Lecture #9 The Early Galilean Ministry of Jesus

welcome to video lecture number nine the early Galilean Ministry of Jesus today we will examine the early Galilean Ministry of Jesus a period rich in theological significance and historical context this lecture will explore the key events the key teachings and the implications of Jesus's ministry in Galilee as presented in the gospels we will use some uh critical historical methods to critically Engage The text through a scholarly lens we will provide a little bit of literary analysis and offer some theological reflection in each of the texts that we look at in this lecture we're going to

be looking at some specific texts and how to interpret them we'll start off by the geographical and cultural context Galilee in the first century was a fertile region in the north part of ancient Israel bordered by the Sea of Galilee it was known at for a mixed population had Roman and Middle Eastern people groups that lived in the same vicinity of each other so you had Jews and Gentiles which influenced the diversity of religious and cultural practices and the languages that were spoken in the region it was under Roman occupation at this time Galilee was

governed by Herod anpus a tetrarch known for his complex relationship with the Jewish people and with the Roman authorities he was the king but not fully the king he was of the Hebrew people but not really of the Hebrew people he represented someone that he doesn't recognize himself understanding this political backdrop is crucial for grasping the challenges that Jesus faced in his ministry not only just Jesus but also his followers let's look at the religious landscape a little bit there were Jewish sects in the region there were various groups such as the Pharisees who we've

seen throughout and these were people probably theologically most similar to Jesus they believed the Bible uh the whole Old Testament it was the Bible of their day they believed in afterlife and Angels they belied that God was going to send a messiah so a lot of their teachings prepared the way for the coming Messiah Jesus then there were the Sadducees and we saw these in the first lesson at the introduction to the New Testament introduction to the Gospels the Sadducees were a group that were more interested in Earthly political power they did not believe in

the afterlife they did not believe in supernatural beings and so for them accommodating Rome was more important because they wanted to exist there were the essenes uh the essenes were people that Liv by a very rigid religious code and they saw the others as having sold out to Rome and so they wanted people to live a Pure Life and then there were the zealots the zealots were more of a political movement than they were a religious movement they were wanting to overthrow Rome and uh establish a new government of the people of Israel in the

Palestine of the day each of these had distinct beliefs and practices that were unique to them uh Jesus's interactions with these groups are critical to understand the reception of his message by The hearers Who were influenced by many of these groups just as there were Jewish sex there was also Gentile influences the prev uh presence of Gentile in Galilee contributed to a syncretistic environment where Jewish and helenistic practices often intertwined some Jewish Believers would also practice some Greek philosophies the Greeks would also then adapt some of the Jewish religions or religions of Egypt or Mesopotamia

uh the philosophies such as epicurian ISM or a different uh sex beliefs of the day would influence the thoughts of the Jews as well this setting provides for a backdrop for which Jesus's message of the kingdom of God which transcended ethnic and religious boundaries would take root in the very early part of Jesus's Ministries there were a handful of key events that helped to set the stage for who he's going to be as a messiah as a teacher as a miracle worker and of course preparing the way for the the week of passion the first

of those events was the baptism of Jesus we see this in in Mark 1: 9-11 Matthew 3: 13-17 and Luke 3: 21 and 22 the baptism of Jesus has an historical significance he was baptized by John the Baptist it's a pivotal event that inaugurate Jesus's public Ministry he's the long AWA the Messiah but nobody knew about him until the baptism for the most part John's baptism was a call to repentance and by participating in John's baptism ISM Jesus identified with the repentant Community although he himself was without sin this is the picture of the role

that Jesus is going to play on the cross he is is going through an act that he's not required to do but he's doing it to identify with us so that he can be our surrogate so he can take the penalty of our sin he's a substitutionary atonement later on and so his baptism functions as a substitutionary repentance if you will this this act aligns Jesus with the prophetic tradition that we see coming out of the Old Testament and sets the stage for his Messianic Mission there are theological implications with his baptism the baptism is

rich in theological symbolism the heavens opening and the spirit descending like a dove and the voice of God declaring you are my beloved Son with you I am well pleased all affirm Jesus's Divine sunship and his M messiahship It prepares the way for his mission this event reflects the trinitarian nature of God the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit and signals the Divine approval and empowerment of Jesus's Ministry let's look at the thing that takes place immediately after uh the baptism and that's the Temptation in the wilderness so when Jesus is baptized his ministry

in started inaugurates but right after that before he does it he goes away in the wilderness we see this in Mark 1 12 uh: 12- 13 Matthew 4 1-11 and Luke 4 1-13 after his baptism Jesus is led by the spirit Into the Wilderness where he fasts for 40 days and is tempted by Satan this narrative serves multiple functions one it echoes Israel's 40 Years of testing in the wilderness two it portrays Jesus as the faithful and obedient son and three it illustrates the moral and spiritual struggles he would face throughout his ministry it's not

fair to say that Jesus was never tempted this episode shows how he was in fact tempted but he overcame Temptation he was sinless and that helps us to identify with him because he was tempted like we are tempted even if we sin where he did not sin the Temptation narrative has been subject to various interpretations some Scholars view it as a theological construct meaning to affirm Jesus's role as the new Adam who resists sin so for Adam gave in Jesus was able to stand against the sin he resisted it in contrast to the first Adam

Jesus resisted whereas Adam succumbed others interpret the temptation as a reflection of the earlier Christian Community struggle with power provision and identity these are the things that specifically Satan tempts Jesus The Temptations represent the lure of a Messianic role rooted in political power and self-serving Miracles which Jesus rejects in favor of humble obedience to God thereby becoming a word of affirmation for us to live in the same way let's look at the calling of the disciples that we see following in most contexts the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness Jesus's called to Peter Andrew James

and John occurs along the shores of the Sea of Galilee these men were Fisher a common yet economically vital profession in the region by calling them Jesus begins to gather a community together of followers who had later become his Apostles and the foundational leaders of the early church the disciples immediate response to Jesus's call leaving their Nets and following him illustrates the radical nature of discipleship it also reflects the authority of Jesus who calls individuals to a new vocation centered around the kingdom of God and serving him in their full capacity the imagery of Fishers

of Men symbolizes the mission to gather people into this new Community of Faith this calling narrative emphasizes the transformative power of Jesus's invitation and the reorientation of life that it demands it's something that resonates with all of us as we try to understand how is God calling us to serve him in our lives the early Ministry of in Galilee sees Jesus doing a lot of teaching and some Miracles uh we've talked a lot about The Sermon on the Mount but I will address it briefly here uh The Sermon on the Mount particularly in Matthew's gospel

serves as the foundational teaching of Jesus it paves the way for us to understand him as authority of the word of God which includes of course the Beatitudes the ethical teachings and instructions on piety and and and so it sets the stage for the rest of the Miracles and rest of the teachings Jesus is going to do while he's doing his early Ministry setting his example as the Messiah Scholars have variously interpreted The Sermon on the Mount as a Manifesto of the kingdom of God a radical reinterpretation of the Torah or an eschatological Vision its

ethical demands such as loving enemies and the beat the beatitude promises challenged the conventional Norms of the day religious political and social there were Miracles at the very beginning of Jesus's Ministry as early as Mark 1 Matthew 8 or Luke 4 Jesus's early Miracles include healings exorcisms and nature Miracles these acts demonstrate his authority over sickness evil spirits and the natural world we've looked at these already in a previous video but the historicity and interpretation of the Miracles though contentious helped to give an account of the theological construct meant to affirm Jesus's Messianic identity some

people may review these on as historical events or mythical events I believe they're historical but not only historical they're theological in their expectation of the coming Messiah along with the Miracles or Parables which we saw in the last video These are Kingdom teachings that Jesus frequently used to convey the mysteries of the kingdom of God they stories remember we talked about that stories with movement and plot and action and and characters and themes these stories were accessible to Common People yet carried profound theological meaning Parables like the SE the mustard seed and the leaven illustrate

the hidden and transformative nature of the Kingdom Scholars often explore the sociopolitical implications of these Parables as they challenge the existing power structures and religious system of the day Jesus used them early in his ministry to challenge the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious and political leaders let's look at the theological themes in that early Ministry of of Jesus in Galilee uh the most important one is the kingdom of God when he starts his ministry in Mark 1:14 he says he's come to announce that the kingdom of God is near and Central to Jesus's

Ministry is the proclamation of the kingdom of God a term that is both eschatological and present the kingdom of God represents God's Dynamic rule breaking into the world through Jesus's actions and teachings is characterized by justice peace and the reversal of societal Norms where the last become first and the meek inherit the earth for Jesus's Jewish audience the kingdom of God had strong Messianic connotations often associated with the hope of a liberated Nation from Rome and the restoration of Israel as a nation however Jesus redefines this expectation by presenting the kingdom of God not as

a political or military force but as a spiritual reality that begins with repentance and transformation of the heart through Parables such as the mustard Sea and the leaven Jesus illustrates the Kingdom's mysterious and pervasive nature it starts small but grows to Encompass all aspects of an individual's life and a community's life challenging the established religious and social order the kingdom is both already present in Jesus's Ministry and not yet fully realized pointing to a future consummation that is is still true today we live in a world as Christians that Jesus has already conquered sin and

Death on the cross and yet we still live in a world that has both sin and death until Jesus comes back again we live in that tension of the already not yet kingdom of God there's also authority of teaching unlike the scribes who relied on established interpretations of the Torah Jesus taught with a direct and inherent Authority his teachings often began with you have heard it said but I say to you signaling a new authoritative interpretation of God's will this Authority is linked to his identity as the Son of God and his intimate relationship with

the father Jesus seems to be tackling some of the laws that Moses established and this would be confusing except for one understands he's being presented as the new lawgiver Jesus's Miracles likewise whether Healing The Sick casting out demons or calming storms demonstrates his authority again over both the natural and Supernatural Realms these acts serve as signs of the in Breaking Kingdom and the authenticated his message the Miracles also reveal Jesus's compassion and concern for the marginalized further defining the nature of the Kingdom as one of restoration and wholeness as we start moving through the early

Galilean Ministry we start see being conflict and rejection from the beginning it's going to set the stage for his ultimate demise on the cross of course we know that that's going to lead to Ultimate Victory through the empty tomb but opposition from religious leaders starts early from the beginning of his ministry Jesus faces opposition particularly from the Pharisees and the scribes his interpretation of the law his association with Sinners and his challenge to the religious Traditions put him at odds with with the religious Elite this conflict highlights the tension between the New Kingdom of God

and the existing religious structures that are obviously in this world in this Earthly Kingdom there's a rejection of his own people of Jesus at Nazareth in Luke 4:1 16-30 which is the beginning of his ministry in his hometown of Nazareth Jesus is initially welcomed but quickly rejected after he speaks in God's favor of extending the Beyond Israel and to the Gentiles of his Mercy this rejection prefigures the broader rejection he will face in his ministry and on the cross culminating in the cross it also underscores the inclusivity of his mission Jesus from the beginning said

God has come to reach all peoples not just the Jewish people which transcends ethnic and religious boundaries in conclusion of this part of Jesus's Ministry Min the early Galilean Ministry it is foundational to understanding the life and mission of Jesus it establishes key thingses such as the kingdom of God and the authority of Jesus and the inevitable conflict and rejection of Jesus by his people and by the religious authorities these elements set the stage uh for uh the unfolding Narrative of the gospels where Jesus's identity and Mission are progressively revealed for early Christians the events

and understanding of Jesus uh during this period were crucial to shaping who they saw him as the Messiah initially they thought there was going to be a messiah that was going to come like a general and Lead an army and defeat the enemies and that the kingdom of God would be established here on Earth as a physical King with that ruler overthrowing their enemies but the kingdom of God as proclaimed and embodied by Jesus challenged this cont temporary notion of power identity and Community it calls the Believers to a radical reorientation of Life marked by

allegiance to Christ and participation in the Kingdom's Mission which is not to kill the enemies but win them over by love probably to be killed by them in many circumstances you see the kingdom was one that is of this world and yet not of this world and Jesus's early Ministry gave hints already of what this was going to look like let's look at a few things about the Contemporary relevance of this time of Jesus's Ministry the early Galilean Ministry continues to speak to our modern audiences it invites us to consider what it really means to

follow Jesus today the call to discipleship is not just getting saved it's not just recognizing yourself as a Christian but to literally leave everything and follow Jesus to wherever he may send you or to whatever he may ask you to do the disciples set their Nets aside when they were fishermen or left their table when they were a tax collector and they gave up careers in some cases comfort so they could walk around for the rest of their lives telling people about Jesus people who would persecute them reject them and in most cases kill them

and so what is discipleship to you and to me is it just enough to call oursel a Christian to go to church on once a week or read our Bible once a day or is there something more to growing in our faith as a disciple of Jesus to leaving all behind to follow him he also deals with the ethic of the kingdom of God we see things like The Sermon on the Mount Jesus seems to intend that his followers live a special different way they're not supposed to live like the world they're to live as

if God was in their life they were to live in a way that it's easier to reject ourself and accept somebody else than the other way around there's an ethic on how we live our life with goodness pursuing virtuous living not the craving the things and desires of the world and there's a willingness to face opposition for the sake of the Gospel are we willing to do that many of our contemporary brothers and sisters around the world do face opposition they live in countries where it's illegal to become a Christian or at least frowned upon

where it's made Difficult by the prospect of losing your job or your housing or being kicked out of your family and in some severe cases phys physical harm or death are we willing to make uh a case for oursel that we follow Jesus so much that we face opposition and our own environment and and for all of us that are in this course probably that means ridicule that probably means we don't get our way all the time we may not get the advancement at our job because people think we're odd and I don't mean to

go out of our way to make ourselves awkward to people we want to be inviting of the Gospel we want them to reject Jesus not us at the same time though do we live in such a way that there was a trial that someone had enough evidence to convict us as being a follower of Jesus I hope we do we are reminded of the transformative power of Jesus's message in even the beginning parts of his ministry through the Miracles and through the authoritative teaching through the calming of the Seas and we're reminded of the ongoing

work of the kingdom of God how it is meant to happen here on Earth not just when we die our faith is not a faith that it's be based on uh us hoping to get to heaven one day that's a great goal that's a great thing that's going to happen but the goal is to live an abundant life here on Earth and Jesus's early Ministry set the stage for that he's going to pres continue to live that way even more so and he's going to face more opposition he's going to talk more about discipleship but

even in the beginning Jesus's message was clear and we ought to live in accordance with it I wanted to offer a couple of excurses an excurses is something that's a a step away from the main theme that you're looking at and looking at a couple of things in a little bit more detail when I talk about the early Galilean Ministry of Jesus you may be asking what is that what is Galilee you may know very well but let me explain for all of us if you look at the nation of Israel on a map or

Palestine referred to as both in the time of Jesus it would have been called Palestine it was broken up in a bunch of little States Judah would be the most further South uh Samaria would have been in the middle south of that would have been Egypt north of that would have been what we would call Lebanon and there was a a sea with a river coming out of it and that River of course is the Jordan River and that sea at the time of Christ was called the Sea of Galilee uh just before that it

was called something else and something sometime just after that it was called something else but for the time of Jesus's Ministry it was probably mostly called the Sea of Galilee and so that's the most northern region of Israel even today or southern tip of Lebanon and that's where Jesus was raised uh as a child and that's where Jesus did his ministry uh that's where Jesus called his home base now he was raised in Nazareth but he was kicked out of the Town eventually and he set up home in a town called Capernaum so let's talk

a little bit about Capernaum as Jesus's Ministry base I thought this might be interesting to you comperm is located on the Northern Shore of the Sea of Galilee and it became Jesus's home base during much of his ministry it's referred to in all the gospels but let's look at say Mark Matthew 4:13 where it talks about Jesus making that his place of his home base archaeological discoveries in Capernaum include the remains of a synagogue from the first century and they provide an u a historical backdrop to Jesus's teaching and healing Ministries there uh that are

recorded in mark 1: 21-28 this may very well be a synagogue that Jesus himself went into it could be the one that he uh he preached one of his messages in that we read about in the gospels the city's position along major trade routes made it a strategic location for Jesus's Ministries people would come and go through the region through that town and so he could not just reach the people in that City he could reach people in the communities around it and possibly from far away this allowed his message to reach a diverse audience

of Jews and Gentiles and perhaps for the message to be spread far away we start hearing about people that hear of Jesus up in Phoenicia or people down in J Judea as well because of perhaps this trade route that people are sharing the stories of what they've seen or heard about Jesus the Messiah the people of capernum witnessed many of Jesus's Miracles including the healing of the Centurion servant and of Peter's mother mother-in-law despite this Jesus later rebuked the city for its unbelief in Matthew 11: 23-24 they saw his miracles and still did not believe

in him as the Messiah indicating that proximity to Jesus and his works and his teachings does not guarantee Faith just being around Jesus just being around church or just being around Christians do not bring you salvation it has to be an act of faith on your part let's look at another excurses and that's the use of Jesus's Galilean Aramaic the langa Franca of the day which means the main language of the day was Co Greek and that was because Alexander the Great had conquered much of the world and so many people spoke Greek in work

or as they did trade with people from other regions and we don't know the level everyone spoke it how well how polished but it was a very common language of the time but the language of Capernaum and the language of the of that region was Aramaic very similar kind of a cousin to Hebrew Hebrew fell out of use by whenever Israel and Judah were taken into captivity in Assyria and Babylon and Aramaic kind of became a language very similar to all of those languages it was a it was a a melted language of many different

languages very similar to Hebrew also similar to Assyrian and and other languages and Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic it was the common language of Galilee some of his sayings preserved in the gospels and they often offer a glimpse into this dialect so for example when he says tth aun in Mark 5:41 or ephra in Mark 7:34 Jesus is speaking Galilean Aramaic and it's not just Aramaic it's a specific version of it Galilean Aramaic was a was distinct from dialects spoken in Jerusalem or Judea and this could have made Jesus speech recognizable to others um such as

Peter's Galilean accent being noted when they were on at Jesus's trial in Matthew 2673 in English I have an accent I grew up in Texas and so it's not uncommon for me to have people ask me about my accent when I learned French I learned French in Marseilles so I spoke with a Southern French accent I don't know where all of you are from if you're from somewhere in the United States or from another country I'm sure you have accents in those countries so Jesus probably had a Galilean accent of Aramaic and when he would

travel to Jerusalem it was clear that he was an outsider and would cause some attention to come to him uh remember whenever the disciples were on trial they said aren't these uneducated men and kind of hinted that they're From Galilee and they don't even speak a very good dialect of our of our language it would have been something akin to that Jesus's Galilean background including his Regional dialect may have contributed to the skepticism with which he was received by some Jews Galilee was considered less sophisticated than Judea and its inhabitants were sometimes looked down upon

by those in Jerusalem as seen in Nathaniel's question can anything good come out of Nazareth in John 1:46 so this likely played a role in Jesus's early rejection in Jerusalem Jesus started off his Galilean ministry as a means to show himself as the Messiah as the teacher of God's truth as the worker of Miracles and the one willing to face opposition so that he could prove to the world who he was as the Divine Son of God may God bless you all as you watch this video and know and and recognize how God is working

in your own Hearts I hope that some of these words have been encouraging to you it's not just meant to understand who Jesus was 2,000 years ago but also how we are to live with him as our savior in the world today may God bless you all