060. Chapter 1 - The Galilean Campaign
Chapter 1 - The Galilean Campaign
Why Galilee?
Without any explanation of the national situation to indicate why Galilee was chosen as the locale of the major evangelistic campaign of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, and Luke in their various independent ways record the fact of this concentration of effort in Galilee. When Matthew records the change of residence from Nazareth to Capernaum, he pauses to point out that this great campaign in Galilee was a fulfillment of the prediction of Isaiah (Matthew 4:14-17). The populous circuit about the Sea of Galilee, the country beyond the Jordan, and the poetic title “Galilee of the Gentiles” are cited by Isaiah: “The people which sat in darkness saw a great light.” But the people in Judaea and Idumaea were also “in the region and shadow of death.” Mark merely records as a matter of history that “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:14). After his record of the temptation, Luke says, “And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee; and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about” (Luke 4:14). That Isaiah should have predicted centuries before the coming of Christ the very section of Palestine in which Jesus would concentrate His evangelistic efforts is most impressive. But Jesus did not choose Galilee because Isaiah had made this prediction and He must follow the pattern which the prophecy had set forth. The God who had given the prophet the miraculous vision of where the great Light was to shine out so brightly in the darkness, was also directing the course which Jesus followed. It was no mere mechanical reading of the predictions and deliberate effort to fulfill the prophecy. It is evident there were good and sufficient reasons why Galilee was chosen.
It is plain that it was most appropriate for the concentration of Jesus’ ministry to have been in a populous, accessible section of Palestine. Galilee had these qualifications. The change of residence from Nazareth — small, obscure, isolated in the mountains, off the main routes of travel — to the thriving, bustling, commercial metropolis of Capernaum evidently had this objective. There is also something very appropriate in Jesus’ beginning His ministry here where He had been reared in obscurity. Even discounting Josephus’ tendency to exaggerate his numbers, his declarations that at this time there were 240 cities and villages in Galilee and that even the smaller cities had as many as 25,000 inhabitants, give interesting background information concerning the huge multitudes that surrounded Jesus in the Galilean ministry.
John’s Campaigning
There immediately appears the contrast to the beginning of John’s ministry in the wilderness of Judaea just north of the Dead Sea. This, too, was a most effective setting, considering his isolated youth spent “in the deserts” guided by the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:15, Luke 1:80). But to begin to preach in the wilderness rather than in a crowded city seems a strange, if not an impossible method. The best place for an advertisement or a commercial enterprise is where the most people pass by the most often and the slowest. John obviously chose a location alongside the ford of the Jordan near Jericho, for he was baptizing in the Jordan and carrying on his ministry in the wilderness of Judaea. Here the constant stream of traffic would bring teeming multitudes which would have to halt, at least momentarily, before or after crossing the ford.
Jesus had the advantage of approaching a nation which was already on fire with excited expectation from the proclamations of John that the kingdom of God was about to be established and that the Messiah Himself was even now in the midst. Furthermore, Jesus worked prodigious miracles which were like an alarm bell calling the nation to Him. John had worked no miracles (John 10:41). Thus did the providence of God underscore the mighty miracles of the Messiah. The Jerusalem Campaign The Gospel of John gives us the important in formation as to the early Judaean ministry of Jesus. He thoroughly justifies the abbreviated accounts of the Synoptics by showing that the first miracle of Jesus was worked in Galilee, at Cana, immediately following His return from the temptations in the wilderness and from His brief stay at the scene of John’s ministry where six disciples had been won. John also shows that Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum and spent some days there quietly waiting for the Passover season when He went up to the capital and electrified the nation by cleansing the temple and carrying on a ministry of miracles and preaching at Jerusalem and in Judaea. Thus it might be said that the most dramatic and impressive beginning of His ministry was at Jerusalem. This raises the question that, if a populous and accessible section was required, why was not Jerusalem more desirable than Galilee? John also gives us information on this subject. He shows that the campaign in Jerusalem and Judaea lasted nine months; it was December (“four months until harvest”) when He talked with the Samaritan woman at Sychar (John 4:35). We often wonder whether Jesus did not preach in Hebron, Beersheba, Joppa, Caesarea, and Ptolemais. We do not have any scenes of His ministry located in these cities. But this probably only illustrates again the fact that these are exceedingly brief accounts. How fascinating to think of Jesus preaching in Bethlehem! The Open Country This first campaign in Judaea would have afforded opportunity to evangelize cities such as Hebron, Beersheba, and Joppa. It is doubtful whether Jesus would have carried on a campaign in Caesarea, the Roman capital on the seacoast, for the same reason that He never seems to have preached in Tiberias, the horribly wicked capital of Herod Antipas. He was close enough so that anyone who really desired to see and hear Him could readily come into His presence. There was no reason to accept the handicaps of the vile surroundings at Tiberias. It is this very thing which seems back of the fact that so much of the Galilean campaign was in the open country, on the mountains, or by the lake shore.
Later Judaean Campaign The later Judaean campaign toward the close of Jesus’ ministry also afforded ample opportunity to evangelize cities in the southern sections about Hebron and Gaza. It is rather strange to hear modern archaeologists, waving aloft the results of their explorations in the Negeb, south of the Dead Sea and Palestine, affirm that they can prove that there was in ancient times a considerable population in this part of the Arabian Desert. It is a mere commonplace of the historical records of ancient times that here in the desert south of Palestine was Edom in the Old Testament period and, in the New Testament times, Idumaea. Still farther to the south was Petra and the powerful nation of Arabia. Herod the Great was an Idumaean. His father, Antipater, had risen to power over all Palestine from this region by virtue of the favor of Rome.
Idumaea? The fact that we do not have any record of Jesus’ carrying on any ministry in Idumaea does not close the door to such campaigns. But it seems unlikely for the very reason that Jesus was concentrating where the most could be reached with the greatest effectiveness. The time was short; the campaign was intensive. It also may be significant of the concentration in Galilee that Egypt is not named among the countries from which excited crowds came to join those about Jesus. “His fame went throughout all Syria….There followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan” (Matthew 4:24, Matthew 4:25). Galilee was not only more populous, it was more accessible than the southern part of Palestine, where the desert reared a barrier.
History vs. Theory The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has raised again the question as to why we have no record of Jesus’ preaching to the Essenes. It has been so easy and rather natural to exaggerate the importance of this find of manuscripts. That which would have been an insignificant trifle of written documents when compared with the great wealth of learning in centers such as Jerusalem has been seized as evidence that here in the wilderness of Judaea was the concentration of learning and teachers of Israel. Such perverse and fantastic conclusions afford unbelievers another wild tangent of attack upon the Scripture. The fact that modern scholarship is so elated over this find of manuscripts only underscores our ignorance of how vast a supply of such manuscripts would have been available in the synagogues of Palestine in the first century, and especially in the temple. The efforts to make out that John the Baptist would have studied under the Essenes at Qumran are so desperate that they who construct such theories even think it worthwhile to mention such arguments that their manual mentions a teacher of the Essene community. The attempts to argue that Jesus secured His wisdom and program from the Essenes meet the stone wall of no mention whatsoever of this sect in the New Testament. The obvious conclusion of their argument is that this was deliberate deceit on the part of the Gospel writers; they not only borrowed their ideas and practices from the Essenes, but even refused to mention the existence of this sect in order to conceal their plagiarism!
We have in this whole discussion the continual conflict between those who exalt the plain, historical testimony of the writers of the period and those archaeologists who attempt from their chance findings to piece together their own conflicting re-creation of the history of the period. It is very much like the effort to pick up chance circumstantial evidence and use it at a court trial to deny the steady, intelligent, harmonious testimony of responsible eyewitnesses. When the history is furnished to us by the inspired writers of the Bible, the effort of some modern archaeologists to deny the accounts becomes the more erratic and perverse.
It is most important that we have both in Josephus and Philo testimony concerning the Essenes from contemporary writers. They make it clear that this was an exotic sect which by its very isolation, after the fashion of monks in the Middle Ages, lay outside the main current of life in Palestine of the first century. If any of the Essenes wanted to hear Jesus, He was accessible in various campaigns. There was no need to shunt the mighty campaign into such a short circuit as a ministry to the Essenes. The effort of many modern writers to make the Essenes the teachers of the nation and the originators of the ideas and practices of the New Testament is a typical example of fantastic imagination. Because some Messianic expectation is expressed in the Qumran documents, they, and not John the Baptist, become the voice in the wilderness!
Hostility in Jerusalem In describing how it came to pass that Jesus closed His first campaign in Judaea and turned His evangelistic efforts to Galilee, John gives valuable information as to the reason for the change: “When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John...He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee” (John 4:1, John 4:3). The growing importance of the campaign of Jesus caused the Pharisees to shift the spearhead of their attack from their bitter enemy, John the Baptist, to this new and more menacing foe, Jesus of Nazareth. Because He must have time to evangelize the nation before the final tragedy of His death, Jesus retired before the increasing plots of assassination. This explains the retirement from Judaea, which was in harmony with similar retirements during the Galilean campaign, but it does not explain the choice of Galilee among the provinces which would afford less bitter hostility and more earnest consideration of His teaching, miracles, and claims. But Galilee was at once farther removed from the capital than southern Judaea, bordering on Idumaea, and was more populous and more accessible.
Galilee, a Fertile Field The fact that all but one of the apostles (Judas Iscariot) were from Galilee is not to be explained merely by the locale of His great ministry. Six of these men had been star students under John the Baptist and had been called to be with Jesus at the Jordan immediately after the period of the temptation. They seem indicative of a deep religious devotion and a strong Messianic expectation in Galilee. The concentration of the Zealots in Galilee and the tempestuous atmosphere they created of rebellion against Rome were also strong evidence of the Messianic fervor of a worldly variety which was found in Galilee. Here the people would not be so closely bound by the prejudiced leadership of the Pharisees and would be a more fertile field for the sowing of the good seed of the kingdom.
Gentiles in Galilee
Meditating upon the extraordinary title Isaiah uses, “Galilee of the Gentiles,” one is moved to wonder just what Isaiah meant by this phrase. Was he using a title with particular meaning to his own generation as the fall of the northern kingdom had produced the infiltration of this whole region by Gentile exiles transplanted here by Assyria? Was this a typical prediction with facets for changing situations through the centuries? Was this one of those prophecies whose fuller meaning was veiled from the prophet himself? In the long, hard struggle to win back Galilee from the Gentiles after the return from Babylon, had come sudden, dramatic climaxes when all the Jews would have to be brought hurriedly out of Galilee to Jerusalem for their own safety. Galilee was a sort of outpost which was hard to secure and maintain.
Matthew in quoting this prophecy from Isaiah plainly sets forth that the Gentile population of Galilee was numerous and powerful in the first century. He cites the prophecy as having specific fulfillment in the ministry of Jesus. There were, of course, the Roman garrisons at key points. But these would be placed all over Palestine, and Galilee had a Jewish ruler, Herod Antipas, in contrast to Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea, completely and directly under the Roman procurator. The freedom of trade which prevailed in the Roman Empire would bring a constant flow of Gentiles in and out of Galilee. One wonders how many casual hearers of the sermons of Jesus could have been seen in a multitude listening to His preaching during this campaign, Roman soldiers making a quiet investigation for the hidden reason of such great crowds assembling to hear a Jewish speaker or Gentile traders moved to come and observe because of the general excitement and reports of miracles. Absolute freedom of all who would come and hear Him is constantly in evidence in the Galilean campaign.
Jesus constantly was taking His apostles aside for private instruction, but there was not the slightest effort to shut out Gentiles from attending the public sessions. The campaign was not directed to the Gentiles. The severe instructions which Jesus gave to the apostles, as they were sent out on their missionary campaign, to concentrate their efforts on evangelizing the Jews and not to go into any city of the Samaritans or Gentiles, make this clear. The brief ministry among the Samaritans at Sychar had been an isolated exception in Jesus’ procedure. The Gentiles who came to Jesus for miraculous aid, such as the centurion of Capernaum and the Syro-Phoenician woman, were clearly rare exceptions. The strong Gentile element in the population was especially evident in Peraea. The section of Galilee east of the sea and of the Jordan River was famous for its Greek culture. Decapolis is a Greek word which means “ten cities,” and the title specifies a commercial league of ten cities. The only one of these cities west of the Jordan was Bethshean. It served as the commercial outlet to the West. The imposing ruins of the Greco-Roman architecture in these cities give further evidence of the Gentile element and influence. It is significant that this section east of the Jordan is the last part of Galilee to be reached by Jesus in the Galilean campaign. The feeding of the five thousand was on the northeastern side of the sea, but the crowd came largely from the west, following Him from Capernaum and the neighboring cities. The feeding of the four thousand, however, was at the southeastern end of the lake and represented the climax of a ministry devoted particularly to this Decapolis region. The first approach to this section met with rebuff when the Gadarene demoniac was healed, and Jesus was asked to leave after the drowning of the swine. But the evangelistic work of this man in the region had changed the attitude toward Christ when He returned some months later.
Evangelistic Methods The method of the Galilean campaign combined strong concentration of effort in one central, carefully selected location with wide-sweeping, rapid-moving evangelistic campaigns over the entire province. Capernaum was made the headquarters of the campaign. Peter’s home was sufficient to accommodate a crowd which flowed out into the street and blocked the neighborhood. The synagogue was the scene of most exciting encounters with the Pharisees. On some occasions the local Pharisees were reinforced by shock troops sent out from the capital to attempt to entrap Jesus and upset His campaign. The reader of the Gospel narratives is moved to wonder why any of the services should have been held in the home of Peter (with the Pharisees in the front row ready to heckle and offer objections) when the synagogue was open seven days a week. Perhaps the violence of the opposition may have caused such changes of meeting, or the greater freedom that was found may have made it desirable. The weather undoubtedly caused changed methods to meet the rainy, cold weather of winter. The great gatherings of crowds in the out-of-doors on the mountains or by the lake shore would have been in the favorable weather. During all His campaigns there is strong evidence that Jesus selected carefully the locations for these services so that a natural amphitheater would afford the very best acoustics and view.
Jesus resisted the efforts that were made to get Him to concentrate His campaign exclusively in Capernaum or at any other location. This was the mistake which Peter made when he pursued Jesus into the desert, where the Master had spent the early morning hours in prayer. Peter rebuked Him because He was now late for the service in the crowded synagogue in Capernaum, where the excited crowd impatiently awaited His arrival (Mark 1:35-39). Jesus calmly assured Peter that He was not continuing His campaign in Capernaum now: “Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth.” It is evident that these sudden changes of movement from concentration in one city to rapid evangelization of a large area were brought about by the prevailing atmosphere.
Sudden Moves When the excitement became so great that the people were more interested in seeing miracles than in hearing the message which explained the purpose of the miracles and the nature of His whole campaign, then Jesus moved on into another section and allowed the excitement to quiet down. When the people were in a calm and thoughtful mood, He would return and renew His campaign. Without doubt the efforts of the Zealots to seize and use His campaign for their own worldly ideas and plans caused Jesus to shift His location or change His methods on a number of occasions. These sudden changes were usually achieved by a departure by boat, which would permit only a very few to follow Him, or by disappearance in the night so that in the morning no one of the crowd would know where He was or when He would come again. They would be compelled to resume their work and to wait patiently for His return. It is interesting to observe that only on “the busy day” of Jesus’ Galilean campaign, which began with the sermon in parables and ended with the healing of the Gadarene demoniac on the eastern shore of the lake, do we have specific mention that other boats put out from the northwestern shore and followed Him as He started across the lake toward the east.
Financial Support
Financial support for this Galilean campaign came from a group of devoted followers. The needs of the thirteen evangelists at work at one time when the apostles were sent forth on their simultaneous campaigns were supplied by the people to whom they ministered (Matthew 10:9-15). But there were occasions when they went forth into the desert or into hostile territory and would need at least a moderate supply of bread. They were accustomed to buying such supplies (John 4:8; Matthew 16:5). Jesus was constantly being entertained in the homes of people of the community where He was preaching. Because we have such fascinating descriptions of scenes in the homes of Pharisees or publicans where Jesus was entertained for dinner, we are not to conclude that this was the ordinary experience of His campaigns. It is rather because these occasions were so unusual and so provocative of exciting reactions and happenings that we have these records. The Pharisees and the publicans, at the opposite extremes of society, were both wealthy and would have the spacious homes for entertaining a large group. But we must balance these occasions off against the many times that Jesus would be in the homes of devoted disciples who were poor and obscure. The scenes in the homes of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and of Simon the leper in Bethany are noteworthy.
Rugged Veterans
There were undoubtedly many times when these rugged campaigners would sleep on the ground by a campfire in the open or by the roadside because no haven of refuge was open to them. Jesus told His apostles when they were rejected in one city to go to another to find shelter and a place to preach. But the journey to this new location might have been full of such hardships. It is characteristic of the entire account that such minor details as hardships of this kind are brushed aside and left without even any mention, with the rare exception of Jesus’ warning to the scribe who proposed to follow Him in His campaign: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20). The refusal of the Samaritans to allow Jesus to remain in their village, which stirred the righteous indignation of James and John, is another indication of how rugged the life was in His swift-moving campaign.
Devoted Women
Luke lists a group of women, “Mary Magdalene, Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance” (Luke 8:1-3). This is mentioned in immediate connection with a summary of one of the wide, swift campaigns through Galilee. “He went throughout every village and city, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him” (Luke 8:1). The needs of the group were simple, but it must have taken some funds for such a campaign. These were evidently women of wealth (one of them was the wife of the prime minister of Herod Antipas) and gave of their means to support the campaign. Later on, a treasury was kept with Judas Iscariot in charge, and the excess of funds above those required for their simple needs was given to the poor (John 12:4-6). The Apostles in the Campaign When Peter had left all and followed Jesus, we are not to suppose that his wife and mother-in-law (and any others that may have been in the household) were left without a roof over their head. The home in Capernaum was still there. Peter’s mother-in-law was sick of a fever, was healed, and then went back to her ministering to the needs of the group, which included a large number of men for dinner. The home no longer belonged to Peter. It belonged to Christ. Peter did not put his boat up for sale as he left all to follow Jesus. This boat was the financial investment on which his fishing business had been based. It now belonged to Christ. On one occasion after another it was at the command of Jesus. Even when Jesus had been campaigning for a considerable time through Galilee and then suddenly returned to His headquarters at Capernaum, the boat would be ready at His service. Someone must have taken care of that boat. It would take constant effort and care for a boat to be ready part of the time for fishing and part of the time for preaching. Peter’s family evidently was not left without means of support. Perhaps an uncle or some other relative told Peter that he would take over the fishing business and the maintenance of the home. He, too, would gladly have left all to follow the Messiah, but he was getting old now and Jesus was assembling rugged, young men ready for the burdens, the trials, and hazards of the future. At least he could help out by manning this second line of defense. There must have been a host of such humble disciples in this second line of support, men who were eagerly present in the crowds listening to Jesus when this was possible and at all times doing their part to support the great campaign.
“Galilee of the Gentiles” was the chosen field where most of the evangelistic effort of Jesus was devoted. Here in the free air of the provinces where men were less bound by the traditions and prejudices of the scribes, the glorious good news of the kingdom of the King was proclaimed. Here where He had been reared by the providence of God, Jesus had gone forth to reveal and prove His divine identity.