02-12-06-Year of Jubilee-Preach to the Poor
Luke 4: 18-19 (NIV) “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 freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Last Week we looked at how Jesus declared that as the Messiah (Anointed One of God) He came to provide complete restoration and healing to mankind. Jesus declared that He came to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, or the Jubilee year. We said that the Year of Jubilee, which occurred every 50 years, brought liberty, restoration, release, rest, thanksgiving, and faith to God’s people. We also said that there were 5 areas of healing that Jesus came to bring:
1. To preach the gospel to the poor. Poverty—Physical and Spiritual
2. To heal the brokenhearted. Sorrow/Grief—Emotional
3. To proclaim liberty to the captives. Bondage—Spiritual
4. And recovery of sight to the blind. Physical and Spiritual
5. To set at liberty those who are oppressed. Oppression—Physical and Spiritual
This week we want to look at the first area of healing that Jesus spoke about—preaching the gospel to the poor.
The Bible has much to say about the poor. Here are just a few verses:
Prov 19:17 (NIV) He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done.
Prov 29:7(NIV) The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.
Zech 7:9-10 (NIV) “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’
James 2:1-6 (NIV) My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised those who love Him? 6 But you have insulted the poor. . . .
And Jesus had a lot to say about the poor. These are just a few verses:
Matt 19:21 (NIV) Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
Luke 14:13-14 (NIV) But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Matt 5:3 (NIV) “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
So with all these scriptures about the poor (as well as many more) what does it mean to be poor? Is it just doing without?
Let’s go back to the passage in Isaiah that Jesus is quoting and see what the Hebrew word was that was used since that is where the original meaning would have come from.
Isaiah 61:1 (NASB) . . . To bbring good news to the 2cafflicted (humble) . . .
(KJV, ASV) . . . preach good tidings unto the meek. . .
(Amp) . . . preach the Gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and afflicted. . .
(RSV) . . . bring good tidings to the afflicted. . .
(God’s Word) . . . deliver good news to humble people. . .
(LB) . . . bring good news to the suffering and afflicted. . .
The Hebrew word used here is “anav” and it means the “humble, meek, weak, afflicted, poor, and needy.” I think an understanding of this word really gets at the heart of what Jesus was saying. He came to preach the year of Jubilee—restoration—to those who were humble and willing to receive it. He was saying I have good news for those who are humble enough to hear and accept what I have to say.
6035 עָנָו, עָנָיו [`anav, intermixture, `anayv /aw·nawv/] n m. From 6031; TWOT 1652a; GK 6705 and 6718; 26 occurrences; AV translates as “meek” 13 times, “humble” five times, “poor” five times, “lowly” twice, and “vr meek” once. 1 poor, humble, afflicted, meek. 1a poor, needy. 1b poor and weak. 1c poor, weak and afflicted. 1d humble, lowly, meek.
ptochos (πτωχός, 4434), an adjective describing “one who crouches and cowers,” is used as a noun, “a beggar” (from ptosso, “to cower down or hide oneself for fear”), Luke 14:13, 21 (“poor”); 16:20, 22; as an adjective, “beggarly” in Gal. 4:9, i.e., poverty-stricken, powerless to enrich, metaphorically descriptive of the religion of the Jews. (Vines) [i]
Jesus said He came to preach good news to the poor—what would be good news to a humble, weak, afflicted man? It would be that he did not have to be that way! He did not have to be fearful and cowering in the world. He could stand up tall and have dignity regardless of the state that he was in.
As my good friend Dick Reuben (a converted Jew) used to say to me, “if a message makes sense to a Jew, then it makes sense; but if a Jew can’t understand the message, then it is not correct.” In order for us to truly understand what Jesus was saying we need to go back and get the thoughts a Jew of that time would have had. They would think differently than we do, because they were raised to know the Law of God. So to gain that understanding we need to examine how the Law described the Year of Jubilee. The years were divided into groups of 7, with the 7th year called a Sabbatical Year (year of rest). No farming was to be done that year (Lev 25:3-5), debts were to be cancelled (Deut 15:2), and servants were to go free (Deut 15:12). This cycle repeated itself 7 times, for a total of 49 years. The next year was a special year called the Year of Jubilee (Lev 25:8-9). What was true during the Sabbatical Years applied to the Year of Jubilee as well, but in addition all land, except what was inside the walled cities, automatically reverted back to the family to which it had been originally assigned by God (Lev 25:13). We looked at Lev 25:8-17 last week. I’d like to look at the same law only this time in Deut 15:1-18 (NIV).
1 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. 3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. 4 However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, He will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. 6 For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. 8 Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs. 9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. 10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
12 If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. 13 And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. 14 Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. 15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.
16 But if your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, 17 then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door, and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant.
18 Do not consider it a hardship to set your servant free, because his service to you these six years has been worth twice as much as that of a hired hand. And the Lord your God will bless you in everything you do.
Do you see in vs. 4 how God said there should not be any poor among you? Why, because God promised to richly bless them, IF they would obey His commands. But in vs. 7, it starts out by saying IF there is a poor man among you. Why would there be a poor man? Because they did not obey God’s commands. God knew that they would fail in this so He gives very clear instructions as to how a poor man should be treated in v. 7-11. He is not to be taken advantage of and he is to be given to generously. The Law calls the poor man “your brother” (v. 7). He was a fellow Israelite; but more importantly, he was a brother in God’s covenant. Then God added how a bond servant should be treated. This bond servant is one who became indebted to a man due to debt, not a slave. Notice v. 13 when he is released he is not to be sent away empty-handed. He is to be blessed liberally from all the master has to give him. Notice that both the poor man and the servant are to be treated kindly and given to generously. Why? Because there is the promise of a blessing for being kind and generous to a poor man or bond servant (v. 10, 18).
Now when Jesus said that He came to declare the acceptable year of the Lord and preach good news to the poor, a Jew would instantly have remembered what we just saw in the Law. So how does that relate to us? Now that we are thinking like a Jew, I hope you can see that there is much more meaning here in these words of Jesus than just being rescued from our physical poverty.
So if Jesus came to set us free, He does so with kindness and generosity! When Jesus sets us free from the bondage of sin, He does not do so simply to send us on our way with a trite blessing. No, He gives us ALL that He has to give! Now that is good news to us humble, weak, afflicted, poor people!! In fact, the scripture tells us that Jesus became poor for our sakes, so that we might become rich.
2 Cor 8:9 (NIV) For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich
The Law did not require the master to be more than kind and generous. So God would have been just under the Law to simply have set us free and blessed us. But He did more than the Law required by taking our poverty on Himself and giving us His riches. He has made us His brothers (and sisters). We are a part of the covenant family of God—God adopts us into His family. My friend, that is good news!!!!
Look back at vs. 16 & 17 of Deut 15. Notice that if a servant loved his master, he would not leave on the Sabbatical Year or the Year of Jubilee, but would stay and become a bond-servant for life. Now a Jew would have known that this right to become a bond-servant belonged to every man who had gotten themselves in the bondage of debt to a man. He also would have known that on the Year of Jubilee, he would have the right to leave his master or stay with his master as a bond servant. For Jesus to declare that He is the Messiah and He had come to proclaim the Year of Jubilee, he would have understood that Jesus was saying you can chose to leave your slavery and be set free from the bondage of sin.
Yet, in an amazing display of God’s love for us, Jesus became God’s bond servant in our place.
Phil 2:5 (NASB) aHave this attitude 1in yourselves which was also in bChrist Jesus, 6 who, although He aexisted in the bform of God, cdid not regard equality with God a thing to be 1grasped, 7 but 1aemptied Himself, taking the form of a bbond-servant, and cbeing made in the likeness of men.
Now that is good news for a poor servant who is in bondage. Our debt has been cancelled—stamped “Paid In Full” because Jesus paid it for us. I have been set free because Jesus has taken my place. But not only am I free from my bondage, I can also have the privilege of becoming a bond-servant to God through Jesus Christ. You see we get the best of both worlds—freedom from our sin and the privilege to be a bond-servant (love relationship). We chose to be bond-servants to God, unlike the slavery and bondage that sin had placed us under.
Rom 6:17-18 (NIV) But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
So when Jesus declared that He was preaching the gospel to the poor, He was letting them know that they could be set free from their bondage of sin. He was saying to them, I came to set you free.
Matt 5:3 (NIV) “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Today, God is saying to us, if we are poor, humble, we can be set free from the slavery of sin that has kept us in its grip all our life. Today, we can become a child of God, a bond-servant unto Him. We can be set free from our affliction because this is the Year of Jubilee in Jesus the Christ!
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b Matt 11:5; Luke 7:22
2 Or humble
c Is 11:4; 29:19; 32:7
n n: noun
m m: masculine
TWOT Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
GK Goodrick-Kohlenberger
AV Authorized Version
[i]Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W. (1996). Vine's complete expository dictionary of Old and New Testament words (Vol. 2, Page 56-57). Nashville: T. Nelson.
1 Or among
b Phil 1:1
a John 1:1
b 2 Cor 4:4
c John 5:18; 10:33; 14:28
1 I.e. utilized or asserted
1 I.e. laid aside His privileges
a 2 Cor 8:9
b Matt 20:28
c John 1:14; Rom 8:3; Gal 4:4; Heb 2:17