Year 4, Day 213: Luke 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: People of Peace

• People of Peace: A person of peace is someone whom God has prepared to hear God’s message through you.  God does all the work of preparing that person for your presence in their life. Because of this preparation, these people will like you.  They will listen to you.  They will serve with you as you live out God’s calling for your life.

This is a great story through which we can see the lens of People of Peace.  Of course, to do it means that I’ll need to skip over the temptation of Jesus, which is a great story through which we could study the dynamic of Approval, Appetite, and Ambition.  But for today, let’s look at People of Peace.

Notice what happens when we get to Nazareth.  Jesus opens up the scroll and starts to teach.  The people seem to give Him praise, but we can tell by Jesus’ reaction that it was just lip service.  They aren’t really deeply affected by His teaching; they are just amazed that a carpenter can speak this way.  Here’s another way of thinking about it.  They are willing to be amazed at Jesus but they don’t really want to participate in His ministry.  In fact, they are so opposed to participating in His ministry that they want to throw Him off of the cliff.

Following the Nazareth story we have three stories of success.  Back in Capernaum, the people are willing to join His ministry and a demoniac is healed.  They continue to bring people to Jesus so that they can experience God’s power.  Many people are healed and word of Jesus’ ministry spreads.  Even when Jesus tried to have some alone time the people sought Him out and wanted to hear His teaching.

You don’t get a bigger contrast of stories about people of peace than here in Luke 4.  The people of Nazareth don’t want to hear and they miss out.  The people of Capernaum want to hear so much that they pursue Jesus even into the wilderness.  People of Peace pursue truth.  It’s just that simple.

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