Mark 6.1-6, Matthew 13.53-58, Luke 4.16-30.
Luke puts this story right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, right after
Mark has it after
Mark 6.1-2 KWL - 1 Jesus went out from Kfar Nahum to his homeland. His students followed him.
- 2
A When Sabbath came, Jesus began to teach in synagogue… Matthew 13.53-54 KWL - 53 When Jesus finished these parables, this happened:
- He left there, 54
A went to his homeland, and taught in their synagogue. Luke 4.16-21 KWL - 16 Jesus came to Nazareth, where he was raised.
- By his custom, he entered synagogue on the Sabbath day, and arose to read.
- 17 Jesus was given the book of the prophet Isaiah.
- Unrolling the bible, he found the place where it’s written:
- 18 “The Lord’s Spirit is upon me because he anointed me to evangelize the poor.
- He sent me to proclaim forgiveness to captives, and restored sight to the blind.
- To send away the shattered in forgiveness,
- 19 to proclaim a year of the Lord’s acceptance.”
Is 61.1-2 - 20 Closing the bible and returning it to the assistant, Jesus sat to teach.
- Every eye in the synagogue was staring at him.
- 21 He began to tell them this: “This scripture has been fulfilled today, in your ears.”
Luke gives us more of a glimpse of synagogue custom: The men stood round the podium up front. (The women stood in back, sometimes behind a partition, sometimes not,
Well, Jesus just gave ’em something challenging. He claimed Isaiah’s statement about what God had sent him to do, also applied to himself.
Yeah, let’s look at Isaiah. The guys who wrote the New Testament tended to quote only part of a verse, partly ’cause they wanted to save papyrus, partly ’cause they expected their readers to know the rest of it—or to unscroll a bible and read the rest of it. They didn’t quote it
Isaiah 61.1-4 KWL - 1 My master L
ORD ’s Spirit is upon me because the LORD anointed me to bring news to the needy. - He sent me to bandage the brokenhearted,
- call captives to freedom, release to those in chains,
- 2 to call a year of favor from the L
ORD —and a day of revenge from our God. - To comfort all who mourn, 3 and to set an end to mourning in Zion:
- to give them a fine headcovering instead of ash,
- oil of joy instead of mourning, clothing of praise instead of a dim spirit.
- God wants to call them righteous oaks, God’s planting, his glory.
- 4 They built ancient ruins, abandoned by the first people.
- Now they’re building cities anew—the generations-old abandoned ruins.
And so on. Israel gets restored, the gentiles come to know Israel and their God, blessings and peace and so on forevermore. And it all starts with Jesus. So, y’know, good news!
Except the locals had their doubts: It all starts with this guy?