Luke 4:42-44--Jesus Preaches in Synagogues

Luke 4:42-44
English Standard Version
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Jesus Preaches in Synagogues
42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, 43 but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” 44 And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

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Remember last time that Jesus was in Capernaum teaching in the synagogue there where there was a demonized man that confronted Him, and then He was asked to come to the house where Simon Peter's mother-in-law was sick, and then others heard about His casting out the unclean spirit and healing of Simon's mother-in-law, and they brought all those who are sick and demonized to Him for healing.  It had bee a long, exhausting day for Jesus.


Like many other times when we see Jesus having a long day of ministry like this, He tries to get up early in the morning to go off by Himself into a quiet place to pray and spend time alone with the Father--this seems to be one of the ways that Jesus is refreshed and "recharged" and given direction for where He is supposed to go next as we read the gospels.  Should He continue to stay here where it appears He is having much success, or should He move on somewhere else where there are people who have never heard His message before?

That is exactly what is going on here.  The crowds follow Him as He is trying to get away, and they try to keep Him from leaving (quite the opposite of what happened in Nazareth where they literally tried to push Him off a cliff at the edge of town to kill Him because they no longer wanted to listen to Him).  Jesus told the people that He must go to the other towns and preach the kingdom of God to them as well.  That is the reason He was sent--not to build a following in a single area, but to make sure that God's message was heard throughout the entire land and to get all the Jews ready to see their deliverance from sin, yet many will not want to see it because it is not the kind of salvation they were looking for or it is a salvation that requires repentance, and they don't want to change.