Readings from March 16th

[Mattp]

Why did the people rise up and try to throw Jesus off the cliff when he said these things? I assume there was something offensive about it?

Amen, I say to you,
no prophet is accepted in his own native place.
Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel
in the days of Elijah
when the sky was closed for three and a half years
and a severe famine spread over the entire land.
It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,
but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.
Again, there were many lepers in Israel
during the time of Elisha the prophet;
yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

 

[Matthew25]

Hi Mattp, welcome.

You need to go back to the rest of the story. Jesus has just read of the prophet Isaiah.

“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,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

He was threatened because he announced that “today these scriptures are fulfilled in your hearing”. This announced him as the Messiah. Blasphemy to the Jewish people.

 

[Bruce_Killian]

Jesus called attention to God working in and through gentiles. Israel was the children or people of the promise, so they viewed themselves as first in God’s eyes. They were looking for the Messiah so it is not that Jesus pointed to Himself as fulfilling a scripture about the Messiah. They felt that God should and would bless them first. Jesus called attention to exceptions which angered them.

 

[JGD]

Here is a link to Luke 4 in the Cornelius Lapide Commentary which gives the thoughts of several of the early Church fathers on these verses. You’ll need to scroll down about 1/3 of the way to verse 28.

 

[Gorgias]

He was threatened because he announced that “today these scriptures are fulfilled in your hearing”. This announced him as the Messiah. Blasphemy to the Jewish people.

I’ve always understood this differently. They’re looking for Jesus to perform miracles in Nazareth, but he’s telling them “no!”. He’s quoting examples in the Bible of instances in which foreigners were healed and Jews were not. He literally just told them that he has come to proclaim good news and to heal, and then he doesn’t heal them (because of their lack of faith).

At this news, they rise up to throw him off a cliff. They’re angry at his refusal to act, not his proclamation of the arrival of the messiah, I’d assert.

(Edited to add: I just scrolled and saw that Bruce wrote the same thing!)