Galilee

John 7:1. “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him.”

“He came unto His own, and His own received Him not,” (John 1:11).

Jesus did not leave Judea because He was afraid. He left because there was much more for Him to accomplish. It was not the Father’s time for Jesus to lay down His life.

It helps me to look at simple maps in the time of Christ, to get it straight in my mind exactly where His travels took Him. He covered a lot of ground in the three years of His public ministry, reaching as many people as possible.

But weren’t there Jews in Galilee? Yes, of course. Remember that Jesus’ confrontation with the Jewish leaders was in the synagogue in Capernaum, in Galilee. The difference is that they were geographically removed from the influence of the religious leaders in Jerusalem, who rarely bothered themselves to travel to the small towns of Galilee. The people were, therefore, more approachable and open to what Jesus had to offer. And it was His home territory, where His family lived, where He had grown up and worked with Joseph. Even though some of the people there thought He was “beside Himself,” out of His mind, they held no ill will toward Him. It’s true that He was born in Bethlehem, a short day’s walk from Jerusalem, but He didn’t stay there long when the warning came to Joseph in a dream that Herod was going to destroy Jesus if he could find Him.

Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a little no-account village that was a good hiding place for Him. In John 1:46, Nathanael and Philip were talking about Jesus, and Nathanael asked, “Can any good thing come from Nazareth?” His question reflected the attitude of most people of that time. Nazareth was considered a good place to be (away) from.

Philip

Jon 1:43-45.

The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.

 Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

Jesus began to gather His closest disciples, those who became the Apostles. First were Andrew and, we believe, the writer of this gospel, John.

Then Andrew went and told his brother, Simon Peter, that the Messiah had come.

The next day, Jesus walked in Galilee, and in the city of Bethsaida, to find Philip.

“Follow Me,” Jesus said.

And Philip did. Just like that. No questions asked. No excuses offered. Jesus said, “Come,” and they came.

Philip, in turn, went to Nathaneal. “We have found Him!” he said. “We have found Him of whom Moses and the prophets all spoke. He is Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

Jesus’ Name was already familiar to many. As a 12-year-old boy, He had talked as an equal to the priests and Levites in the synagogue in Jerusalem. That sort of thing tends to stay in one’s memory, when the towns are small and close together. Remember, they didn’t have rock stars and movie and TV stars; nor did they have athletes who were propelled to fame by their physical prowess and their enormous paychecks. I suppose they had politicians, even in religious circles. They had Rome to deal with. But in these small fishing villages around the Sea of Galilee, there wasn’t a lot of exciting news.

I’m sure there were some who clearly remembered when Jesus was born. Talk about excitement! Angels appearing, a most unusual star shining over the place where Jesus was born; later, the Magi, and the little family’s flight into Egypt. The Roman slaughter, at Herod’s behest, of all little boys two years old and under, and the weeping of their mothers.

When the family returned and settled in Nazareth, they didn’t know they were fulfilling prophecy, They didn’t know that one day their Son would hang on a Roman cross under the sign, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The sign was meant to be derisive. “Look at your king, all you Jewish fanatics. He’s not much good to you now, is He?”

So much had happened, so much still to come. Right now, though, Jesus is collecting His closest friends, His inner circle. And they aren’t questioning His command.

“Follow Me.”

At least, not so far. There’s always a skeptic or two, and we’ll see them in the next couple of days.

Testimony of the Disciples

Matthew 28:16-17. “The the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, into a mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And when they saw Him, they worshipped Him: but some doubted.

The other gospels give us much more detail about the last few times Jesus was with the disciples, but that is not the point of Matthew’s account. Here, Jesus is seen giving His final commission to His followers.

I have tried to imagine what the disciples must have been thinking; what they were feeling.  We know that some doubted; especially Thomas, poor man, whose name has come down through the centuries as if he were the only one who ever doubted.

The events of the past week had surely shaken the faith and the understanding of these men.  They had witnessed terrible things, feared for their own lives, and then been shocked to see the Lord risen from the tomb. I think we are too hard on them for their doubts.  I really don’t think any of us would have been any different.

So they worshipped Him, and yet there was some doubt.  They loved Him, they had followed Him, and in accounts in the other gospels we learn how lovingly He spoke with them, with such compassion and understanding.

He is God, after all; He was Man, after all.  He knew them better than they knew themselves, and He loved them.

What a Savior we have!

Offense

Matthew 26:31. “Then saith Jesus unto them, All ye shall be offended because of Me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee.”

The calm dignity of Jesus at this moment impresses me.  It was beginning, the horror of the crucifixion, and still Jesus was teaching, warning,  encouraging the men who surrounded him. The tension must have been thick among them as they made their way to the mount of Olives.

“You will ALL be offended tonight because of Me!”  What could He mean?  How would they be offended  because of the Teacher, the One they had followed so faithfully for three years?

The word offense means caused to stumble.  

Ah. They would not be hurt and angry in our sense of the word offended. They would, however, trip and stumble over the events about to take place.  Their faith would be shaken, their hopes destroyed. They would wonder if it had all been for nothing.

But, He said, don’t worry.  After I rise from death, I will go into Galilee ahead of you.

Everything will be all right.

The Pharisees. . .Tempting Him

Matthew 19:1-3. “And it came to pass, that when Jesus had finished these sayings, He departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea beyond the Jordan: And great multitudes followed Him; and He healed them there. The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?”

As Jesus traveled nearer to Judea and Jerusalem, His activities didn’t change much.  Crowds of people followed Him, and He healed them. And, as always, there were Pharisees who followed His progress, seeking ways to accuse Him and discredit His authority. This time, they used the sacred insititution of marriage to try to trip Him up. 

The Pharisees were traditionalists, and strong ritualists.  As always, the question they ask is about their oral law, their man-made rules that may have been derived from the scriptures but that went way beyond what God originally established.  Jesus had already dealt with their legalism regarding the Sabbath, and their rituals around the washing of hands before eating. He had pointed out more than once that they taught as doctrine that which was only the commandment of men, not of God. 

Earlier, in chapter 5, Jesus had taught about marriage and divorce. It is interesting to me that this topic is still one of major division among believers today, and has never been resolved completely.  Satan will always use that which is most dear to the heart of God and of true believers to try to trip us up. 

The Pharisees hoped that this explosive issue of divorce, putting away, would be the issue in which they could finally trap Jesus into saying something that would condemn Him.

There were two opinions that divided the Pharisees about divorce. Some held to the views of Hillel, others to the views of Shammai. These two rabbis had taught differently.  Hillel said that indeed for almost every cause a wife may be put away. There were long records of offences and rules by which this process was to be accomplished. One example was that a wife could be put away if she cooked her husband’s food poorly, over-cooking or over-salting it. 

Those who followed Shammai permitted no divorce at all except for the case of adultery. The Pharisees, in tempting Jesus with this question, hoped to catch Him on the horns of a dilemma.  Tomorrow we’ll see how well they succeeded. 

 

Healing Every. . .Disease

Matthew 9:35. “And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.”

The miracles in this chapter are certainly not all that Jesus performed. This verse tells us that He spent an unspecified period of time going from city to city, village to village, in the countryside and in the synagogues  in Galilee.  He preached the gospel of the kingdom; He taught; and He healed every sickness and  every disease among the people. Not just a few; every single one.  Think of that!

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to walk with Jesus during this time? I don’t think we should glamorize what Jesus must have seen as He traveled.  These people  had been conquered by Rome.  There were many poor, many ill, many crippled and blind and mute.  There was a surfeit of demonic activity. They were cast away, as sheep not having a shepherd.

As I’ve thought about this verse, I’ve wondered about the crowds. They were almost certainly the “rabble,” people with no jobs, nothing to give them any hope in a very dark time in the history of the nation.  I don’t imagine they brought along clean clothing, soap, or toothpaste!  Some of the towns along the way must have  dreaded the approach of Jesus, followed by crowds of ne’er-do-wells, to say nothing of all the diseased ones who hoped for healing.  This was no stately promenade of  learned, scholarly, wealthy people who had their servants along to spread a picnic lunch. They were the downtrodden, with now and then a group of Pharisees who were there to find fault with Jesus.  He was upsetting their apple carts, for sure, and they weren’t happy about it at all.

Understanding all this makes the next few verses even more touching and compelling.

Galilee

Matthew 4: 23-24. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching. . . .preaching. . . .healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. . .diverse diseases and torments. . .possessed with devils. . .lunatick. . .palsy. . .”

  

Someday I want to go to see the places where Jesus walked.  

Galilee is beautiful.  You can see lots of pictures if you google “Galilee” and then click on “images.”  The Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) itself is in a lovely setting.  It is easy to imagine the crowds of people enjoying the breeze off the water as they sat and stood on the hillsides to watch Him heal the sick and to hear Him preach. When Jesus was teaching, it was in the synagogues  along the way, where He expounded the scriptures, the law and the prophets. Guest teachers were usually made welcome, and it was no different with Jesus.  How magnetic He must have been, explaining the scriptures which He Himself had inspired through the Holy Spirit.  Who better to teach God’s Word than the Author? 

When He preached, it was to the crowds who followed Him, and  it was the Gospel of the Kingdom that He presented. As I mentioned last time, the healings of diseases were always connected with the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom, because  they were signs that the King is Jehovah and that the Kingdom had drawn nigh. 

But where did all these diseases come from?  It sounds as if there were just so many who were stricken in some way; and even more than physical disease, there were those who were “lunatick” and demon-possessed.  What was going on?  (By the way, the word lunatic comes from the idea that people who suffered this condition were affected by the cycles of the moon. It’s a fascinating word to research, if you enjoy that sort of thing.)

Consider that this period of time was of extreme importance to Satan.  At long last, God was fulfilling His promise of a Savior Who would die for the sin of all mankind, and rise again to give us victory over sin and death–and over Satan.  Did he want this to happen?  No, not by any means.  He was using every bit of power he had to prevent Jesus from going to the cross, and we’ll see some specific instances of that effort later on. 

In the meantime, Satan was busy exerting his power over the very land that in which Jesus first chose to minister. He knew that Christ had come to end his power; therefore, he brought terrible diseases on the people over whom he already had such a strong hold. Not only did they suffer terrible physical diseases; they also suffered diseases of the mind, and some were even demon-possessed. Jesus healed them all.  Every one of them. Satan must have been foaming at the mouth.

Satan has not given up. Satanism spreads throughout the world, and America is experiencing the horrible results of that spread.  Because we have turned our backs, on a national level, toward God and godliness, Satan is having a holiday.  Shootings,  sexual crime, drugs, horrible mental disorders and all manner of other evil grows daily in our land as we become more and more focused on self and  less and less focused on God. 

During the Tribulation years, after the Church has been removed from the earth, Satan’s power will consume the earth for a short time, but then Christ will come again with power, bringing healing in His wings, and Satan will be defeated finally and forever. 

The darkest hour is just before the dawn.  Joy comes in the morning. 

Preaching and Healing

Matthew 4:23-25. “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria;and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them. And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.”

 

There is a wealth of detail in this passage, and I suspect it may take more than one post to cover it all.  It’s an amazing three verses, covering a lot of time and work. 

This is the third section in Chapter 4 describing the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.  Did you notice that He just jumps right in?  No planning sessions, no fund-raising, no reservations in the local inns and restaurants. 

Have you thought about how hard He worked?  It wasn’t a walk in the park!  He made the whole round of Galilee.  He taught in their synagogues, preaching the Kingdom and healing every disease  that was brought to Him. He walked everywhere He went–no comfortable, air-conditioned limousines with armed guards  surrounding Him.  Also, a great blessing, no paparazzi 🙂

However, we are told that the people followed Him wherever He went.  It would be logical to assume that the crowds grew to huge proportions as His fame was spread throughout the area. I’m sure there were many who came just as they would have gone to a circus or a gladiator contest–to be entertained.  But I’m also sure that there were hundreds who came out of desperate hope for relief from their disease, their poverty, their subjugation to Rome and the local tax collectors.  There were surely some who came because they had heard His story and believe  Him to be Messiah. 

Whatever the reasons, they followed Him.  Some may have stayed with Him for many days; there must have been a run on the grocery stores for whatever the people could carry with them for nourishment.  The officials of the towns along the way must have dreaded seeing this crowd of people descending on their quiet hamlets, wondering how on earth they were going to deal with the sudden population explosion.  People must have slept wrapped in their cloaks, on the ground, for many nights.  The Sheraton-Ritz wasn’t available in their province.   Sanitation must have been a problem.

One more general comment, and I’m finished for today. Why did Jesus take the time to heal all these miseries?  What was there to be gained by His doing so? 

Closely connected to the preaching of the Kingdom, the healings were signs that the King is Jehovah, that the Kingdom had drawn nigh. These signs of healing every disease were the powers of the world to come. When we get to Chapter 8, we’ll look more closely at the matter of healing, and its importance.  For now, I want to emphasize that it is not the gospel of salvation by grace through faith that Jesus is teaching, but that of the Kingdom.  The gospel of grace needs no outward sign by healing of disease to show that it is of God. Nowhere in the New Testament epistles are we taught that physical healing  is connected with Gospel preaching.  Makes you wonder about the prominence today of healing and other supernatural “gifts.”

Next time, we’ll look at why there was so much disease of every kind in this land. 

 

Nazareth

Matthew 2:22-23. ” But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Nazareth is in Galilee, which was called the Galilee of the Gentiles, because so many Gentiles lived there.  The religious leaders of the Jews hated and despised Galilee, and most especially they hated the town of Nazareth. They referred to the people there as ignorant men.  Even other Galileans despised the town and its inhabitants, who were known for their corrupt character. 

It was in that ugly, despised town that the Son of God was to grow up.  He Who was the only Son of the Father, rich in all that heaven offered, became poor and lived among the despised and rejected, the lowliest of men. He was despised and rejected from the beginning by His own people, who should have recognized Who He was. Their eyes were blinded by their vision of a Messiah Who would come in great power to free them from the bondage of Rome, and they could not see Truth when it stood in front of them. 

That He grew up among Gentiles is an important foreshadowing of His life and ministry, and of the change in emphasis from giving the gospel to the Jews and instead turning to the Gentiles.  All this will unfold as we continue in this most fascinating  study. 

One more thing.  I searched for specific Old Testament prophecies that Jesus would be called a Nazarene, and could find no clear, specific passage.  Then I looked at the scripture again, and noted that Matthew did not say there was a specific passage, but that it would be “spoken by the prophets (plural).” This verse would seem to indicate that His being called a Nazarene was oral tradition rather than a specific passage in the Old Testament; also, that several prophets had spoken this prophecy.  I found an article that I feel addresses this subject well.  You can find it here: 

http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/matthew-mark/did-ot-prophesy-jesus-coming-nazareth

Below are two pictures:  One is of the ruins of the original Nazareth, which is located roughly halfway between and a bit south of Tiberius, on the Sea of Galilee, and Haifa, on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. 

It is my desire that the short snippets of information I’m giving you here will stir your interest in doing your own study.  There is so much information available to us by way of the internet that I can get lost in the research, which isn’t always a good thing 🙂