Song: I’m Gonna Live So God Can Use Me
Song: O Young and Fearless Prophet
The Good News: A Time to Argue
Luke 4 in Context: A Closer Look
The Obvious
Luke 4 contains multiple anecdotes and vignettes.[1] It is our first significant look at Jesus as an agent of his own life.
The chapter starts with a vignette: Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit. (v. 1)
Then the anecdote: an argument between Jesus and the Devil. While Jesus is fasting, the Devil tries to persuade him three different time to veer away from God’s long-term plan. The Devil suggests that Jesus 1) perform quick miracles (turn stones into bread) in order to meet human needs, 2) get power quickly by trading his loyalty to God–worshipping the Devil instead, and 3) force God’s hand by jumping off the top of the temple wall—rather than wait patiently for God’s plan to unfold through love and sacrifice. Jesus resists all these tantalizing enticements. The Devil then leaves him, not for good, but to lie in wait for a more opportune time.
After returning from his encounter with the Devil, Luke shares another vignette: Jesus is located in Galilee, drawing crowds, becoming a celebrity, teaching.
The next anecdote begins with Jesus in Nazareth, being handed the scroll of Isaiah. He finds the passage (Isaiah 62: 1-2) he wants to read: promises of good news for the poor, the captive, the blind, the oppressed, and the debtor. Then he announces that “this” is fulfilled in the process of people hearing it read.
After Jesus finishes his readings and comments, the crowd reacts. They all speak well of him. They are surprised by his gracious words. They remember that he is the son of someone they know, Joseph.
Then the anecdote takes a twist. Jesus responds to their flattering comments with a challenge: he accuses them of wanting him to perform miracles that cannot be done in Nazareth. Jesus understands that they cannot see him as a legitimate prophet—one who speaks for God. They see him as a local boy. They had defined and domesticated Jesus, put him in a box. And so Jesus muses that prophets have no success in their own hometowns. He recalls stories from both Elijah and Elisha to prove his point. As he will do other times, Jesus does not argue with what the people are actually saying, but with what they are thinking. The people are offended and the conflict escalates. The crowd gets angry and runs him out of town. They try to run him off a cliff. But Jesus turns and faces them and walks through the menacing group and leaves the area on his own.
The next anecdote (vv. 31-37) places Jesus is in Capernaum, his adopted town. It is the Sabbath and Jesus is teaching in the synagogue. He is interrupted by a man who is possessed with a demon. The demon, like the people of Nazareth, wants Jesus to go away. But this time, it is not because Jesus is a local boy who won’t conform to their expectations. The demon wants Jesus to leave because he sees Jesus as “the Holy One” who will bring disruption to the status quo. Jesus commands the demon to be silent and be gone. The demon obeys. No one gets hurt, and the people are amazed at Jesus’ authority and power.
The exorcism is followed by another anecdote (vv. 38-39). Jesus is visiting the home of Peter’s mother-in-law. She is sick with a fever. Jesus commands the fever to be gone. It obeys. The woman gets out of bed and serves her guests.
The healing of Peter’s mother-in-law is followed by a vignette: people are coming by in the evening to be healed and freed of demons (vv. 40-41). Another vignette follows (vv. 42-44): Jesus gets up early in the morning to go off and pray alone.
And then a final anecdote in the chapter: the people find Jesus and argue with him to stay with them. He argues back that it is his calling to go to other cities and do the same with them as he did in Capernaum. (vv. 42-44)
Our overall first impression from Luke 4 is that Jesus is in command, whether contending with the devil or demons, with the people of Nazareth or Capernaum. He cuts a commanding and authoritative presence. Humans, demons, and devils alike all underestimate him. He reveals himself to be a respected teacher, a liberator of the demon-possessed, and a physician for the sick.
Unleashing Our Curiosity
After the people in Nazareth seemed to compliment Jesus, why did he pick a fight with them: verse 22 vs. verses 23-27? They didn’t actually say “Doctor, cure yourself.” Jesus was just reading their minds. Why provoke them by bringing up things that happened 700 years earlier?
Another question arises from verse 21. When Jesus said that the Isaiah text “has been fulfilled in your hearing,” what did he mean? Were miracles of healing and liberation already taking place? Was the only thing taking place the arrival of the messenger? Even now, centuries later, there are captives not released, poor not being given good news, and blind folks not able to see. What then does it mean, “fulfilled in your hearing”?
After reading Matthew and Mark, we are thrown a bit by Luke’s sequence of events. Even within Luke, the sequence of the stories seems out of order. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law before he has called Peter to be one of his followers (5:1-11). The people of Nazareth seem aware of Jesus’ miracles and healings, even though Luke hasn’t recorded any yet.
Noting the Less Obvious
- One of the less obvious things about this chapter—perhaps because we see it and wish we hadn’t—is how quickly Jesus is to get into arguments with those around him. Generally speaking, church people try to be polite (with a few notable exceptions) and think that politeness is Christlike. Rule of thumb: we should NOT argue.
But in the world of Jesus, argument was a primary tool of the teacher, the healer, and the prophet. It was more respectful than ignoring, dismissing, or insulting people. It was more honest than coy manipulation. Argument is the highest form of combining both persuasion and relationship building.
In Luke 4, many try to use flattery to control Jesus, such as the devil, the people of Nazareth, and the people of Capernaum. Jesus could see right through their words—directly into their motives. He was right to reject what they were wanting him to do. And he did it through argument.
There is a profound difference between argument and quarrel. A quarrel is intended to widen the gap between people—to make oneself as dominant as possible and one’s opponent as small and evil as possible. There are no rules in a quarrel—anything goes, as long as you win and the other side loses. Truth and justice have no value in a quarrel—they just get in the way of winning.
But an argument, even if it is not pleasant, is always the highest form of respecting one’s opponent. It uses logic, experience, common values, common sense, reasoning, a sense of honor, humor, wit, and tradition to make one’s case. In a good argument, both sides are listening to the other. Both sides are flexible if a point is made that hasn’t been thought of before. The purpose of an argument is to seek the truth and come to the best decision. Compromise is occasionally the better part of wisdom and love—although not always. Arguments are fluid, while quarrels are inflexible.
2. When the Devil failed to win his arguments with Jesus, he “departed from him until an opportune time.” In other words, the contest wasn’t over. The Devil hadn’t surrendered. He would wait for another occasion, after Jesus had been worn down through disappointment, exhaustion, betrayal, external pressure, and threat of violence. We are at our most vulnerable when we are lured into thinking that we have won.
3. There are few verses in the Bible more idealistic than vv. 18-19. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…to bring good news to the poor…” The scene Jesus describes is a utopia of healing, freedom, and prosperity. What does it mean when he says that all this is fulfilled in the hearing of his audience?
The Greek word for “fulfill” is transliterated, “pe-PLAY-roe-tai.” The word has a range of translation possibilities in English—all the way from “job done” to “job started that will fill up all our time and energy and nothing will distract us until we bring it to reality.” In its context here in Luke, the later translation is probably the best. In other words, in speaking the words he did at Nazareth, he committed himself and his followers fully to the agenda of healing, liberation, and prosperity for the poor. Nothing else would edge it out.
4. One community forced Jesus to leave town, Nazareth in v. 29, while another community hindered him from leaving, Capernaum in v. 42. The people around Jesus tried as hard to control him as the Devil did. It is a cautionary note for Christians, an invitation to self-reflection. How much do we try to bend Jesus/God to ourplans and devices, and how much do we submit to his way of doing things?
5. The same Greek word is used to describe how Jesus commanded both the demon (v. 35) and the fever (v. 39) when casting them out. The word is transliterated “e pe TI may sen.” As a command, it means “to declare something of negative value and order it to be removed.” Unlike the arguments of chapter 4, there is no back and forth here. Jesus simply kicks both the demon and the fever out of the story. While individuals, and even the devil, are worthy of argument, there are boundaries Jesus has. He will give neither demons nor disease any status whatsoever. They are simply to be expelled from human lives and society.
This has influenced my understanding of the demonic. Just as a fever is the fruit of viruses or bacteria, so it is that demons are the fruit of spiritual bacteria and viruses. But—I’m open to hearing an argument on the subject!
[1] An anecdote is a very brief story that includes at least one character and at least one action and some pivot which puts a twist in the story. The anecdotes in Luke 4 are the argument between the Devil and Jesus, Jesus reading Isaiah in the synagogue and commenting on it, the confrontation in Nazareth between Jesus and its citizens, the exorcism of the demon, the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. An anecdote would require a short drama, skit, or storyteller in order to be captured.
A vignette, on the other hand, can be captured by a snapshot or painting or sculpture. It is a scene that captures the essence of a person or situation, but there is no narrative or pivot. Vignettes in Luke 4 include Jesus being led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, Jesus fasting, the crowds being awed by Jesus, and Jesus seeking a place of solitude early in the morning.
Repertoire 