Luke in the Land: Walking With Jesus in His First-Century WorldSample

The world was dark indeed during this time in human history. It is interesting to me that Luke uses the word and concept of a soter—“savior” throughout his Gospel.17

While all the Gospels speak to Jesus as Savior, Matthew and Mark do not use the word soter, and John uses it only once. Luke is emphasizing this “Savior” coming into this world. His Gospel tells the story of the Son of God being born while the Roman “son of god,” Augustus, was in power.

Jesus was born right under the nose of Herod the Great and within the Roman Empire of Caesar Augustus. A Judean king and a Caesar of empire ruled while the light of the world was coming into the world to be the Savior. Jesus would show that there is another way to order the world than the way of empire—the powerful lording over the powerless. Jesus would show the way of the kingdom of God right in the midst of empire. He would bring a gospel, good news for ALL people, not only for the few at the top.

The angels embodied this very reality when they served as divine heralds to Bethlehem shepherds. The good news was prioritized and given first to shepherds who were lowly and believed to be on the margins in their own culture. This “good news” was good news even for shepherds.

We know that Jesus’s central teaching was the Sermon on the Mount, located in Matthew 5–7 and Luke 6:17-49. This is His longest recorded teaching in the Bible.

Throughout both the Sermon on the Mount and in His teaching and ministry as a Rabbi of Israel, He continually proclaimed one theme. What was that theme?

Jesus spoke over and over again about the kingdom of God. Dwight A. Pryor says it well:

“The importance of the Kingdom message for Jesus therefore can scarcely be overestimated. In his preaching, he proclaimed the Kingdom; in his teaching, he explained the Kingdom; in his parables, he illustrated the Kingdom; and in his healings and deliverances Jesus demonstrated the present, powerful and in-breaking Kingdom of Heaven.”18

The kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven—the two terms are interchangeable and mean the same thing. Heaven is something of an idiom for God to the Jewish people. Devout Jews do not speak the Divine Name of God that was spoken to Moses at the burning bush—YHWH (yud-heh-vav-heh in Hebrew). HaShem (The Name) is a common name used by devout Jews to say the name of the Lord. “Kingdom of heaven” is a way of saying “kingdom of God” without saying His Name.

In Hebrew, it is called the malkhut shamayim. Dr. Pryor explains that the phrase is a “verbal noun,” meaning that it speaks of a present reality, not a future hope.19

Simply put, the kingdom of God is God’s reign over the universe. He is sovereign and has dominion over everything in and under heaven. It’s a term that’s used in the Old Testament, but “arises more specifically from Jesus’ proclamation of the inbreaking of God’s rule.”20 And what is God’s rule breaking in on? The empire.

Jesus’s world in Luke, and our world today, was and is anchored in the way of the empire. We are striving orphans, starving, and trying to acquire more and more and more. Jesus breaks in with a different way—the way of the kingdom.

This concept of the inbreaking of God’s rule was central to Jesus’s teaching, so we’ll keep encountering it as we walk through the land and through Luke’s Gospel. We’ll fill out this chart together as we go to learn more of what Jesus’s heart and head and hands were working toward in His ministry on earth. You’ll see how radical it was—and how radical it still is—to live the kingdom life in the world of the empire.

God’s rule is breaking in. Let’s go!

Endnotes:

17. “Strong’s G4990,” Blue Letter Bible, accessed March 22, 2024, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4990/kjv/tr/0-1/.

18. Dwight A. Pryor, Unveiling the Kingdom of Heaven: The Origins and Dimensions of the Kingdom Concept as Taught by the Rabbi Jesus (Center for Judaic-Christian Studies, 2008), Introduction, ix.

19. Ibid, 16.

20. Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzki, Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (United Kingdom: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 71.