Luke 5:17-39

5:17-19 | The actions of these men teach that real friends use every means possible to bring people to Jesus.

5:20-26 | No human being has the authority or the power to forgive sins, since all sin is an offense against God (Ps. 51:4). The religious leaders refused to grasp that Jesus was God in the flesh, with both the authority and power to forgive sin.

5:27-28 | God calls people in the daily tasks of life. Jesus called Levi as he sat in his tax office; He used a boat to teach Peter a lesson and used fishing to illustrate His call on Peter’s life; He called one woman by a well (John 4), others in the temple, and still others in private dwelling places.

5:29-30 | A disciple is a person who does something about what he or she hears. Levi met Jesus and immediately invited his fellow tax collectors and others to meet Him.

5:31-32 | Jesus cited a common proverb to explain that, as the Great Physician, He came to heal the spiritually sick. Those who do not believe they are sick, like the scribes and Pharisees, do not seek the Physician’s care and therefore cannot be healed. Part of the spiritual “medicine” the Lord prescribes is repentance. Since the religious leaders refused this medicine, they should expect no cure.

5:33-35 | People often connected the ministries of Jesus and John the Baptist, and questioned the differences between the two. John’s ministry prepared the way for Jesus, like preparing for a banquet. But Jesus’ ministry fulfilled all the preparation. It was the celebration!

5:36-39 | In Jesus’ day people stored wine in wineskins – goatskins sewn into a watertight bag. New wine had to be put into a new wineskin so that the skin could expand as the wine fermented and expanded. A used skin would break if it held new wind. The Pharisees were like old wineskins – they could not expand their traditions, rules, and understanding to accommodate Jesus as their Messiah.

5:38 | Jesus came to bring a new way of life based on His work and faith in His name. To follow Jesus requires a radical break with the old way of life; any attempt to mix the old with the new is bound to fail, bringing a worse situation than previously existed (Heb. 10:11-23).