we do learn the rest of the story of Elijah. God sends him back to Damascus to anoint a new King and pass his prophetic torch to Elisha. (1 Kings 19:15-18) When Elijah pronounced God’s judgment on the wicked King Ahab, the King humbled himself and repented, and God spared him (just like Nineveh). (1 Kings 21:27-29)
Eventually, Ahab’s son, Ahaziah, took over, and Elijah continued with his righteous taunts. Ahaziah sent fifty men to summon Elijah before him, and Elijah called down fire to destroy them. (2 Kings 1:10) Ahaziah sent another company of fifty men to summon Elijah, and Elijah called down fire again to destroy them. “(2 Kings 1:12)
Elijah is the prophet who called down fire. He was a man of great faith. He had great confidence in God. He was a firebrand, himself, in his sense of God’s righteousness and communication of God’s righteousness to the false prophets, the unrighteous and wicked leaders of his time, and even on the remnant of God’s prophets who escaped the sword only hid away in a cave.
Jonah had similar confidence in God. After the people of Nineveh repented and God relented, Jonah said, “I knew it! That’s what I said! That’s why I went the other way, because they don’t deserve it! Just take my life.” (Jonah 4:2-3)(my paraphrase)
Jonah and Elijah are held out in the Bible as God’s prophets and men of great faith, but they are flawed. They are self-righteous. They have a hard edge. The desire judgment, and they don’t love as God loves.
Their disappointment and anger stems from their desire to see the wicked people destroyed. God’s desire is ever to save, to have compassion, and for people to repent so God can show mercy. God’s great desire is not to judge, but to be gracious:
Truly, the Lord is waiting to be gracious to you, truly, he shall rise to show you mercy; For the Lord is a God of justice: happy are all who wait for him!
(Isaiah 30:18) God’s justice is ultimately to be gracious and to show mercy. Justice and mercy are not divorced from each other; they are intertwined. His judgment is meant to bring us to repentance so that He can have mercy on us.
When we have our act together and have great faith, our temptation is to desire judgment for its own sake, but God is not like that. Jesus, who was the exact representation of God in the flesh, shows us God’s heart when his disciples returned from traveling the countryside to tell people about the kingdom. The disciples wanted to call down fire on the people who rejected them and refused to welcome them, and Jesus rebuked them.
When we find ourselves disappointed and angry at a world full of sinners who deserve judgment, we need to think of Elijah and Jonah and the counterexample of God in dealing with Nineveh and Jesus in rebuking the disciples. God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” (Exodus 34:6-7) God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. (Ezekiel 18:23 and 33:11)
We can laud Elijah and even Jonah for their faith and (ultimately) their obedience, but we need to recognize that they didn’t understand God’s heart of compassion for people. They didn’t understand God’s desire for mercy and grace. God ultimately wants more than our raw belief and cold obedience; He desires “mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6 and Matthew 9:13)
God wants out hearts, and He wants us to see the world as He sees it. He wants us to love even our enemies (the wicked) and to sacrifice ourselves for the good of others as He sacrificed Himself for us in Christ. Thus, Jesus emphasized forgiving as we have been forgiven and showing mercy as God has shown mercy to us:
“Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”
(James 2:13) When we are tempted to be judgmental and righteous, we need to remember that God has been gracious to us, and He desires – above all – to be gracious to the world. When we are bitter and angry at the sin in the world, we need to remember that Jesus came into the world not to condemn it, but to save it, just he saved us.
I am writing today about something I have written before, but I think it bears repeating. I have not stopped thinking about it since these words from Paul virtually leapt off the page when I read them a few years ago:
“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”
1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (emphasis added)
How many times had I glossed over those words without really seeing them? Did he really mean that? We are not to judge people outside the church? Isn’t that exactly what we do?
I have kept going back to Paul’s admonition often since that day. I didn’t see it right away, but I eventually noticed that Paul echoed the very words of Jesus in that statement: Jesus said,
“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.”
JOhn 12:47-48 (emphasis added)
Elsewhere, Jesus said, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)
If Jesus bids us to follow him, should we not adopt the same posture toward the world? It is the same posture Paul admonished the Corinthians to model toward those outside the Church: Do not judge them because they have a judge! (And it isn’t us!)
Paul
1 Corinthians 5:12-13
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church?
God will judge those outside
Jesus
John 12:47-48
I have not come to judge the world.
There is a judge for the one who rejects me.
When adopt the posture Jesus had toward the world and the posture Paul tells the church to adopt, we are freed up from the responsibility to judge so that we can love. Even if the world goes its own way, which it will, we can love the world. Even if the world hates us, we can still love the world.
We are free to preach good news to the poor, to give sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the favor of God to all who will receive Him. This was how Jesus characterized what he came to do when he read from the Isaiah scroll in his hometown synagogue, sat down, and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4: 21) This is our ministry also, if we will follow him.
We don’t have to be in the business of judging the world because the world has a Judge. We can leave that to God. In fact, it isn’t an option. It is God’s rightful place to judge, and it isn’t our place.
That means it isn’t up to us to make the world conform to the law of God. We are not responsible to require godly behavior and biblical morality from the world, and it isn’t our business to do that.
Rather, we are to love the world, though people in the world are yet sinners. We can do that because Jesus loved us and died for us while we were yet sinners.
“Are you not to judge those inside?” says Paul. The world has not subscribed to Jesus, but we have. Judgment begins in the house of God because Jesus counts on us to be the light and salt of the world. If we lose our flavor, we cannot be who God calls us to be.
Who among us were able to conform to the Law before Jesus? None of us! Which is why we needed him. We are saved by grace through faith, and not by anything we could do. The world, likewise, cannot conform to God’s law apart from Jesus. This is why the world needs a Savior: because it has a Judge.
Why, then, would we try to impose godly behavior and biblical morality on the world through human, legal means when the world is incapable of conforming to God’s law apart from Jesus?
Jesus sends us into the world as his ambassadors just as he came into the world: not to judge the world, because the world already has a judge. He sends us out as ambassadors not to condemn the world, but but to save it.
If we can adopt this posture toward the world that Jesus adopted and that Paul admonished, we can be unified in that purpose and calling of Jesus even in our own differences about how the world ought to operate. We can love each other as fellow ambassadors of Christ and give each other grace in the areas in which we disagree.
Our primary focus should be the purpose and focus of Jesus – not to condemn the world, but to save it by proclaiming good news to the poor, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the favor of God’s love toward all who will receive Him. Everything else fades in light of that purpose and calling.
Jesus said, the world will know us by our love for each other. (John 13:35) Let us so live, then, that the world knows us for our love for one another and our love for the world that Jesus loved!
Navigating by Faith 