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The Gospel of Luke Chapter Four
Commentary by Timothy H. Burdick
In the first part of this Chapter, Luke
shows us the importance of the Word of God. He starts out by
talking about the temptations of Christ, and shows us how a
good foundation in the Word of God (the Bible) helped Jesus
refute those temptations.
Verse 1 tells us that Jesus was full of
the Holy Spirit when He returned from the Jordan River and
He then went directly into the desert. While I have talked
about it before, I cannot overly stress the importance of
being filled with the Spirit of God. Paul says about this in
Ephesians 5:18 - "Do not get drunk on wine which leads to
debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit." You may ask
why you need such an infilling of the Spirit. The Holy
Spirit is given to be our Helper. And we certainly need Him
to help us.
Jesus said about this in John 16:13,
"But when He the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you
into all truth. He will not speak on His own behalf. He will
speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet
to come." Like in the case of Jesus, the Holy Spirit
sometimes may lead us into a wilderness-like situation. We
may be tested in this way to purge and strengthen us. Look
with me at what the prophet Isaiah says about this: "But
those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength they
will soar on wings like eagles they will run and not grow
weary, they will walk and not be faint" (Isaiah 40:31).
In Verse 2, we see the devil coming at
Jesus during His weakest moment. He does this in our lives
as well, and we can see these tactics all throughout
Scripture. Satan does not always appeal merely to our
physical appetite. He is sneaky and plays on whatever
weakness we might have. One example of this might be found
in Genesis when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.
Genesis 3:6 says, "When the woman saw that the fruit of the
tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also
desirable for gaining wisdom she took some and ate it. She
also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate
it." The enemy took them at the point of their weakness.
Notice in Verse 3 how Jesus uses
Scripture to refute the devil. When the devil tempted Him by
using food as bait, Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 8:3. This
Scripture says, "He humbled you, causing you to hunger and
then feeding you with manna which neither you nor your
fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on
bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of
the Lord." Next we see the devil tempting Jesus with the
promise of power and authority. In other words, the devil is
essentially saying to Him – “You don't have to go to the
cross. You can have all of this now.”
You may ask – “I thought everything
belonged to God, but it seems like the devil is saying in
Verse 6 that the world had been given to him and he could
give it to who he wanted.” You can see this reflected in the
curse God put on Satan in Genesis 3:14 - "So the Lord God
said to the serpent (Satan), because you have done this,
cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild
animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust
all the days of your life. "Implied in this curse is God
allowing the world to be handed over to Satan for a
relatively short time. Satan is a very real being. So, while
the Bible does not try to find him under every stone or
become paranoid about him, it does suggest we should have a
healthy respect of him. In Ephesians 6:12, Paul says, "For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this
dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realm."
Jesus responded to the devil’s ploy by
quoting Deuteronomy 6:13, “Fear the Lord your God, serve Him
only and take your oaths in His name." This brings up an
interesting point. Some translations render the Hebrew word
as “worship” and some as “serve.” It carries both meanings.
True service to God is worship of Him. Again Paul says in
Romans 12:1 – “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of
God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy
and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship."
If you will look at Jesus’ final temptation in this forty
day period, you will find Satan quoting Psalms 91:11-12,
which says, "For He will command His angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in
their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a
stone."
Let me make some observations here.
This is the first time that Satan quoted Scripture during
the forty-day temptation. Satan is a master deceiver, and
will do whatever it takes to cause as much havoc in your
life as possible. Jesus said about Satan, who He calls a
“thief” - "The thief comes only to steal and kill and
destroy; I have come that you may have life, and have it to
the full” (John 10:10). Second, if you read Psalm 91
carefully, you will find that Satan was giving
misinformation. Many cults and “isms” have started because
people have taken a portion of Scripture out of context. In
so doing, they have listened to the master deceiver. The
Bible calls the devil the “father of lies" – It says of
those who look to this Satan, “You belong to your father the
devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He
was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth
for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his
native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies"
(John 8:44). Again Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy
6:16 - "Do not test the Lord your God as you did at Massa."
In verse 13 of Luke 4, we see the devil
leaving Jesus temporarily. If we successfully resist the
devil in God’s strength and not our own, the enemy will
leave for a short time. James has this to say: "Submit
yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from
you” (James 4:7). But when the time is opportune, he will
always try again. To see what our attitude should be in
relation to this, look at 1st Peter 5:8 - "be
self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Resist Him, standing firm in the faith, because you know
that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the
same kinds of sufferings." If you are undergoing physical
and/or emotional suffering today, God wants to encourage
you. God can and wants to use those of us who have
pronounced challenges in life. Just because the world says
you can't do something doesn't mean you can't. I am blind,
but through God’s strength I am able to speak and to write
these words.
Satan wants these obstacles to make you
ineffective for God. Paul says about this in Romans 8:31 -
"What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for
us, who can be against us?"
In Verses 14-15 of Luke Chapter 4, the
author again emphasizes the fullness of the Spirit in the
life of Jesus as He returned to Galilee. It goes on to say
that all men spoke well of Him. He was, as it says,
“glorified by all.” But in what you are doing, don't look
for the approval of men. It can be a trap. The book of
Proverbs says, "The tongue of the wise commends knowledge,
but the mouth of the fool gushes folly" (Proverbs 15:2).
The Scripture tells us in Luke 4:14,
that Jesus now went back to His home town of Nazareth. The
people there all knew Him. When He went into the synagogue
as He had a habit of doing, He stood up out of reverence to
His Father and read to them. Compare what He is doing here
in standing with another example of reading from Scripture
in Nehemiah 8:5, where it says, "Ezra opened the book... and
was standing above all the people.”
All the people could see Jesus at that
moment because He was standing above them; and as He opened
it the people all stood up. Jesus was now given the scroll
and He read to them from Isaiah 61:1 - "The Spirit of the
sovereign Lord is on Me because the Lord has anointed Me to
preach 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." Notice He didn't complete the
thought from this passage in Isaiah. It goes on to say in
Isaiah 61:2, "and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort
all who mourn."
The last part He didn't finish partly
because God’s vengeance fell upon Jesus while He was on the
cross, and it will be fulfilled at His Second Coming to this
earth. We will be comforted by the Lord’s return for us.
When it says that Jesus gave the scroll back and sat down
(Luke 4:20), it means He was preparing to teach them. When
the rabbis of Israel taught, they would not stand as we do
in church today. They would be seated. The people were
surprised and wondered at the words which He spoke. They
must have whispered to each other in a state of shock,
"Isn't this Joseph the carpenter's son?"
In verse 23, Jesus goes on addressing
the people. In my own paraphrase He says, "I know what you
are going to say. Why don't you do the same works that you
have done in Capernaum in your home town?" Then Jesus goes
on to tell them something very revolutionary. As God’s
chosen people, the Jews felt that God’s love extended to
them, but not to others in humanity. So they wanted to kill
Jesus when He referred to God’s mercy being shown to the
Gentiles (non-Jews).
First He told them about the widow of
Zarephath. This story is found in First Kings 17:8 and the
verses that follow. Next Jesus referred to God working in
the life of Naaman the leper. This story is found in Second
Kings 5:1-19. The widow and Naaman were both Gentiles, which
made Jesus’ listeners angry. After experiencing the
unbridled anger of His relatives and neighbors, He somehow
escaped from them. He went down to Capernaum which would
remain His headquarters throughout the rest of His ministry.
In Capernaum, Jesus amazed the people
because He spoke with authority (Luke 4:32). No one in that
day spoke with this kind of dynamic. The rabbis of that time
did not speak on their own authority. They all spoke by
quoting other teachers who were prominent in Jewish thought.
What we know as the Old Testament had been completed 400
years earlier. No Word from God had been spoken since that
time, but God now spoke in the Birth and Life of Christ. His
listeners did not understand.
While Jesus was teaching in the
synagogue, He encountered a man who was possessed by an evil
spirit (Verse 33). There were exorcisms of demons in that
day, but they involved much ceremony and ritual. In contrast
to this, Jesus again was the object of wonder. In light of
what I have said, read Luke 4:36 with me. "All the people
were amazed and said to each other, what is this teaching?
With authority and power He gives orders to evil spirits and
they come out."
Back up a little bit, and you will see
in the same story something of great interest. In Verse 35
of Luke 4, Jesus spoke to the demon who had just told the
people that Jesus was the Son of God. "Be quiet,” Jesus said
sternly, and then continued, “Come out of him!” Then the
demon threw the man down before them all and came out
without injuring him." You may ask yourself, why wouldn't
Jesus let people know who He was by any means possible? He
made this statement in Matthew 11:27, which I find
interesting - "All things have been committed to me by My
Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one
knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son
chooses to reveal Him." In other words, Jesus didn't need
nor want testimony from any source other than the Father
Himself.
Scriptures like the one we previously
read in Isaiah, tell us before they happened, about the acts
that the Messiah would perform when He came to this earth.
His works spoke of Who He was. The story we have now in
front of us is the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law (Verse
38). We wouldn't know that Simon (also known as Peter) was
married except for a few accounts such as this one. I find
the different accounts of this story interesting. It says in
Luke 4:39 that Jesus "bent over and rebuked the fever."
As to the same incident, it says in
Mark’s Gospel (Mark 1:29-31) that He "went to her, took her
hand and helped her up." I mention this because it adds a
little bit more color to the story. This is not a
contradiction, but a case of two individuals looking at the
same story from differing perspectives. You might want to
think of it like this: It is like two news reporters. They
are both reporting on the same story, but they each may
report details that the other has missed. And after this
happened, the woman got up and waited on all of them. The
works of Christ are done in OUR lives as well, so that we
can serve others. The works are never an end in themselves.
In the following story where Jesus
healed the people that came to Him at sunset (Luke 4:40 &
forward), we again can see differences that enrich the
story. Mark tells us that it was the whole town that came
out whereas Luke doesn't give us that information. On the
other hand Luke records that Jesus laid His hands on them
where Mark doesn't say that. Lastly, Jesus tells the people
who came to Him at daybreak that He can't stay in that
region, but that He must preach in the other surrounding
villages of Judea. Compare what Jesus says here, with what
He tells His followers when He was taken up to be with His
Father. Acts 1:8 says, "But you will receive power when the
Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of
the earth."
In conclusion I would just like to say
that we have seen that, as believers, we are utterly
dependant upon the work of God’s Spirit in our lives. We do
not act on our own. Second, the Gospel and the ministry of
Jesus is first to the Jew and then to the Gentile (non-Jew)
also. He came to rescue us all, including you and me.
Friday Study Ministries
The First Church On The Net
www.FridayStudy.org
www.FirstChurchOnTheNet.org
"While
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)
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