Morning Bible Study: Luke 4:14-30

Rejection at Nazareth

16 He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 

17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written:

18   The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me

to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to set free the oppressed,

19   to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. [Isaiah 61:1–2]

20 He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. 

21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”

22 They were all speaking well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that came from his mouth; yet they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

23 Then he said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. What we’ve heard that took place in Capernaum, do here in your hometown also.’”

24 He also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 

25 But I say to you, there were certainly many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days, when the sky was shut up for three years and six months while a great famine came over all the land. 

26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them except a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 

27 And in the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many in Israel who had leprosy, and yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”

28 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged. 

29 They got up, drove him out of town, and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff. 

30 But he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.

Commentary

(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)

"Christ taught in their synagogues, their places of public worship, where they met to read, expound, and apply the word, to pray and praise. All the gifts and graces of the Spirit were upon him and on him, without measure. By Christ, sinners may be loosed from the bonds of guilt, and by his Spirit and grace from the bondage of corruption. He came by the word of his gospel, to bring light to those that sat in the dark, and by the power of his grace, to give sight to those that were blind. And he preached the acceptable year of the Lord. Let sinners attend to the Savior's invitation when liberty is thus proclaimed. 

Christ's name was Wonderful; in nothing was he more so than in the word of his grace, and the power that went along with it. We may well wonder that he should speak such words of grace to such graceless wretches as mankind. 

Some prejudice often furnishes an objection against the humbling doctrine of the cross; and while it is the word of God that stirs up men's enmity, they will blame the conduct or manner of the speaker. The doctrine of God's sovereignty, his right to do his will, provokes proud men. They will not seek his favor in his own way; and are angry when others have the favors they neglect. Still is Jesus rejected by multitudes who hear the same message from his words. While they crucify him afresh by their sins, may we honor him as the Son of God, the Savior of men, and seek to show we do so by our obedience."