SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/21/2022 9:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Returning to Nazareth”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
13:54-58
Message of the verses: “54 And coming to
His home town He began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they
became astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this
wisdom, and these miraculous powers? 55 “Is not this the carpenter’s
son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and
Simon and Judas? 56 “And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did
this man get all these things?" 57 And they took offense at Him.
But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his home
town, and in his own household." 58 And He did not do many miracles
there because of their unbelief.”
What we will be looking at today is kind of another
introduction, as there will be sub-sections that will follow after this
introduction.
We
know from Scripture that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth which is where they
finally ended up after the birth of Jesus and then going to Egypt for a
while. In Matthew 4:12-13 we saw that
Jesus went back to Nazareth after His baptism and temptations, and then we can
learn from Luke that the response to Him then was the same as it was on this
occasion. We know the true story of how
Jesus was conceived, which was by the Holy Spirit, and although I am not making
any excuses for those who lived in Nazareth who had no idea of the truth behind
how Jesus was conceived I am sure that there were some whispers that went on
after this family moved back to Nazareth when Jesus was still a very young
boy. People just have a tendency to
remember things like that.
John
MacArthur writes “Luke reports that, after the wilderness temptations, ‘Jesus
returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit…And He came to Nazareth, where
He had been brought up; and was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the
Sabbath, and stood up to read” (Luke 4:14a, 16.”
It
had not been too long when Jesus returned to Nazareth after His baptism and
after His wilderness temptations and so when He went into the Synagogue to read
this was probably something that had happened many times before, but Jesus was
different then. Jesus’ ministry began after
he came up out of the waters of baptism and we see at that point that the Holy
Spirit rested on Him as He came down on Jesus like a dove lands, very slowly,
and then the Father Spoke from heaven, and so the trinity was all there as
Jesus began His ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit in order to do the
will of God throughout His entire ministry.
We
know the story of when Jesus read the Scriptures from Isaiah 61:1-2. Like all readers Jesus sat down to explain
what He read and when He explained what He had just read by saying “Today this
Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing”; and He probably made other
comments as well. MacArthur writes “At
first the people did not understand that Jesus was referring to Himself,
because their initial response was quite favorable: ‘All were speaking well of Him, and wondering
at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and the were saying, ‘Is
this not Joseph’s son?’” (Luke 4:17-22).”
MacArthur
goes on “Knowing that the people’s praise was based merely on faithless
recognition of His popularity and power, Jesus began to expose their real
motives. He knew they wanted Him to
duplicate in Nazareth the miracles He had performed in Capernaum. And He knew that if He complied with their
with their demand, they still would not accept Him as the Messiah, because ‘no
prophet is welcome in his home town.’ In
further rebuke of their hypocrisy and faithlessness, He reminded them that in
the days of Elijah God had shut up the rain in Israel for three-and-a-half
years and caused a great famine. During
that time the Lord showed mercy on none of the many suffering widows in Israel
but showed great mercy on a Gentile widow of Zarepath. He also reminded them that during the time of
Elisha, God cleansed no lepers in Israel but cleansed the leprosy of the
Gentile Naaman of Syria (vv. 23-37).
They could not have missed Jesus’ powerful rebuking point that a
believing Gentile is dearer to God than an unbelieving Jew.”
We
conclude from the 4th chapter of Luke’s gospel “28 And all the people in the synagogue were
filled with rage as they heard these things; 29 and they got up and drove Him out of the city,
and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in
order to throw Him down the cliff.” This
happened after Jesus made clear that He understood their wicked motives and
would not bend to their hard-hearted provincial desire to have their own
display of miracles. So in their attempt
to kill Jesus, the evil character and unbelief became apparent. They wanted entertainment from Jesus and
they wanted a benefit for themselves from the miracle worker, but they were not
looking for conviction of sin and a message of salvation by Jesus the Messiah.
In
this introduction to verses 54-58 we see Jesus’ second, and a very similar,
encounter with the former neighbors in Nazareth. MacArthur writes “we can learn four important
truths about unbelief: It blurs the
obvious, builds up the irrelevant, blinds to the truth, and blocks the
supernatural.” Lord willing we will
begin “Unbelief Blurs the Obvious” in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I,
and all people born into this world today are born with unbelieving, that is
unbelieving that we are in need of a Saviour, and even after being born-again
there is still unbelief at times in my life.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust the Lord even when things don’t seem
like He is in control.
5/21/2022 10:38 AM
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