The first time Jesus cured anyone.

John 4.46-54.

While Jesus and his students were staying in Cana (where they didn’t respect him as a prophet, so he didn’t have to deal with people seeking “Jesus the Prophet” all day), a certain royal showed up. Probably specifically to seek him out: Someone did respect Jesus the Prophet.

John 4.46 KWL

46 Jesus goes again to Cana of Galilee,

where he made the water wine.

A certain royal is there,

whose son in Capharnaum is sick.

John calls him a βασιλικὸς/vasilikós, “a royal.” Not a king, but someone in the royal family; debatably a servant in the royal household, but that’s far less likely. Could be someone who might actually become king himself someday, but if that’s so you’d think John woulda named names.

Both John Wycliffe and the Geneva Bible translated vasilikós as “little king.” But for some reason the King James translated it “nobleman,” and that concept has kinda stuck in translators’ heads ever since. You get “royal official” (Amplified, CSB, NASB, NET, NIV, NRSV), “government official” (ISV, GNB, and NLT), plain ’ol “official” (ESV), and of course “nobleman” (NKJV, MEV).

Regardless, he was a big deal—and word leaked to him Jesus might be the sort of person who could do miracles. And when you’re desperate, you’ll jump all over that sort of rumor. So this royal saddled up, rode 30 kilometers across the province, and called upon some obscure Nazarene rabbi.

John 4.47 KWL

Once this royal heard

Jesus comes from Judea to the Galilee,

he goes to Jesus

and asks whether Jesus might come down

and cure his son,

for he’s about to die.

Prophets get no respect back home.

John 4.43-45.

Right after Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans of Sykhár, sharing the gospel of God’s kingdom with ’em, he needed a break. So he returned to his homeland—the western side of the Roman province of the Galilee. More precisely Cana (today’s Kfar Kanna), 4 kilometers north of Nazareth, where he’d done the water-to-wine thingy.

Time to quote the gospel.

John 4.43-45 KWL

43 After the two days, Jesus comes out of Samaria,

and he goes into the Galilee.

44 For Jesus himself testifies that prophets,

in their own homeland, have no respect.

45 So when Jesus comes to the Galilee,

the Galileans receive him:

They saw everything he did in Jerusalem at the festival,

for they likewise went to the festival.

The part which tends to throw us Christians is Jesus’s comment “that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Jn 4.44 KJV Because in the synoptic gospels, Jesus says it like it’s a bad thing—

Mark 6.4 KWL

Jesus tells them this:

“A prophet isn’t really disrespected

till he’s in his homeland,

and with his relatives,

and in his own home.”

 

Matthew 13.57 KWL

They’re offended by him, and Jesus tells them,

“A prophet isn’t really disrespected

till he’s in his homeland,

and in his own home.”

 

Luke 4.24 KWL

Jesus says, “Amen! I promise you this:

A prophet never gets approval in his homeland.”

—because in those contexts, it was a bad thing. In each of these gospels, Jesus was teaching in the Nazareth synagogue, Lk 4.16 and his neighbors couldn’t handle the fact these teachings and revelations were coming out of him. Who’s he? What’s the handyman Mk 6.1 (or handyman’s son Mt 13.55) doing announcing God’s kingdom has arrived? In Luke they even tried to push him off a cliff. Lk 4.29

I don’t know whether the incident at the Nazareth synagogue took place before this John passage. It might have, but I don’t think so: One of the Nazarenes’ objections was they wanted Jesus to duplicate the miracles he’d done in Capharnaum, Lk 4.23 and in John he’s not even been to Capharnaum yet, and done no such miracles. Jn 4.54 But by that point it appears he already had made the quip that prophets get no respect back home.

Historically, Christians have interpreted this to mean familiarity breeds contempt. Jesus’s neighbors presumed they knew him—and “knew” he wasn’t anyone important. And took offense at the very idea he might be. Who’d he think he was? What, did he think he was better than them? How dare he.

Seeing Jesus for ourselves.

John 4.39-42.

After Jesus’s talk with the Samaritan at the well, she left her water jar, went to the nearby city of Sykhár, and told everyone there about him:

John 4.29 KWL

“Come! See a person who tells me everything I do.

Might this be the Christ?”

Well, it might be! So the Samaritans come to the well to see Jesus for themselves. And yeah, he’s not Samaritan, but he’s a prophet; he’s willing to talk God with them, and not shun them like Judeans typically do, and for all we know he cured a few sick people. (Yeah, John later describes “the second miracle that Jesus did,” Jn 4.54 but that’s the second miracle in the Galilee; John doesn’t bring up any miracles he did in Judea and Samaria.)

Anyway, everything Jesus says and does among the Samaritans convinces ’em.

John 4.39-42 KWL

39 Many of the Samaritans from this city believe in Jesus

because of the word of the woman,

testifying this: “He tells me everything I do.”

40 So when the Samaritans come to Jesus,

they ask him to stay with them.

He stays there two days,

41 and many more believe because of his word.

42 They’re saying this to the Samaritan woman:

“No longer do we believe because of your saying,

for we heard him

and knew this is truly {the Christ,} the one who saves the world.”

“The Christ” in braces isn’t in the original test of John; it was added in the fifth century, which is why it’s in the Majority Text and the Textus Receptus, and therefore the King James Version. Occasionally, paranoid Christians will insist present-day bibles are trying to make it sound like the Samaritans didn’t really believe Jesus is Messiah. But of course they did: They said he saves the world. Exactly as Messiah, or the Samaritans’ prophesied prophet-like-Moses whom they called the Tahéb (which, it turns out, is also Jesus), would do.

Most Christians commend the Samaritans for coming to check out Jesus for themselves. We like the idea it wasn’t enough for the Samaritans to only take the woman’s word for it—they needed to personally interact with Jesus, and base their belief in him on that. Not that the woman’s testimony is irrelevant!—it got ’em to the well. It’s just her testimony was now superseded by personal experience.

Funny thing, though: Even though we Christians go on and on about how good it was for the Samaritans to do this… many of us turn round and object when our fellow Christians try to get our own personal God-experiences. When we say, “Okay, I’ve heard other Christians’ testimonies; I’ve read the scriptures. But now I wanna hear the Holy Spirit’s voice myself. Now I wanna pray for sick people and watch ’em get cured. Now I want supernatural stuff to happen. If Jesus says these things will follow his followers, Mk 16.17-18 we should see ’em, right?”

I grew up hearing many a cessationist object strongly to this line of thinking: “Personal experience? No no no! Satan will trick you and lead you astray! Besides, personal experience is way too subjective, too insubstantial, too open to interpretation. We can’t base our faith on that. It’s gotta be the bible. Only the scriptures are concrete and safe. We can’t trust personal experience.”

You know… the opposite of what we commend the Samaritans for doing.

Jesus harvests the Samaritans.

John 4.31-38.

Gonna rewind a little to a verse I dealt with previously, in which Jesus’s students come back, see him talking to a Samaritan, and say nothing.

John 4.27 KWL

At this time, Jesus’s students come,

and are wondering why he’s speaking with a woman.

Yet no one says, “Whom do you seek?”

nor “Why do you speak with her?”

The Samaritan leaves, and tells the nearby town she’s encountered a prophet who might be Messiah—as Samaritans understood Messiah. They decide to have a look at Jesus for themselves. Meanwhile Jesus’s students now decide to question him.

John 4.31-34 KWL

31 Meanwhile the students question Jesus,

saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

32 Jesus tells them, “I have food to eat,

which you didn’t know about.”

33 So the students are saying to one another,

“No one brought him food, did they?”

34 Jesus tells them, “My food

is that I might do the will of the One who sends me,

and might complete the work for him.”

Most interpreters figure when ἠρώτων/iróton, “they question,” the students are asking Jesus to eat, but nah; they’re urging him to eat at the same time they’re asking him stuff. Rabbinic students back then were trained in the Socratic-style method of questioning your teacher what you wanted to learn. When the Samaritan was there, the students kept their mouths shut and asked nothing. Once she was gone, now the questions came.

And there are a few reasons why this might be so:

• POLITENESS. Jesus was busy talking with her; don’t interrupt your master. Listen to what he’s doing or saying. Ask your questions afterward.
• SHYNESS. Jesus was cool with them asking him absolutely anything, but they didn’t know nor trust her to not judge ’em for what they were gonna ask.
• SHAME. This one’s popular with certain commentators, who presume the students were embarrassed by Jesus once again ignoring Pharisee custom. I would think they’d’ve known their master by now.
• HUMILITY. Y’notice Pharisees would object to Jesus’s behavior whenever he interacted with “sinners.” Mk 2.16 Not to ask legit questions; frequently to accuse him of stuff, and rant about the things which personally offended them. But Jesus’s students knew him well enough to know he always had good reasons. And good character; he didn’t sin, He 4.15 so you never had to police him to make sure he wasn’t backsliding. They knew better than to presume he’d sin.
• PATIENCE. And because they knew their master, they knew whenever he violated Pharisee custom, he was trying to teach them something, and expected the kids to ask him about it afterward. So they took time to come up with questions.
• TIRED. This one’s also popular with certain commentators: They’d been walking, they were hungry, they didn’t wanna get another lesson right then. They wanted to sit, drink some water, eat some falafel, take a big fat nap till the heat died down, then get back on the road to Galilee. If they realized a lesson was coming, they possibly thought—as kids will—“If we just keep quiet, maybe he’ll drop it, and we’ll get out of it.” Yeah right.

Anyway, the questions began, and Jesus’s lesson followed.

The first time Jesus called himself Messiah.

John 4.25-30.

After meeting Jesus and realizing he’s a prophet, this Samaritan woman he met at Jacob’s well tried to get him to settle which temple was the correct one— the one at Shechem or the one at Jerusalem. Jn 4.20 Jesus pointed out it’s neither. Jn 4.21 God wants worshipers “in spirit and truth,” Jn 4.22-23 who can worship him anywhere. In temple, out of temple; in church, out of church.

But since Jesus didn’t give her the answer she was expecting, and kinda appeared to side with the Judeans, Jn 4.22 the Samaritan did the intellectual equivalent of shrugging her shoulders:

John 4.25 KWL

The woman tells Jesus, “I know Messiah” (i.e. Christ) “comes;

when this man comes, he’ll explain everything.”

“Yeah, you don’t know. But Messiah will know. And when he arrives, he’ll tell us which temple is the right one.”

As I’ve said previously, Samaritans didn’t believe in a Judean-style Messiah. Their bible only went up to Deuteronomy, so there were no actual Messianic prophecies. They believed in the Tahéb, a prophet-like-Moses Dt 18.15 who’d come at the End Times and sort everything out. And since the Tahéb was sorta anointed by God, the word “anointed” (ܡܫܺܝܚܳܐ/mešíkha in Aramaic/Syriac, χριστός/hristós in Greek) would be a valid synonym for Tahéb. Maybe the Samaritan did say Mešíkha, which is why John rendered it μεσσίας/messías, “Messiah.” Maybe she said Tahéb and John translated it. Doesn’t matter. After all, Jesus is the prophet-like-Moses; Ac 3.22-26 he is the Tahéb. So we’re fine either way.

Hence Jesus’s response to her apathetic statement. When Messiah arrives, he’ll tell you which temple is the right one? Well Messiah has arrived.

John 4.26 KWL

Jesus tells her, “I’m him.

I’m speaking to you.”

Mic drop.

Yeah, various skeptics insist Jesus never actually called himself Messiah. They insist Jesus never made any such claim about himself, never even hinted he might be Messiah; that it’s an idea added to Christianity decades later by overzealous apostles. Probably Paul. They really like to blame Paul for all the parts of Christianity they don’t like.

Thing is, Paul wrote his letters before his fellow apostles wrote the gospels. He wrote ’em in the 40s and 50s CE; the gospels were written in the 60s. The circulation of Paul’s teachings were simultaneous with the circulation of Jesus’s teachings; they still are, ’cause they usually get bound together in the New Testament. But when the ancient Christians first heard about Jesus, it was usually in the context of something Paul taught or wrote. Because they go together. It’s not “Jesus said this, but Paul said that”; it’s “Jesus said this, and here’s Paul’s commentary”—they uphold each other. Can’t have Christ without his Christians.

Okay yes, Jesus never literally says the words, “I’m Messiah” (or ἐγώ Μεσσίας, or ܐ݈ܢܳܐ ܡܫܝܚܐ) in the gospels. Largely because if he did say that, he could get arrested and killed for treason against Rome. But he functionally says the very same thing: “I’m him. I’m speaking to you.” It’s as close to “I’m Messiah” as we’re gonna get from Jesus, and the Samaritan clearly understood him—and ran with it.

Literally ran with it: She abandoned her water jar, went into the Samaritan city which she had been deliberately avoiding all this time, and told everyone.

Worship God in spirit and truth.

John 4.19-24.

Since Jesus is a prophet, the Samaritan at the well figured she’d grill him on a then-current Samaritan/Jewish controversy: Which temple is the real temple? Which religion is the true religion? Where’s the one-and-only-one place to serve God? ’Cause Judeans said Jerusalem, and Samaritans said Shechem. Can’t both be right. Right?

John 4.19-20 KWL

19 The woman tells Jesus, “Sir, I see you’re a prophet.

20 Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain.

You Judeans say in Jerusalem

is the place where we have to worship.”

You might remember the Judeans had a temple. Originally it was a tent, “the tabernacle,” the LORD’s sacred portable temple which traveled with the Hebrews after the Exodus, and stayed at a few different locations for nearly five centuries… till Solomon ben David built the LORD a permanent, gold-covered cedar shrine at some point round 1000BC. This remained standing till the neo-Babylonians burnt it to the ground in 586BC.

But it was rebuilt twice: First in 516BC under Babylonian governor (and descendant of Solomon) Zerubbabel bar Shealtiel; then renovated top to bottom by the Herod family during Jesus’s lifetime, from 20BC to 64CE. Completed just in time to be destroyed six years later by the Romans.

The Samaritans opposed Zerubbabel’s first rebuilding. Eventually they decided to build their own temple, round 432BC. They built it on Mt. Gerizim in Shechem, the hill where Moses had the Hebrews proclaim God’s blessings. Dt 11.29 Since God’s name was proclaimed from there, the Samaritans figured this was the perfect place for the LORD’s name to dwell. Not Moriah, where King David had originally purchased a threshing floor to put an altar. 1Ch 21.28, 22.1 David, the Samaritans figured, picked the wrong site. Moses had picked Gerizim, so Gerizim it was.

You might not know these weren’t the only temples of the LORD in the ancient world. Jeroboam ben Navat, after he became king of the 11 northern Israeli tribes, built two temples—one at Dan in the north, Bethel near the southernmost part of his kingdom. This was so his people wouldn’t visit the Jerusalem temple for worship… and maybe get swayed by the kings of Jerusalem, and become a political problem for him later. Nope; now northern Israel had temples, so they could worship at home! Problem was, Jeroboam also included gold calves to represent God, 1Ki 12.26-29 which you might recall is a huge no-no. Dt 5.8-10 As far as the scriptures are concerned, these temples were heretic, and ultimately destroyed when the Assyrians invaded.

And in Egypt, Israeli communities there also created temples to the LORD, in Elephantine and Leontopolis. Both Judeans and Samaritans knew of them, and Flavius Josephus wrote about ’em. But both considered these Egyptian temples heretic, insisting there’s only one place where God would establish his name. Dt 12.11 And they ran that one place. Or figured they did.

So… which temple was the right one? (Yep, you betcha this was an orthodoxy test. Better answer correctly, Jesus!)

John 4.21 KWL

Jesus tells her, “Trust me, ma’am, the hour is come

when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem

will you worship the Father.”

Wait, neither? Yep.

Jesus prophesies to the Samaritan.

John 4.13-19.

Back to Jesus talking with the Samaritan at the well. He tells her about the water of life, and since they’re at a literal well, it’s fair to say she might not wholly understand he’s speaking in metaphor, as he tends to do. Because her focus isn’t a future kingdom of God; it’s on the here and now, and right now she’s at the well fetching water.

John 4.13-15 KWL

13 In reply Jesus tells her, “All who drink of this water

will thirst again.

14 Whoever might drink of the water I give them,

will never thirst in the age to come,

but the water I’ll give them

will become a spring of water within them,

gushing with eternal life.”

15 The woman tells Jesus, “Sir, give me this water!—

so I might not thirst,

nor travel to this place to get water.”

A number of interpreters take this statement the Samaritan made—“Give me this water”—at face value. I don’t. You’ll see why in a moment. But at this point, she’s treating Jesus as if he’s some weirdo… because to her mind, he is some weirdo. Judeans never talk to Samaritans. Yet here’s some rogue Judean who’s talking to her about installing a spring inside her. “Uh-huh. Sure. Yeah, you have water. If you do, I’d like some; fetching water is a pain.”

Ironic answers aren’t actually honest answers, and Jesus realized she didn’t really believe him, and that’s why he decided to “read her mail,” as prophets call it nowadays.

John 4.16-19 KWL

16 {Jesus} tells her, “Go;

call for your man,

and come back to this place.”

17 In reply the Samaritan tells him, “I have no man.”

Jesus tells her, “Well said, ‘I have no man’;

18 you had five men,

and the one you now have isn’t your man.

You said this truthfully.”

19 The woman tells Jesus, “Sir, I see you’re a prophet.”

And now he has her attention. “I see you’re a prophet”? Well duh Jesus is a prophet.

Christian evangelists should be taking notes about now. Too often we try to share Jesus with skeptical people, who think all our claims about who Jesus is and what he does are ridiculous, and aren’t receptive to it whatsoever. Rocky soil. And too often, these evangelists will try platitude after platitude, proof text after proof text, and the person will shrug it all off like Superman does with bullets.

But tell them something we can’t possibly know about them, and suddenly they go, “Wait—who told you that?” The Holy Spirit. He’s real; he’s been getting you ready for this conversation your entire life; you finally wanna hear what he has to say?

So when you’re sharing Jesus, pay attention to the Spirit! He’ll tell you whether this person is receptive or not—and if he tells you something completely random, like “She’s had five men,” don’t just dismiss it as too weird to share: Tell her that, and watch the reaction. (Although, a word of advice? Don’t bring up her relationship history when other people are around. Be discreet like Jesus.)

Anyway that’s why I figure her previous statement, “Give me this water,” was ironic: It wasn’t a truthful response. “I have no man”—now that’s a truthful response.

And from here on out, you’ll notice the Samaritan takes Jesus seriously.

The Samaritan at the well.

John 4.1-14.

Just to remind you: Ancient Israelis (i.e. Judeans and Galileans) and Samaritans did not get along. Same as Israelis and Palestinians don’t get along; same as white nationalists and black nationalists don’t get along; same as cats and birds don’t get along. There was a lot of paranoia, fear, and dangerous old grudges between those two groups.

That’s why it was just dumbfounding for one Samaritan woman, one day, to find a man of Judean descent striking up a conversation with her. Asking her for water, of all things. As if he actually trusted her not to spit in it.

John 4.1-10 KWL

1 Once {the Lord} Jesus knows

the Pharisees hear Jesus makes and baptizes more students than John—

2 though Jesus himself isn’t baptizing,

but his students are—

3 Jesus leaves Judea,

and again goes off to the Galilee,

5 and he has to travel through Samaria.

So Jesus comes to a Samaritan city called Sychár,

which is near the field Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

6 Jacob’s spring is there.

Jesus, fatigued by his long walk, is therefore sitting at the spring.

It was about the sixth hour after sunrise [i.e. noon].

 

7 A woman from Samaria comes to get water.

Jesus tells her, “Give me some to drink”—

8 for his students went into the city

so they might buy food.

9 So the Samaritan woman tells Jesus,

“How can you even be near me, Judean, and ask for a drink?

—me being a Samaritan woman?

For Judeans have no interaction with Samaritans.”

10 In reply Jesus tells her, “If you knew God’s gift,

and knew who’s telling you, ‘Give me some to drink,’

you could ask him,

and he could give you living water.”

Most translations of John have “For Judeans have no interaction with Samaritans” not as something the Samaritan said, but as John’s commentary on the situation. The word συγχρῶνται/synchrónte also means “work together with,” or “have use of”—the two people-groups really did have nothing to do with one another. Each did their own thing… or, of course, fought.

Obviously this woman didn’t recognize Jesus’s accent, or she’d’ve known he was Galilean, not Judean. Not that it would make any difference. Samaritans and Galileans didn’t interact either.

But as we already know about Jesus, he does interact with Samaritans. He came to save everybody, y’know; not just the people of his homeland! Samaritans too. Jesus doesn’t do nationalism or racism, and those who claim to follow him should likewise have no interaction whatsoever with those things—even less interaction than Judeans had with Samaritans.

The senators dismiss the Galilean prophet.

John 7.37-52.

The last day of the Sukkot festival was treated like Sabbath. Lv 23.36, Nu 29.35 Every day, God was presented a ritual food offering; on the last day they presented a ritual drink offering. The priests drew water from the Šiloakh pool (where Jesus later sent a blind guy to wash himself) then walked round the temple’s altar with the water. Then the officiating priest lifted his hand to indicate the ritual was over… and then this happened.

John 7.37-39 KWL

37 On the last day, the great day, of the Sukkot feast, Jesus stood and called out,

saying, “When anyone thirsts, come to me and drink!

38 When one believes in me, as the scriptures say,

‘Rivers of living water will flow from his womb.’ ”

39 Jesus said this about the Spirit who was about to receive those who believed in him:

The Holy Spirit hadn’t yet come, for Jesus hadn’t yet been glorified.

Jesus’s bible quote isn’t an exact quote of anything. He was going for a general idea of water bubbling up from within, as implied in verses like this one.

Isaiah 58.11 KWL

“The LORD led you constantly. He satisfied your soul in scorched lands. He strengthened your bones.

You’re like a well-watered garden, like a water spring which doesn’t produce foul water.”

It’s similar to what he told the Samaritan at the well:

John 4.13-14 KWL

13 In reply Jesus told her, “All who drink this water will be thirsty again.

14 Whoever would drink the water I give them, won’t be thirsty in the age to come.

Instead, the water I give them will become a water spring within them,

bubbling up into eternal life.”

As John said, this is a prophecy about the Holy Spirit, who wouldn’t come Ac 2.1-4 till after Jesus was raptured and glorified. Ac 1.9-11 Come to Jesus and receive the water of life; receive the Holy Spirit.

Still, it galvanized the people, who were pretty sure Jesus was either the Prophet or Messiah… although as you can see, there was still some debate about his credentials to be Messiah. He was Jesus the Nazarene, after all—and they knew Messiah didn’t come from Nazareth.

John 7.40-44 KWL

40 So some from the crowd who heard this word said, “This is truly the Prophet.”

41 Others said, “This is Messiah.”

And some said, “No, for Messiah doesn’t come from the Galilee!

42 Doesn’t the scripture say Messiah comes ‘out of David’s seed’ Ps 89.4

and ‘from Bethlehem,’ Mc 5.2 the village where David was from?”

43 So there became a split in the crowd about Jesus.

44 Some of them wanted to arrest Jesus, but nobody put their hands on him.

We know Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but I remind you John didn’t include Jesus’s birth story; he just showed up in his 30s to be baptized by John, gather students, and start teaching. John states multiple times he came from heaven, sent by the Father, which was good enough for John. Not so much for the Jerusalemites, who were looking for any reason to disqualify him. Jesus is descended from David ben Jesse, Mt 1.1 and wasn’t just born in Bethlehem but had ancestors from Bethlehem; Nazareth was founded by Bethlehemites. His provenance definitely doesn’t disqualify him from being Messiah. But for doubters, any excuse will do. We get the same way nowadays; all humans do.

The centurion’s servant—and his surprising faith.

Matthew 8.5-13, Luke 7.1-10.

Luke tells this story after Jesus’s sermon on the plain, and Matthew after his Sermon on the Mount—but curing an infectious man first. Mark doesn’t tell it. And John… tells a whole other story, although certain Christians try to sync it together with this one. But not well.

The story begins with Jesus again returning to his home base of Kfar Nahum, and in Matthew encountering the local centurion; in Luke hearing from local elders about this centurion. Y’might know a centurion was what the Romans called the captain in charge of a century, 100 soldiers. I don’t know whether all 100 were stationed in Kfar Nahum, or spread out over multiple cities in the province; it all depended on how far the Romans felt they needed to clamp down on the people.

What we do know is this particular centurion had a home in town, and an employee who was either suffering greatly, or dying. Luke calls him a slave who was éntimos/“held in high regard.” Ancient slaves were either debtors, convicts, or had lost a war, and were bought and worked as punishment. Attitudes towards them are significantly different than American attitudes when slavery was legal here: Slaves were still considered fellow human beings. The centurion held his slave in high regard either because he was a good guy, a good worker, or had a valuable skillset. We don’t know which. Matthew calls him a servant, and maybe that’s how the Roman thought of him.

So the slave’s illness was enough to bring to the attention of a rabbi well-known for curing the sick.

Matthew 8.5-7 KWL

5 On returning himself to Kfar Nahum,

a centurion came to Jesus and encouraged him to help him,

6 saying, “Master, my servant has been bedridden in my home, paralyzed by terrible suffering.”

7 Jesus told him, “I will come cure him.”

 

Luke 7.1-6 KWL

1 When Jesus finished putting all his words in the people’s ears,

he returned to Kfar Nahum.

2 A certain centurion’s slave who had an illness was near dying.

The slave was highly esteemed by the centurion.

3 Hearing about Jesus, the centurion sent him Judean elders,

asking him, since he’d come, if he might cure his slave.

4 Those who came to Jesus encouraged him earnestly, saying this:

“The one for whom you’ll do this is worthy.

5 For he loves our people, and built us our synagogue.”

6A Jesus went with them.

In both cases Jesus had no problem with going to the centurion’s house to cure the slave. Now, compare our Lord’s attitude with that of Simon Peter, who admitted he still thought of gentiles as unclean when the centurion Cornelius called him to Caesarea. Ac 10.28 Jesus was happy to go; Peter had to first see a vision about butchering unclean animals. Ac 10.9-16 Why Peter hadn’t adopted his Master’s attitude about gentiles, I’m not sure. My guess is he had some very old prejudices, and they took a while to break off him. Paul still had to fight him on it, some 20 years later. Ga 2.11-14 But I digress.

Notice how Matthew describes the centurion and Jesus having a personal conversation, but Luke has the centurion send some of the presvytérus/“elders” to Jesus with a recommendation. These’d be the mature believers in the religious community, the Pharisees who probably founded their synagogue, ’cause synagogues are a Pharisee thing. They told Jesus this guy had built their synagogue—so we’re talking a believer who was willing to put his money into his faith. Worthy by their standards; maybe by Jesus’s too. In any event, off they went.

Jesus visits his homeland.

Mark 6.1-6, Matthew 13.53-58, Luke 4.16-30.

Luke puts this story right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, right after he got tempted by Satan and gathered some students. It sounds like the right spot for it—if you’re gonna start teaching, you do it in your hometown, right?—but it’s not really. Because it seems Jesus already had a reputation as a teacher and faith-healer, which he got from somewhere… like the other synagogues and towns where he taught.

Mark has it after Jesus cured Jair’s daughter, and Matthew has it after Jesus shared some parables. It begins with Jesus going to his patrída/“fatherland,” or as Luke nails it down, Nazareth, the town he grew up in. Friday evening after sundown, he taught in synagogue.

Mark 6.1-2 KWL

1 Jesus went out from Kfar Nahum to his homeland. His students followed him.

2A When Sabbath came, Jesus began to teach in synagogue…

 

Matthew 13.53-54 KWL

53 When Jesus finished these parables, this happened:

He left there, 54A went to his homeland, and taught in their synagogue.

 

Luke 4.16-21 KWL

16 Jesus came to Nazareth, where he was raised.

By his custom, he entered synagogue on the Sabbath day, and arose to read.

17 Jesus was given the book of the prophet Isaiah.

Unrolling the bible, he found the place where it’s written:

18 “The Lord’s Spirit is upon me because he anointed me to evangelize the poor.

He sent me to proclaim forgiveness to captives, and restored sight to the blind.

To send away the shattered in forgiveness,

19 to proclaim a year of the Lord’s acceptance.” Is 61.1-2

20 Closing the bible and returning it to the assistant, Jesus sat to teach.

Every eye in the synagogue was staring at him.

21 He began to tell them this: “This scripture has been fulfilled today, in your ears.”

Luke gives us more of a glimpse of synagogue custom: The men stood round the podium up front. (The women stood in back, sometimes behind a partition, sometimes not, and had to be quiet ’cause synagogue was for men.) The teacher would stand to read the bible, ’cause respect. Then the teacher sat down and interpreted what he’d just read. The men would ask him questions about his interpretation—sometimes to understand him better, sometimes to challenge it.

Well, Jesus just gave ’em something challenging. He claimed Isaiah’s statement about what God had sent him to do, also applied to himself.

Yeah, let’s look at Isaiah. The guys who wrote the New Testament tended to quote only part of a verse, partly ’cause they wanted to save papyrus, partly ’cause they expected their readers to know the rest of it—or to unscroll a bible and read the rest of it. They didn’t quote it out of context; we do that. So it’s unlikely Jesus only read the first two verses of Isaiah 61: He read the whole chapter, and maybe chapter 62 too. I’ll quote a little bit more than Luke did:

Isaiah 61.1-4 KWL

1 My master LORD’s Spirit is upon me because the LORD anointed me to bring news to the needy.

He sent me to bandage the brokenhearted,

call captives to freedom, release to those in chains,

2 to call a year of favor from the LORD—and a day of revenge from our God.

To comfort all who mourn, 3 and to set an end to mourning in Zion:

to give them a fine headcovering instead of ash,

oil of joy instead of mourning, clothing of praise instead of a dim spirit.

God wants to call them righteous oaks, God’s planting, his glory.

4 They built ancient ruins, abandoned by the first people.

Now they’re building cities anew—the generations-old abandoned ruins.

And so on. Israel gets restored, the gentiles come to know Israel and their God, blessings and peace and so on forevermore. And it all starts with Jesus. So, y’know, good news!

Except the locals had their doubts: It all starts with this guy?

Is Allah the same as God?

Back when I was growing up Fundamentalist, I went to a Sunday school class on “cults”—by which they meant heretic churches. They use that word ’cause of Walter Martin’s book The Kingdom of the Cults, in which he discussed various heretic churches, their history, and how they depart from orthodox Christianity. He used the word “cult” to describe these churches—’cause a number of them did try to curtail their members’ free will and free speech, in their early days. (Frankly, a lot of Fundies are pretty darn cultlike themselves, so it stands to reason they’d be happy to have “cult” mean anyone but them. But I digress.)

Anyway, in the “cults” class, the teacher was in the practice of referring to the heretic churches’ beliefs about God as “their God,” and beliefs about Jesus as “their Jesus.” So there was a Mormon God, a Jehovah’s Witness God, a Christian Science God, a Unitarian God, and so forth. Using this kind of language gave you the idea each of these groups had their very own god. Who certainly wasn’t our God, the LORD, the God of Abraham and Moses, the Father of Christ Jesus. These’d be other gods.

Oh, the teachers totally meant to give us that idea. Because that’s how they believed. They didn’t simply believe these heretics were wrong about God: They believed these heretics were worshiping a whole other god. A devil who was pretending to be God, who borrowed God’s title, but wasn’t really God. And if these heretics believed in Jesus, it wasn’t our Jesus whom they followed but—again—a devil pretending to be Jesus. And so on.

Where’d they come up with this idea? They loosely got it from the bible.

1 Corinthians 10.19-20 KWL

19 Then what am I implying?—that idol-sacrifice is real, or that idols are real? No.

20 Instead that they sacrifice to lesser gods. They don’t sacrifice to God.

I don’t want you to enter a relationship with lesser gods.

21 You can’t drink from the Master’s cup and from lesser gods’ cup.

You can’t eat at the Master’s table and from lesser gods’ table.

22 Or do we want the Master to be jealous?—we’re not stronger than him.

Pagans don’t worship real gods, but lesser gods, creatures which are in charge of various things in God’s creation, but obviously aren’t the God, the one true God. Daimónion, as they’re called in Greek—a word we’ve translated demons, and think of devils. Which they aren’t necessarily. Because we’re lesser gods. Ps 82.6, Jn 10.34 (God put us in charge of the planet, remember?) Lesser gods were never meant to be worshiped; that’s where we humans go wrong. And a lot of the things the pagan Greeks identified as “gods” were actual beings, actual lesser gods; but the Greeks worshiped them, and shouldn’t’ve.

Anyway, what the Fundies are doing is claiming, first of all, that heretic Christians aren’t actually Christian—they’re pagan. And as pagans, the God they believe in and worship can’t possibly be the real God. It’s gotta be some other god—one of those lesser gods, like Paul and Sosthenes pointed out in 1 Corinthians. A demon. They’re worshiping a demon.

Yikes.

Now let’s get to where the scriptures indicate that belief is entirely wrong.