Rebuking Spirits and Fevers

This is the Bible study page for the Thursday Night Bible Study Group meeting September 3 to study Luke 4:31-44.  This is more an introduction into Jesus' activity rather than His teaching at this point.  It can be assumed that, like in Acts, even though Luke doesn't detail each occurrence, these sorts of exorcisms and healings take place along side the teaching.

Read through the passage a few times in several translations (www.blueletterbible.org has several).  Jot down notes and questions about differences and word choices.  Words like 'authority' and 'rebuke' words have a range of meaning, but you may find a lot of others that are different between translations.

After you have your own set of notes and questions, go through a commentary or two (or study Bible notes).  See if these answer your questions, bring up new ones, or modify your notes at all.  See what nuggets you glean from them, but feel free to disagree with their conclusions.  Good ones tell you when they're guessing, and commentaries do a lot of guessing.

After you've gone through your notes and a few commentaries, go back through the passage with the questions below:

• Jesus 'went down' to Capernaum and does these things, but from what we read previously, He'd already been doing them there.  Why do you think this sounds somewhat out of order?  Or does it sound out of order to you?
• What do you think the people heard in Jesus' teaching that had 'authority'?  How do you think it was different than what they heard the other rabbis teach?
• Consider what the 'spirit' says in a few different translations.  Why do you think the spirit addresses Jesus this way?  If it knows who Jesus is, why challenge Him?
• Why do you think that the spirit's knowledge of who Jesus is would be a 'threat' it might hold over Him?
• Look at the word for 'astonish' in verse 32, and compare it with 'amazement' in verse 36.  What differences do you see?  How is the response to Jesus' teaching different from their response to His casting out of a demon?
• The word for what Jesus does to the fever in Simon's mother-in-law was the same as what He did in the synagogue to the spirit, 'rebuke'.  Why do you think Jesus would rebuke a fever as if it could 'obey'?  How do you understand His approach and what it means for the 'cause' of the fever?
• The sun is going down and people are brining sick to Jesus, and He works through the night.  He tries to leave the next day, and they try to prevent Him.  What do you think about the people treating Jesus this way?  Why do you think they would be so insistent?
• What does this tell you about the extent of sickness and demon possession just in this region?  How different is that from our 'region' here?
• Jesus goes to towns in Judea.  That's a long way to walk from Galilee. Why do you think He would go there?

This should be plenty to keep us occupied for our time together.  This will be the last study page for  a while, as we go through AHA.