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Luke 4:31-44
Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit
31 Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the people. 32 They were amazed at his teaching, because his message had authority.
33 In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, 34 “Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
35 “Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.
36 All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What is this teaching? With authority and power he gives orders to evil spirits and they come out!” 37 And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.
Jesus Heals Many
38 Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. 39 So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.
40 When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.
42 At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
This reading from the Gospel of Luke is divided into two passages by the editors of our NIV Bible. But it seems to me there are a couple of good reasons to think about the two readings together.
For one thing, it provides us with a chance to remind ourselves that the subheads in modern versions of the Bible are put there by editors who want to make the text easier to read and study. But the original Greek version of the New Testament isn’t divided up into these sections with their subheads. And for that matter, it isn’t divided into chapters and verses, either. The original is just continuous text.
So that means that in the original Greek version of the Gospel of Luke, the part we’re reading and thinking about today is a continuous passage describing one day in the life and ministry of Jesus.
And what’s more, these two connected stories give us a chance to think about a couple of interesting characteristics of the Gospel of Luke. One is that when Luke tells a story about Jesus interacting with a man, he often follows it immediately by a similar story in which Jesus interacts with a woman. In this case, Jesus casts out an evil spirit from a man at the synagogue in Capernaum, then casts a fever out of Peter’s mother-in-law after leaving the synagogue.
Another thing about Luke is that he emphasizes that Jesus exercised authority of all kinds. These two stories, for instance, demonstrate that Jesus has authority over the forces of evil. In the minds of people at the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, the forces of evil would include both the evil spirit in the man and the fever in Peter’s mother-in-law. The people in the synagogue are expressly said to be amazed at the authority of his teaching, and with the passage of time Jesus will demonstrate that he has an even greater authority than they could ever have imagined.
Another thing these two stories have in common is that in each of them, Jesus confronts evil spirits who know his identity – something that no human being seems to have known at that point in his ministry. It would be a long time before any of Jesus’ disciples realized that Jesus was the Messiah, but in this passage it’s clear that the forces of evil knew it from the beginning – and also that those evil forces knew he would eventually destroy their power.
Finally, these readings end with Jesus going off to a quiet place. The gospels tell us in a number of places that he would frequently go off by himself to pray. Jesus was God in human form, but that human form needed time for rest and prayer. If he did, surely we do, too. Lots of us fail to set aside time for regular prayer. We tell ourselves that we’re too busy. But this passage suggests to us that if Jesus needed to spend time regularly in prayer, we shouldn’t expect to have a deep and strong relationship with God unless we’re willing to do the same. We need to make time to be in his presence to be renewed and built up in our spiritual life.
Taken together, these two passages shed some interesting light on the way the ministry of Jesus was unfolding in the world.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for coming with authority to confront the forces of evil and break their power over us, and for conferring that authority on the church to exercise on your behalf. We ask that you draw us day by day into your presence in prayer and reflection, so that we can be refreshed and strengthened in our relationship with you. Amen.
Have a great weekend, and worship God joyfully on Sunday!
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 88 and 148; Esther 8:1-17; and Acts 19:21-41. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.org, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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