Jesus begins to speak in the synagogue, let’s take a look
at what this means.
Read Luke 4:13-30
Before we look at what Jesus said, it’s important to
understand why he said it. In the synagogue anyone could read Scripture, from a
young teenager to the oldest in the town. In order to read there your name had
to be put on a list of reading and they would read some from the Torah (Torah
reading) and some from the rest of the Old Testament (Haftarah reading). What
is interesting is they had a schedule for the readings, and they were designed
to go through the Torah once a year and the rest of the Old Testament every 3 years.
This schedule was set up over 200 years before Jesus. This means the passage
Jesus reads isn’t one he chose but one he knew for a long time he was going to
read. So as we go through the rest of this story, meditate on how God planned
everything.
So what did it say? Jesus reads out of Isaiah 61, this is
talking about a time when God was going to put everything back together. God is
going to free the captives and bring justice on their enslavers. There will be
no more shame and they will inherit a double portion of land (Take some time
and read all of Isaiah 61). Sort of sounds like the coming of the Messiah,
right?
Knowing what you know about the people of Nazareth, what
do you think their reaction would be to this rabbi, reading this reading?
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