Okay, good morning again, everyone. We do have a lot of really interesting material to cover today, so we'll get right into this. It is going to fill up all of our time here, I'm afraid.
Probably even have to cut a bit of it out, but we'll go through this. Last time in our series on the Gospels, we left off with Jesus Christ leaving Judea to transfer his base of operations, you might say, up to Galilee. And if you remember the story, to pick it up, the story flow there, he heads up through Samaria. We talked about that a long time, last time, about the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans there, the origins and roots of that hostility. And he stopped at a well and check them there in the middle of the day and struck up conversation with the Samaritan woman. And we talked about that quite a bit. And as a result of that encounter, Jesus stays there for two days talking with the Samaritans there at the city of Shechem before continuing his journey on up to Galilee. And today we'll pick up the story here in John 4 and verse 43 through 45. This is from page 16 of the Harmony. If you'd like to turn there. So we'll be going through this material today. Two very interesting incidents that we'll cover today and a lot of background information that adds a lot more depth and detail to the story when we understand what's really going on. So continuing here in John 4 and verse 43, After two days he departed from there, from Shechem, where he had stayed, and went to Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things he did in Jerusalem at the feast. At the Passover feast before this, that we talked about earlier. For they also had gone to the feast.
So what this is telling us is the people there in Galilee had seen these miracles that Jesus had performed at the feast of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread there in Jerusalem. And we read that earlier. And you might write down in your notes John 2, 23 and 3, 2, which describe the fact that he did do miracles there. This is in John 2, 23. When he was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs or the miracles which he did.
And again, the time setting for this is about six months into his ministry when this took place. And then John 3 and verse 2, we talk quite a bit about Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus when he came to him at night. And this says, this man, Nicodemus, came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you were a teacher come from God, for no one else, for no one can do these signs, these miracles, that you do unless God is with him. So this is a reference back to these miracles here. So continuing on with the story now in Matthew 4 and verse 17, now we see that again, as we talked about last time, that John the Baptizer has been thrown into prison by Herod Antipas, one of the rulers there, one of the sons of Herod the Great. And this leads Jesus, as we talked about last time, to leave that area and go up to Galilee, where he begins preaching the gospel in that area. And as we talked about last time, that Jesus was attracting quite a following there in Judea. And when John the Baptizer is thrown into prison, then Jesus realizes that the same thing might happen to him. So he leaves Judea for Galilee.
So picking up the story here, Matthew 4 and verse 17, from that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And also, we have this in parallel form in the Harmony. You might look at that. But the other accounts give us a few more details. Mark 1, verse 14 and 15 says, Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. Going back into the year before that, we had the four Kingdom of God Bible seminars here. And we went through four different aspects of this verse that are brought out here. I covered that in quite a bit of detail. So if you'd like to understand that more, you can go back and listen to those on our website. But we talked about the four different aspects of this verse, which are the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and finally believe in the gospel. Four aspects of that message that Jesus Christ brought and taught, and which the church teaches today as well. So the important thing for us to realize is that for us, yes indeed, the kingdom of God is at hand. And we have to repent and believe that good news. And believing that good news does mean that we have to act on it as well. We have to act on it by realizing that Jesus Christ is the king of that kingdom, and that we must accept Him as our king and our ruler now in all aspects of our lives. As Matthew 6.33 says, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. So that is what we are to do in our life so that we can be a part of this kingdom with Him. And that truly is the good news, which the word gospel means, that we do have the means to enter into that kingdom. So notice also as it says here what Jesus Christ's message is. It is the message of the kingdom of God. And that is the same message it was brought by the biblical prophets that went on before. Let's notice a few passages relating to this, that where the people understood that this is indeed a literal kingdom that is coming, a kingdom on earth. Just a few prophecies. We'll read through these pretty quickly. Daniel 7 verses 13 and 14. Vision of Daniel. I was watching in the night visions and behold one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him. And what Daniel is seeing here is a vision of the one who would become Jesus Christ. As it says here, one like the Son of Man, which is a title that Jesus appropriated to himself many times during his ministry, and he comes before the ancient of days. What this is describing is the one who had become Jesus Christ coming before God the Father. In the Old Testament times they did not realize these were two separate beings there, which is clear, we understand from what Daniel is describing here. And they brought him near before him. Then to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away, and his kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed. So this is clearly talking about the fact that Jesus Christ is going to be given a kingdom.
And the Jews understood the part about the kingdom. They didn't understand the part about Jesus Christ quite. They weren't quite sure what to make of this. But they did understand that there was a physical, literal kingdom that would come to earth, and all peoples, nations, and languages would serve this Messiah who is going to be heading up that kingdom. A couple of other familiar prophecies, Isaiah 9, verses 6 and 7, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government, or his kingdom, and peace there will be no end. Upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, the kingdom of David, is going to be given to the Messiah. To order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever, the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this. Here again is a very familiar prophecy to them describing a kingdom, a government that is going to be established on earth. One final one we'll look at. There are many others we could talk about, but for lack of time. Another one, Isaiah 2, verses 2 and 3, it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain and mountain in Bible prophecy is symbolic of kingdoms, of governments, of empires.
They understood this. That the mountain or the kingdom or government of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, in other words, above all other kingdoms, all other governments, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain or the kingdom, the empire, the government of the Eternal, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Eternal from Jerusalem. So my point in mentioning these scriptures is that when Jesus comes preaching the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God, he is not coming with a new message.
The Israelites, the Jews of his day, knew that from these prophecies there is going to come a new kingdom that is going to be established on the earth, that will be led by the Messiah. So the prophets who had gone before Jesus taught the same message. The difference is one, I would say, of emphasis because Jesus comes not so much talking about the kingdom as such, but his emphasis is on how we may enter that kingdom. It's not a different message, it's just a slightly different emphasis. And we'll see that as we go through the Gospels, that this is Christ's emphasis on how we may enter that kingdom there.
Again, his message is a continuation of the message of the Old Testament prophets who have gone before. Let's go back here to Matthew 4 and verse 17 and pick up on another point here that confuses some people. Notice that Matthew uses the term here, kingdom of heaven instead of kingdom of God. And he substitutes heaven here in place of God.
There is a reason for this, a very clear reason for this. Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. His Gospel of Matthew is very heavily oriented toward this. I can give you some examples later on if you need to. But that's who he's writing to. And it was common among the Jews of that day, based on the third commandment, Exodus 20 and verse 7, You shall not take the name of the Eternal your God in vain, for the Eternal will not hold him guiltless, who takes his name in vain.
So because of this commandment, the Jews would never say God's name. They wouldn't even use the word God. And Jesus appears to be following this same practice when he talks about not the kingdom of heaven, excuse me, not the kingdom of God, but he instead uses the term kingdom of heaven. He's using heaven as a synonym for God here. And let's look at a few examples of this, too. I think probably Jesus is literally saying the words kingdom of heaven, not kingdom of God, even though it's called kingdom of God and Mark and Luke there.
But Matthew does it differently. And the reason I say this is that Matthew typically uses this term, kingdom of heaven, substituting heaven for God again. But notice some other passages where Mark, Luke and John are all recording Christ's words and he uses in their Gospels a synonym in place of God as well. Here's one Luke 20 in verse 4. All of these are direct quotes from Jesus Christ. John is here confronting the Pharisees, his opponents, and he says, the baptism of John was it from heaven or from men?
What's he doing? He's substituting the word heaven in there instead of God. Was it from God or from men? That's what he's saying. Everybody understood that. But he's not using the word God in there. Another example, Mark 14 verse 62. This is as he is being tried before the Sanhedrin, before his crucifixion.
And he says to them, You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the power, not at the right hand of God, but at the right hand of the power. He's clearly substituting the power there for God, and coming with the clouds of heaven. And a final one, John 4 in verse 23.
But the hour is coming and now is, we talked about this last time, this is part of his conversation with the woman at the well in Samaria. But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshipers will worship not God, but the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him.
And John substitutes the Father in there for probably about two dozen times there in the Gospel. So we see this, that not just the way Matthew records it as Kingdom of Heaven, using Heaven as a substitute for God, but this is not the only time the other Gospel writers record Jesus' words this way, where this is clearly his practice. Jesus is not using the word God or the name of God there in accordance with the Third Commandment.
So I hope that's helpful to help us understand what is going on here. And because people don't… Yes, Tina. Yes, sorry.
Good. Excellent question. So why does Mark say Kingdom of God? Well, because Mark and Luke, I think Luke also uses Kingdom of God. Well, I'm sure he does. They use the term Kingdom of God.
Well, because they're writing to very different audiences. Matthew, again, is writing to a Hebrew audience. It would be quite offensive for the Jews to see the name of God written there. That would be the same thing as speaking it to them. Mark, however, is writing… We talked about this quite a bit in some of the introductory sermons, background sermons to this. Who the different Gospels are written to. Mark is clearly written to primarily a Roman Gentile audience.
And how do we know that? We know that because Mark uses several Latin phrases in his Gospel, which none of the other writers do. Luke is writing primarily to a universal audience.
We know that because he includes a lot of incidents that would pertain to… Well, I'll give you some examples. He includes a lot of interaction between Jesus and women, for instance. Jesus and children, which the other Gospel writers don't include.
He includes more stories about Gentiles in there as well.
So Luke… To them… Well, let me put it this way. Matthew, in writing to a Jewish audience, they understand what he's doing when he says, Kingdom of Heaven. They're mentally going to translate that as Kingdom of God. The others, though, the non-Jewish audience that Mark, and John, and Luke are writing to, they have to spell it out for them. They're not used to that prohibition against using God's name, so they just write it out clear. They, in essence, translate for Jesus what he means rather than what he's literally saying.
Randy, I think you had your hand up there. Yeah. It's the last person read around 423, where we don't think God's name is God or anything. And I'll have to explain the very next verse, verse 24. It says, God is here, isn't he? Yes. He referenced the God in the very next verse after that one. So it's important to be a person who's trying not to say God.
Actually, I'd have to look that up and see… look it up in my concordance and see what the exact word is there. Yes, Tim? I have a question in my mind. Good point. Yeah, two-fold question for the benefit of the recording. Does Matthew use the term God as recorded by Matthew? And he does, yes. I think there's… I'd have to go back and look it up, but I believe twice he does use the term kingdom of God. But I hadn't checked to see what the audience was at that time. It's possible he is speaking primarily to a gentile audience.
At that, I just have to go back and look at that. And your second comment was why he referred to himself as son of man. Yes, yes. I think that's clear that he wouldn't… That's why he didn't refer to himself as God, but as son of man. He repeatedly says that he is divine, that he is Messiah, but he does it in very Jewish ways, not necessarily beating around the bush, but again using synonyms like son of man there. Oh, yeah. He's not trying to offend them.
Yeah, and as an example, you find… Well, to the one example there, Mark 1462, if you read that in the Gospels, the parallel account, what do they do? The Jews, the Sanhedrin there, ends up accusing him of blasphemy for claiming to be God, but they don't accuse him of breaking the third commandment, using God's name in vain. They never accuse him of that, which they're always on the lookout for something to accuse him of. And he's never accused of taking God's name in vain. He is accused of blasphemy, but not that. Yes, Pat? You often, if you're in correspondence with somebody who is Jewish, they will use g-g.
They never write the full name of the capital G, but it's always broken up. Yeah, Pat's comment, a lot of Jewish writings, if you read them, even today, and I read a lot of them and study for this, they'll typically use g, capital G, and then a dash and a d, so they're not spelling out God there. And that's what it goes back to. Here is the third commandment there, and the prohibition is about that. So, let's see, any other questions? Did I cover that thoroughly enough? Yes, Tim?
Exactly. Yeah, the question is, is this why they won't say Yahweh? And we don't even know the pronunciation of it, and that is true. Well, this is interesting. I didn't plan on getting into this, but I'll touch on it briefly.
The name of God in the Old Testament, wherever we see L-O-R-D in capital letters, or small caps in the Old Testament, that is the equivalent of the Hebrew letters Y-H-W-H, Yahweh, as we would pronounce it. Well, actually, we don't know how to pronounce it, because the vowels aren't included in there, just the consonants.
We assume, we think, to the best of our knowledge, is probably Yahweh.
Now, when the Old Testament...well, actually, before it was translated, the Jewish scribes substituted in Lord, what we see translated as Lord in there, because they wouldn't pronounce that name, they wouldn't even write that name, except in rare instances there.
It's interesting, when we get into the Gospels, too, the Gospel writers did the same thing.
When they come across an Old Testament passage that would have originally had Yahweh in there, they substitute L-O-R-D in Greek. Churios is the word that is put in there.
This practice actually goes back a long, long ways. It goes back to well before the time of Christ. The Dead Sea Scrolls do the same type of thing, and some of those go back to 300-400 BC.
This custom of substituting a synonym or something else, Lord, was the most common one, for God's name, goes back a long, long ways in history there. It all goes back again to the Third Commandment. They are not being so careful not to take God's name in vain that you don't even pronounce it. It stopped being pronounced hundreds of years before Christ, so that's why we don't even know how it was pronounced to this day. I hope that explains everything. Again, a very long discussion, but that's just the high points of it there. That's what is going on here in the Gospels, and we see that quite often. The reason I bring that up about Matthew using Kingdom of Heaven is that it confuses a lot of people there because they get the idea of going to heaven. They think Christ is always talking about this kingdom in heaven that we're going to go to after we die. That wasn't the point at all. This is why it's important to understand the cultural background of the Gospels, because people have taken this phrase, Kingdom of Heaven, and assume we go to heaven after we die. Nobody in the first century would have understood his words that way at all. They do. There's going to be a Kingdom of God that's coming to earth, and the Messiah is going to be the head of that kingdom.
This whole concept of going to heaven after we die came out of Greek religion and Greek mythology and was merged into traditional Christianity several centuries after these events. Good discussion, but that's why I wanted to bring this up. If we don't understand the cultural background, we can come up with some pretty crazy ideas like going to heaven that has misled many, many millions of people over the centuries there.
Continuing back with our story flow here in Luke 4 and verse 14, this is Luke's version of what Matthew and Mark wrote, then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of him went out through all the surrounding region. One of the study questions I sent out last night was, what news? What was the news that was going out? The news was that here's a rabbi who performs miracles. So word was getting around up here in Galilee. Verse 15, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all. So he is receiving a very positive reception at this point because of his miracle working power and because of his teaching. There he is again, same thing. He's starting to attract a lot of attention up here in Galilee now as well. Also, I should point out here, he taught where? He taught in their synagogues.
This tells us that it is Jesus' custom, as we'll read about in just a few minutes, to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath and to teach. He went to the synagogue just like any other Jewish person of his day. He didn't break the Sabbath, he kept it religiously there and went to the synagogue regularly. Now we come to a very interesting story here about the story where Jesus heals the son of a nobleman at Kanaah up there in Galilee. So let's transfer over any other questions before I transition on to this.
Talk about this story here and talk about the background of it. Jesus came again to Kanaah of Galilee where he had made the water wine. There was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. This word nobleman here means a royal official of a king. One of the questions I sent out last night for you to think about is which king? If you want a hint of that, look at the map on the back of the harmony there. You can see that Capernaum up here by the Sea of Galilee is in the territory of Herod Antipas. This gray area and the gray area labeled Pareah are part of the kingdom of Antipas. Now who is Antipas? Herod Antipas. Well, he's one of Herod's sons, a tetrarch, got a fourth of Herod's kingdom after he died. But Herod Antipas is the very king who has just thrown John the Baptizer in jail. So think about this. Herod Antipas throws John the Baptizer in jail, but here's a nobleman who is a royal official of this same Herod Antipas.
So think about the implications of that. Let's just talk about that for a minute here.
Why did Herod Antipas throw John the Baptizer in jail? Because John had criticized his marriage to his stepbrother's wife. Because he's committing adultery with his stepbrother's wife while his stepbrother is still alive. The stepbrother, incidentally, is Philip, who will come across later on in the Gospels as well. So John has Herod Antipas mad at him. He's got Herod's wife, Rhodius was her name, mad at him as well. And again, as we covered last time, Jesus leaves the area of Judea to go up to Galilee to get away from where Herod Antipas has John the Baptizer in prison down in the palace fortress of Machiras over on the eastern side of the Dead Sea.
So this nobleman that we're reading about here, probably since he's an official of Herod, knows that he has thrown John the Baptizer in jail. Again, John is quite a prominent figure at that time.
And who is Jesus in relation to John the Baptizer? Well, their cousins, for one thing.
For another thing, John has baptized Jesus. For another thing, what are Jesus' disciples doing?
They're out-baptizing, like John and his disciples.
So this nobleman has got to be thinking, you know, there's a lot of parallels here between Jesus and John, a lot of connections here. Are they part of the same movement that's going on here?
And if my boss, Herod, has thrown John the Baptizer in jail, what are the risks to me if I go to this Jesus who is doing the same things that John is doing?
Some of these thoughts have got to be going through his mind in terms of his career and his job, security, and whether his head is going to stay on his shoulders to be blunt.
So this is part of the things we read over these things. And unless you put yourself in their shoes and think about it and realize these connections, we miss what is going on. And we miss an important part of the story here. The important part of the story is this nobleman is literally risking his life to go see Jesus and ask him to heal his son. Because he could end up in Herod's prison, just like John the Baptizer, if he's not careful. Interesting story there.
Let's see. Bottom line is you did not want to get on Herod's bad side. So the stakes are pretty high for this nobleman. His son is dying, but the only alternative that he sees is a course of action that could possibly cost him his own life as well. And you have to understand a lot of the palace and court intrigue at those times, too. Just like today, politicians are always jockeying for power. The way they do that is by tearing down and undermining and slandering other people so they can move themselves up and get the other person out of the way. So this type of politics has been practiced for many, many years. So this nobleman realizes he's in a pretty precarious situation.
But he doesn't have a lot of good alternatives because his son is going to die if he's not healed.
So the nobleman does what he knows needs to be done.
Verse 47, then, When the nobleman heard that Jesus had come up out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and implored him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
Let's take a look at that on a map here. This gives us a little better understanding, too, of what is going on. This official is up here in Capernaum on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. This map is a couple of pages inside the back of your harmony so you can look at it there. So this is where the nobleman is. Canaw over here where Jesus is is about 20 to 25 miles, depending on how curvy, windy the road was during that day. It went through some pretty hilly regions up there, but 22 to 25 miles, something like that. Traveling on foot that day, you could make about 16 to 18 miles a day on level ground, but this is hilly and somewhat mountainous. So he's talking about a day and a half, basically, to walk from Capernaum up to Canaw to reach Jesus here. As this man is traveling, as he's walking from Capernaum up to Canaw, he knows that his son is at the point of death. He knows it's going to take him, depending on whether he stops and rests, at least a day, maybe a day and a half of walking, to get up to Canaw to try to convince Jesus to come back with him to Capernaum, which is going to be another day, day and a half, walking back down there. That'll be blunt. He doesn't know if his son is going to be alive when he gets back.
So this man has a lot on his mind as he's walking there for a day, day and a half, to get up there. And he has to wonder if this miracle-working rabbi will come back with him to heal his son. He doesn't know. He's going to try, but he doesn't know. He also has to wonder about the consequences that will happen to him. If his boss, Herod Antipas, finds out that he is gone to this rabbi who's out here doing the kind of things that John was doing, and has to wonder what the consequences will be for him, and his family, and his life, if that gets found out. So this man has a lot on his mind, a lot on his mind, as he walks, and he walks for a day and a half, to get up there to Kanaah. Just put yourself in his shoes and think about that. The burdens this man is carrying. Tremendous burdens. Imagine how you would feel under those circumstances yourself. You'd probably feel pretty desperate, maybe even pretty hopeless, under those circumstances.
One minor detail I'd like to point out here is that when John's Gospel said that the man went to Jesus and he implored him to come down to heal his son, that this shows that the author knows his geography. Again, it's about 22 to 25 miles, but the Sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level. Kanaah, I'm guessing, is probably about 1,000 feet above sea level. So he's actually about a 2,000 feet elevation distance to come down from Kanaah down to Capernaum. Just mention this because it's one of the little details the Gospel writers include in there that shows they know what they're talking about. And again, to disprove this notion of a lot of the critics of the Gospels weren't written until several centuries after that by people who'd never been there and never knew Jesus in person and so on. This disproves that because he mentions about coming down, down in elevation, to Capernaum. So continuing with our story here, the nobleman comes to Jesus and he pleads with him to come down to Capernaum to heal his dying son. And verse 48, verse 48, then Jesus said to him, Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.
And one of the questions I sent out here is, who was Jesus primarily speaking to? Is he speaking to the nobleman there who's just walked for a day and a half to try to get his son healed? Or is he maybe talking more to the bystanders who are standing around and seeing this? Because there's got to be a crowd around because Jesus is this miracle-performing rabbi.
So since we saw at the beginning of today's study that Galileans were among those who had seen Jesus perform miracles there at the feast in Jerusalem, presumably Jesus's words are directed more toward the people standing around listening to this than at the nobleman himself who is just there desperately seeking Jesus's help. So what is Jesus's point in saying this?
Here, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe. What's the point?
What is Jesus correcting them about here? What he's correcting or rebuking is the idea that you have to see first before you will believe. That's what he says here. What does Jesus want from his followers? What does he want from us? Does he want us to believe because we see miracles? Or does he want us to believe because we believe him? That's the point. That's what Jesus Christ is rebuking. Yeah, it's easy to believe if you see miracles, but will you believe if you don't see miracles? That's the point that he's making. That's the attitude that he's rebuking there. He wants followers who will believe him, who will take him at his word, no matter what. That's the point. That's why this is brought up here. Verse 49, the nobleman said to him, sir, come down before my child dies. And then Jesus tells him something that he didn't expect to hear. Because after all, the nobleman's whole point in coming up their canal was to try to convince Jesus to come back with him to Capernaum to heal his son. So Jesus says something totally unexpected. He says, go your way. Your son lives. So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and he went his way. Illustrates the same point there that the man didn't have to see a miracle.
Because his son is 25 miles away. But he believes and fully accepts that and went his way, as it says here. So we see here the kind of attitude and faith that Jesus Christ wants to see in his people. The man didn't need to personally witness a miracle to believe. He believed what Jesus told him, accepted it, and began the long journey down the road back to Capernaum.
Verse 51, continuing the story here, and as he was going down, his servants met him. They meet somewhere along the road between Cana and Capernaum there, along the way. And the servants told him, saying, your son lives. So the son has been healed, and the servants are down there in Capernaum, and the boy's better. We've got to go tell our master, so they know he's gone to Cana. So they head up the road to Cana as the nobleman is coming down. And they meet somewhere in the middle there. We don't know where. We do know it's the next day. So again, this illustrates the man has been traveling for at least a large part of a day to get down there. And they meet somewhere.
Verse 52, Then the nobleman inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, yesterday, at the seventh hour the fever left him.
The seventh hour time again, as in John's Gospel is counted from 6 a.m. being the first hour, first hour of daylight. So 7 a.m. is, excuse me, the seventh hour would be one o'clock in the afternoon. So this tells us when the encounter took place between Jesus and the nobleman the previous day, about one o'clock in the afternoon. So the nobleman has traveled presumably all night long and sometime meets his servants there on the road between there and Capernaum the following day. Again, illustrating it's quite a long walk. This also tells us the man is probably not on horseback or donkey or mule or something like that. He's probably walking the whole way there to take that long. So verse 53, so the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, your son lives and he himself believed in his whole household. So this is quite a miracle here, an astounding miracle because, well, for another number of things, it shows not only that God can heal, but that he can heal over a long distance. As we see here, 22-25 miles from Jesus to this boy. And this has implications for us today. We're told if we are sick to call on the elders of the church for prayer and for anointing when we are sick. We do this fairly regularly on the Sabbath. One of the elders will anoint someone. We have a private room upstairs for that. But sometimes circumstances and distance make that impossible. And in the book of Acts, we find that the apostles used what are called anointing cloths for that to send to people who are far away for healing. And it obviously worked. You can read about that in Acts 19 verse 12. I didn't include this here, but we read that the apostle Paul sent, it's translated handkerchiefs or aprons, which is basically a piece of cloth. There are people who are sick, and God healed them.
This is something that we do fairly often in the church today. It goes back to Acts 19 verse 12.
We've probably all heard stories over the years of how someone has called an elder to receive an anointed cloth, and they were healed the minute they hung up the phone. They're from that because God honored their faith and their obedience for that. They didn't even have to wait to receive the anointed cloth in the mail. This is something that we do in practice in the church. I always keep anointed cloths here in my bag for if someone has a sick family member at home or something like that. Just something to include there if some of you are a viewer in the church don't understand that. This is something that we do. This is what it's based on. Again, Acts 19 and 12, and this passage here about the fact that, yes, distance is not an impediment to God healing people or even between the individual and the minister or elder that God tells people to call on for that. Verse 54 to wrap up this section, this again is the second sign that Jesus did when he had come out of Judea and to Galilee. Since John identifies this as the second miracle, the first is apparently referring back to the miracle earlier in John that we talk about of turning to water and to wine there at Kana. To sum up here in this part, we see a remarkable example of believing faith in this particular nobleman. There's much more to the story when we understand the distances that are involved there, the trek the man had to walk up to get to Kana and what was weighing on in his mind, the potential danger that he faced of the consequences of perhaps being seen consorting with somebody who's a threat to his boss, the king here at Antipas there. It also helps us to see that when things may seem quite hopeless for us in the trials that we're dealing with, that God knows what is going on. God, as we know, will never leave us. He will never forsake us. We may not get the answer that we seek all the time. This nobleman did get the answer more than he sought because his son is healed immediately. He doesn't have to wait for Jesus to go back down with him there another day and a half. But if we don't get the answer, that doesn't mean that God has abandoned us or not heard our prayers or that he doesn't really care about us.
These are some of the lessons we can draw from this. Any questions, thoughts, comments on that before we shift gears? Yes, Bruce.
Yes, Bruce's comment was that it was surprising that the nobleman would walk up there, but maybe he is trying to do it incognito and doesn't want other people to know about it.
Originally, when I researched this, I just assumed that, yes, he is probably going up being a nobleman, an official of Herod. He has probably got a horse or mule or donkey or at least to go there. I originally wrote that until I came to the part about it. It's the next day when he meets the servants on the road. If he is riding on horseback, it would take four or five hours one way so he could have gone all the way there and back in the same day.
The fact that he meets his servants on the road the following day tells us he is not on horseback.
Mule or donkey, I'm not sure how they travel, how fast they travel, but even if it's double that time, he could still have gotten back in the night time sometimes.
So the fact that it's the following day that he leaves about one o'clock in the afternoon and probably walks all night and still meets his servants the next day indicates to me that, yes, he is indeed walking. I hadn't thought about the angle of maybe he is trying to do it incognito, because he doesn't want others to go on to know what's going on. That's a possibility that would make sense, too, under the circumstances. Yes, Vicki? Yes, Vicki is commenting about Jesus' compassion toward the man. He doesn't want to draw attention to it. And, yes, had Jesus gone down there at that time with that man, yes, that could have had consequences for him. That's really a very interesting backstory. I'll cover this probably next time we get into this. Here's something for you to think about. We'll answer it next time.
If you look on the back of your map, Jesus goes to Capernaum.
Capernaum is in the territory of Herod Antipas, who has thrown John the Baptizer in jail.
Why is Jesus up there in Galilee in the same territory of this king? What's going on?
Isn't that a real threat to Jesus? Because he just left Judea to get away from the threat of possibly being arrested. Something for you to think about. We'll talk about it next time, but it has to do with, I think, this nobleman and a couple of other miracles that Jesus performs that, in essence, probably give him a certain level of protection there at Capernaum.
Talk about that next time, but it's something for you to be thinking about. Again, a lot of backstories in the Gospels. When we understand them, it answers a lot of little questions that might come up in our minds from time to time. Let's see, was there another hand over here? Yes, Tim.
Tim is just commenting about appreciating the understanding and insight and the background of this. Somebody told me after one of the sermons I gave earlier, you just double the Gospels for me, because there's a whole other story line, multiple story lines in some cases, that are there. If you don't understand the background, you miss all of that story line that's there beneath the surface. Bill, yes? It goes back to the Old Testament. Yes, right. Bill's comment about using God's name in vain, that yes, if we take God's name and say, God did this and this and this, when God didn't, is that taking God's name in vain? Yes, it absolutely is. We need to be very careful about what we say about God and what we attribute to Him, because that could very well be a violation of that commandment. I'm personally very, very careful to what I do or attribute to God there for that reason. We all ought to be, frankly, there, because it is taking God's name in vain if we're doing that.
When the doctors told you, you're going to die in 24 hours and you're still alive six years later, you're going to have to say, God did this and this and this. That's true, yes. That's the other side of the coin, too. That's what happened a couple years ago. Yes, definitely give God credit where it's due. It's a fine line. I bring this up to help us understand some of the cultural background again to help explain why some of the things are worded the way they are there in the Gospels.
As we see going through this, I think we're beginning to understand that there's not a word in the Gospels that doesn't have meaning there for us when we understand what's going on. That's especially true in what we'll be talking about next here. Let's move on now to a fascinating story of what happens next when Jesus goes to his hometown of Nazareth and speaks there on the synagogue where he grew up. We'll go through this pretty quickly here for time. Here's an artist's illustration of Nazareth, as it would have looked in the first century. A fairly small village. Estimates range from as few as about 200 people up to maybe a thousand. It's set in a bowl surrounded by hills there up in Galilee. A fairly rich agricultural area up here. These ladies are actually harvesting grapes here. You can see actually a pit where they would stomp the grapes to get the juice out and so on. That's a whole other story there. Anyway, this gives us kind of an idea here. To understand what's going on next in the background of this next story, we really need to understand the background of the history of Nazareth and how Nazareth came to be and what kind of people lived there. That's the key to understanding this next story. I've covered some of this in bits and pieces before, but I want to go over that and review it a little bit and explain what's going on. Nazareth is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible before the Gospels.
Archaeologically, there are no remains there from before the first century BC.
So it's not a town that's been around for a long time, like Jerusalem or Bethlehem or some of the others there. To give us some history here, as we talked about last time, the northern ten tribes of Israel split off from the other tribes and formed the Kingdom of Israel after the death of Solomon. Then after several centuries of evil kings and idolatry and Sabbath breaking and the other sins for which God sent them into captivity, God frankly got fed up with the Israelites.
The Assyrians invaded and took the Israelites away into captivity to the far reaches of the Assyrian Empire. This is actually a carving from King Sennacherib, who's mentioned in the Bible. This is from his throne room. I take that back. That's another illustration I have. But yeah, this is showing the Assyrians assaulting a city like Samaria.
Here's the city built on top of a hill with battering rams and soldiers climbing ladders, and a dead guy falling off with an arrow in him, and Assyrian archers, and this kind of stuff. So this is very real. The Assyrians took great glory in their exploits and conquests. This is what it looked like. So the Assyrians came in, defeated, took the Israelites away into captivity from Samaria. They moved them all out to the far reaches of the Assyrian Empire, left them in these different places that are mentioned along in here. In their place, they took peoples from Babylonia, from other lands the Assyrians had captured, and moved them over and settled them in what had been the lands of the Kingdom of Israel. That's where we get the Samaritans that we talked about last time, and the hostility going back between the Samaritans and the Jews, because the Samaritans were pagan Gentiles, brought in from these other lands and resettled there. The Jews hated the Samaritans and vice versa because of that. So, yeah, the Assyrians replaced. They took the Israelites out as refugees to the far reaches and brought other peoples in whom they had conquered on the other side of their empire. The reason they did this was to detach the people from their lands, from their farms, their towns, their vineyards, their orchards, their fields, that kind of thing, to frankly, so they wouldn't have any incentive to fight and rebel against the Assyrians anymore. So this was their policy. They moved these people into the lands of the northern ten tribes. Not long after that, the same thing happened with the Kingdom of Judah. They were invaded by the Babylonians over a century later. The Babylonians captured Jerusalem, took Judea, and they moved the Jews back out and resettled them in Babylon and other areas of the empire there. The big difference is, after 70 years of captivity, the Babylonian Empire fell to the Medo-Persian Empire, and King Cyrus then allows the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple under Cyrus. You can read about those in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah that tell those stories. But one thing we don't understand, well we know it, but don't necessarily understand why, is that only a few of the Jews returned under Ezra and Nehemiah. You can read that. It's spelled out very clearly there in those books. Most of the Jews stayed settled over here in Babylon. Because, after all, they've been there for a couple of generations. They built houses, they built businesses, they built farms, this kind of thing. So in their mindset, hey, we're under Persian rule here.
Yeah, we could pack up and travel a thousand miles to go back and settle in Judea. But what's the point? Because they're under Persian rule, too. What's the difference? We're under the rule of a pagan king here in Babylon. If we go there, we're still under the reign of a pagan king because they're part of the same empire that we are. So there wasn't that incentive for most of the Jews to make that long treacherous journey to go back there. So fast forward a couple of centuries, 300 BC, Alexander the Great comes along and he conquers the Medo-Persian Empire.
So now all of this territory is under the rule of the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great and his generals, among whom his empire was divided later. So now it's part of the same things going on. Now they're just all part of the pagan Greek Empire instead of the pagan Babylonian Empire, the pagan Medo-Persian Empire. So there's still not the incentive for most of the Jews to move back over here. Incidentally, this is why to this day there are still Jewish communities and places like Iran, Iraq, Egypt, so on. Because going back to this dispersal back here, 586 BC, when the Babylonians, that was the first dispersal. It did it again when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. But a lot of history there that still plays out to this day in the headlines here. But anyway, 167 BC, a remarkable event takes place called the Maccabean Revolt.
And that is some of the Jews under Judas Maccabee, who was a ruler at that time, part of a priestly family, they revolt and overthrow the remnants of the Greek Empire. It's called the Seleucid Empire, or Seleucis, who was one of Alexander's generals. Antiochus, Epiphanes, and Hanukkah are all part of this story we don't have time to cover now. But basically, the Jews revolted, and for the first time in centuries, the Jewish people gained control over what had been the former kingdoms of Israel and Judah. So there is now an independent Jewish kingdom again there. Again, this is, it takes 10 or 15 years from 167 BC for this to happen. And this is a game changer for a lot of the Jews over in Babylon, because now they have an incentive to move back to their lands, because there's a Jewish kingdom in charge now, and a Jewish king. So now they can be free again under Jewish rule. So there is a mass migration of people from over in Babylon.
They travel over, and they start settling up here in these former lands of what had been the kingdom of Israel before they were taken away by the Assyrians. So a lot of these towns that we see in the Gospels, like Nazareth, Capernaum, Kana, and Baudelah, are founded in this period of about 150 to 100 BC, from all these Jews migrating from Babylon to settle here. And they're joined with Jews from down in Judea as well, from places like Bethlehem, where Joseph's family is from, and Mary's ancestors, because they're descendants of King David, towns like Hebron, David's original capital, and so on. So there's a migration coming up from the south, from around Jerusalem, to settle up here, and these Jews coming in from from Babylon, Babylonia. And why do they do this?
They do this because of a prophecy over in Isaiah 9, verses 1 and 2, that the Messiah is going to appear in Galilee, and they want to be there. Let's read this prophecy. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of Zebulun, and the land of Naftali. Nazareth, incidentally, is in the tribal allotment of Zebulun. Capernaum is in the tribal allotment of Naftali. And afterward, more heavily oppressed her by the way of the sea. This is referring to the Via Morris. We'll talk about this more next time. It's the main international road that runs from all the way from Babylon through Damascus, down through northern Israel, along the seacoast to Egypt, the way of the sea, the road, the highway of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in Galilee of the Gentiles. Why is it called Galilee of the Gentiles?
Because the Assyrians moved all these Gentiles in there and dumped them where the Israelites were moved out of. And notice verse 2. This is where they see the Messiah is going to appear here. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them a light has shined. And they read this and they understood correctly that the Messiah is going to appear in Galilee of the Gentiles and they want to be there when this happens. That's the motivation for this big mass migration. Now all of this takes place in the period. It's not recorded in the Bible because all of this takes place in the period between when the Old Testament has ended and the Gospels begin with the New Testament. So that history isn't there, but we know this from other historical sources here. So this is what is going on and this is what sets the stage for the Gospels and for Jesus growing up in Nazareth and beginning his ministry there in Galilee. So this was the atmosphere in which Jesus grew up. It was an atmosphere of very religious Jews who were expecting the Messiah to show up in Galilee. And that's why they're living there, because they want to be there when the Messiah shows up in accordance with this prophecy. And that's why we see two things throughout Christ's ministry. At least two things, but two in particular. We see a lot of fervor among the people who were expecting a Messiah. And we also see Jesus continually encountering, and a lot of times, butting heads with a lot of very religious people. Because the really religious people are up here in Galilee. We assume that is all taking place. They're so religious that they must be around Jerusalem. No, not so. The really religious people are up here in Galilee where they're expecting the Messiah to show up. We need to understand this background here to understand what's going on in the Gospels here. So it's somewhat ironic, you might say, that Jesus the Messiah grows up where? He grows up in a town that is founded by Messianic Jews who were expecting the Messiah to come. And He does, but they just don't realize it.
There. So let's continue the story here. Again, here's our view of Nazareth. You can kind of picture this in your mind here. Look for in verse 16. So 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 to read. So a couple of points here again. This is his custom, his habit, his manner is to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath. So he is a good Sabbath-keeping Jew there. Not because he's a Jew, but he keeps the Sabbath because he is God in the flesh. And he is the one who gave the command for the Sabbath day there. So notice also it says here that he stood up to read. And this is describing exactly what we know about synagogue services of the time. Here's a photo of a restored or rebuilt synagogue in Nazareth that you can visit. And some actors dressed in period costume here. And this is what it would have looked like. He stood up and he read. It says book of Isaiah, but it's not a book. Books had not been invented. It wouldn't be for another century or two. He's reading from a scroll. They would have scrolls for the different books of the Bible. A scroll for Genesis, a scroll for Exodus, a scroll for Leviticus, and so on. A scroll for Psalms, and a scroll for Isaiah. So he's reading a scroll here, standing up there before the synagogue. So continuing on with the story, verse 17. And he was handed the book, or the scroll, of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it is written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. And this is a Rimes. Actually, we talked about this when Jesus is baptized by John. It's a Rimes back to the Holy Spirit, descending like a dove and alighting upon Jesus. And we talked about that quite a bit then, so we won't go through that again. But here's a Rimes he's referring back to again. Because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to send at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And now he's quoting here from Isaiah 61. So let's turn over here and read Isaiah 61 and see what Jesus did and did not read and why. Isaiah 61, incidentally, was one of the favorite passages for these Galilean Jews who were expecting a Messiah. I'll explain why in just a minute here. So let's read this. Isaiah 61 verses 1 through 6, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. And all the Jews there know this is a prophecy of the Messiah. They know that. Absolutely know it. Because of what it says. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who were bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he stops right there. He stops reading. He doesn't read the rest of this passage out of Isaiah, but let's go on and read it and notice what it says. And why this was so important to the Jews of Galilee. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn. Who is the day of vengeance directed toward? Talk about that in just a minute. To comfort all who mourn. Verse 3, To console those who mourn in Zion.
To give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the Spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Incidentally, here's Lord capitalized, that's substituting Lord in there for for Kurios, or excuse me, Yahweh, that we talked about earlier. You see this throughout the Bible. But continuing on, and here's the part that really struck a chord with the Galilean Jews. And they shall rebuild the old ruins. What old ruins? The old ruins from the Israelite towns.
That were there before the Assyrians came in and wiped them all out and deported them.
That's the way they interpreted this. They shall rebuild the old ruins. They shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations that have taken place since the Assyrians moved the Israelites out and brought in these nasty, rotten, dirty Gentiles and put them there instead. And here's what they really love, though.
Verses 5 and 6. These are these Galilean Jews, again. Strangers.
The word there is Hebrews. Actually, I think it's nations. It's a word that's often translated Gentiles. Gentiles shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigners. The Gentiles shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. What this is saying to the Messianic Jews there is, hey, these Gentiles are now going to start serving us when the Messiah comes. They're going to be our shepherds watching over our big flocks. They're going to be out there plowing our fields. They're going to be taking care of our vineyards and all of this. We're not going to be under their thumbs anymore, but they're going to be under our thumbs. That's the way they were interpreting this prophecy. But you, us, we're going to be named the priests of God, and they will call you the servants of our God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, all these Gentiles who are working for you and producing all this great produce and crops and herds and all of this. And in their glory you shall boast. So the Jews of Galilee loved Isaiah 61, because it's saying, no more are we going to be under the rule of these lousy Romans.
The Messiah is going to come. He's going to set up our kingdom. And then we're going to be in charge. And we're going to oppress the Gentiles. They've oppressed us all these centuries here.
That's what's going on. But Jesus doesn't read any of this. But when he stands up and starts quoting from Isaiah 61, this is what they're expecting him to read, because it's one of their favorite passages. That's why they moved there to rebuild the waste places, the former desolations, where their former brethren of Israel had been moved away from centuries ago. So we need to understand part of this background here. So rather than reading their favorite part, Jesus stops halfway through the second verse here to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. Looking at it from our perspective today, we understand why he stopped reading there. It's obvious because he fulfilled all of this, up to this, in his first coming. He did this. He preached good tidings to the poor. He healed the brokenhearted, proclaimed liberty to the captives, opening a prison to those who were bound to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, referring to the Jubilee that's going to come. But the other part, he was not going to fulfill that. He's going to fulfill that when he comes the second time.
That's when we're going to see the day of vengeance of our God, and the fulfillment of the other prophecies of rebuilding the waste places, and so on, which we know is referring to the Kingdom of God when Christ returns. And yes, all this devastated earth will be rebuilt and restored then. But that's not the way they interpreted it at that time. They applied it to them there.
They didn't realize this. They again think a Messiah is coming one time and is going to do all of this at once. They didn't understand he would come first to suffer and to die, and later would return as the conquering king that they expect here.
So what they see is Jesus reading this, and he's clearly claiming to fulfill several well-known messianic prophecies. Meaning that... Well, what's he saying? He's saying that he's fulfilling these, so he's saying that he is the Messiah, because he's fulfilling these messianic prophecies there, and that he stops right before he gets to what they thought was a really good part there.
So the atmosphere... Let's put ourselves in this synagogue. Imagine yourself in a synagogue, which would have been about the size of this room, and there's rows of seats along either side, and toward the back, and some people sitting down here on the floor, and Jesus is preaching from one of their favorite passages, and he stops in the middle before he gets to the good part. And the atmosphere has got to be totally electric here. They've heard of his miracles, and so on, and they're wondering, what's he going to do next? What's he going to say next? Where's he going with this? Why did he stop reading before he got to the good part? So what's going on here? Let's pick up the story here again. Luke 4, verse 20. Then he closed the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down.
And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. Now, again, I mentioned a few minutes ago, there's significance to every word here in the Gospels. It says he sat down.
Something we need to understand here about this, it says he sat down, and then Luke emphasizes the eyes of everybody in the synagogue were fixed on him. They're just staring at him like this. What's going to happen next? What's he going to say next? Here, so there's something going on here.
At the front of every synagogue, there was something called a Moses seat. And here's what it looks like. This is actually a photo of one found in the town of Corazin, which is just about three miles uphill from Capernaum. This is in a synagogue. And you can see it's rather elaborately carved, made out of stone. It's a stone chair. And you can see a Hebrew inscription on the front that in this case is a that describes who funded the chair for the synagogue there. But they've actually found these, and they say in Hebrew on them, Moses seat. And you may remember Christ referring. I don't have the reference, but he says, the scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
Therefore, whatever they tell you to do, do it. But do what they say, but not what they do.
It's referring to this, referring to a Moses seat. What was a Moses seat? A Moses seat is where the ruler of the synagogue, or the rabbi, sat to make a binding pronouncement. Why do they call it a Moses seat? Because Moses was the great law giver of Israel. And if you are sitting in Moses' seat, that means you are assuming Moses' authority to give law, to give binding instruction or teaching to your followers of that synagogue, or your followers as a rabbi, if you are a rabbi. Here's a closer-up look at that. You can see the Hebrew inscription on it here. But this is a Moses seat, and they found a number of them there in different synagogues around Galilee. So we know this is what they're talking about. Now, can we prove this is where Jesus sat when it says he sat down?
Not specifically, but I think understanding the cultural context and what's going on and what happens next, I think we can understand this is what is going on. Otherwise, why even mention that detail that he sat down, unless there's some significance to the fact that he sat down there.
So this would also, I think, explain why, as Luke says, the eyes of all who are in the synagogue were fixed on him, wondering what is going to take place next. So verse 21, And he began to say to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing, these messianic prophecies that he has just read. He says, Today these prophecies are being fulfilled in your hearing. He's saying that he is the Messiah, because he is fulfilling these prophecies. He's just said that in no uncertain terms. And speaking from Moses' seat when he says this, he's giving them binding teaching that he is the Messiah. I'm speaking as though Moses were speaking and telling you that I am the Messiah. What's going on here?
So all bore witness to him and marveled at the gracious words. This word marveled can mean is easily be translated. They wondered. They were puzzled, bewildered by these gracious words. And the words are gracious. Indeed, he's quoting from the Bible. So they're wondering, not that they marveled, but they wondered at what he is saying here, at the gracious words that proceed out of his mouth. And they said, is this not Joseph's son? They knew him. He was the boy of this carpenter, the local hometown builder here, the stone mason that we talked about earlier here.
And they're wondering, who is this guy that we know is Joseph's son, this kid who grew up right down the street from here? Who does he think he is? And as we'll see, they get very angry very quickly at what he has to say next. Verse 23, he said to them, You will surely say this proverb to me, Physician, heal yourself. Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in your country. Probably referring to the miracle of the nobleman's son that we just read about, of healing the nobleman's son there in Kana. Then he said, Assuredly I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. So he's basically saying this. Who are the people there in the synagogue that day? It's his family. Probably his brothers or half brothers, his half sisters, relatives, friends, community, the people he'd grown up with.
He knew they wouldn't believe in him because they were too familiar with him.
He'd grown up there in Nazareth, and they knew him since he was a little kid. And there's no way that this little kid that they've seen growing up could be the Messiah.
Is there attitude there? Is the old saying, familiarity breeds contempt? And it's very true.
The more familiar we are with him there, as they would have been, they wouldn't really accept who he claimed to be. And then he says something that really sets off this group of very religious Jews who are absolutely convinced that they are the chosen people of God. Continuing on, verse 25, But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout the land. But to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And you can read this yourself in 1 Kings 17. But what's he saying here? Where is Zarephath? Where is Sidon? They're on the coast of Lebanon. It's Gentile country.
This widow that he was sent to, Elijah was sent to, is a Gentile. And if you remember the story, Elijah goes there during a period of famine that's devastating the land of Israel.
And for several months, they live off the tiny bit of flour and oil that this woman has here in her house. And God sustains not just his prophet Elijah, but this poor Gentile widow and her son during that time. So that's part of the story here. The woman is not an Israelite, but a Gentile that God sent his prophet Elijah to. So there's one example of God's mercy to Gentiles. But he gives a second one. A second witness. Two witnesses.
Verse 27 goes on and says, And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet. And none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. You can read about that in 2 Kings 5. Won't go into all the story, but Naaman, who's Naaman, he's a Syrian military commander. He's the commander of the Syrian army, the sworn enemies of the Israelites.
And yet God heals Naaman, who is a leper, tells Elisha, tells him to go wash seven times in the Jordan River, and he does, and is healed. So here's another example, a second witness in God's Word, which they can't argue about because it's written right there in their scriptures, that God is merciful to the Gentiles, not just the Jews and not just the Israelites there.
So he gives two witnesses that they can't deny.
And what's the reaction of the people? They're infuriated by it because they are the chosen ones, not these nasty, dirty, rotten Gentiles that they've come to Galilee to replace.
And that when the Messiah comes, they're going to put those Gentiles under their thumb and rule over them for once. That's the background of this story here and what's going on. So Jesus comes, and he starts reading from one of their favorite passages there, and he claims to be fulfilling these messianic prophecies. I say to you today, this is fulfilled in your hearing. You are witnesses, in other words, to this.
So he proclaims that he's the Messiah, but then he also says that God's mercy includes these despised Gentiles that you hate so much. And their reaction is immediate. Verse 28, And so all of those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath.
And they rose up, and they threw him out of the city, and they led him to the brow of a hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down over the cliff.
So here is the homecoming Jesus receives. And here's a photo of what is traditionally thought to be the cliff. This is outside of Nazareth there. Again, it's in a bowl surrounded by mountains. And here's a cliff nearby that is assumed to be the spot where that took place. Can't prove it one way or the other. I just give it to you. But it does give us an idea of the terrain around there. And you can see there's a pretty significant drop there of probably 50, 60 feet, something like that. But there's more to the story here than they just want to throw him off the cliff. What they are doing here is they're going to stone him. Because there were specific rules for stoning a person in that day. And one of the rules was the first thing you did to stone somebody, you had to throw him off a height of at least 18 cubits. Excuse me, not 18, a dozen cubits. Which is roughly 18 feet, 20 feet, about the height of a two-story building.
You had to throw him off, and that alone would often kill a person, or at least stun them, badly injure them. And he was thrown off by the two witnesses, or three witnesses who'd testified against him. They were the ones to push him off. He would fall, hit the ground.
Then everybody who thought he was guilty would drop stones on him. And most people would pick up the biggest stone they could get and drop it off. Ten people thought he was guilty, ten stones.
A hundred people thought he was guilty, a hundred stones. 200 stones. And of course, this is usually fatal because it's intended to be. That's the whole point.
But the first step is you find a cliff. If a cliff isn't available, you go to the city wall, or a two-story building, and you throw the guy off, and then you stone him. But the first step is to throw him off the cliff. So what's going on here? They take Jesus to the cliff because they're going to throw him off. Luke doesn't tell us the rest of the story that this is preparatory to stoning, but that's obviously what's going on. They're going to stone him for his words, for claiming to be the Messiah, and claiming that God is going to be merciful to the Gentiles.
That's what's going on here.
And of course, as we see next, the next verse, it doesn't quite get that far. They're not able to carry out their intentions here. So then, passing through the midst of them, he went on his way. So what happens here? I think, bluntly, although Luke doesn't say it, I think probably there's a miracle that takes place here. Because you've got a crowd that's determined to stone Jesus.
There, to the point they haul him out of the city, bring him up to the edge of the cliff, and then he somehow escapes and passes through the midst of them. What happened?
You know, I have to wonder if something like what happened with the angels that Sodom took place, where God blinded the men of the city so that the angels could escape with Lot and his family. Maybe a sudden windstorm came up, blew a lot of dust and wind or something like that, and people are confused, and maybe Jesus slips away through the middle of the crowd.
At that time, we don't know. It just doesn't say. But I think under the circumstances, there had to be some kind of miracle that would take place for Jesus to escape death at this point, because it's not his time to go yet. You just don't know from a crowd determined to toss him over.
I see some hands. I'm getting there. Getting to a breaking point. Be patient. Don't stone me. I'm almost done. Anyway, I think there has to be some kind of miracle there. That is what preserved Jesus' life. Because, again, it's not his time yet for that to take place. Verse 31, we'll wrap it up here. Then he went down to Capernaum, the city of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbaths. Capernaum then becomes Jesus' base of operations. Why Capernaum?
There are very logical reasons for that that we'll talk about next time when we pick it up there.
Several hands up. Randy had his hand up first.
?
He Makes Well Right. It seems like you might be accurate. Yeah, good questions. Randy's comment is, is this the way stoning was done all the time? And why only one stone? Is it possible somebody could, if people were bad aims, and people could live through that?
Yeah, where that information comes from is the Mishnah, which is a collection of Jewish writings, from a century or two after this. But it describes the way things had been done for preceding centuries. It's a commentary on religious and social life and practices and so on. And that's where it spells out the rules for stoning. And there is extra-biblical evidence for this.
One you can read about in Josephus is when James, the half-brother of Jesus, is killed. This is 60 AD. They're going to kill James. And the first thing they do is they push him off the top of a building. And he's not stoned. He's actually clubbed to death after he's fallen. It was a huge height. It was something like 60 feet or something. But he lived through it, and then they beat him to death with clubs, as Josephus records. But apparently, I take that as their intent was to stone him, but he's pushed from the temple. And there's not exactly a whole lot of loose stones laying around there to do that. Another one of your questions, did anybody survive it? Paul did once. There's a town, I don't recall which town in particular. He stoned and left for dead outside the city. Meaning, presumably, since he's outside the city, presumably they pushed him off the city wall and stoned him and left him there for dead. And what happens? He recovers and goes back into the city and starts preaching again. They're a tough, tough dude. It's not an easy life.
We can't say 100% that this happened every way that time, but these are the rules as they were written down a century or two later. Presumably, they applied back there for that, even though the details of all of this aren't spelled out in the Gospel. Excellent question. Let's see. We had Faye was next and then Sheila, I believe.
What is Nathaniel's name? Nathaniel? Actually, the question was, why did Nathaniel say, can anything good come out of Galilee? He actually said, can anything good come out of Nazareth? That one town. Nathaniel is from Kanaah, which is a town roughly 9-10 miles away, I believe, from Nazareth.
I think it's probably just kind of hometown rivalry between the two towns. My town is better than your town. My town is more righteous than your town. So on. I think that's probably what is going on. Nazareth is a little bit off the beaten path, too. It's up in this mountain bowl. They were probably viewed as kind of the hillbillies of that area, whereas Kanaah was overlooking a big, broad, agriculturally rich valley, which is probably a more prosperous, wealthy town there. So I think it's just more of the hometown rivalry thing going on there. I wonder if you were talking about the crisis of the new-old, so what was it? Right. I think so.
Let's see. Sheila, did you have another question? Okay, Tina? What was the structure for the new-old? Right. Yeah, good question. Tina's question was whether this passage in Isaiah that he was reading was part of the required reading. I actually came across contradictory information on that, so I decided not to go into that. But what she's referring to is the synagogues. And again, this is spelled out in the Mishnah of a century or two later, but there was a prescribed reading, according to some sources, it depends on which ones you read, that there were specific passages that would be read over the course of the year in a synagogue. And it actually contradicts in several different areas. One is there would be a prescribed, say, five chapters out of Isaiah that is read on this Sabbath. The next Sabbath you read, the next five chapters. And you would also read certain sections from the Law, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and also sections from the writings, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and so on. We know that was practiced a century or two later. If that is indeed what is happening here, it is truly remarkable because Jesus is reading a prescribed reading of the Messiah on the very day that he happens to show up at his hometown synagogue and reads this passage about him being the Messiah and what he's going to do. If that is true, it is just totally, totally mind-boggling.
But again, I read contradictory information that this is another interpretation of what is going on. This is a later part of the service after the readings have already been done. And a guest would have been invited to read a passage of his choice and comment on it. And it tends to fit the latter a little bit better than he's reading the prescribed section. Because the prescribed section wouldn't have been just the verse and a half that he quotes. It would have been five chapters or something like that. So, bottom line, can't tell for sure. Well, I find that if you have people talking to Jesus, you wouldn't have gotten so involved in the reading of the Bible. So, if they went to the prescribed reading of Jesus, you would have gotten so involved in the reading of the Bible. And I just think that's the question that was left behind. Right. Yeah, there's no question they were doing that. It's the question. Yeah, let me just clarify. My comment is whether which portion of the service that is taking place when Jesus reads from the scroll, whether it's part of the prescribed readings. The service generally, as best I can tell from what I've researched, is yes, the service would start with those prescribed readings. And that might go on a half hour or an hour or so. And then they would have discussion and commentary on that. And that's, frankly, that's kind of the format we're following here. Prescribed reading from the Gospels and discussing it, commenting on it. Which is one reason I'm doing it this way.
But, yeah, then after that, if there was a guest who would come in, he was allowed to speak and elaborate on portions of the Scripture. We find the Apostle Paul doing that again and again in the book of Acts, where they're having a synagogue service. And the leader of the synagogue will ask if he would like to say anything. And Paul and Apollos and Barnabas and others stand up and then start preaching about Jesus from the Scripture.
So my thinking is it's probably in the latter part of the service when Jesus does that, rather than on prescribed readings, but can't say for sure. But excellent question. I appreciate the study and the background people are doing this, bringing up these other aspects. Just sometimes I don't have time to fit all of that in. All right. No other questions? We'll have our closing hymn and wrap-up services.
