What seems at first like a hopeless act — a last meal before curling up to die — becomes the very means by which hope comes in. Her obedience to the prophet’s word results in her receiving God’s provision of food as well as, later on, the life of her son.
But Jesus’ observation is still apropos: God might have sent Elijah to any number of Israelite widows to save them, but instead sent him to this foreigner to save her. What do we learn about God by observing this? We learn what Israel needed to learn, too, that God is not only the Lord of us and our people, but the Lord of aliens, legal and otherwise, and even the Lord of other nations regardless of whether or not they know it. God loves and cares for the unclean as well as the clean, the sick as well as the whole, the addicted as well as the teetotalers, the Canaanites as well as the Israelites.
In this story it’s precisely the miraculous provision of food that leads to the widow’s conversion. Like all Jews and Gentiles, she is presented with a command from God obedience to which will make her live. That command, which we also receive multiple times in Scripture, is that she care for the stranger living in her vicinity. Even this Phoenician woman can recognize the truth of that command and obey it. Will we?
--Dr. Loren Crow
Image source 1: https://walkingintheshadowlands.com/2018/10/20/kept-for-us/
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