A Study In Luke - Day 1

Day 1 - Luke 5:1-4

5 One day, as Jesus was preaching on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, great crowds pressed in on him to listen to the word of God. 2 He noticed two empty boats at the water’s edge, for the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. 3 Stepping into one of the boats, Jesus asked Simon, its owner, to push it out into the water. So he sat in the boat and taught the crowds from there.

4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.”

Chapter 5 begins a section where we see Jesus about to call his first disciples. He is preaching by the village of Gennesaret; the sea was sometimes called this. However, Gennesaret was a town on the Sea of Galilee, so it was sometimes used as a pseudonym for what we know as the Sea of Galilee.
 
Jesus was preaching to great crowds, and he saw an opportunity to stand back from the crowd and teach from the boats. This would have been easier, and the water would have helped carry his words further.

However, as he was preaching, he noticed that the fishermen were still on the boats, and they had not caught any fish.
 
It must have been strange interacting with the fisherman at first. He was preaching to a large crowd on the seashore, and he just moved into one of the boats. What were they thinking? Would you have done that, commandeered a boat for your purposes? It seems aggressive, well, at least assertive of Jesus. However, it was needed at the time so people could hear the words he had to say to them.

The synoptic Gospel of Matthew says this is where Jesus starts to tell the parable of the sower. (Matthew 13:2-3). I mention this about Matthew, so you know the importance of Jesus's words that day. And the people were hungry to hear his teaching. Jesus had a way of teaching that pushed people to think differently about faith, God, their lives, and who Jesus actually was.
 
In the same way, Jesus continues to push us to think about things differently than we have before. His grace has consistently been given, and it has always changed our lives. When we find ourselves in ruts with our thinking or understanding of the world, all we have to do is look back into Jesus's life, and our priorities are reorganized.

1. How has grace changed your perspective on things in your life? 
2. Does it surprise you that Jesus was already so popular a speaker? 
3. Would you have traveled far to hear the words that Jesus had to say?