Bible 101 - Luke 5-7

Presented April 3, 2006 by Phyllis Gilbert

Review: Jesus, born in Bethlehem in fulfillment of prophecy, grows up in Nazareth and then, as only Luke tells us, begins his public ministry at age 30. As preparation for his ministry, he is baptized by John the Baptist and then, driven by the Holy Spirit, he goes to the wilderness for 40 days of temptation and testing by Satan. And once he begins to teach and heal, preach and minister, we note two things about Jesus: he prays frequently, spending time alone with the Father, and secondly, the power he has to heal and to make whole comes from the Holy Spirit. These emphases on prayer and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit foreshadow Luke's second volume, Acts, in which Jesus' disciples, now apostles, frequently pray and are given the ability to heal, teach, preach and minister through the power of the Holy Spirit. Note, too, that Jesus is concerned with people who are very often outcasts (women, lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors) or at best, second-class citizens, in the larger society. And as we've already seen in Matthew and Mark's gospels, Luke also shows us that no one is neutral about Jesus: the people love him and clamor for him, or they drive him away (Nazareth) or criticize him (religious leaders).

Luke 5: Luke selects incidents to relate in detail in order to show us how Jesus ministered to people and what it was in him people responded to. The first part of this chapter is a good example. Here we read that Jesus is crowded off the shore of the lake, gets into a boat, and teaches from there. The boat belongs to a commercial fisherman, Peter (then called Simon), who'd just returned from an all-night fishing trip, and though he was washing his nets, he'd caught nothing in them. After Jesus taught, he told Simon, "Go out into the deep water and put down your nets." Understandably, Simon is dubious: "Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything, but I'll do what you say." Simon Peter recognizes some authority in Jesus; they row out into the lake. And sure enough, they catch so many fish their nets begin to break, and they have to call for help. When Simon returns to the shore, he falls at Jesus' feet saying "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man." Luke tells us these fishermen knew they'd witnessed a miracle. Do you see how Jesus reached Simon's heart? He did so through the language of his profession. He knew Simon would understand fish even if he didn't yet understand Jesus. And Jesus tells him "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." And we're told "they left everything and followed Jesus." Jesus meets us where we are. This incident previews his calling of Levi later in the chapter.

Luke 5:12: Jesus heals a man "covered with leprosy" meaning he had seriously deteriorated. The modern equivalent would be a person with advanced cancer miraculously brought back to health. We know from the OT that leprosy was a condition that isolated people from their families and communities; they had to live outside the camp or town, couldn't be touched, and that their disease was, in human terms, incurable; God alone could cure a leper. Leprosy is frequently a symbol of sin in the Bible because it begins small, grows, separates us from God, and without God's intervention, is fatal. Jesus touches the man - an amazing gesture of love. A leper was "unclean" and anyone who touched the leper was unclean and therefore unfit for temple ceremonies until cleansed. Jesus' touch heals the man and he's told to go to the priest. Leviticus 14 describes what that meant: the person whose leprosy was gone was inspected by the priest, the one who'd made the original diagnosis of leprosy. If the person was cured, he or she would bring two live birds (pigeons or doves), cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop to the priest. One bird would be killed over fresh water; the remaining bird would be dipped into this water and allowed to fly free. The scarlet wool, cedar and hyssop would also be dipped into the water and the former leper sprinkled seven times. That wasn't all; the person had to bathe and shave his hair, and stay outside the camp for another seven days. Then after another bath and shaving, he could return to the priest, this time with a sacrifice of lambs, flour and oil. Once the sacrifices for sin, dedication and fellowship were made, the healed person returned to fellowship and residence within the camp. The man Jesus healed went to the priest; did he talk, shout, dance for joy and grab people on the way to tell them? He must have; news of his healing spread. This was as amazing to the crowds as the catch of fish was to Simon Peter. How does Jesus handle the growing fame? Luke writes: "but Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (v. 16).

Luke 5:17: Now for the first time, we see opposition from the religious leaders. Jesus had been driven out of Nazareth, but back in Capernaum, he is teaching in a house (probably Peter's) and in the crowd are Pharisees and teachers of the law. Four friends bring a man who's paralyzed to Jesus for healing. There's no room in the house, so they climb to the roof, take out enough tiles to make a man-sized hole, and lower the man on his mat in front of Jesus. Jesus says "Friend, your sins are forgiven." The man can't walk or even sit up, but Jesus sees his inner needs first. And the religious leaders are furious: "Who does he think he is? Only God can forgive sins," they think, and their faces register their anger. Jesus reads their thoughts and says "Which is easier: to forgive sins or to say 'Get up and walk.'" Jesus sees two kinds of healing here; the critics see only apparent blasphemy. Jesus then says "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he told the paralytic to get up, take up his mat and go home." And the man did so. Jesus first attended to the man's spiritual condition and then to his physical; both were possible for the Messiah (the Son of Man). We're told the healed man walked off praising God; again, the crowds were amazed and filled with awe. We're not told what the Pharisees and the teachers of the law did. But they aren't going away and their criticisms are only beginning. Jesus challenges their established ways of living and of thinking about God.

Luke 5:27: Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector, to join his disciples. And Levi did. He gave a banquet to celebrate, inviting Jesus, his disciples and Levi's own friends. Tax collectors were unpopular because they were Jews who worked for the Roman government and got rich in the process. Remember John the Baptist's advice to the tax collectors who came to him for the baptism of repentance? "Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them (Luke 3:13). Jesus' critics observe his having dinner with Levi and his friends and they "complained to his disciples" about such associations with sinners. Jesus himself answers them: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Jesus knows the Pharisees keep the law down to its last letter and punctuation mark. But their hearts are on the law and their meticulous adherence to it - a self-righteousness that was motivated by public applause rather than honoring God. These same critics want to know why Jesus and his disciples don't fast as John the Baptist and his followers do. Recall in Matthew, Jesus was upset with the Pharisees for their very public fasting. The law made only one day of fasting mandatory in the year: the Day of Atonement. But the rabbis had proclaimed that fasting was a way to show one's piety; John's disciples followed this custom. Jesus and his friends are too happy for the Pharisees' taste. Jesus replies that the friends of the bridegroom don't fast; they feast because they are celebrating with him. And Jesus gives them two more analogies: we don't patch an old garment with new cloth nor do we put new wine into old wineskins. In both cases, new and old are not compatible. Jesus is telling the established religious leaders that he's come with a new message.

Luke 6: Here's how Jesus demonstrates the new message. He and his disciples walk through a field on the Sabbath and eat some of the kernels of the wheat as they pass through. The Pharisees asked why they were "harvesting" on the Sabbath. (The law said no work was to be done on the Sabbath; the rabbis had thus come up with 39 categories of work which included planting and harvesting.) Jesus reminds them that David, on the run from Saul, ate the consecrated loaves of bread from the Tabernacle, bread only the priests were to eat. And Jesus tells them "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." The conflict over Sabbath practices continued: on another Sabbath Jesus was teaching in a synagogue and being watched by the Pharisees and teachers of the law - who by now were looking for reasons to discredit Jesus in front of his followers. The people were wild for Jesus; the religious leaders were threatened by this change in public opinion; they'd lost status. And so they're watching Jesus like hawks. A man is in the synagogue with a useless hand, and Jesus knows the watchers are specifically interested in how he'll respond to the man's need. Jesus calls the man to the front, and asks the people a question: "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or evil, to save a life or to destroy it?" He heals the man. The critics are "furious and began to discuss what they might do to Jesus." Jesus restores a man to his profession; he gives him the ability to use a hand he couldn't use before. And the religious leaders are angry. Why? Because he did this on the Sabbath. The Sabbath laws and traditions were much more important to them than human need.

Luke 6:12: Once again we see Jesus in prayer, and this time, he's prayed all night. Then he calls his disciples and chooses from them 12 as apostles. Disciples had been following Jesus for months; some were more serious than others. Jesus prayed for wisdom and then chose 12 to be with him for the rest of his ministry. They're named in this passage, and Luke makes it clear that, contrary to what we might think in reading Mark when Jesus called and "immediately" a man responded, that the process of discernment was lengthy. The disciples had a chance to observe Jesus; he observed them. He prayed. Then he chose. In Acts, we see this repeated when the remaining 11 disciples gather after Jesus has returned to the Father, and pray for wisdom in choosing a replacement for Judas Iscariot. Their criteria were simple: the man chosen had to have been with Jesus from the beginning, and have witnessed the resurrection. They had two nominees: Barsabbas and Matthias. They prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to guide them, and thus chose Matthais (Acts 1:12-26).

Luke 6:17: The rest of this chapter is Luke's condensed version of the Sermon on the Mount, but in this case, Jesus "stood on a level place," so it's frequently referred to as the Sermon on the Plain. Once more he's surrounded by crowds who desired healing of diseases and relief from evil spirits. We're told that they pressed in on him because "power was coming from him and healing them all." Many are healed and then he begins to teach. First in four "blessed" statements he describes life in the Kingdom of God: those who are spiritually poor or aware of their need for God, those who hunger, those who weep, and those who are persecuted for Jesus' sake, will all find God because they are aware of their need for him. In contrast, Jesus speaks of "woes" to the rich, the well-fed, the satisfied and those in power. The Kingdom of Heaven is open to all who acknowledge their need for God. But putting faith in riches and status on earth is antithetical to life in the Kingdom. Jesus is turning the established teaching upside down. He's saying indirectly to the Pharisees: "You keep the letter of the law, but you have no love, no concern for others; everything is outward. An inner change is needed - humility rather than pride, a desire to please God rather than a desire to please self."

Luke 6:27: Jesus continues to teach about love, saying loving one's enemies is the sign of a person who believes in and trusts God with his life. He asks "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" God's love is unconditional; he loves us and gave Jesus to die for us so that we could be restored to a right relationship with him. God expects us, who've received his love, to give that love to others. Notice the Golden Rule is here: "Do unto others what you would have them do to you" (6:31). God's law isn't "get them before they get you," but love others, treat them with kindness; "Be merciful just as your Father is merciful" (6:36). Further, Jesus instructs his disciples (and that includes us) not to judge others or condemn them. All of Jesus' teachings are counter-cultural today as they were in his own time. The human mind, sinful from birth, plays by other rules. Jesus is not wiping out the commandments God gave his people through Moses, but he's elaborating on them and getting to the motive behind our obedience. When we trust in Jesus' sacrifice to redeem us, we're given the Holy Spirit, and he alone empowers us to do the things Jesus commands us to do. Jesus uses two parables to illustrate hypocrisy and then continues with the theme by saying that a tree is known by its fruit. The Pharisees of his day did not show kindness; they patted themselves on the back for their strict keeping of the law. Jesus is saying their hearts haven't been changed by this obedience. He concludes this sermon with a parable about men who build their homes on rock or sand: one is built on a solid foundation, able to withstand a flood, but the house on sand collapses in the storm. So it is with us: if our lives are built on God and God's righteousness alone, we can stand.

Luke 7: After the interlude of teaching, Luke returns to Jesus as healer. In this chapter, there are two such miracles: the first involves a centurion's slave, and the second, a widow's son. In the first case, a Roman soldier who's observed Jesus and heard about the healings, asks Jewish friends to intercede. The centurion, they say, has been good to them; he's helped build their synagogue. Jesus goes with them, but on the way, the centurion sends word that he's unworthy of Jesus' presence in his home. Instead, he says "speak the word," because, as a man of authority, he knows that when he says to his servant "do this," it will be done. So he says to Jesus, you, too, can simply speak. Jesus marvels at his faith; the centurion's slave is healed. And Jesus tells the crowd that such faith is unequaled in Israel. Later, going into a town, Jesus and his disciples encounter a funeral procession. The dead man is the only son of a widow; Jesus takes in the scene and halts the group. He tells the widow not to cry, walks over to the bier and touches it saying "Young man, I say to you, get up." Luke includes a wonderful detail: "He sat up and began to talk," proof that he had returned to life. Jesus had provided for the woman; without this son, she'd be completely alone in the world. The news about Jesus becomes even more spectacular and spread everywhere.

Luke 7:18: We were told in chapter 3 that Herod had put John the Baptist in prison. There John hears of Jesus' work, and sends disciples to him with a question: "Are you the one to come, or should we expect someone else?" John had a vision of a Messiah who'd defeat the Romans; what he's heard about Jesus doesn't conform to this vision. John has interpreted "deliverer" in a different way than God's plan to deliver Israel. John's disciples witness the miracles Jesus performs, and he tells them "Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard." Jesus is fulfilling Isaiah 35:5-6; John is apparently thinking of other prophecies. All will be fulfilled by the Messiah: he does defeat sin at the cross, and the devil, but the final defeat comes when Jesus returns for his reign on earth at the end of time. Jesus tells the people who've heard John's disciples' question that John was a prophet, a great man who fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy that God would send a herald for the Messiah. And then Jesus adds: " I tell you, among those born of women, there is no one greater than John, yet the one who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he." In other words, John is the last OT prophet, a man called by God and commissioned by God to prepare the way for Jesus' coming. But John dies before Jesus does. He did not have the opportunity as we do to see the fulfillment of God's plan of redemption. He believed in the promise, and like Abraham, his faith was counted for righteousness; we believe in its fulfillment. Jesus calls further attention to the question the Pharisees asked earlier about why he and his disciples do not fast. He shows them their hypocrisy: John fasted, and you say he's weird; I do not fast, and you say I'm a glutton. Make up your mind, Jesus says.

Next week: We'll see more of Jesus' work, and the Gospel's turning point is reached in Peter's confession of faith and the Transfiguration.

Homework for those who want to go deeper:

Let's close in prayer.