The Bible is God’s Blueprint for Living

“And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’” — Luke 4:20–21

This week’s reading marks the beginning of Jesus’s ministry in Galilee. He’s come to the synagogue in Nazareth, his hometown, and is called to read from the Scriptures to the gathered congregation.

Whenever I read this passage, I think about the young people who participate in our weekly services. Whether their delivery is imperfect or it’s clear they’ve practiced (some of those names are difficult to pronounce!), the ancient words of Scripture sit differently in our ears when they’re read by a child or a teenager.

At this point in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has been baptized, anointed by the Holy Spirit, and claimed as God’s son. He has spent 40 days fasting in the wilderness. He returns to Galilee filled with a sense of purpose: proclaiming the Good News and calling God’s people to repent — to stop, turn around, and realign themselves to God’s vision of love and justice for all people. By the time he gets to Nazareth, he’s something of a local celebrity, the small-town kid who’s doing big things in the world.

He reads from the Prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” You can almost feel the tension in the congregation as he returns to his seat. They’re stunned by this proclamation.

We are called to speak words of healing, liberation, and grace for a world that sometimes doesn’t seem ready to hear them.”

He’s read these ancient words with a sense of authority — claiming them as his own. Jesus is at once announcing who he is and declaring his intentions as a leader. He’s laying out a kind of manifesto for the kingdom of God. Jesus is not announcing anything new, and yet he’s bringing a new sense of urgency. The words of the Prophet Isaiah aren’t some ancient text that has nothing to do with the here and now.

It’s easy to think of the Bible as a collection of texts that have little to do with us and little impact on our day-to-day lives. But Jesus reminds his hometown congregation, and us, that nothing could be farther from the truth. The Bible contains the record of humanity’s interaction with God across the millennia. And God has always called God’s people to do the same things: to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and liberate the oppressed.

This is good news for us as individuals and it gives us a clear blueprint for how Jesus would like us to show up in the world.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to look at the brokenness in the world around us — in our own lives, our communities, and our nation — and declare the year of the Lord’s favor. We are called to speak words of healing, liberation, and grace for a world that sometimes doesn’t seem ready to hear them.

How might we live our lives differently if we regularly remind ourselves, and one another, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, too? God has anointed us to bring the good news of God’s love to the world. This is the year of the Lord’s favor. Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.

Read all of Sunday’s Scriptures

Step Into the Story

Here are some ways to think more deeply about Jesus’s proclamation in the synagogue.

Poetry

Our work as Christians — “to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry . . . to bring peace among the people” — begins after the fanfare of Christmas has dissipated, writes mystic and civil rights leader Howard Thurman.

Visual Art

Unlike many depictions of Christ, French painter James Tissot’s work highlights Jesus’s Jewishness, a fitting illustration for our reading this week, in which Jesus emphasizes his fulfillment of the Prophet Isaiah’s hopeful expectations.

Religious Practice

Watch this helpful introduction to modern synagogues and the reading of Scripture from scrolls. While some practices have surely evolved, there are many similarities with the description in Luke’s Gospel. Note, though, that a reading from Isaiah would not have been from a Torah scroll, but perhaps an early form of what is now called the haftarah (a reading selection from the prophets, rather than the first five books of the Bible).

Father Matt Welsch is priest and director, children, youth, and family, at Trinity Church.