Luke 18:1-8, hypopiazo, a Greek word meaning to strike under the eye and it is a boxing term. Hypopiazo literally means to strike someone under the eye, to give them a black eye, to land a punch on a face, it is the same word Paul reaches for in 1 Corinthians 9:27 when he says, I discipline my body and keep it under control. The image is a fighter in the arena, that is the word Jesus puts on the lips of a corrupt judge who, in the middle of the night, mutters to himself about a widow who keeps showing up at his court, he is not worried about being annoyed, he is worried about being humiliated, he is picturing this small, supposedly powerless woman landing a blow on his reputation that he will to recover from.
Hypopiazo, that single word tells you everything about how Jesus meant this parable to hit. This is not a story about pressuring God into action, it is not a story about prayer as a wearing down process, it is something far more subversive and if you have ever felt like heaven is silent, like your prayers have been sitting unanswered for so long that you have started to wonder whether anyone is actually listening, this parable was written for you, because Jesus told it for one specific reason and Luke tells you what that reason was in the very first sentence, Luke 18:1, so that we would always pray and not lose heart.
Luke 18:2, start with the judge, Luke tells you twice that this man does not fear God and does not respect any human being. In the ancient Jewish world, that is a devastating description, according to Deuteronomy 1:16-17, judges in Israel were appointed with a single sacred job, to judge righteously, to hear both sides, to recognize that judgment belongs to God. A judge who feared neither God nor man had no boundary on his corruption, no vertical accountability, no horizontal accountability, he answered to no one and felt the weight of no one.
Then Luke introduces the widow and the word widow in 1st century Jewish culture carried a specific legal weight that is hard to feel in your world. Widows were one of three categories the Torah repeatedly singles out for protection, the widow, the orphan and the foreigner. Exodus 22:22, the warning that followed was severe, God told Israel that if they did mistreat the widow, he himself would hear her cry and take up her cause. Deuteronomy 10:18 described God as the one who administers justice for the fatherless and the widow. Psalm 68:5 gave God the title, a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows.
Hypopiazo, that single word tells you everything about how Jesus meant this parable to hit. This is not a story about pressuring God into action, it is not a story about prayer as a wearing down process, it is something far more subversive and if you have ever felt like heaven is silent, like your prayers have been sitting unanswered for so long that you have started to wonder whether anyone is actually listening, this parable was written for you, because Jesus told it for one specific reason and Luke tells you what that reason was in the very first sentence, Luke 18:1, so that we would always pray and not lose heart.
Luke 18:2, start with the judge, Luke tells you twice that this man does not fear God and does not respect any human being. In the ancient Jewish world, that is a devastating description, according to Deuteronomy 1:16-17, judges in Israel were appointed with a single sacred job, to judge righteously, to hear both sides, to recognize that judgment belongs to God. A judge who feared neither God nor man had no boundary on his corruption, no vertical accountability, no horizontal accountability, he answered to no one and felt the weight of no one.
Then Luke introduces the widow and the word widow in 1st century Jewish culture carried a specific legal weight that is hard to feel in your world. Widows were one of three categories the Torah repeatedly singles out for protection, the widow, the orphan and the foreigner. Exodus 22:22, the warning that followed was severe, God told Israel that if they did mistreat the widow, he himself would hear her cry and take up her cause. Deuteronomy 10:18 described God as the one who administers justice for the fatherless and the widow. Psalm 68:5 gave God the title, a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows.
