Luke is the only Gentile of the four gospel writers. He is the only one who records the healing of the ten lepers. The emphasis of the passage is that only one of the lepers returned to “give praise to God,” and he was a “foreigner” (18). The other nine were Jews. Jesus often pointed out that Gentiles quickly and forcefully believed him more so than the Jews. This is the main reason why the gospel spread so quickly to the Gentiles, more so than the Jews after his death, resurrection, ascension, and the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Jesus embraced and followed the Law given through Moses, as this passage details. He was not against the Jews. Most of his ministry was where Jews lived. Yet, no matter how the good news was revealed, the Jews mostly either rejected it or accepted it on their terms.
The Apostle John explains the phenomenon well in his Gospel. “He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:10-13)
Even though God works miracles in me, I cannot use that to determine my place with God. For I could be like the nine and not respond to the gift properly.
