September 1924
T H E
K I N G ’ S
B U S I N E S S
568
I n t e r n a t i o n a l S e r i e s o f S u n d a y S choo l L e s s o n s EXPOSITION OF THE LESSON, BLACKBOARD OUTLINES. - DEVOTIONAL COMMENT, -
Frederic W. Farr Fred S. Shepard John A. Hubbard V. V. Morgan Mabel L. Merrill
COMMENTS FROM THE COMMENTARIES, ELEM ENTARY ,...........................................................
They arose in a body and dragged Jesus to the brow of a precipice above the city in order to fling Hi® headlong down. But His hour had not yet come. How He escaped we are not told. Perhaps He simply asserted Himself, waived His captors aside with simple dignity and passed through their midst unharmed. Thus He left Nazareth apparently never to return, at least to preach in the little synagogue. With feelings of unutterable sadness He must have turned his back upon that' humble village where He had made His home for so many years. What childhood mem ories must have thronged upon Him! There was no friend or companion of His youth to accompany Him with encour agement and sympathy! Thereafter, He made His home, so far as He had a home at all, in Capernaum by the sunlit waters of blue Galilee. Y. 16. This town is beautifully situated in a great green bowl, the sides of the bowl the surrounding fifteen hills. The God of nature who is the God of the Bible evidently scooped out this valley for privacy and separation from all thè world during three most important COMMENTS decades, the thirty years of Christ’s FROM THE boyhood and youth.— T. D. Talmage. COMMENTARIES Synagogue. A Jewish place of wor- V . V. Morgan ship. The building served also for local law court and school. Previous to the captivity, worship of the highest kind could be performed only at the temple at Jerusalem. Of course, the Scriptures could be publicly read elsewhere (Jer. 36: 6, 10, 12-15) and the people could resort to the prophets anywhere for religious instruction (2 Kgs. 4 :3 8 ). Worship at Jerusalem was impossible when the people were in captivity in Babylon, and it seems to have been then and there that synagogues first arose. They were designed to be places, not of sacrifice, hut of scrip tural instruction and prayer. A board of elders managed the affairs of the synagogue and of the religious com munity which it represented (Luke 7 :3 -5 ).— Davis Diet. The Scriptures were read standing. The synagogue had no ordained minister, as our churches have, but only some officers, the Ruler and Elders, who acted as a com mittee to call upon any suitable person, and especially any well-known visitor, to read the Scripture and comment upon it. Probably Jesus had never been invited to serve thus before, but was called upon because of the new dis tinction which He had gained by His miracles and His preaching elsewhere.— Peloubet. V. 17. And He opened the book. That is, He unrolled it. Hebrew books were long strips of parchment of vellum, attached to rollers. The writing was in narrow columns at right angles to the length of the strip. The strip con taining the Pentateuch was always left so that the next column to he read was exposed, but the various prophecies were completely rolled up on separate rollers and the reader must unroll the one given him and find his own place,— Peloubet. Isaiah 61:1, 2, which Christ read first in Hebrew, a dead and learned language at the time, and then translated it into Aramaic, the language of the Jews of His time, or into Greek, which also His hearers would understand.— Selec. V. 19. A reference to the year of Jubilee. Lev. 25:8-17. This was the year when 1. Debts and obligations were
SEPTEMBER 14, 1924 JESUS DRIVEN FROM NAZARETH Golden Text: “He that anointed me to preach the gos pel.” Luke 4:18. Lesson Text: Luke 4:16-30. Devotional Reading: Isaiah 61:1-3, 10, 11.- It seemed fitting that Jesus should go to Nazareth and preach to those among whom He had lived for nearly thirty years. He had to preach His own ordination sermon. He went ,£(>:,..the synagogue where He had been a silent wor- ■ shiper since his childhood. It had been LESION His eustom to attend the public worship EXPOSITION every Sabbath day. He was now a pop- F. W . Farr ular young rabbi and was invited to take part in the service. The rabbis stood while reading the Scripture and sat down to preach the sermon. The chosen selection was from the prophet Isaiah. It was a remarkable passage and must have derived additional solemnity falling from the lips of Him in Whom it was fulfilled. Only the text of the discourse has'been preserved and we can only conjecture what the sermon might have been. He spoke with a grace and authority which com manded1attention and aroused the astonishment of His hearers: His message was to the poor, the captives, the blind and the bruisedll-four classes despised and neglected by all. To the first, the Gospel message brought hope and encouragement to industry. To the second, it brought release from the bondage of guilt and slavery. To the third it was an eye-salve that opened the blind eyes of those who sat in darkness. To the fourth, it brought comfort to the broken-hearted. To all it proclaimed the year of jubilee when debts were wiped out and slaves were set free. Jesus declared that the prophecy, spoken seven hun dred years before, was becoming history in His own min istry:;; A$ Elijah1miraculously fed the widow of Zarephath, and as Elisha miraculously healed the captain of Syria, so the grace of God was to be given to the outcast Gentile nations. This was the first intimation of the Divine rejec tion of the Jew and the Divine acceptance of the Gentile. As His message drew to a close there was a change in the attitude of the hearers. It was customary for the Jews to give expression to their feelings in the synagogue worship. Eyes which at the beginning of the discourse were fixed upon the speaker with attention and admiration, began to glow with the baleful light of jealousy and hatred. Mur murs of disapproval and anger arose. “ Is not this the car penter? Is he not the brother of workmen like himself, James and Joses and Simon and Judas, and of sisters whom we know? Do not his own family reject him? What business has he, a village carpenter, in teaching us?” Then there was a strange, sudden and violent outburst of the mob spirit, as when a storm sweeps down from the mountains and lashes into fury the calm surface of a lake.
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