Tuesday, June 23, 2020

The writings of Luke the physician starting with his version of the gospel - Luke 4:14-30 comments: Jesus teaching in Galilee




Luke 4:14 ¶  And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. 15  And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all. 16  And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17  And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19  To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 20  And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21  And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 22  And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph’s son? 23  And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in thy country. 24  And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. 25  But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; 26  But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 27  And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. 28  And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, 29  And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. 30  But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

Jesus, the very image of the invisible God, filled with the mind of God, returns to Galilee and is known as being a very powerful teacher.

Matthew 7:28  And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: 29  For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

In Nazareth, in a synagogue, He reads from Isaiah 61.

Isaiah 61:1 ¶  The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; 2  To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

This is a very important passage for those Christians who believe, as I do, that the entire Bible was given by inspiration of God, which, as I have explained before, is wisdom and understanding from the Holy Ghost, the very mind of God.

Jesus stops reading after to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. In that comma following lies the two thousand years of church history. Jesus did not come at that time to enact judgment on the world but to save those who were willing. This gives you a key to interpreting prophecies of both His first and second arrivals, which can be separated by something as small as a comma in the text with thousands of years in between.

Notice also how by the use of word substitution the Holy Spirit defines words. By comparing the two passages, one in Isaiah and one in Luke we see synonyms like preach and proclaim, deliverance and liberty, gospel and good tidings, poor and meek. Experiment with that interpretation method and you will learn some amazing stuff throughout the Bible in quotes made in the New Testament from Greek with the Old Testament translated from Hebrew under the guiding hand of the Spirit of God and Christ.

He announced that the Scripture was fulfilled in their hearing. He quoted a proverb well-known in the Greek culture of the time and referred to hundreds of years before Christ. It appears that He is using the saying to say, if I can do great works abroad, why not do them here at home as in if a doctor can heal others why can’t he heal himself? Then, Christ explains because that His own people will not accept Him.

We might say, “familiarity breeds contempt,” and understand that it is hard for your own relatives or neighbors who watched you grow up and know you or think they do to accept some great wisdom you put forth. But Christ apparently did not reveal Himself in His early years but to His family by the suggestion of this passage. They were now accustomed to Him reading from the Scriptures, perhaps expounding on them, but He warned them they would not accept Him as the Messiah. There seems to be a lot of culturally understood communication here that we have to think about in relating it to our own times.

What made them furious was the suggestion that if they weren’t willing or able to hear Him and believe the Gentiles would, a prophecy of the coming Church Age.

Verse 25 refers to 1Kings 17 with Zarephath and Zidon as the Hebrew to English translations of Sarepta and Sidon. Verse 27 refers to events in 2Kings 5. This serves as sort of a warning. If you will not receive the truth of God the Gentiles will.

Matthew 8:11  And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. 12  But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

John 10:16  And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

They then tried to kill Him but, of course, they could not as this was not His time, the time prepared for His sacrifice of Himself for His people’s and the world’s sins.

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