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Nain: The Perfect Setting
Like the mansion “Downton Abbey,” the setting itself played such a role in Shunem’s story that it functioned almost as an independent character. Shunem’s people took pride in its heritage: About 800 years before Christ, Elisha had brought a woman’s dead child back to life here. Elsewhere some years before that, Elisha’s mentor, Elijah, had restored to life a widow’s only son. And afterward, the biblical text records, “Elijah gave him to his mother" (1 Kings 17:23). So Elisha’s miracle at Shunem was not the first time a prophet had raised a woman's child, but it was certainly the last. Just on the other side of Shunem’s hill, assuming we…
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God of Insignificance
God celebrates smallness. He invites to Himself amidst our insignificance. Like a silver chord woven into midnight-colored fabric, God’s goodness gleams in the places where we feel isolated and unimportant. Trace the thread through the pages of Genesis. You’ll meet a man named Joseph—chosen by God yet consigned to slavery and imprisonment. Peer into Ruth. Once a pagan, then a proselyte, this widowed woman followed harvesters around trying to gather enough grain to feed herself and her mother-in-law. Go into the gospels. You’ll encounter men who earned their living as laborers—casting nets, cleaning fish, and eventually catching souls. Scripture’s finest figures spent most of their lives in humble positions.…
