Epiphany Season · Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany · Year C
Luke 4:21-30
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
January 30, 2028
Overview & Insights
“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
Jesus’s return from the wilderness area marks the beginning of his public ministry, which will be focused in his home province of Galilee until he sets off for Jerusalem in 9:51. Mark and Matthew record a single visit to Nazareth, which they place later in their narratives. Luke not only tells the story in much more detail, and with his typical focus on Jesus’s mission of deliverance, but also has inserted it at the very beginning of his account of Jesus’s public preaching to act as a sort of frontispiece (a decorative illustration facing a book’s title page) for Jesus’s ministry as a whole. The themes of deliverance, of good news for the poor, and of the universal scope of Jesus’s mission set the tone for all that is to follow. The hostility of Jesus’s own fellow villagers serves as a warning of the opposition that his ministry will provoke from conservative Jewish interests.
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Commentary
Commentary on Luke 4:21-30 Working Preacher
The RCL's own preaching commentary on the exact pericope for this Sunday.
Luke 4:21-30 Commentary Center for Excellence in Preaching
A Reformed preaching-focused reading of Jesus' rejection at Nazareth.
Luke 4:21-30 Commentary Enduring Word · David Guzik
A verse-by-verse evangelical study of Jesus' hometown sermon and its violent reception.
Luke 4 Commentaries and Sermons Precept Austin
An inductive study gateway with word studies and cross references across the chapter.
Luke 4:21 Commentaries BibleHub
Classic commentaries gathered verse by verse on the crowd's turn from praise to rage.
Luke 4 Verse-by-Verse Commentary StudyLight
Gill's Exposition read straight through the chapter for a further expositional voice.
We Are His, Epiphany 4 (C) Sermons That Work · Episcopal Church
An Anglican preaching voice on Jesus' rejection and the church's call to belong to him anyway.
Background & Word Study
The Church Fathers
Worship & Prayers
Questions preachers ask
What happens when Jesus preaches at Nazareth?
Reading Isaiah's promise of good news to the poor, Jesus declares it fulfilled in himself, and the hometown crowd's wonder turns to fury.
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