Luke 4-5

[Josh]

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[Josh]

Yes, I know this is a HUGE section. Like I said on Sunday, I'm submitting to Brian my need to turn over ever stone and look into every nook and cranny in this Luke study. But online we have more opportunity to do that, so go ahead!

[michelle]

I think that as a society, we have become so dependent on "signs" for everything, that we have a tendency to fall back on that excuse when something is not going the way we'd like it to. We use things like, I missed my flight so it must be a "sign" that I'm not supposed to go on that trip. Really, couldn't it just mean that 1) you misjudged how long it would take to get to the airport or 2) that you just need to try harder to get to your destination? I'm not saying that God never gives us signs or that sometimes little things like missing a plane aren't signs, but I don't think everything that happens is a "sign" from God.

I played this game when I was picking my dog up from the pound when I first got him. I found out he was from Roseburg (my hometown), that was a sign that I was supposed to get him. I called to "reserve" him, but someone had already put him on hold. That was a sign that I wasn't supposed to get him. I called at 3 (her 24 hour hold ran out at 4) to see if the woman had come to pick him up. She hadn't, that was a sign I was supposed to get him. I got stuck at the train tracks and thought it was going to be too late, that was a sign I wasn't supposed to get him. When I got there, he was still there, that was a sign I was supposed to get him. I literally teetered back and forth like this for a couple of hours. It was pretty ridiculous, I think. In the end, I got the dog, love him and can't imagine not having him. But I also know that if I had not adopted him, I would have been just as well off. I can look back and say I don't think any of them were signs and if anything, it was a test to see how badly I really wanted that dog.

When I read about the paralyzed man that Jesus healed (Luke 5:17-26) I see how some people just don't let things stop them from getting what they need. The men carrying the paralyzed man on the mat could not simply walk up to Jesus because of the crowds of people. They didn't walk away because it was going to be a more difficult task than they anticipated. They didn't say, well, this must be a sign that you are supposed to be paralyzed for the rest of your life. They found a way to make it happen. That kind of perseverance is inspiring.

[Josh]

Those are brilliant thoughts on "signs". It's really easy to make too much of them sometimes. And this is a great passage to use as an example.

[Josh]

Luke 4:14-30

14Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
16He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
20Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."
22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.
23Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "
24"I tell you the truth," he continued, "no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah's time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian."
28All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. 30But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Though Luke is interested in presenting an orderly account in his gospel, he is not concerned with a strict chronology. He is concerned with presenting the life of Christ thematically. And his choice of an opening scene for the ministry of Christ powerfully captures how Jesus’ ministry was not just to the Jews but to others as well (in fact, as the gospel continues and moves into Acts, Luke does well to show that Jesus message was intended for the entire world)

In his reading of the Isaiah passage, Jesus strongly identifies himself with the outcasts: the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed. At first he gets a positive response from his hometown folk (verse 22). I think that they might have been thinking about Isaiah’s prophecy that God would bless their long-despised and forgotten region (Galilee) with the coming of the Messiah (see Isaiah 9:1-7). Jesus words that Isaiah prophecy had come true in their hearing must have given them great hope that their hometown boy was going to bring great acclaim to their town.

But still, it was questionable in their minds why Jesus had been doing so many great works in Capernaum but not in his own town. Jesus knew that they were thinking this, and I think that’s why he goes on “the attack”, so to speak, in verses 16-22.

Not a great P.R. move to start your ministry telling your own townspeople that their priorities were misplaced- that indeed, he hadn’t come to set them apart as special, but that he had come to reach out to Gentiles as well (just as Elijah and Elisha had done)—Gentiles that were probably disdained by the Jews of Nazareth.

This was, of course, just one of the first time that Jesus would challenge long-held but misguided expectations about what his coming would look like.

I was thinking further on this—especially about how Isaiah 9:1-7 does say that the Galileans would be honored. Were they, or did Jesus totally slight them? Well, I think this says a lot about what being honored is really all about. Being favored by God doesn’t mean being elevated at everyone else’s expense. It means being used of God to bless others. And those Galileans that were willing to see this (the disciples and other followers of Jesus) were the real inheritors of the promise of Isaiah 9:1-7 and not the Galilean Jews who hoped that the Messiah would destroy their enemies and put them in charge.

[Josh]

Luke 5:27-32

27After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, 28and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
29Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

31Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

I love this scene with Levi (aka Matthew, most likely). I told you all about how Zifarelli's film Jesus of Nazareth beautifully hypothesizes about Peter and Levi having a "checkered past", and how he has Jesus tell the prodigal son story at Levi's party, hitting home to both the sinners gathered around him, and Peter (playing the "older brother") listening reluctantly at the doorway, refusing, just as the older brother did, to come in to the party for the prodigals. Like I said, the movie isn't perfect, but that scene is magnificant.

A couple other notes: I love the simplicity of Jesus' call: follow me. This is a good reminder that we are not first and foremost following a "system" or "idea" but a person.

Also, I liked how my NIB commentary pointed out that the verb used for Levi getting up out of his tax collectors chair is the same as that used of the paralytic earlier when he rose in response to Christ.

Levi was paralyzed too, perhaps even more than the paralytic. Paralyzed by the cares of this world, money, compromise, guilt and probably futile attempts to justify his decisions and play the victim. But then Christ entered the picture.

I also think it's important to note that Jesus doesn't ask the "sinners" to repent before he decides to eat with them, even though eating with them would make him ceremonially unclean:

Romans 5:6-8

6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.