Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Luke · About this commentary
A Word With Authority
Luke 4:31-37
31 He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, · WEB
In the next town the first thing that recognizes him is a demon, and it gets the title right.
He came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. He was teaching them on the Sabbath day, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word was with authority Luke 4:31–32.
The move from Nazareth to Capernaum is a descent in the literal sense — the lake sits far below the hill country — and it is where the ministry now bases itself. The account is told in the earliest telling Mark 1:14–34.
The reaction recorded is to the teaching, before any miracle. His word was with authority, and the word rendered authority is the same one the devil used about the kingdoms nine verses earlier Luke 4:6. What the scribes did was cite; what he does is speak.
In the synagogue there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice Luke 4:33.
The man is in the synagogue, on the Sabbath, and has presumably been there many weeks. Nothing about the setting is disreputable, which is worth registering: the account does not put this on the edge of society.
"Ah! what have we to do with you, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!" Luke 4:34.
The first voice in this Gospel to identify him correctly belongs to a demon. His neighbors had just called him Joseph's son; this gets it exactly right, and the precision is part of the horror — accurate knowledge and open hostility in the same sentence. Whatever recognizing him is, it is not by itself faith.
The questions are also revealing. What have we to do with you is the language of someone who wants to be left alone, and have you come to destroy us concedes the outcome before the contest begins. It knows how this ends.
Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent and come out of him!" Luke 4:35. Two commands, and the first is the silencing. He refuses the testimony — a pattern through this book Luke 4:41 — because a true statement from that source would attach the ministry to it.
When the demon had thrown him down in the middle of them, he came out of him, having done him no harm. The last clause is this account's own, and it is the kind of detail a careful writer keeps. The man was thrown down in front of everybody and got up undamaged.
"What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!" Luke 4:36. The crowd's question is about the word rather than about the man, and it is the right one. He does not use a technique, a name, or a formula; he tells it to leave.
settled What this mark means