Luke 4:14-44

III. The Ministry in Galilee -- Chapter 4:14-9:50

CHAPTER 4:14-44

1. In the Synagogue of Nazareth (Luke 4:14)

2. Unbelief and Rejection of Christ. (Luke 4:22)

3. A Demon Cast Out in Capernaum (Luke 4:33)

4. Peter's Wife's Mother Healed; Many Healed. (Luke 4:38 .)

Luke 4:14

And now the description of the ministry of the Son of Man begins. The beginning is in His own city. How all written here is again in a very human manner. He had been brought up in that city and as His custom was “He went into the synagogue,” and as He had done, no doubt, before, He stood up to read and like a man finds the place in the scroll which the servant had handed Him. Isaiah 61:1 is read by Him and then applied to Himself. The Spirit of the Lord was indeed upon Him to preach the Gospel to the poor. But He stopped in the middle of a sentence. The acceptable year of the Lord, is the last word He read. In His Person all this had appeared. He came to preach the Gospel, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised. He did not read “the day of vengeance of our God.” That too is His work, but not as long as the acceptable year of the Lord lasts.

Luke 4:22

“Is not this Joseph's son?” It is the first hint of the coming rejection. Then when He declared that God's grace is not to be confined to Israel, but that it will, as in days of old, in the case of the widow of Sarepta and Naaman, go out to the Gentiles, they were filled with wrath. They were ready to kill Him. What happened? “But He, passing through the midst of them, went His way.” Was it a miracle? Is it the same as when He passed through shut doors? It was the result of His own dignity as the perfect Man, which awed the crowds, so that no one dared to touch Him.

Luke 4:33

The same incident is reported in Mark 1:21. The demons knew him but He had come to spoil the enemy and here He manifested His power.

Luke 4:38

Many works of power followed. As the seeker of the lost to preach the good tidings, He went from city to city.