On Line Bible Study - For the week March 8-14, 2010

Lesson 430

Luke 4: ²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, "Surely you will quote this proverb to me: 'Physician, heal yourself! Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.' "

The question in this text - and one that is so relevant for us as we head into Holy Week - is this: Is the crowd for Jesus, or against him?

They spoke well of him (or, another way to translate this: They were testifying about him...) doesn't seem to be in synch with the way Jesus responds to them. Verse 22 sounds positive; verse 23 sounds as if Jesus were threatened by them. A number of theories are suggested to explain the disconnect:

1. Maybe we have a mistranslation?
2. Perhaps Luke was working from several different sources and simply ignored the apparent contradiction.
3. Perhaps people admired Jesus' rhetorical skill but rejected the message, the way we might admire a lawyer's finesse at making a case even though we disagree with the conclusions s/he arrives at.
   

We are left right where so many people are left with regard to Jesus - a brilliant man, a great teacher, a powerful debater, but ultimately, not much more than that. And who does he think he is, anyway? You can read the rest of this section - Jesus' acknowledgment that prophets are not honored in their hometown. He shares a little of their own history with them as he reminds them that it was a Gentile named Naaman who was healed of leprosy, not an Israelite.

Such a hope-filled moment - the proclamation that God's Spirit had come in a new and wonderful way; the promise that the poor would hear good news, the blind given sight, the oppressed set free (see Lessons 428-429) - and now to have it smashed by skepticism, and maybe even jealousy.

Jesus anticipates the challenge they would put to him when he acknowledges their desire for him to do in Nazareth what he had done in Capernaum.

By the time this section draws to a conclusion, the people are running Jesus out of town, and hoping to throw him over a ledge.

What happened? Indeed ... what happened !