Second Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Luke 4:14-21

[To see the first "pass" and to understand what this is all about, go here.]

Verse-by-Verse Comments:
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
(1) Jesus' hometown, Nazareth, is in the region of Galilee, the area near the Sea of Galilee. In fact, this verse kicks off a large section of Luke's Gospel, running to Luke 9:50. In this section, we read about Jesus' ministry, all except for a few incidents recounted occurring in Galilee. Luke 9:51 begins a huge section of narrative, moving toward Jesus' passion and resurrection in Jerusalem, a section in which we're told at the outset, Jesus had His "face set" toward the holy city.

(2) In Luke's telling of both Jesus' life, death, and resurrection (the Gospel of Luke) and in his later telling of the history of the early Church (the book of Acts), it's always the Spirit Who empowers ministry. Jesus, fresh from baptism and subsequent temptation, comes to His hometown "filled with the power of the Spirit." (In Luke, check out 3:16; 22; 4:1; 36; 5:17; 6:19; 8:46; 9:1.

(3) Already apparently, Jesus has some degree of fame and everybody has heard about His exploits.

15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
(1) Jesus' teaching evokes applause from the folks at other synagogues in Galilee.

(2) According to The New Interpreter's Bible, three other times in Galilee, people praised God for Jesus' disclosure of Himself as Messiah: 5:25. 26; 7:16. So, this fits in.

16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
(1) It was common for visitors to worship to be asked to help with the readings and the prayers. This is probably how Jesus came to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

(2) Several sources say that the typical worship liturgy of the time isn't known exactly, but would probably be composed of the following elements:

• The Shema
• Recitation of the Ten Commandments (Decalogue)
• The Eighteen Benedictions
• The Reading of Scripture
• The Psalms
• The Exposition (sermon or message)
• The Blessing

(3) One of the themes of Luke's two books, Luke and Acts, is that Jesus does not supplant Old Testament tradition, He fulfills it. Here, Luke underscores this theme by pointing out that Jesus went to the synagogue customarily.

(4) Typically in worship, a person would read standing, but teaching was done from a seated position. This latter tradition is maintained in Roman Catholic circles when the Pope and the bishops deliver their teachings from a seat. (This is called ex cathedra.)

17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
(1) An attendant would have given Jesus the scroll. But evidently, it was up to Jesus to decide what passages He would read from Isaiah.

According to NIB, by Jesus' time, "a fixed triennial cycle of readings from the Torah [the first five books of our Old Testament]..." was used in worship. But it isn't known if there were fixed readings from the prophetic books or not. Many scholars believe that which prophetic books were read was totally at the discretion of the reader.

(2) Assuming Jesus selected the passages read, He did so with great care. As NIB points out, the scene at Nazareth "functions as a keynote to the entire ministry of Jesus, setting forth the perspective from which it is to be understood."

I hope to finish these verse-by-verse comments tomorrow.