Luke 4:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Luke 4:16

Comments

The Lord Jesus Christ returned to Nazareth, his hometown, and there formally announced the beginning of his ministry. Even though they had plenty of evidence of that, here was this announcement in the synagogue. He quotes the prophecy about himself from Isaiah 61:1-2, and then stands up to explain that he is the one about whom the prophet Isaiah speaks. He is the one who was to preach and to bring in the kingdom of God. He is the one who is going to preach about salvation and how men and women can get out of their captivity to a life of sin, and can be set free and can come and meet with God and know him. But the people of Nazareth, having acknowledged his miracles and noted the things he had done, having been completely overcome by the words he had spoken and the wonderful things that he taught and said, nevertheless were full of unbelief. Verse 15 has already told us that Christ on this first preaching tour in Galilee spoke in their synagogues, and he does so in Nazareth also on the Sabbath day. But Luke adds a detail not found anywhere else. He says, he did this ‘as his custom was’. He had done this all his life, and he went to the synagogue in whatever place he was in order to teach all who gathered there on the Sabbath. Hendriksen comments on what was called ‘the freedom of the synagogue’. This ‘implied that any person considered suitable by the ruler (or the rulers) of the synagogue was privileged and encouraged to deliver sermons.’ We see this in Acts 13:15 where the apostle Paul responds to this invitation to speak. Although Christ sometimes sat to teach (Matthew 5:1), it was the custom to stand to read the Scripture while other remained seated. Did he choose this passage to read, or was this the passage that was set to be read? Both are possible, but he was handed the book of Isaiah to read perhaps on a scroll, and then seemed to choose the passage from Isaiah on which he wanted to speak. The synagogues evidently had copies of the Old Testament books, for they were read regularly. As a young person, the Lord Jesus must have gone there often to become familiar with the word of God.

Application

Here is an illustration of how people, perhaps as natural pessimists or as people who are only pessimistic with spiritual things, can get themselves into very deep water and can throw away their souls and their spiritual lives. Nazareth was no more than a village, in the limestone hills of south Lebanon. It was about seventy miles north of Jerusalem and well inland, but it was nothing at all. It was a very poor village, an obscure village, very isolated. It wasn't on any trade route, so Nazareth was a pretty out of the way place. Certainly it was outside the mainstream of life in Israel, and no wonder Nathaniel said, ‘Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?’, when he heard that Jesus Christ had come from Nazareth. That is one of the things about pessimism. People think that optimism is shallow, and it may well be, and that pessimism is realistic, that somebody who is a very doubtful, pessimistic kind of person is somebody who is a realist, who looks deeply into everything. But that is not necessarily true. The one place conspicuously full of pessimism was an obscure, out of the way place. People probably thought on a smaller scale than people in the larger villages and the larger towns, and they were the most pessimistic.

Pessimism is often, not always, the product of small thinking. It's the product of limited thinking. People who have learned to be content with shallow things, with simple things. There's no great wrong in that, but it can lead to pessimism. It's a state of mind, pessimism. The pessimist takes the worst view of everything, and you can see what a disaster that can be when it comes to faith in God. He does it not necessarily because he has been upset by things that he has read, and has been thrown into doubt, but it's a state of mind. He is pretty well bound to take the worst view of any situation, and those who are inclined to be pessimists will know this. But when it comes to the spiritual sphere, whether natural pessimists or just pessimists in this area, we fail to know ourselves. We forget that we are going to take the gloomiest and the worst view of everything. The natural pessimist always expects the worst results, always thinks that everything is going to be a disaster, and it is fatal to bring that unchecked into faith in God, because you will think this will never work: God will never listen to me. Pessimism is like anger; it is very hard to dislodge from the mind. In that condition they are unable to see reality. If only people would be pessimistic in the right areas. You find that most human beings, even pessimists, choose to be optimists in the most disastrous area. They expect much from life in this world; they have a very high regard for human nature; they think human beings at the end of the day are good people, and everything will work out, and life can be happy without God. That is about the chief thing we should be pessimistic about, because the Bible teaches us this is a fallen and a sinful world.

Pessimism does not represent reality. It is a state of mind. It doesn't represent reality. These people at Nazareth had heard wonderful things. They knew the prophecies. They had heard of the mighty power of Jesus Christ, but they couldn't see all that, because it didn't fit in to what they already thought. They spurned the evidence, and they wanted to somehow conform everything to their existing ideas. Who is this? Jesus Christ. Well, he's one of us. He is the son of Joseph. He comes from this village. Now they weren't particularly patriotic for their village. They knew they were backward, out of the way, but their minds taught them that nothing significant could possibly come from Nazareth. So it didn't matter how much evidence they saw. It didn't matter what gracious words they heard. It didn't matter if prophecies were fulfilled and God was showing that his hand was on his Son Jesus Christ. Pessimism can be a state of mind in which we just will not change. Someone who is inclined to be pessimistic may be an extremely brilliant, clever person, but you have got an awful task convincing him of anything else, because he isn't open to new knowledge. He cannot be objective. He is going to be prejudiced about all sorts of things because he's happy to stay within a pessimistic frame of mind. They weren't open to new knowledge, and therefore they couldn't see reality or weigh things or balance things. They trusted their own judgment too much, and their judgment is very often gloomy.

Questions

Some see Matthew 13:54-58 and Mark 6:1-6 as parallel to this passage; others disagree and see the other two Gospels as describing a second later visit to Nazareth. Matthew and Mark are undoubtedly parallel to each other. In all three Gospels there is astonishment at his teaching; there is a comment about his family being known to them, his father being a carpenter, his mother and brothers named, his sisters mentioned (this is present but briefer in Luke); there is questioning about the source of his wisdom (Matthew and Mark, implied in Luke); there is offence at him; there is an indication that few miracles were done; there is in Mark and Luke the indication that this took place as part of a preaching tour and that the tour continued after he left Nazareth. There is much in common. Luke alone records the attempt on his life. Can this be fitted into Matthew and Mark’s account? Probably. On the other hand, can the astonishment at his teaching and the comments about his family be repeated on a later occasion? That is very hard to see if in fact the attempt on his life had already taken place. So it is likely that all three Gospels are describing the same event. If so, then we note that Luke has this passage earlier than the other two.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Luke 4:16 Commentary and Bible Study