Jesus: the Master of the Subtle Warning

In Luke 4, Jesus is preaching in his hometown of Nazareth.  I guess one might say it didn’t go well—seeing as they wanted to throw him off the cliff when he finished preaching.  As part of his response to their unbelief, Jesus repeats two familiar stories:  Elijah and the foreign widow of Zarephath and Elisha and Naaman the leper.  What?  Why these stories?  The context is unbelief and rejection of Jesus.  Jesus chose the stories in a strategic manner.  First of all, the drought of the Elijah story was three years and six months, and it occurred during the apostasy of King Ahab.  Perhaps Jesus is connecting the dots and bringing the story forward to the present, i.e., their unbelief and apostasy.  Interestingly, he specifically mentions the numbers making up the drought even though the length isn’t obviously relevant (though numbers in the Bible often have symbolic meanings); consequently, the divine choice for the duration of the drought may be purposeful–three is the number of God and six is the number of man.  In Elijah’s story, the three years and six months may speak symbolically of apostate man’s struggle with God.  What is God’s response?  He sends Elijah to the gentiles, and Jesus rams home the idea by following it with God’s positive dealings with another gentile, Naaman.  The subtle warning to the Israelites:  believe in God, change your ways or God will send the gospel to the gentiles who will receive it with joy.  This might be a good warning to American Christians lest we fall into the same trap as these Israelites who believed that they were protected by their heritage…just sayin’