Luke · chapter 5 of 24
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Luke 5 tells how Jesus calls Simon Peter, James and John after a miraculous catch of fish on the Lake of Gennesaret. He then cleanses a leper, forgives and heals a paralytic lowered through the roof, and calls the tax collector Levi, who gives him a banquet. Jesus answers the critics by saying he came to call sinners and that new wine needs new wineskins.
After teaching and healing in Capernaum, Jesus begins to form a group of followers and to show by his deeds who he is. Luke 5 gathers five scenes that reveal his authority over nature, disease and sin, and that provoke the first criticism from the religious leaders.
By the Lake of Gennesaret, the crowd presses around Jesus to hear the word of God. He gets into Simon's boat and teaches from it. When he finishes, he tells Simon to put out into deep water and let down the nets. Simon, who has fished all night with nothing, obeys, and the net fills so full that it nearly breaks and the boats begin to sink. Simon falls at Jesus' feet and asks him to leave because he is a sinful man. Jesus tells him not to fear; from now on he will catch people. Simon, James and John leave everything and follow him.
In one town, a man full of leprosy begs Jesus to make him clean. Jesus touches him and heals him, and tells him to show himself to the priest. Later, while Jesus is teaching in a house full of Pharisees and teachers of the law, some men climb onto the roof and lower a paralytic on a stretcher. Jesus sees their faith and tells the man his sins are forgiven. The scribes are scandalized because only God forgives sins. To show that the Son of Man has authority to forgive, Jesus orders the man to get up, and he goes home glorifying God.
Jesus calls Levi, a tax collector, who leaves everything and follows him and gives a great banquet with other tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees complain, and Jesus answers that the healthy do not need a doctor but the sick do. They then ask why his disciples do not fast; he speaks of the bridegroom being present and of new wineskins for new wine.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Simon falls at Jesus' feet and asks him to leave because he is a sinful man. Faced with Jesus' holiness and power, Peter recognizes his own unworthiness, and that is the doorway to his calling.
Jesus tells Simon not to fear and that from now on he will catch people. His past as a fisherman is not discarded but redirected toward a new mission.
Jesus heals the paralytic so that those present will know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. The visible miracle demonstrates the invisible authority.
Jesus answers the Pharisees that the healthy do not need a doctor but the sick do, and that he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. His mission is one of rescue.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: They had worked all night and caught nothing. — Luke 5:5
Answer: He asked Jesus to depart from him, because he was a sinful man. — Luke 5:8
Answer: He stretched out his hand and touched him. — Luke 5:13
Answer: They lowered him on a stretcher through the roof, because the crowd blocked the door. — Luke 5:18-19
Answer: That he was blaspheming, because only God can forgive sins. — Luke 5:21
Answer: Levi, a tax collector sitting at his booth. — Luke 5:27-28
Luke 5 shows that the first step in following Jesus is recognizing who we are before him. Peter does not feel worthy, and Jesus does not pull away. In a small group you can talk about how Christ's grace reaches us exactly where we feel we deserve nothing.
The faith of the paralytic's friends also challenges us, since they did not let the crowd stop them. Ask yourself whom you can bring to Jesus, and what obstacles you are willing to overcome for that person. And Levi's banquet reminds us that the church should be a place where sinners feel welcome to meet the physician.
Luke 5 ends with the picture of new wine and new wineskins: Jesus brings something that does not fit old forms. In Luke 6 his disciples will be criticized over the Sabbath, and Jesus will reveal himself as Lord of the Sabbath and choose the twelve.
It is an image for the mission of gathering people into God's kingdom by proclaiming the gospel. Jesus uses Peter's trade to explain his new task. The expression is not developed in this chapter, but Acts shows Peter preaching and bringing many to faith.
The law of Moses treated lepers as unclean and required them to live apart. A person with leprosy suffered illness and social and religious isolation. That is why Jesus' touch matters so much: he restores the body and also the person's place in the community.
Old leather wineskins would burst from fermenting new wine. Jesus teaches that the kingdom he brings cannot simply be fitted into earlier religious habits. He does not despise the old, but asks that the new be received with openness.