Luke 4:15

And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, For the exposition, see the notes at Matthew 4:1, and Mark 1:35. As observed on Matthew 4:13, the prevalent opinion has always been that our Lord paid two visits to Nazareth: the first being that recorded here; the second that recorded in Matthew 13:54-40, and Mark 6:1. This is maintained on the following grounds: First, The most natural sense of the words in...

Luke 4:15._He was glorified by all. _This is stated by Luke for the express purpose of informing us, that, from the very commencement, a divine power shone in Christ, and compelled even those, who cherished a malignant spirit of contradiction, to join in admiring him....

14-30 Christ taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met to read, expound, and apply the word, to pray and praise. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were upon him and on him, without measure. By Christ, sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. He came by the word of his gospel, to bring light to those that sat in the dark, and by the power of his grace, to give sight to those that were blind. And he preached the acceptable year of the Lord. Let sinners attend to the Saviour's invitation when liberty is thus proclaimed. Christ's name was Wonderful; in nothing was he more so than in the word of his grace, and the power that went along with it. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as mankind. Some prejudice often furnishes an objection agai...

Verse Luke 4:15. _AND HE TAUGHT IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES_] We do not find that even the persecuting Jews ever hindered Christ or his disciples from preaching in their synagogues. Is it the same in every place where even the Christian religion is established by law? Would Jesus, or his apostles, or their most Scriptural representatives, be permitted to preach in one out of a thousand churches, in certain countries, unless they were strictly conformed to their external ecclesiastical customs? Nor even _then_, unless their doctrine were according to the taste of the managers and of the times. _GLORIFIED OF ALL._] All felt the power of his preaching, and acknowledged the divinity of his mission. The scandal of the cross had not yet taken place....

GLORIFIED OF ALL - Praised by all; or, all were pleased with his instructions, and admired his wisdom....

EXPOSITION LUKE 4:1 THE TEMPTATION. The consecration of our Lord in his baptism was immediately followed by what is known as his temptation. It is, perhaps, the most mysterious and least understood of any of the scenes of the public ministry related by the evangelists. It is related at some length by SS. Matthew and Luke, with very slight difference of detail, the principal one being the order in which the three great temptations occurred. In St. Mark the notice of this strange episode in the life is very short, but harmonizes perfectly with the longer accounts of SS. Matthew and Luke. St John omits it altogether; first, because, with the earlier written Gospels before him, he was aware that the Church of his Master already possessed ample details of the occurrence; and secondly, the

AND HE TAUGHT IN THEIR SYNAGOGUES,.... In the public places of worship used by the Galilaeans, where they met on sabbath days and weekdays, to read and pray, and hear the Scriptures expounded; and Christ engaging here as a public teacher, was the reason of his fame being spread around the country: BEING GLORIFIED OF ALL; that heard him: they were astonished at his doctrine; they wondered at his gracious words; they praised him as a preacher; and glorified him, and God for him, because of the mighty works which were done by him....

Luke 4:1. _And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness Вѕ_ «Full of the Holy Ghost» Вѕand then led «into the wilderness» to be tempted. You would not expect that. Yet it is a sadder thing to be led into a wilderness when you are not filled with the Spirit, and a sadder thing to be tempted when the Spirit of God is not resting upon you. The temptation of our Lord was not one to which he wantonly exposed himself, he «was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.» The Spirit of God may lead us where we shall have to endure trial. If he does so, we are safe; and we shall come off conquerors even as our Master did. Luke 4:2. _Being forty days tempted of the devil._ Six weeks of temptation. We read the story of the temptation, perha

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

JESUS IN NAZARETH (Mark 1:14 f.*, Matthew 4:12 *, Mark 6:1 *, Matthew 13:53 *). Lk. brings Jesus to Galilee, but, anxious to make the mission begin in His own town, departs from Mk.'s order (though it leads him into difficulty, see Luke 4:23), and puts the rejection at Nazareth (Mark 6) at the beginning of the ministry. The episode is prophetic of the later and larger rejection. And the activity which Jesus is said to have displayed outside Nazareth (Luke 4:23) is prophetic of the spread of