January 1, 2023

“He Taught as Having Authority, Part 1”; Mark 1:21-23
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The central focus of his time and of his energy was in purposeful teaching, not miracle performing. The performing of miracles are done to validate his teaching, not to substitute for it.

And they went into Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority and not as the scribes. And immediately there was in their synagogue, a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, what have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us, I know who you are the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked him saying, be silenced, and come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing him, and crying out with a loud voice came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this a new teaching with authority, he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him? And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.

So, our passage here begins with these straightforward words from verse 21, and they went into Capernaum. So, let's pause right there, and let's spend a little bit of time thinking about the city of component Capernaum, for the reason that Jesus is going to more or less live here. We have good reason to believe that Jesus makes his home away from home, so to speak, in this city of Capernaum, for about three years here during his adult ministry, this seems to be his home, he's going to spend a lot of time around Capernaum, as well as the two surrounding cities of Bethsaida, and Chorazin. And like we talked about a few Sundays ago that--remember that Jesus triangle that we talked about--so he's going to spend a lot of time here in this region. And he's also going to spend a lot of time on the Sea of Galilee, and in the two adjoining cities.

So, it will be helpful for us to just maybe get a little bit of a mental picture of what Capernaum is like. What is this place like in which Jesus is going to spend quite a bit of time over the next three years.

So, the city of Capernaum is obviously in a place called Galilee. The region of Galilee at this time is ruled by a man named Herod Antipas. Now, Herod Antipas, if, well, if you thought that the Mary's in Scripture are confusing, then you don't know anything until you've looked at the King Herod's, because there are no less than six King Herod's in the Scriptures. And I'm not going to take all the time that it would require in order to explain all those six Herod's and how they relate to each other. But I do want to just talk about two in the first is the main one, the first one--King Herod the Great. That was the father of Herod Antipas. Herod the Great ruled as the Tetrarch of the Land of Israel, which was sort of like a sub-ruler or a sub-King underneath the Roman Empire.

So, King Herod the Great is the one who ruled the entire land of Israel. He's the one who made the decree to kill the baby boys in Bethlehem. He's the one from whom Mary and Joseph had to escape to Egypt. And if you recall, in Matthew chapter two, we remember that we were told there in Matthew chapter two that Joseph heard that Antipas was ruling in Galilee, meaning that Herod Antipas' father--King Herod the Great had died. Upon his death, his kingdom was divided amongst his sons, and the region of Galilee, and Perea went to the son by the name of Herod Antipas.

So, Herod enter, pass rules as Tetrarch over the land of Galilee and for and Perea and he does so for about 44 years. So, he's going to rule Galilee for virtually all of Jesus's life, except for just a short portion at the very beginning of Jesus's life. So, Herod Antipas is the Tetrarch. He's the ruler of whom it is said that he took his brother's wife and John the Baptizer proclaimed the pronouncement of sin against him. And he's the one who had John the Baptizer imprisoned and eventually executed.

So, that's Antipas. So, Herod Antipas is the ruler here and he was not nearly as vicious and bloodthirsty of a ruler as was his father Herod the Great. Nevertheless, he made no bones about asserting to violent means.

So, Herod Antipas is the ruler here of Galilee. This region of Galilee, in this contains, of course, the Sea of Galilee that we talked about, or the Sea of Tiberius, or the Lake of Tiberius. The very far northern, little bit western, northwestern tip of the Sea of Galilee is where the city of Capernaum is located.

So, Capernaum is one of the cities that bordered a sea of Galilee that benefited tremendously profited tremendously from that very profitable fishing industry that we spoke about a couple of Sundays ago. Capernaum is probably the city that profited most from the fishing industry, because Capernaum was a rather wealthy city, it was a very upscale city. If you think about ancient cities, and you have this, this image in your mind of sort of this poverty-stricken city, in which the people, the residents of the city, are barely surviving, barely eking by living, certainly there are people like that in Capernaum, but that was not Capernaum by and large.

Capernaum was an upscale city. It was a multicultural city, it was an up and coming city. It was a city that profited immensely from the fishing trade. It also profited immensely from being on a main Roman road called the Via Marice. That was one of the main trading routes of the Roman Empire. And so this trading route helped Capernaum to capitalize upon the fishing industry.

So, the city of Capernaum itself was a profitable upscale, sort of sort of neapolitan--metropolitan (neapolitan, that's ice cream), metropolitan sort of a city. And there's the city boasted this eight-foot seawall for 2500 feet against the Sea of Galilee. So, if you've ever been to Charleston, South Carolina, you think of the battery there, that's much like the city of Capernaum, as it bordered the Sea of Galilee. And this 2500, half a mile long sea wall had a number of piers that extended 100 feet out into the sea of Galilee, to facilitate lots and lots of fishing vessels, being able to port and unload their cargo and get back out there to capture more fish. So, you can kind of get the idea there.

So, this city of Capernaum, again, rather wealthy city, we're going to talk in just a minute about the synagogue, but all these cities had a synagogue in them. If there was a Jewish population of at least 10 adult males, meaning 10 Jewish adults 13 years or older, then that was what's called a quorum. And so then they had a synagogue. So, Capernaum also had a synagogue. Now, all the ancient synagogues in Israel were very, very bland in their architecture. The Temple, you think of the Temple and the grandiose Temple in Jerusalem--Herod's Temple--that was not like the synagogues. The synagogues were very generic, very bland. They were just made from stone, a dark gray sort of stone, not very much thought was put into the architecture, except for the synagogue in Capernaum.

So, I believe you've been to the Holy Land--I don't know if you toured Capernaum--but if you go there, and you tour Capernaum, and you tour the Capernaum synagogue, what you are touring are the remains the ruins of a beautiful marble, limestone, all imported marble synagogue there in the ruins of Capernaum. However, that synagogue was built in the fourth century. So, the synagogue that Jesus is going to teach in in our passage today was not that one. Instead, it was more of a very generic sort of a stone building, the ruins of which are underneath the nicer fourth-century synagogue that's located there today.

So, this city obviously had enough money to build such a nice synagogue, had enough money for these piers and the seawall and everything, really up-and-coming. So, sort of like the city to be in. If you were serious about fishing, then Capernaum was the place to be.

So, this city of Capernaum also was large enough to be the home of a Roman garrison of soldiers. Now, when we think of Roman soldiers, we are right to think about animosity, and conflict, and tension between the Romans, particularly the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish population. However, in Capernaum, it appears that the Roman garrison was on rather friendly terms with the Jews there.

We know this from a couple of clues in our Scriptures, mainly, we remember the story of the Roman centurion, who comes to Jesus and asked Jesus to heal his servant. We're told that that was in Capernaum. It was the Capernaum Centurion that comes to Jesus to make that request--Matthew eight. Luke, in Luke chapter seven, gives us an extended recounting of that. And Luke tells us that not only does the Centurion believe upon Jesus and come and ask Jesus, to heal his servant and remember he, there's that whole interchange where Jesus says, Alright, I'll go, and Centurion says, No, you don't need to just say the word. And Jesus praises his faith. In addition to that, Luke tells us that the Jews told Jesus--look, you really need to do this for this Centurion. Why? Because he built our synagogue for us.

So, there's appears to be this very friendly type of relationship between the Roman garrison--the soldiers there--and the native Jews. So, it seems to be a rather predictable sort of thing, that the closer you are to Jerusalem, the greater the animosity, and the greater the conflict and friction between the Romans and the Jews. And the further you are from Jerusalem, it appears that the more amiable their relationship was. And so Capernaum was about as far as Jerusalem, from Jerusalem as you could be while still being in Israel proper.

So, the Romans seems to get along quite well with the Jews there in that area. So, Jesus would have spent these three years of his ministry in a context in which the Roman soldiers weren't necessarily all that much of a hated enemy.

So, in addition to this, we also know something else about Capernaum. And Capernaum, was like a sea of miracles. Jesus performs more miracles in and around Capernaum, than anywhere else. So, Capernaum is going to see and experience--and when I say Capernaum, I mean, the population of Capernaum--is going to see and to experience the miracles of Jesus more frequently than any other place in Israel. In fact, Jesus is going to say a little bit later on in Mark's gospel, if the miracles that I did here I had done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented.

Okay, so that's a little bit of background about Capernaum. And maybe it gets a little bit of a mental picture in our mind about the city because Jesus is going to be here for quite a bit of time. And we're going to hear about Capernaum on a sort of a repeated basis.

So, here we go from verse 21. And they went into Capernaum. And immediately--there's Mark's favorite word there--and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue and was teaching. So, here we're introduced to the synagogue. So, let's just give ourselves a little bit of background about the synagogue so that we can think properly about not only this experience, but the multiple experiences that are to come, that have to do in and around the synagogue.

So, the synagogue can be rightly thought of as the center of Jewish life. Now, you've heard it said--I've said this before, and it's true--that the Temple is the center of Jewish life--and that's very true, but there's only one Temple. And of course, that Temple is in Jerusalem. And so, if you don't live in Jerusalem, then the Temple is something that you, at best, visit three times a year for the three feasts, maybe not at all.

So, the Temple is something that definitely is the center of religious life, but it for most Jews, it's something that's sort of separate from them. So, for those Jews who live outside of Jerusalem, the synagogue constitutes the center, the ground zero, the gathering place for their religion. In fact, that's what the word means. Synagogue literally means gathering place, or gathering together.

So, the synagogue is absolutely absent in the Old Testament. Search your Old Testaments and you won't find reference to the synagogue in the Old Testament, which, of course, leads us to believe that there were no synagogues in Old Testament times. It appears that the synagogue came about, probably during the Babylonian exile period, when the Jews were separated from their homeland, obviously, they were separated from the Temple. And so that was probably the time period in which the synagogue really came to be. And the Jews began to think of--well, what can we do in order to ground our religious life when we're not in Jerusalem. And so the synagogue became this place of gathering in which Jews gathered each Sabbath.

So, as they gathered here for the Sabbath, this was, this would have been an every week sort of thing as they gather, but not just on the Sabbath. But the synagogue was also a place, sort of a central place for other activities in their life. So, the synagogue was sort of like maybe the church building, along with the community center all rolled into one. And so, the synagogue, obviously was very active on the Sabbath day.

So, as Jesus enters into the synagogue on the Sabbath, he's going to teach there, let's just try to imagine a little bit about what that synagogue gathering would have been like. So, once again, we can maybe put into our minds just some sort of picture or some sort of image of what this would have looked like, as Jesus is entering into the synagogue and what's taking place. So, we are fortunate enough that in our New Testaments, we are given a rather detailed account of one of the Sabbath gatherings in the synagogue and it comes to us in Luke chapter four. In Luke chapter four, we're familiar with this passage--this is not the Capernaum synagogue, instead, this is the Nazareth synagogue. Jesus enters into the Nazareth synagogue where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, and he stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, and then we have the quotation that he reads from there.

So, a number of things that we see here, the synagogue the gathering together of the synagogue would have consisted of, first of all, of prayers, a corporate prayer. Also, would have consisted of corporate singing, they would sing the Psalms together. And then it would move into this time of worship, this period of, well, all of that was worship, but this period of worship that's centered around the Word.

And so, we're told that what this began with was Jesus standing. And as he stood, then an attendant brought him a scroll. And so each and every Sabbath in the synagogue was read from the Books of Moses, or the Torah, and also from the Prophets. So, there was a reading from the Torah, and there was a reading from the Prophets. And so, Jesus is handed the scroll of Isaiah, we're not told here, but he's probably handed also one of the scrolls of the Books of Moses, and read from that.

But he's handed the scroll of Isaiah. And in the scroll of Isaiah, he finds a certain place that he wants, and finding this place, he then reads it. And then after reading it, he rolls it back up and gives it to the attendant. And then we're told that Jesus sits down.

So, sitting was the posture of authority. In the Jewish culture, we think of--as I'm doing now--standing. But in the Jewish culture, the one who was teaching with authority, the teacher, the rabbi, would sit as he taught.

And so Jesus rolls up the scroll, hands it to the attendant, the attendant takes it away. And then Jesus sits down, and he does what every rabbi, whether they be a visiting rabbi, or whether they be a rabbi that was for there in Capernaum, they would then after reading from the sections of Scripture, they would then comment on what they had read from. And that was sort of the typical Sabbath experience in the synagogue. It involved, once again, corporate singing, as they sing the Psalms together, corporate prayers, it would also involve reading of the Scriptures, both from the books of Moses and from the Prophets. And then it would involve a commentating, a time of commentary on the Scriptures, or you could say, teaching, a time of teaching or commentaries on the Scriptures that were read.

And so that was sort of the the typical Sabbath sort of synagogue experience in which Jesus does this, the reading and the commenting on the scrolls here. So, one of the things that this tells us is, first of all, that Jesus, even by this point, has already been recognized as a rabbi, as someone with the ability to teach, because he's asked to teach.

It was, it was a very customary thing in the synagogue that the one who was asked to teach would be not the regular, the synagogue rabbi, but instead a visiting rabbi or a visiting teacher. So, someone was visiting, they will be asked to, to comment on that section of the reading. And this is what Jesus is that he's asked to comment on this or to teach from this. So, he's already, in a sense, being recognized this early in His ministry, as one with the ability to teach, and one who is asked to teach.

So, that gives us just a little bit of a viewpoint of what Jesus does here in the Sabbath. We're going to read over and over again, about Jesus's teaching, particularly teaching in the Sabbath. And so now we have a little bit of a mental picture of what that looked like.

So, again, from verse 21, they went to Capernaum, and immediately on the Sabbath, He entered the synagogue, and was teaching. So, as he enters the synagogue, and he's teaching, we're reminded here of two specific habits that we see that Jesus has already undertaken. And they are, first of all the habit of attending the synagogue. Attending the synagogue on the Sabbath, were told that this was his custom. John, (I'm sorry), Luke four, verse 16, from our passage right there, tells us that as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day.

So, we're told that it's Jesus' custom to attend the service in the synagogue, which tells us that Jesus did not attend the synagogue meetings, just by way of whim, or just when he felt like it, or just when he didn't have anything else in-particular to do on that Sabbath and, and hadn't seen his friends down at the synagogue in a couple of weeks. So, he's going to go...no. Jesus had an established custom, a habit of Sabbath attendance in the synagogue. And so, one of the things that tells us is that if Jesus, the Son of God, not by emotion, not by happenstance, not because this is a convenient day to go to Sabbath, but instead, by custom. If Jesus, the Son of God made it his willful, purposeful habit to attend corporate worship on the Sabbath, then how much more do his people need to make it our willful, purposeful, intentional habit to attend corporate worship on the Christian Sabbath or the Lord's day Sunday?

So, that's the first habit that we see the other habit or custom that we're told is that he has this custom of not only attending Sabbath, but also teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. John 18, verse 20, Jesus answered him, "I have spoken openly to the world, I have always taught in synagogues and in the Temple." Or later on in Mark chapter 10, "He left there and went to the reign of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to Him again and again, as was his custom he taught to them." So, Jesus is establishing this habit of not only attending the synagogue, but teaching in the synagogue.

Now, here's the question we should ask ourselves. Why are we told that that's his custom and his habit? If you were like Jesus, endowed from above, with miraculous supernatural powers, to perform miracles at will? Then what do you think you would spend the bulk of your time doing? What would be the focus of most of your time and energy. If you were given the power above from above, to heal the sick, to restore sight to the blind, to cast out demons, to cleanse the lepers, to calm storms, to walk on water, to multiply bread--what do you think would be the central focus of your time? Would it probably not be that?

The bulk of Jesus's time we should be careful to understand the bulk of Jesus's time was never taken up in miracles. It might seem that way as the miracles are related to us, in fact, Mark is going to relate to us no less than 17 miracles. So, it might seem to us that Jesus is performing a lot of miracles, but we must read carefully, and we must read closely to see this was not the bulk of his time. The central focus of his time and of his energy was in purposeful teaching, not miracle performing. Why? Because Jesus knows that the kingdom of God is not being brought, is not being established in the performing of miracles. The performing of miracles are done, that's done to validate his teaching, not to substitute for it, or even to take the lead in front of it. Instead, Jesus understands that his father's kingdom--the central rule of his father's kingdom, or are one, I should say, one of the central rules of his father's kingdom--is that his father has determined that his kingdom will advance by the teaching of the truth, by the illuminating of the minds of those who will hear, by the receiving of the truth, by the changing of the transforming of our mind. That is how the Kingdom of God is established. And that is how the Kingdom of God moves forward. Jesus understands that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That's what the Father has determined.

And so, Jesus makes it his priority to engage himself in teaching. The reason Jesus came, is of course, to die at the end of this three-year period. But during this three-year period of ministry, he's going to make it his central focus, not to heal as many people as he can, but to teach as many people as he can, because he understands that the truth of God is what establishes and moves forward the kingdom of God here on Earth.