Hometown Prophet

Luke 4:22-24 ESV

22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph's son?” 23 And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” 24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.

There are several superheroes throughout history that comic book companies have created. There is Superman, Batman, Spiderman, and several others.

And in every comic book, TV show, or movie, what every superhero has in common is that they fight crime, and everyone loves them for the service that they provide to the community that they protect.

Because of these superheroes’ ability to fight crime and their willingness to do so, they are respected, adored, and appreciated by those they serve and protect.

You know, sometimes I wish that the real world was like how it is in the movies, the TV shows, and the comic books; especially when it comes to the service that the Christian does for the world’s good every time we share the Gospel with someone else.

And yes, there are many times that the proclamation of the Gospel produces amazing results; oftentimes, it is proclaimed, God opens hearts and minds, and people willingly receive it with joy, and as a result, people are grateful that we shared the Gospel with them, but most of all, they are eternally grateful that God took pity on them, extended His grace, and saved their soul.

But there are also other times when we proclaim the Gospel to someone, and the reception that we receive from our hearers, is doubt, scorn, and sometimes even outright anger.

This is a sad reality, but it is reality indeed. When you go to someone whose heart naturally hates God and has not been prepared by God, when you proclaim the Gospel to them, their reaction is going to be what is in accordance with what their natural heart is most prone to do, and that is to hate God, and therefore hate His Gospel.

In the narrative that we are currently working through, that being the Lord Jesus’ presentation of the Gospel to those in His hometown of Nazareth, we see Him experiencing both acceptance from His hearers, and rejection and hate from His hearers, yet it was mostly the latter.

Last week we spoke about how the Lord Jesus had been empowered by the Holy Spirit, and because of this, when He taught in the synagogues of Galilee, He was glorified by those who were present.

He was gaining quite the reputation and much popularity. And one would think that when He came to His hometown of Nazareth, He would receive the greatest, kindest, most welcoming reception of all.

He did what He would normally do, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood to read from the Scriptures and teach them.

When He did, He read from Isaiah, chapter 61, a passage about the Messiah. After He read this, He proclaimed that that particular Scripture had been fulfilled in and through Him.

Now, we see in our reading for today, the reaction that the Lord received from His hearers.

There were two different reactions that the people gave to the Lord’s words. The first reaction, we read at the very beginning of our reading, where it says:

*Luke 4:22a ESV

22a And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

Now, the ‘all’ that is spoken of here does not literally mean all who were present. Rather, it means ‘all’ of a certain class.

The Scriptures speak like this on several different occasions. Sometimes they “all Israel” did this or that, when obviously not every single person of Israel did this or that, and furthermore, never is “all Israel” present in such instances.

Or, for example, concerning John the Baptist’s ministry, the Gospel of Matthew records that all Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region surrounding the Jordan were going to him and being baptized. Now, obviously, we know that not every single person in these regions were receiving John’s baptism.

And here in our reading when it says that ‘all spoke well of Him’, it doesn’t mean every person who was present for this. We know this because of what comes after this section of our reading.

Yet there were some there who did speak well of Him. They believed Him, and embraced Him. And the reason why was because of the gracious words that were coming from His mouth.

Now, that word ‘gracious’ means something that is filled with grace. And what grace is, is the free, unmerited favor of God to sinners. Sinners who don’t deserve God’s favor.

This was what made Jesus so different from the leading religious figures of His day. They all spoke of salvation through works and obedience. But Jesus spoke of the Gospel. And the Gospel is salvation by grace alone. No works, no obedience, you don’t get saved that way. But salvation only through God’s gracious act.

At this, several of the people spoke well of Him. It made perfect sense. And they marveled at Him as result.

But not all marveling is good marveling, as we now look at the negative response from the rest of His hearers, when they said:

*Luke 4:22b ESV

22b “Is not this Joseph's son?”

Now, this may not seem like the people speaking here are opposed to Jesus when they say, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ but when they say, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ what they are really saying is, “We know all about this Guy! We’ve known Him all His life, He’s one of us! There’s nothing special about Him. And now here He comes saying that He is the Messiah? Give me a break! Who’s He trying to fool?! This Guy is a phony!”

Actually, Mark’s account of what happened here specifically is more detailed in telling us about how the people from Nazareth reacted when it tells us that the people said:

*Mark 6:3 ESV

3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

They said, “We know this Guy… He’s the Carpenter! We know Him and all His family, and there is nothing special about any of them!”

But the worse part of this verse is when it says that the people who heard Jesus speak and who spoke these derogatory words to Him took offense at Him.

This means that the lifegiving words that Jesus spoke, the people rejected and scorned. And because of this, the Lord spoke the following words to them.

*Luke 4:23 ESV

23 “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’”

Jesus says that those among the crowd who doubt Him will quote a proverb. Now this proverb that is quoted here is not found in the book of Proverbs in the Bible or anything like that. Rather, a proverb is a common saying. Just like today, some modern proverbs are “You break it, you buy it.” Or “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” A proverb is a saying that means something deeper and more significant than the proverb itself.

And an ancient proverb that was popular during the time of Jesus was, “Physician, heal yourself.” And what this proverb means is, prove what you’re saying, back up your words with actions.

And so, Jesus says that these people will demand that He proves that He is Who He is with more than just words.

And the way that they say He can prove Himself is by performing the same miracles that they had heard that He had performed in Capernaum and other places, there in Nazareth.

He said that they would try to tell Him that the only way that they would believe that He is Who He claims to be was if He performed miraculous signs in front of them. That they wouldn’t believe His words unless He backed His words up with what they believed to suitable proof.

You may think that that sounds reasonable enough, but Jesus certainly didn’t. And we find this quite evident in His response to this demand, when He said:

*Luke 4:24 ESV

24 “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.

Jesus really hits the nail on the head here. He says that no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. As I said, these people knew Jesus in a way that the people He preached to in other towns did not know Him.

He was from Nazareth, and so the people from Nazareth, being a small community, as we said last week, with a population of less than 200, they knew all about Jesus.

From what they knew about Him, He was a carpenter, a brother, a son, just a small-town bumpkin. And because of this, they feel that there is no way that Jesus is Who He says He is.

But to their shame, what they were really saying was that they knew more than God, that they knew better than God. For in their minds, God would never ever manifest Himself in the form of a country bumpkin from Nazareth named Jesus… but oh were they wrong!

Sadly, quite often, the same thing happens today when scores of people discover Who Jesus is and the plan of salvation.

In fact, concerning these people, Paul says:

*1 Corinthians 1:18a ESV

18a the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,

It is folly to them! That means that they view it as ridiculous and impossible that One would come and die for the sins of people who naturally hate Him. And they view it as even more ridiculous that salvation by grace alone.

This is what really gets people. They view it as illogical, too good to be true, and almost beneath them that they must be saved by God’s grace.

People are born with this thought that if they are to please God or anyone for that matter, then that means that they must work hard for it. And so, saying that we must be saved by God having pity on us and freely saving us apart from anything that we do doesn’t jive with a lot of people.

These people are like those from Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth; they marvel in a negative way at the Gospel. But as Paul says here, these people are perishing… so in the end, it is their logic that is their own folly, not the cross.

But for those who accept the truth of the Gospel and humbly agree that they are lost and cannot save themselves and therefore recognize that God must graciously save them are among those whom Paul describes in the second half of this verse, where he says:

*1 Corinthians 1:18b ESV

18b but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For those of us who marvel at the word of the Gospel in a positive way, well, we recognize that this Gospel isn’t just a bunch of empty words or well wishes, but that it is what saves us, we recognize that it has power, and we know that there is not other way!

Beloved, don’t be as those in Nazareth who scoffed at their hometown Prophet. Rather, marvel at His gracious words and believe. For it is the power of salvation!

Amen?