Ready to take on the whole of the Galilee.

Mark 1.35-39, Matthew 4.23-25, Luke 4.42-44.

Whenever preachers talk about Jesus curing everyone in Capharnaum, they tend to describe it as Jesus spending all day curing people and throwing out demons. But read the text: The people came to him at sundown, Mk 1.32, Mt 8.16, Lk 4.40 so he actually spent all night curing people. Hope he got his Sabbath rest, ’cause he sure needed it.

By the end, preachers tend to describe Jesus as exhausted. And he might’ve been really tired, ’cause he was up all night. But exhausted? That’s only because they don’t know what it’s like to supernaturally cure the sick. Faith-healers will tell you it’s just the opposite. It’s not like a medical doctor, repairing patient after patient with treatment after treatment, taxing your mind and body with thought and work. You aren’t doing the work; the Holy Spirit is. You watch him do his thing; you rejoice once he’s done it. It’s not tiring. It’s invigorating. It’s a rush.

More likely, Jesus was wired after curing person after person after person. Too jazzed to ever get to sleep.

Since translators don’t realize this, they tend to make it sound like Jesus woke up crazy-early in the morning, after maybe two or three hours of sleep. But ἀναστὰς ἐξῆλθεν/anastás exílthen doesn’t mean, as the KJV puts it, “rising up… he went out,” but “the one who is up [already], goes out.” Jesus didn’t wake up and figure it’s prayer time; he was still up, and didn’t wanna sleep. He wanted more.

What kind of mood did you imagine Jesus was in?

Mark 1.35-39 KWL

35 Still awake in the still-dark morning,

Jesus comes out and goes to a solitary place,

and is praying there.

36 Simon Peter and those with him

search for Jesus,

37 and find Jesus and tell him this:

“Everybody looks for you!”

38 Jesus tells them, “We should go elsewhere,

into the other towns there are,

so I can preach there also,

for this is why I’ve come!”

 

Luke 4.42-44 KWL

42 Once it became day,

Jesus comes out and goes to a solitary place,

and the crowds are looking for him,

and come to him.

They’re holding on to him

lest he leave them.

43 Jesus tells them this:

“In the other cities as well,

I have to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom.

For this is why I’m sent.”

44 And Jesus is preaching

in the Jewish synagogues.

“Capharnaum is cured. Who’s next? Give me more!”

See, one’s mindset makes a huge difference when it comes to interpreting bible. If we bring our own pessimism, skepticism, cynicism, negativity, and exhaustion to the text, we wind up with a negative-sounding Jesus who’s just plain done with these people. And that’s not Jesus. He loves people! He came to save people. Not ditch ’em at the first opportunity.

The idea of an exhausted Jesus, desperately trying to claw back some strength through prayer, is based on our own lack of experience, and bad attitudes. Y’ever notice how many preachers are introverts? To them, people are tiring. Ministry drains them. So they need to get away from people on a regular basis, and renew their strength in prayer… and project themselves upon Jesus, and it’s entirely wrong. He didn’t look at the Galilee and think, “Man, I have so much still to do.” He looked at it in the Holy Spirit’s might, and thought, “I’m gonna conquer the world!”

The text of the Sermon on the Mount.

My translation of the Sermon on the Mount.

No, not so I can have my own spin on it, or an “authoritative text” to work from; that’s not how translation works. I translate so I can study the original text in greater depth. If you translate so you can frame it to suit yourself, stop it.

Feel free to read it in other translations. Compare them to one another so you can see the translators’ consensus—and that gives you a better idea of what Jesus means, than simply reading one “best” translation. Then follow him; not us translators.

And the best way to follow him is to follow his sermon, as he himself taught in verses 7.24-27.

Matthew 4.24 - 7.29 KWL

4.24 The rumor of Jesus went out to all Syria. People brought him everyone who had all sorts of evil diseases, crushed by torments, demoniacs, lunatics, the paralyzed—and he cured them. 25 Many crowds followed Jesus: People from the Galilee, Dekapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond-Jordan. 5.1 Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up a hill. As he seated himself, his students came to him. 2 Opening his mouth, Jesus taught them, saying:

 

5.3 “The spiritually poor: How awesome!—the heavenly kingdom is theirs.

4 Those mourning: How awesome!—they’ll be comforted.

5 The gentle: How awesome!—they’ll inherit the land.

6 Those hungry and thirsty for justice: How awesome!—they’ll be filled.

7 The merciful: How awesome!—they’ll be shown mercy.

8 Those of clean mind: How awesome!—they’ll see God.

9 Those making peace: How awesome!—they’ll be called God’s children.

10 Those hunted down because of justice: How awesome!—the heavenly kingdom is theirs.

11 When people condemn you, hunt you down, say everything evil against you, lie,

all because of me: How awesome you are!

12 Rejoice and celebrate for your great reward in heaven!

For they persecuted the prophets before you this way.

 

Why do Christians fast?

Y’know, if fasting weren’t in the bible, we’d have invented it as yet another health fad. Like juice cleanses, or probiotic foods, or making sure everything is gluten-free. (Although it’s ridiculous to see so many product labels now say “gluten-free” on them. Dude, we already know beef jerky is gluten-free… or do we? Have you been secretly adding wheat this whole time?) Anyway you know some lifestyle guru would make a YouTube video, “The food-free diet,” and there ya go. Surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

Of course it is in the bible… which puts it at risk of becoming the opposite problem, where people straight-up refuse to fast because it’s “an Old Testament thing.” Because it’s part of God’s old covenant with the Hebrews which Jesus supposedly voided. Because Jesus even appears to have dismissed fasting as irrelevant:

Mark 2.19-20 KWL

19 Jesus told them, “Is the wedding party able to fast when the groom’s with them?

So long that they have the groom with them, they’re not able to fast.

20 The day will come when the groom’s taken away from them.

Then they’ll fast on that day.”

’Cause you know there are Christians who insist Jesus is always with us; he even said so. Mt 28.20 So they’d interpret “they’ll fast on that day” as only referring to the three days Jesus was dead—and now that he’s alive again, we need never fast again. In fact I’ve heard Christians claim this is the very reason they don’t fast: Why? Christ is risen!

So why do any Christians fast? Well duh, ’cause Jesus did.

Luke 4.1-2 KWL

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan,

and in the Spirit, was led into the wilderness 2 40 days, getting tested by the devil.

Jesus ate nothing in those days, and was hungry at its end.

 

Matthew 4.2 KWL

After fasting 40 days and nights, Jesus was hungry.

And Jesus fasted hardcore: He ate nothing. Wasn’t a Daniel fast. And you know some Christians would totally claim Jesus’s fast was really some form of diet; that he only gave up meat, or bread, or somehow subsisted on a diet of juniper berries and tea. But nope, Jesus ate οὐδὲν/udén, nothing. He obviously drank water, ’cause you’d die otherwise. But no food.

Since Jesus fasted, Christians fast. No, we won’t always go without food. Nor will we go without it for nearly a month and a half; most of us won’t push ourselves beyond a week. In the United States, the popular option is to forego a meal. Nope, not even a full day: One meal. Nope, not even our last meal of the day; we skip lunch, knowing we can make up for it that evening. That’s just how little self-control we have. But the reason we bother to give up something pathetic, then hypocritically act like it was a vast sacrifice, is because we know we should fast… because Jesus fasted.

And because Jesus taught us how to fast:

Luke 6.16-18 KWL

16 “When you fast, don’t be like the sad-looking hypocrites

who conceal their faces so they look to people like they’re fasting.

Amen! I promise you all: They got their credit.

17 You who fast: Fix your hair and wash your face 18 so you don’t look to people like you’re fasting,

except to your Father in private—and your Father, who sees what’s private, will repay you.”

Because fasting’s a prayer practice—it’s about using self-denial so we can focus more intently on God—we’re not doing it to show off, same as prayer. It’s between him and us, and no one else. So we fast privately. Not secretly; it’s okay to admit you’re fasting, and reschedule your business or social occasions till you’re not: Sitting there drinking water, whether you mean to do it or not, is totally showing off.

(Worse: Going to a restaurant, ordering nothing, having your server fetch you glass after glass of water, then not tipping on the grounds you ordered nothing? Not okay. If anything you should tip ’em 30 percent of what you would have spent on a meal. Oh, and do so privately—the other stingy people at your table will use your generosity as an excuse to undertip.)

Jesus taught about fasting because he totally expects us to fast. Really fast. Bad enough that people of his day would dress down and try to look all miserable when they’re going without food; now imagine how ridiculous it’d be if they behaved that way because they were only skipping lunch for a week. Nope; devout Pharisees in Jesus’s day would go wholly without food twice a week. (Devout Christians in the first century did it too.)

Because nothing declares to God, ourselves, and every spiritual force set against us, “God is more important than life itself” like fasting.

The first prophecy of a savior.

The first time a savior was foretold in the Old Testament.

We have no idea whether Genesis was the first written book of the bible. Some Christians speculate Job was (and they’d be totally wrong; Job was written in a later version of biblical Hebrew, and took place in Edom). Others figure Moses wrote his psalm before he wrote the bible. In any event the first hint we have in the scriptures that humanity might need a savior, is found in Genesis 3—the story of humanity’s fall.

As the story goes: Eve and Adam, the first humans, lived in paradise. God told ’em not to eat off a particular tree. A serpent tempted Eve to eat off it anyway, and Adam followed suit. The consequence: They couldn’t live in paradise any longer, ’cause the Tree of Life was there. They were driven out; Adam was cursed to fight nature in order to gain his sustenance, Eve was cursed with painful childbirth and male domination, and the serpent was cursed like so:

Genesis 3.14-15 KWL

14 The LORD God told the serpent, “Because you did this,

you’re cursed more than any animal, more than any living thing in the wild.

You’ll walk on your belly. You’ll eat dirt every day of your life.

15 I declare war between you and the woman, between your seed and hers.

He’ll crush your head. You’ll crush his heel.”

I’ve heard young-earth creationists claim snakes used to have legs when they were first created, but because of this curse they became the legless creatures they now are. I like to mess with ’em by pointing out this sounds like a special case of evolution—and if God did this with serpents, why not other creatures? (Really bugs ’em.)

Okay, most of us Christians leap forward to Revelation and notice this serpent was actually Satan:

Revelation 12.7-9 KWL

7 War came to the heavens: Michael and its angels battling the dragon;

the dragon and its angels battling back 8 and failing.

No place was found for them anymore in the heavens.

9 The great dragon was thrown out, the primeval serpent which is called devil and Satan.

The deceiver of all civilization was thrown to earth,

and its angels were thrown out with it.

Revelation sets this event right after the birth of Jesus. Rv 12.1-6 But Christian mythology tends to put Satan’s fall at the beginning of history, at some point between creation itself and the fall of humanity. According to the myths, after Satan was bounced, it decided to ruin humanity in revenge, snuck into paradise, became (or pretended to be, or possessed) a serpent, and led Eve and Adam astray.

But I should point out: The first versions of this myth date from our third century. They’re based on a first-century apocalypse, which got mixed up with the 15th-century-BC creation story. Which, I remind you, is at a whole different point in the timeline. Satan got booted after the birth of Jesus, remember? Lk 10.18 Did I not make that obvious?

So what did happen here? Well, yeah the serpent is Satan. But this wasn’t Satan getting revenge for a fall which hadn’t happened yet. This was Satan testing Eve. ’Cause that was its job, whether assigned (which I doubt) or self-appointed: Testing creation to see whether it’d hold up. Testing Eve to see whether she’d violate God’s will. Pushing the test too far, and slandering God in the process, which is why God was rightly pissed at it. The humans shoulda passed this test. Instead they unraveled creation.

And after Eve and Adam violated God’s will… well, God had to resort to plan B. ’Cause plan A, where they’d be his people and he’d be their God, Ex 6.7, Lv 26.12, Jr 30.22, 2Co 6.16 was shot to hell. Now God had to fix his broken creation so he could return to plan A. Which he’d do through the woman’s seed, who’d crush the serpent’s head. And we Christians figure Christ Jesus is the woman’s seed. Ga 4.4

The crowds who came to see Jesus.

Having fans isn’t always a great thing.

Mark 3.7-12 • Matthew 4.24 - 5.1 • Luke 6.17-19

Despite the Pharisees’ frustration with Jesus curing people on Sabbath, word about Jesus spread all over the province—and to the provinces nearby. Jesus gradually found himself with loads of followers. Impractically large loads of followers. From all over.

These passages aren’t all that parallel, but they roughly cover the same ground, so you get the idea.

Mark 3.7-12 KWL

7 Jesus went back over the lake, with his students and many groups:

People from the Galilee, Judea, 8 Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond-Jordan, Tyre, and Sidon.

Hearing about whatever Jesus was doing, many groups came to him.

9 Jesus spoke to his students so they’d have a boat nearby, because of the crowds.

Thus they wouldn’t crush him. 10 Jesus had cured many.

So the many plague-sufferers could touch him, they resorted to jumping him.

11 Whenever unclean spirits saw Jesus, they fell down before him,

shouting out, “You’re the son of God!”— 12 and Jesus silenced them, lest they expose him.

Matthew 4.24 - 5.1 KWL

24 The rumor of Jesus went out to all Syria.

People brought him everyone who had all sorts of evil diseases,

those crushed by torments, demoniacs, lunatics, the paralyzed,

and he cured them.

25 Many crowds followed Jesus:

People from the Galilee, Dekapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond-Jordan.

1 Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up a hill.

As he seated himself, his students came to him.

Luke 6.17-19 KWL

17 Coming down with them, Jesus stood on level ground,

with many crowds of his students, a plethora of people

from all Judea, Jerusalem, the coastline of Tyre and Sidon.

18 They came to hear Jesus—and be cured from their diseases.

Those tormented by unclean spirits were dealt with,

19 and all the crowd sought to touch Jesus, for his power came out and cured everyone.

People from everywhere were coming to Jesus. Not just fellow Jews who lived in the Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. Time for a mini-geography lesson.

Preaching, relocating, gathering students.

When Jesus started preaching the gospel in the Galilee.

Mark 1.14-20 • Matthew 4.12-22 • Luke 4.14-15, 5.1-11

I’ll admit right now: Whenever bible scholars try to sync up the gospels, we’re guessing. They’re educated guesses, but still guesses. The authors didn’t expect we’d ever try to line ’em up; some might’ve assumed there weren’t other gospels, or that theirs superseded all others. But we wanna tell Jesus’s story comprehensively, so sometimes we do. I don’t know whether the events I’m writing about here, come right after Jesus healing the prince’s son. But it kinda works, so it’s the order I’ll go in.

At some point, John the baptist got hauled off to prison, ’cause he pissed off the Galilee’s ruler, Antipas Herod.

Luke 3.19-20 KWL

19 Quarter-king Antipas Herod, embarrassed by John

about his brother’s wife Herodia, and everything evil Herod did,

20 shut up John in prison, adding this to everything.

The gospels eventually get into what became of John; it’s not pretty. But as soon as John went into the clink, Jesus took up John’s charge and began proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom.

Mark 1.14-15 KWL 14 After John’s arrest, Jesus went into the Galilee preaching God’s gospel, 15 saying this: “The time has been fulfilled. God’s kingdom has come near. Repent! Believe in the gospel!”

Matthew 4.12-17 KWL 12 Hearing John was arrested, Jesus went back to the Galilee. 13 Leaving Nazareth, coming to Kfar Nahum, he settled by the sea. On the border of Zebulún and Naftalí, 14 so he could fulfill the prophet Isaiah’s word, saying, 15 “Land of Zebulún, land of Naftalí, on the sea road, beyond Jordan, the Galilee of gentiles: 16 The people sitting in the dark see a great light. To those sitting in the place of death’s shadow, light rises to them.” Is 9.1-2 17 From then on, Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent: Heaven’s kingdom has come near!”

Luke 4.14-15 KWL 14 Jesus went back into the Galilee with the Spirit’s power. Rumor went out across the whole region about him. 15 Revered by all, Jesus taught in their synagogues.

The gospel of Christ Jesus is summed up in Mark 1.15: “The time has been fulfilled. God’s kingdom has come near.” With Messiah—who’d be Jesus—as its king.

Yet you might notice a whole lot of folks who supposedly preach “the gospel” don’t preach that. Instead they quote John 3.16: God loved the world, sent us his son, and those who believe in him get eternal life. They claim that’s the gospel. It’s not. Getting saved is how we get into the kingdom. But the full gospel is what we have now that we’re in God’s kingdom. We get access to our inheritance.

And that’s why so many evangelists only proclaim a partial gospel. Some of ’em don’t believe we have access to our inheritance. Some of ’em are mighty uncomfortable with everything God’s kingdom entails.

Jesus’s easy victory over the devil.

Mark 1.12-13, Matthew 4.1-11, Luke 4.1-13.

Mark 1.12-13 KWL

12 Right afterward, the Spirit threw Jesus into the wilderness.

13 Jesus was in the wilderness 40 days, getting tested by Satan.

He was with the beasts. Angels were serving him.

That’s the extra-short version of Jesus’s “temptations,” as they tend to be called: Peirádzo/“test” is often meant in a tempting sense, ’cause part of the test is how badly we want what’s offered. But is it in Jesus’s divine nature to go about getting these things the wrong way? Nah. He’s never gonna put himself above his Father’s will. So let’s not treat these tests like they really made Jesus doubt his commitment to the Father. Any devout Christian can easily resist such temptations.

The Mark version doesn’t have a lot of details: Just Jesus and the devil, out in the middle of nowhere. Didn’t have to be way out in the middle of nowhere; in fact it’d be a stronger test of will if Jesus was just within sight of civilization. (As was the case in the Judean desert. Lots of hermits, nomads, even a few communes.)

If all we had was the Mark version, we’d imagine all sorts of horrors and enticements. (Especially since Mark brought up Jesus “was with the beasts”—something End Times fanatics would have all sorts of fun speculating about.)

Y’know, since it was only Jesus and the devil out there in the wilderness, it leads us to a rather obvious deduction: The authors of Matthew and Luke could only have got the particulars from Jesus himself. He shared the stories of his testing, probably with his students. Probably to teach ’em the sort of stuff the devil tries to use on us. And teach ’em how to resist.

In the Matthew and Luke versions, they’re not in the same order.

Matthew	Luke
Rocks to bread. Mt 4.2-4 Dive from temple. Mt 4.5-7 Bow to Satan. Mt 4.8-10	Rocks to bread. Lk 4.2-4 Bow to Satan. Lk 4.5-8 Dive from temple. Lk 4.9-12

Why? There’s some speculation about the meaning of Luke’s order, but I don’t buy ’em. Luke is more likely the original story’s order. Matthew, in comparison, is focused on the kingdom, so the tests escalate from Jesus’s personal needs, to Jesus impressing Jerusalem, to Jesus conquering the world. Makes sense.