Study Questions

Luke 4:16-30

This week’s epiphany is that Jesus cares about the most unlikely people. Jesus went home to preach at his home congregation. The synagogue rises up and tries to kill Jesus because he will not prioritize his neighbors over the rest of humanity.

Luke 4:16-30
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but he grew up in a small town in Galilee called Nazareth. When Jesus returned home, he visited the local synagogue. The Gospel of Luke wants us to know that Jesus was a pious Jew who went to church, read the scriptures, and was invited to speak in the synagogue. In other words, Jesus was a very respectable young man.

The synagogue attendant handed Jesus the scroll of Isaiah. Instead of a giant Bible, the Holy Scriptures in the synagogues were preserved on large scrolls of sheepskin. The scroll of Isaiah was a huge document. Jesus turned the scroll all the way to Isaiah 61:1-2.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

This passage was written five centuries before Christ’s birth to encourage the Jewish people during the Babylonian captivity. Jesus claims that he is the fulfillment of God’s ancient promise.

First, Jesus would bring good news to the spiritual and economical poor. Jesus is referring to anyone who felt excluded because of education, gender, family heritage, religious purity, vocation, or financial situation. Everyone who is considered beyond the reach of salvation will be invited into the Kingdom of God. Second, Jesus will release the captives. The devil ensnares us in all manner of addictions, compulsions, and bad habits. There are also mundane social restrictions that tie us up in knots. Jesus promises to set us free from all such restrictions. Third, Jesus promises sight to the blind. Fourth, the oppressed will be set free. Fifth, Jesus announces the Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor. In Leviticus 25, the Bible promises that every fiftieth year that all debts will be cancelled, all land will be returned to the original owner, all slaves would be released, all that went wrong in the past half century would be fixed.

1. Which promise appeals most to you?
2. What item on this list surprises you the most?
3. Which item would change the world most dramatically?

Jesus sat down in the posture of a rabbi or teacher. He said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” The crowds responded positively to his preaching. Or did they? Someone asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Luke’s Gospel is not as inflammatory as Mark’s version of the story. In the Gospel of Mark the crowds ask the indelicate question, “Isn’t this Mary’s son” (Mark 6:3)? Men were known by their father’s name. In Mark’s version, the crowds were almost certainly questioning the legitimacy of Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke, the question is muted with Joseph’s name, but it is still possibly a question about legitimacy. Some scholars say the crowds were teasing Jesus and others say they were sincere.

1. What do you think? Was everybody in the synagogue really positive? Were some people negative? Was the crowd split in their appreciation of Jesus? Did Luke write the story in such a way as to make us wonder?

Jesus offers a couple of well-worn expressions. The first is “Doctor, heal yourself?” What this means is, “you’ve healed others, now take care of the people back home.” The phrase is roughly equivalent to our expression, “Charity begins at home.” Jesus looks into the hearts and minds of his old friends and neighbors and he realizes that they want him to prioritize their own needs.

The second expression is, “No prophet is accepted in his hometown.” The point is that no one expects to hear God’s prophetic word from a child who grew up in the congregation. Most preachers can vouch for this old expression. Just as parents sometimes forget to treat their babies as grown-ups; just as sisters and brothers forget to treat each other as equals at family reunions; churches sometimes have a hard time forgetting the youthful immaturity of their homegrown preachers. In most cases, this is harmless and amusing, but not in Nazareth.

1. When have you felt denied respect because of the familiarity of others?
2. When have you felt responsible prioritizing old relationships instead of new ones?
3. What do you think is behind Jesus’ frustration with his old friends and neighbors?

Jesus interprets Isaiah 61 in an unexpected way. He reminds his home congregation about how Elijah took care of the Widow of Sidon during a time of famine. Do you know the story? The Prophet Elijah gives unlimited food to a Philistine widow (1 Kings 17:8-14)! He even raises her son from the dead (1 Kings 17:17-24)! Jesus uses the Holy Scriptures to subvert his neighbor’s expectations that he was there to take care of their needs at the expense of everyone else.

Jesus also reminds his home congregation of how the Prophet Elisha healed Naaman of his leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-27). Naaman was a scary Syrian general with a terrible skin disease. He also enslaved a Jewish girl. No one expected a Jewish prophet to heal a dubious outsider like Naaman! Jesus’ point is that God sometimes neglects Jewish widows and Jewish lepers to heal strangers far from faith!

The synagogue rises up to kill Jesus! They want to toss him off a cliff and break his body against the rocks below. This is an alternate form of stoning. I’ve been to this cliff in Nazareth. It would have been quite a fall. Jesus miraculously walks through the crowd to safety. This story anticipates the crucifixion, but it was not Christ’s time to die … not yet.  The people are angry that Jesus will not stay home and take care of them. The people are angry that Jesus prioritizes strangers above his own kinsmen. In short, they want to control the Son of God. They don’t care about the Gospel spreading all over the globe. They want their own selfish desires to be Christ’s prime concern.

1. Over the years I have noticed that new Christians sometimes experience dramatic answers to prayer while mature Christians don’t always get their prayers answered. Can you think of any examples of this dynamic?
2. Does that seem accurate to you? Does that seem fair to you?
3. Why do you think that Jesus often answers the prayers of those far from God’s love?
4. Why does God subvert the human expectation that seniority insures the best privileges?

Bonus question: Are these Bible studies helpful? Please send me an email if your home group uses these questions. I’m happy to write these Bible studies, but I’d like to know who uses them. Thanks, Pastor Ryan ([email protected]).