< Luke 4 >

Immediately after his baptism, Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted of the devil. If the popular idea of the devil as a supernatural evil being was true it would put him and God in collusion together against God’s own Son. In fact the devil is sin in the flesh, the great enemy of mankind, and the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness so that he could be tested by the prompting of his flesh. This is the same reason why God lead the people of Israel into the wilderness Deuteronomy 8:2Waiting for response for Deuteronomy 8:2

Early in his ministry Jesus returned to his own town of Nazareth where, in the synagogue, he read the scriptures to the people, reading from Isaiah 61 the prophecy written five hundred years earlier. “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me” i.e. Jesus as he was the LORD’s anointed (or Christ), and the prophecy in Isaiah had declared beforehand what Christ would do. If we compare what Jesus read with the prophecy in Isaiah 61:1-2Waiting for response for Isaiah 61:1-2 we see that he stopped reading in the middle of a sentence, and then “closed the book and sat down”, to the astonishment of the audience. The reason he did this was that the prophecy speaks of Christ’s deeds in two different eras, firstly when he preached the gospel and gave his life, and secondly when he returns from heaven with great power. Therefore on that occasion Jesus read the first part of the prophecy only, that he would “preach the gospel” while doing good to the needy to be able to say: “this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears”. The rest of the prophecy tells us what Jesus will do when he returns “to proclaim the day of vengeance of our God”, to give the faithful joy in Jerusalem, to rebuild Israel as in the days of old, and establish righteousness in the earth Isaiah 61:2-4,11Waiting for response for Isaiah 61:2-4,11

Because his neighbours in Nazareth were familiar with Jesus as the carpenter’s son, they had difficulty accepting him as the Messiah. Furthermore, he incensed them by pointing out that God had intervened at certain times of trial for Israel to deliver, not Israelites, but Gentiles. Luke was writing for all mankind and therefore it is appropriate that he, and not the other gospel writers records this conversation. However, it raised the ire of those Jews, provoking them to attempt to kill him.

Although Jesus had power to perform miraculous deeds, and he did so, his main duty was to preach the gospel, as he emphasised to the people. He had to preach the kingdom of God in all the cities of Israel because God had sent him specifically to do this, and he obeyed.