In New Testament times the jab at incompetent professionals hits a brick wall.  The physician healed himself and the whole world, if they darken his door.  The jab comes hundreds of years after the Jewish people were given 70 years to correct their rebellious ways.  The leopard did not change its spots.  The Republicans despise the republic of equal rights and justice for all.  The Christian preacher spends more time in the Pentateuch and the book of Proverbs than in the message of Jesus Christ crucified, dead, buried, Risen and exalted.  I am sure you recognize a prophet and expert who does not read proficiently.   Miracle-workers who never turn the hose on themselves are all over the broadcast world and proliferate in the churches.  The physicians are not healing themselves.

And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’”

Luke 4:23

Prove who you are, here and now

I find it ludicrous that gospel workers want to appear as fixers of problems but only those of others.  They do not seem to be aware of,  or much less fix,  their own medical, financial, and professional pathologies.  The obsession with the sign or wonder is a symptom of adultery.  So said the Lord Yeshua in Matthew 12:39b, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet”.  After hearing a mumbo jumbo message, most typically, one that says nothing about the cross or the Spirit-led life, the last thing a person needs is an uncorroborated miracle.

When the law and the prophets fade

Yeshua goes on to lay down his life, with people daring him to rescue himself from an ignominious death, from ridicule and taunts. It was obvious that neither the law nor the prophets had healed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The law was quite clearly instruction people sought ways to ignore, and the prophets were constantly making stuff up. The proverb “Physician, heal yourself” was a better fit for the case of the slaughter of animals in the temple and the lucrative market that was making some people wealthy.  Yeshua puts a cap on the healing arts and the “proof of the pudding” in such a way as to make the proverb, “Physician, heal yourself” unforgettable and forever relevant.