The first sermon, the first followers, and the one word that sums up everything he announced
Galilee and the Kingdom
After the river and the desert, Jesus goes home to Galilee and begins. Mark gives his first message in one sentence; Luke gives his first sermon, in the synagogue at Nazareth, and the congregation tries to throw him off a cliff. Fishermen leave their nets. The word he keeps saying is kingdom, and what he meant by it is the question the rest of the Gospels answer.
You are reading as a visitor, so your notes and your place in the series will not be kept. Sign in or create an account to keep them.
Lesson 4 of 12 · Home
The public life begins in Galilee, the northern province, among fishing villages on a lake, and its message is one word: kingdom. Mark compresses everything Jesus said into a sentence, the time is fulfilled, God’s kingdom is at hand, repent and believe. Luke expands it into a scene, the synagogue at Nazareth, where Jesus reads Isaiah’s promise of good news to the poor and says it has come true today, and his own town tries to kill him for what he says next. Kingdom, to the people listening, meant God’s rule made visible, Israel restored, the occupier gone; Jesus used their word and spent three years correcting what they heard in it. He called fishermen to follow him before he explained anything. And the pattern of the months that followed is given by Matthew in one line: teaching, preaching, healing, in every town.
The message in a sentence
Mark reports the first preaching in Galilee as a summary, and it is the best summary there is.
Now after John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.” — Mark 1:14–15 · WEB
Read the comment on Fishers of Men, and a Day in Capernaum
After John was taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Good News of God’s Kingdom, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand; repent, and believe in the Good News. Four clauses. The waiting is over; the rule of God has come near; turn around; trust the announcement. Everything Jesus says afterward is one of those four clauses expanded, and Mark places the sentence the moment the Baptist is silenced, as if one voice took over from the other.
βασιλεία basileía G932
from βασιλεύς; properly, royalty, i.e. (abstractly) rule, or (concretely) a realm (literally or figuratively):--kingdom, + reign.
Royalty, rule, reign; and by extension the realm ruled. The word is abstract before it is territorial: God’s kingdom is first of all God reigning, and only then a place where he does. Matthew writes kingdom of heaven, a reverent Jewish way of not saying the divine name, and means the same thing. The phrase occurs over a hundred times in the first three Gospels, and almost never in John, who says eternal life where they say kingdom. To Jesus’ hearers the word carried Daniel’s promise of a kingdom that would break the empires, and the hope of Rome gone; he took the word and neither denied nor confirmed what they heard in it, but told parables until they saw it differently.
Sign in to keep a note here. It is listed with your Saved notes, under this lesson.
Nazareth
Luke moves the first sermon to Jesus’ home town, and gives it a text.
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written, “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 heal the broken hearted, to proclaim release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, to deliver those who are crushed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” — Luke 4:16–21 · WEB
Read the comment on Today This Scripture Is Fulfilled
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and stood up to read on the Sabbath; the book of Isaiah was handed to him, and he found the place: the Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He closed the book, sat down, and said, today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. The Spirit that came down at the river is the Spirit of the text, and anointed is the word Messiah is made of. Luke has Jesus announce himself with Isaiah’s sentence and then stop reading one line early, before the day of vengeance. The congregation approves until he reminds them that Elijah was sent to a foreign widow and Elisha healed a Syrian; then they drive him to the edge of the hill. The kingdom is for the poor and the outsider, Luke says in the first scene, and the home town will not have it.
“The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,” Isaiah 61:1–2 · WEB
The Lord Yahweh’s Spirit is on me, because Yahweh has anointed me to preach good news to the humble: the text as it stands in Isaiah, with the day of vengeance that Jesus did not read.
“Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.” Matthew 4:23 · WEB
Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, and healing every disease: Matthew’s summary of the months that followed, three verbs he repeats word for word in chapter 9.
“He said to them, “Let’s go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because I came out for this reason.”” Mark 1:38 · WEB
Let’s go elsewhere into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because I came out for this reason: Jesus leaving Capernaum while the crowd is still looking for him.
“But he said to them, “I must preach the good news of God’s Kingdom to the other cities also. For this reason I have been sent.”” Luke 4:43 · WEB
I must preach the good news of God’s Kingdom to the other cities also; for this reason I have been sent: the same moment in Luke, with the word kingdom put into it.
Sign in to keep a note here. It is listed with your Saved notes, under this lesson.
Fishers for men
Before any teaching is recorded, Mark records a call.
Passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, “Come after me, and I will make you into fishers for men.” Immediately they left their nets, and followed him. — Mark 1:16–18 · WEB
Read the comment on Fishers of Men, and a Day in Capernaum
Passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew casting a net; Jesus said, come after me, and I will make you into fishers for men; immediately they left their nets and followed him. Rabbis were chosen by their students; this teacher chooses his, and they are not scholars but men in a boat. The word is disciple, learner, and the learning is done by walking behind. Luke sets the same call after a miraculous catch of fish; John has Andrew brought to Jesus by the Baptist, and then bringing Simon. The accounts differ on the occasion and agree on the thing: he called, they left what they were doing, and they did not yet know what they were following.
Sign in to keep a note here. It is listed with your Saved notes, under this lesson.
What the kingdom asks
It asks, first, to be heard as the people of Galilee heard it: as news, not as a doctrine. Something has arrived. The sentence in Mark is not an instruction to be better but an announcement that the waiting is finished, and the two commands in it, repent and believe, are what one does about an announcement. The fishermen did not understand the kingdom when they left their nets. They understood that they had been called, and that it was now.
Read Mark 1:14-20 and Luke 4:16-30. Write down what each account tells you the kingdom is, and what each says it costs. Then say in one sentence why the same message got followers in Capernaum and nearly got its preacher killed in Nazareth.
Sign in to keep a note here. It is listed with your Saved notes, under this lesson.