EPISODE 26 Luke Chapter 4 ”Savior Of The World” For Share The Word

Hi, and welcome to Share the Word. We know there are a lot of devotionals and encouraging thoughts for the day from the Bible available online. But our goal is a little more, to honestly and systematically present the whole story of the New Testament. So let's listen in to today's lesson and go a little deeper. Luke chapter 4, Savior of the World. There's a concept that I thought a lot about that I wish there was more info revealed to us in the New Testament Gospels.

My inquiring mind wants to know. It has to do with Jesus' coming of age, I guess you could say. We'll get to it in a couple of moments. But first, I'm going to summarize for you what we know about Jesus' growing up years. That won't take very long. We know he was circumcised as all male Jewish children were and given his name, Jesus, on the eighth day after his birth.

We also know that 40 days later, he was brought by Mary and Joseph to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated to God, which was customary for a Jewish firstborn son. According to the Gospel of Matthew, his parents were at some point forced to take him to Egypt when he was still an infant to get out of the reach of Herod the Great, who was told by those visitors to Jerusalem, we refer to as the wise men, that a child destined to be king of the Jews had been born. That report made Herod crazy threatened, and that made Jesus' parents flee to Egypt to protect him. After Herod the Great died, they returned to their hometown of Nazareth in the north. There the family grew, and young Jesus helped, we assume, in Joseph's carpentry shop.

Next peek we get, Jesus is 12 years old, and his parents have gone up to Jerusalem for Passover, one of the three big convocations in Israel when observant Jews went to the temple for worship. Because he was now 12 and was leaving childhood behind, Jesus was old enough to go along. Luke then relays a telling incident. When the religious festival was breaking up, Mary and Joseph, and I'm sure other family and friends from Nazareth, joined a caravan heading back north, but soon realized that Jesus was not with them. I'm sure his parents, they were absolutely beside themselves. Every parent knows the feeling of panic when a child is missing.

When they couldn't find him anywhere among family and friends, they backtracked into the city. They looked and looked for him, and finally, on day three, they found their 12-year-old son at the temple, deeply engaged in dialogue with religious teachers there. These learned rabbis were amazed at this boy's understanding of Scripture. When Joseph and Mary scolded him with the to-be-expected, Where have you been, Jesus? You had us worried sick, Jesus speech, Jesus responded, Didn't you know that I'd be in my Father's house? I don't think he was being insolent.

It's more like he was honestly surprised that they wouldn't know where to find him. But of course he returned home with his parents, and all we get for the years afterward is, So he continued in submission to his parents. He kept growing in both wisdom and stature, in favor with both God and men. The next scene we have leaps ahead. Jesus is now 30 years old, and he has left Nazareth for Judea, where he was baptized by the prophet John the Baptist. That is, we'd say, the outset of his public ministry in Israel.

It's strange to me, having grown up in my culture, that this didn't happen until Jesus was 30. All those intervening years, he was apparently just in Nazareth, living a very simple life with his family, no doubt as the oldest son, his father's chief assistant in the woodworking business. It's odd to us, but in that culture, 30 was the age for a young man to be deemed mature enough to begin his own life's work, to get married, start a family, etc. But Jesus' future was not as a carpenter, nor in getting married and starting a family. When he reached that point in his life, he left Nazareth and he sought out the prophet John the Baptist. He was baptized, and the Holy Spirit filled him in preparation for his public ministry.

Then it says he went out alone for a time into the wilderness, where he spent 40 days. Now this gets to my question. What was Jesus doing there during those several weeks alone in the wilderness? We know he was fasting, which in the Bible is associated with seriously seeking God, and we also know that Jesus encountered the devil there, who tempted him, trying to throw him off God's course for his life before it ever got started. But beyond that, my hunch is that this period of several weeks spent alone in the desert at the outset of his public ministry was when Jesus got the full understanding, the specific plan, the marching orders, we would say, for what needed to happen over the next three years. It was the time Jesus zeroed in on his divine mission.

I think that. I could be wrong, but I think this is when he really wrapped his mind around it and got spiritually prepared for it, almost like he was in a spiritual boot camp experience. Remember, he was both God and man at once. He, as a man, had to grow in wisdom and understanding. From the time he was in the temple as a 12-year-old, he understood that he was God's Son in a unique way, thus the reply to his parents about needing to be in his Father's house and about his Father's business. But do you think, as a 12-year-old, he understood all the details of what was ahead for him?

I doubt it. I don't think so. I'm guessing that consciousness of his mission grew, and that during this time in the wilderness was when it all got clarified. That's what I think he was fasting and seeking God about during those weeks. But I'll admit this is conjecture. That's why I said at the outset it's a question I wish I understood better, one we had more information about.

Theologians refer to this as Jesus' messianic consciousness. When did he become aware of what was all ahead for him? What is clear from this chapter and a few different places is that the devil and his demons recognized Jesus as the unique Son of God. They didn't have any way of knowing exactly what God had planned for him, but they knew, as the enemies of God and everything good, that he was a threat to them. So at the outset, Satan came against Jesus here during this vulnerable time when he was trying to disrupt, I think, whatever God had planned for Jesus' life and ministry. Three times we're told he came at Jesus in cunning ways, tempting him to think and do wrong things.

Each time Jesus resisted and overcame his tricks by answering the devil's challenges with the Word of God, with the truth. The devil is a liar. He's always trying to distort the truth and pull us off God's paths for our lives. That's why it's so important that we, like Jesus, are familiar with what God actually says. The best way we can resist the enemy and whatever he brings against us is by following Jesus' example, recognizing temptations for what they are and responding to them with the truth, with the Word of God. It is written, as Jesus says here, frequently.

If you are a Christian and your goal is to follow Christ and make your life count, remember Jesus' example here. In small ways and large, the enemy will craftily try to mess you up, get you off track, ruin any impact you could have for God and for good. Jesus defeated his tricks and temptations by counterpunching the evil one with truths from God's Word. It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve. Bam. It is written, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

Bam. Staggered and frustrated, the devil finally left him. You know what? I realize if Jesus needed to resist the evil one and defeat him by contradicting his lies with the truth, how much more do I? After that intense period of preparation and testing, Jesus emerged from the wilderness ready to begin his public ministry in earnest. You have to put all the Gospels together to get a more complete picture of the first year, but Luke wants us to focus on the things that went on in Galilee especially, Jesus' home district.

This is where Jesus lived for almost all of his life. Once he returned there, he began visiting the synagogues, similar to our local churches, where the Jews in each village and town met for worship and learning. He was given opportunities to speak in these gatherings as though he was a trained rabbi, although he wasn't. And he was praised by those who heard him. He spoke, they thought, with insight and with kind of atypical fervor, and with the kind of authority that commanded their attention. I would have loved to have been in any one of those services, wouldn't you?

To just for once listen to how Jesus himself taught the Word of God and brought its truths home to his listeners. But on one such occasion, Luke tells us about in his chapter something dramatic happened in Jesus' hometown synagogue at Nazareth. He was invited to speak one Sabbath, and as you can imagine, everybody in town was more than interested in what he would say. These were the people who had seen him grow up. They knew him as that nice young man, that son of Joseph and Mary. When he was called upon to speak, Jesus chose to read from a section of the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

In our Bibles, Isaiah chapter 61. He stood up and read aloud a portion that goes like this: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has appointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he rolled the scroll back up and took his seat. The rabbis customarily taught seated. The congregation's eyes were fixed on him as they waited for him to explain and apply that reading of Scripture.

When he spoke, he began by saying, Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Today, meaning that day. Realize this section in Isaiah was a prophecy pointing to the ministry of the promised Messiah when he appeared. Isaiah was writing about things the Messiah would do. I'm not sure how those in the synagogue heard that. It seems likely to me, and I'm pretty sure Luke records this because it sure seemed likely to him, that Jesus here, right at the outset of his public ministry, was identifying himself with that prophetic scripture about the Messiah, indicating it in fact pointed to him and to his ministry.

How else could anyone have understood him when he said, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing? He had already been in nearby towns in Galilee, and there were reports of miracles he performed there, of blind people receiving their sight, of demon-possessed people being set free. These were supernatural events that the prophets said would accompany the ministry of the Messiah when he arrived, signs that would confirm his identity for the generation who saw him. Jesus' listeners were enjoying his message and wondering at how graciously he spoke until he said this: The things you have heard that I have done in other places, I know you expect me to do them here as well. And then he told about two instances in the Old Testament scripture where God did miraculous things through his prophets, but not in their hometowns.

In fact, not even in Israel, but rather in foreign places and for the benefit of foreign people, Gentiles. This made his listeners cringe, in fact react scornfully, because they didn't at all associate the Messiah's ministry as something for the benefit of Gentiles. The Messiah was their thing. The Messiah, when he came, was for them, for Israel. He would be a champion for God's ancient people. They didn't care about Gentiles.

Just who does this young man think he is to suggest God's grace may not be for us, but for Gentiles? Isn't this Joseph and Mary's kid? How dare say he such a thing? So they were upset. So upset, they actually drove Jesus out of the synagogue before he could finish his message. And some in that crowd were so angry, Luke says they wanted to throw him off a cliff.

This sudden, violent reaction shows just how much prejudice existed among the Jews at that time toward Gentiles. But God was protecting his son. Jesus walked through that angry crowd, offended people, unmolested. No one raised a hand against him. But he left his hometown of Nazareth after that. This is a pattern you're going to see over time in Jesus' public ministry.

Many people were attracted to him initially, to his message initially, but when he said something that went against their expectations, that didn't fit with their preconceived ideas of what the Messiah should say and do, then they turned away from him, or worse, like here, actually turned against him, sometimes savagely. But God always protected him and delivered him because his time was not yet come. There was a time coming when he would be delivered into the hands of angry, unbelieving people, but not yet. He had much more to do before that time came. I think it is noteworthy here that Jesus said in the synagogue of Nazareth that day, what got such a negative reaction from those locals, that is, that God was interested in people beyond Israel, in us Gentiles, because that's an important part of Luke's message.

Remember I told you in our first lesson on this gospel that Luke was likely a Gentile. One of the reasons I believe that is because of how he makes a point of telling about times where Jesus showed that God's plans for his kingdom, his eternal kingdom, were much greater than just for the Jews. Luke was concerned to show us Jesus came to be the Savior of the whole world. Although that offended many of the narrow-minded, prejudiced people in Jesus' native country at the time, that's what his first coming was about, to become a Savior for the whole world. Remember what the angels said to the shepherds in the fields when Jesus was born? He's going to be a Savior for the whole world.

Luke, a Gentile himself, doesn't want us to miss this important point. Jesus wasn't just a Messiah for the Jews. He is the Savior for the whole world. After Jesus was rejected in Nazareth, his hometown, he moved on to the town of Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee. Capernaum became kind of a home base during his Galilean ministry, that is, when he was in the north of Israel. As we read at verse 31 and following, he was also doing there exactly the same kinds of things the prophet Isaiah said would mark the ministry of the Messiah.

These supernatural signs should have positively identified him as Messiah to all who witnessed them. Isn't it interesting that we see in this chapter that the devil certainly recognized Jesus as the Messiah and Savior God sent, and the demons Jesus drove out of people recognized him. But the people in his hometown synagogue and the religious people in general elsewhere, they largely would not accept him. Why not? The answer is because he did not fit their expectations. I think there's something of a warning in that for us.

Conventional wisdom about what God is like should not be what shapes our understanding of what he is really like. In other words, don't pay any attention to those who try to tell you what Jesus was like or what their view of God is if it doesn't line up with what we see in the Bible, which is the revelation of what God is. Self-appointed experts, pronouncements, even our own preferences for what God is, in our opinion, or what He should be like, they don't matter. How foolish to imagine that we can create a God for ourselves who fits our expectations. We don't create Him. He created us.

We need to see how He has been revealed to us in God's Word. That's a big part of what Jesus came here to do. We need to take a good look at Jesus and listen to Him carefully because He came here to reveal God to us. Then we need to accept God for who He actually is, rather than, as I have heard oftentimes foolish people say, Well, if you're telling me Jesus is this or that, or you're telling me that God's rules are this or that, that's not a God for me, as if we puny humans can decide how Almighty God should act, and if we can dismiss Him if He doesn't conform to our expectations. That's crazy. But that is exactly what many people Jesus encountered in His time did, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, because He didn't fit their expectations.

Remember, God is not a creature of our invention. He is our Creator. We are in His world. We need to conform to Him and to what He says is reality. When I read accounts such as this one in Luke chapter 4, I'm amazed at Jesus' patience, actually, His self-restraint, His humility to put up with the stuff that He put up with from we puny humans. How hard that must have been for him.

Before we close this lesson, let me ask you, have you ever wanted to visit or tour the land of Israel? Yeah, where am I coming from with that question? I'm not here to lead a tour or try to sign you up for one, trust me. But if you ever get the chance, it would be a great fact-finding mission if you're a seeker after truth, or faith-reaffirming experience if you are already a believer. And if you do, be sure to visit Capernaum. That first-century fishing town became Jesus' kind of home base in the north, so often mentioned in the Gospels.

That place has been extensively excavated by archaeologists in the last quarter century. You can go there and see the ruins of the very synagogue that Jesus spoke in in that town. Luke also recounts near the end of our chapter that when Jesus was in Capernaum at this time, he was asked to come to the home of Simon Peter because his wife's mother was very ill with a high fever, and Jesus went there and healed her. That led to many other people bringing their sick ones to that home and Jesus healing many other people there that evening. Believe it or not, you can visit what is almost certainly Simon Peter's home in that place. Let me tell you briefly about that discovery, and then we'll be done for today's podcast.

If you're interested in both history and the Bible, then the fascinating discoveries continually going on with archaeology are something to keep an eye on. There are so many discoveries that have been made, and they continue to be made, which confirm biblical events and characters. Here's a good example. Simon Peter's actual home at Capernaum was not only a place Jesus spent time on this occasion, but also the place of another notable healing sometime later when a paralyzed man was healed there in an extraordinary way. But how could modern archaeologists arrive at such a precise conclusion that they actually discovered the very house? Follow me here.

First, in their excavations at Capernaum, ruins were found of an ancient Christian church, which they were able to date to the fourth or fifth century. It's certainly not strange that Capernaum became a meeting place for early Christians after Jesus' time, since it had been a headquarters for Jesus and his disciples during that time. But then, completely separately, in Rome, among documents found in an ancient library, other researchers found a letter written by a wealthy Christian woman named Egeria. They dated it to the late fourth century. In the letter, Egeria said that she herself had visited the site of Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee on a pilgrimage she made to Israel, and I'm quoting her now. In Capernaum, the house of the Prince of the Apostles, that is a reference to Peter, had been made into a church with its original walls still standing.

It's where the Lord cured the paralytic. Putting this new information together with what archaeologists had already found in Capernaum, they dug beneath the level of that fourth-century church and found a simpler first-century structure. The researchers realized this must, in fact, be Peter's house mentioned by Egeria. It had plastered walls, and the walls were covered with inscriptions like graffiti on them. Apart from its association with Jesus and Peter, why else would the run-of-the-mill first-century house in a fishing village in Capernaum have become a location for Christian worship for centuries to follow? You can visit that very site if you go to the land of Israel today.

Short of that, photos are available online too. Just search Peter's house at Capernaum. I'll tell you about other discoveries like this going forward because they confirm for us the Bible's accuracy. Archaeology takes what we read about in the Bible out of the misty realm of what critics of the Bible have in the past called legends and into the sharp focus of historical reality. And archaeology keeps confirming the Bible's accounts as true. Until next time, please help us grow our listening audience by inviting others to join our educational podcast as we go through the New Testament chapter by chapter.

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