Recap

So far in Luke, we've started the introduction. We noted how this book was written with the book of Acts to be one continuous story. We also looked at how, for Luke, the kingdom of God is centred on uplifting the marginalised and outcasts and bringing salvation and repentance, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

We then read through two stories of miraculous conceptions, side-by-side. We have a couple to old to have children, Zechariah and Elizabeth, and then a virgin, Mary. But Zechariah was visited by an angel who told him Elizabeth would give birth to a little boy named John and he would be a messenger that turned people back towards God. Doubting at first, Zechariah’s mouth was shut until John was born, to be a sign that what the angel had said was true.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s much younger cousin, Mary, was betrothed to a man named Joseph, but was still a virgin. An angel came to Mary telling her she would give birth to a little boy named Jesus and he would be the son of God who takes up David’s throne as the promised king. Both John and Jesus would be the culmination of what the Old Testament were pointing towards.

We encountered the familiar Christmas story of a baby in a manger, shepherds watching their sheep, and angels. Through this we saw God’s desire to reach the poor and the outcasts, because the first people to meet the promised king were a group of ragtag shepherds.

Then we read as Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple to fulfil all the rituals and laws associated with having a firstborn son. There, a man named Simeon was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied over Jesus, praising God. When Jesus reached twelve, he went to join the family business. However, this caused trouble when he meant to join his father, God, in the temple, and his parents couldn’t find him.

Then we read about John the Baptist's teaching in the wilderness. Jesus is baptised as usual, but in Luke’s gospel, we get some more teaching from John on the importance of repentance and caring for the poor. Jesus is baptised and then we get Luke's genealogy, which not only links him back to Adam, but then links Adam as a son of God. Like Adam, Jesus is the son of God.

And all the way through these stories, we saw people filled with the Holy Spirit to do things, whether that was to give birth, understand things without being told, or prophesy. 

Luke 4-5

Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus is now prepared to spend forty days in the desert. We mentioned in Matthew that this was meant to be a reflection of Israel in the wilderness for forty years. While Israel were consistently faithless to God in their wilderness, Jesus is going to prove his faithfulness to God in his wilderness.

One of the things the devil tempts Jesus with is power and authority over the kingdoms of the earth. This was the common Jewish view of their promised king. He would come as a military leader to conquer their enemies and rule the earth with force. But Jesus never came to be that kind of king. Yes, he would reign over all the earth, but he was going to do it differently.

Having resisted the devil’s temptations, Jesus returns to Galilee, empowered by the Holy Spirit and ready to begin his ministry, which brings us to the second section of the book. Luke 1-4 has been packed full of mentions of people being filled with the Holy Spirit to prepare them for their ministry, or empower them to do it. Jesus has been prepared and empowered, and so the focus move from the Holy Spirit to the ministry itself.

In Luke, Jesus begins his ministry by defining it. In his local synagogue, Jesus reads these powerful words from Isaiah 61:1-2, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:1-19).

For Luke, this passage beautifully sums up Jesus’ ministry. He is empowered by the Holy Spirit, and he has come for the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed.

Included in that word poor is anyone marginalised. The Old Testament often talks about the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner in similar contexts (see Deuteronomy 10:18; Deuteronomy 27:19; Ezekiel 22:7). Jesus’ ministry is one of freedom and good news.

The people in the synagogue begin to question what Jesus was saying, and he challenges them by pointing to the prophets Elijah and Elisha. Because the hearts of God’s people were hard, God sent these two prophets to help foreigners, one to a widow and the other to a leper.

Jesus was accusing the people of having similarly hard hearts, and unwilling to listen to what he had to say. The implication is that, in the same way, God will send him to the foreigners and the outcasts. They attempted to grab hold of him and throw him off a cliff, but Jesus easily slipped away from them.

We then get some of the first glimpses of Jesus’ ministry of liberty in action. He begins to gather people to himself to teach them the good news, and as they came, he would set free anyone who was bound by a severe illness or a demon. 

Having defined and demonstrated his ministry, Jesus then begins to call his first disciples. He notices a couple of boats and a few fishermen washing their nets. He asks these fishermen if they wouldn’t mind take him out into the water, so he could see all the people along the shore and share his teaching with them.

They obliged and when he had finished, he told the fishermen to try fishing some more. Simon, one of the fishermen, protested. Everyone knows the best time to fish it at night, and even then they weren’t able to catch any. But they did as they were told, and the net was immediately filled.

Just as God had provided the Israelites with quail in the wilderness (Exodus 16:13), Jesus was able to bring a bounty of fish to these fishermen. Instantly realising that this man was from God, Simon bows down before Jesus and repents of his doubt. Jesus invites them to join him and become fishers of men.

A little later, Jesus also chooses a tax collector named Levi. While Levi wouldn’t have been poor in the financial sense, he definitely would have been an outcast, hated by his people. But Jesus’ ministry is for anyone and everyone who is on the outskirts of society.

The religious leaders begin to complain about this, because Jesus was hanging out with people they considered unworthy. But Jesus points out that he hasn’t come for those who are well. He’s come for those who are sick and need help.

In between these two stories of Jesus and his disciples are two stories of Jesus healing. The first is him healing a leper. Again, we’ve mentioned before how the lepers were very much outcasts, for fear they would pass their leprosy on to others. But Jesus cares far more about the individual than the risk. That and he has authority over sickness.

He reaches out and touches the leper. Most likely the first touch he has had in many years. The man is immediately healed. The other story is one that has some variation in every single gospel (see Matthew 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12; John 5:1-10). Jesus forgives a paralysed man of his sins, and then when the religious leader complains, he heals the man as evidence of the authority he has.

We’re beginning to see the religious leaders oppose Jesus, and as we know from other gospels, this is only going to increase. They challenge Jesus on the fact his disciples don’t fast like other disciples. But Jesus points out that he is doing something new. His new thing doesn’t fit into their old way of thinking, and if they try to force it to, it’s going to end up a mess.

Psalm 112

This psalm isn’t attributed to anyone and falls into the category of praise psalm. It can also be described as a wisdom psalm, as it contrasts the experience of those who fear the Lord with the experience of the wicked.

It pairs well with Psalm 111. Psalm 111 was a list of the Lord’s characteristics and great deeds. Psalm 112 is a list of the blessings those who fear the Lord get to experience.

Psalm 112:1 - A call to praise the Lord

Psalm 112:2-9 - The blessings of those who fear him

Psalm 112:10 - The experience of the wicked.

The psalmist starts with a call to praise the Lord, particularly those who fear him. They will be happy and delight in his commandments. The psalmist then lists out the benefits of those who fear the Lord.

Their descendants will be established in the land and be blessed. They will become wealthy and strong, built upon a righteousness that endure forever (see Psalm 111:3). The people will be like a light in the darkness, gracious and merciful (see Psalm 111:4).

They are generous and deal justly with others, and because of the righteousness they will be remembered long after they are gone. They do not need to fear evil because they are firm in the Lord. Instead, they will see victory over their enemies.

Those that fear the Lord distribute their wealthy freely, helping the poor and the needy. In contrast, the wicked see all this and hate it. But try as they might to get their way, they will ultimately fade to nothing.

Not only does this psalm list out the reasons that godly people have to praise the Lord, it also shows how godly people emulate the Lord. Just as we saw God’s work in Psalm 111, we see the people who experience his blessing doing similar works in Psalm 112.