<p>18:11<i> The Pharisee stood and prayed thus- </i>AV &quot;Prayed thus with himself&quot;. The OT idiom of prayer &lsquo;returning into one&rsquo;s own bosom&rsquo; is surely the quarry from which the Lord dug His image of a man praying <i>with himself</i>. It isn&rsquo;t real prayer; it&rsquo;s one part of the brain talking to a black box in another part of the brain, that we call &lsquo;God&rsquo;.</p><p><i>God, I thank you that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector</i>- Luke uses the same term in recording how &quot;the rest of men&quot; would seek and find the Lord (Acts 15:17). Those despised as secular, non-religious and the hopeless sinners are the very ones whom the Lord came to save; rather than the self-righteous religionists. And these are the ones we should be reaching out to, rather than attempting to convert religionists from one flavour to another. The same word for &quot;rest&quot; has just been used in :9 for how the Pharisee despised &quot;others&quot;. It means to put down, to set at nothing; and this is how the tax collector, and those in his category, are made to feel by the self-righteous. It's a big reason why secular folk who are searching for God won't attend church.</p><p>&quot;Or even as&quot; could as well be translated to the effect that &quot;this tax collector&quot; was the epitome of an extortioner, unjust and adulterer. And his deep penitence could suggest there might have been some truth in that accusation. But he, the &quot;unjust&quot;, was the one who went away &quot;justified&quot; (:14). Luke was personal friends with Paul, and it could be argued that his Gospel record was preparation for Paul's later theological writings. The idea of the unjust being justified by faith through grace is exactly the theme of Paul in Romans and elsewhere.</p>