The parable of the persistent widow is a beautiful little parable about perseverance and prayer. It appears simple, but actually it is very profound and people often misapply it. Luke’s introduction explains what the parable is all about.
Luke 18:1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.
The parable is about keeping on praying and not giving up. Not losing heart. Disciples should “pray consistently and never quit”, as The Message puts it. Praying. Not giving up. Two themes – not one. People often think the parable is about persisting in prayer – just one subject. But actually that is a misunderstanding. The parable is about persistence, and about prayer. Let’s unwrap what Jesus is saying here.
There are two characters in the parable.
2 (Jesus) said: ‘In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, “Grant me justice against my adversary.”
The first character is the judge. He is not a good judge. He did not fear God. And that is a bad thing. In 2 Chronicles 19 when King Jehoshaphat appointed judges he said this. 7 Now let the fear of the LORD be on you. Judge carefully, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.’
So the starting point for any judge in Israel was that they should fear God. That way judges would not give in to bribery or corruption. This judge did not fear God. That is bad. And he did not care what people thought either. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. It could be good that a judge would so committed to justice that we could not be swayed by public opinion. Or it could be very bad that a judge didn’t care at all about his reputation. However bad his judgments were, he just didn’t care that everybody thought he was unjust and unfair and corrupt. That was the case here – this is clearly one very bad and unjust judge.
The second character in the story is a widow. She keeps on coming to the judge with the same plea. “Grant me justice against my adversary.” This was probably about some financial matter. We don’t know what that was – it doesn’t matter. What is important is to realise that this widow was in a desperate situation. There are at least three reasons why we know that is the case. The first is that the widow kept on having to plead for justice. In the Law of Moses a widow should have received especial care and protection, but this was not happening for this widow. The bad judge kept on putting off making a judgment. Even more significant is the fact that a woman would not usually have been involved in legal proceedings at all. Law courts were a man’s world. The widow’s situation was desperate because she had no male relative to go to court on her behalf. She was having to fight for justice all by herself.
We can also read between the lines to understand why the widow had to keep coming back to get the judge to settle her case. This was an unjust judge. He was waiting for a bribe. If the widow had had the money to pay a bribe, she would have got her judgment quickly enough. But she had no male relative to fight her corner for her and she was too poor to pay a bribe. All the widow had was her persistence. She would keep on coming back and coming back until she got justice! And that is exactly what she does. In the end her tactics work. She grinds the judge down and gets the justice she deserves.
4 ‘For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!” ’
This appalling judge didn’t care about justice for a poor defenceless widow. And in the end he didn’t hold out for a bribe. He cared more about a quiet life. So in the end this bad judge did give this persistent widow the justice she deserved. That’s the story. But what does it mean for us?
6 And the Lord said, ‘Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.
A parable is a comparison. To understand what the parable means we need to work out who the characters in the story represent in real life. The widow is easy. The widow pleading her case represents disciples, who persist in pleading their cause before God in prayer. But then the parable gets a bit problematic because the unjust judge in the parable represents God. It would be very unusual to tell as story which presents God in a bad light. So we need to see how the story works. In Greek philosophy it would be called a “lesser to greater” a fortiori argument. In Hebrew thinking it is arguing “from light to heavy”.
Listen to what the judge says, the Lord Jesus explains. … finally he said to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!”
Here is an unjust judge who doesn’t fear God or care about what people think. Even a judge as bad as that will give in and deliver justice, just because the widow is persistent in her pleading and never gives up.
In contrast God is a good judge. A perfect judge. He is not waiting for bribes. He does care about his good name and his reputation for justice. Throughout the Old Testament, God promises justice for all people and especially for powerless people like widows and orphans and refugees. From light to heavy, from lesser to greater, if even a bad judge would give justice, how much more would the perfect righteous and just God answer the requests of his people.
7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.
A bad judge delays and prevaricates. On the other hand God who is righteous and just would not wait and delay. He would bring justice swiftly. So this is a parable about God’s justice and faithfulness. When we pray we can be completely confident that God will answer our prayers and bring us justice and vindication swiftly. That is the obvious meaning of the parable.
But there are two more important things we need to learn. Because some people think this parable teaches us that God will give us absolutely anything and everything we ask for in prayer, just as long as we are persistent enough and don’t give up or lose heart. But that general application completely ignores the context of the parable. This is not a parable about the blessings which come when we persist in prayer. It is about persisting, and about praying, two important but separate things which all disciples need to do in certain specific circumstances.
From Luke chapter 17 verse 20 until the end of the chapter, Jesus was talking about God’s Kingdom coming. He was warning his disciples about how hard things would become for them in the coming days and how the Son of man would be rejected and suffer. Jesus said that in the days to come judgment would fall as suddenly as the flood had come in the days of Noah and as fire and sulphur had destroyed Sodom in the days of Lot. Days would be very hard.
Luke 17 30 ‘It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. 35 Two women will be grinding corn together; one will be taken and the other left.’ [36]
37 ‘Where, Lord?’ they asked.
He replied, ‘Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.’
The day when the vultures would gather was coming. In the days to come, life would be very hard for Jesus’s disciples. That is the context of the parable of the persistent widow. THEN Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. Always pray. Don’t give up. Two things to do, not just one. This is not primarily a parable about the value of persisting in prayer in order to receive God’s answers for anything we might choose to ask for in prayer. This parable is actually about disciples standing firm in the difficult days which are going to follow. It is about the importance of not giving up or losing heart in the face of persecution.
The challenges of the last year have given us all plenty of opportunities to practice persevering and not giving up. I like the definition of perseverance from the noted theologian Dolly Parton. “I never stopped trying and I never tried stopping.” As Christians we should never give up or lose heart.
Then the parable has a second point to make about how we should cope with difficult times and this one is about prayer. However difficult life becomes, we should not lose heart but we should always keep on praying. The hope and the promise is for disciples who persist in crying out to God, And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly.
That is when we most need to persist and persevere in prayer – in times of distress. We shouldn’t expand the parable into a universal promise that any and every prayer will be answered just as long as we persist in prayer. That is a wrong understanding of the parable.
The reason we know that Jesus had this more specific focus in mind for the parable, rather that a more general application, is because of the punchline in verse 8.
8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. 8 However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?’
Yes, this is a parable promising God’s faithfulness in answering prayer. But here’s the sting in the tail. Will the Son of Man find faith on earth? Will he find disciples who are really trusting God in times of trouble. Will his disciples show the same kind of faith as that poor desperate defenceless widow showed? When the going gets so tough that the tough have long since packed up and gone home, will disciples still be persevering. Will they still be persisting in prayer? Or will we just lose heart and give up?