Скачать или смотреть Topic Video: The Surprising People Jesus Saved

In Jesus’ day, people expected salvation to be reserved for the powerful and the righteous. But Jesus surprised everyone by extending grace to those society overlooked — Gentiles, sinners, women, and the poor. Want to learn more? Be sure to check out today’s topic video!

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In Jesus’ day, no one would have been surprised if he had offered salvation to those that held places of honor or power within society. And no one would have marveled if he had condemned the people that Jewish society already despised — people that God apparently passed over for blessing, because of some failing on their part. But that’s not what Jesus did.

For our purposes, we’ll limit ourselves to looking at Luke’s gospel and just four surprising types of people that Jesus did save, and to the surprising honor and status he gave them, beginning with the Gentiles.

By the time Luke wrote his gospel, the Christian church throughout the world consisted largely of Gentile converts. But the Jews in Israel’s day typically looked down on Gentiles as being excluded from the primary blessings of God’s kingdom. So, throughout his gospel, he called attention to those places where salvation had been extended to the Gentiles, in fulfillment of the hopes and ideals of the Old Testament.

For example, in Luke 7:9, Jesus said of a Roman centurion:

I have not found such great faith even in Israel.

Luke also noted that the Samaritans, whom the Jews counted as their enemies, could also be saved. For instance, in Luke 17:11-19, Jesus healed ten lepers, but the only leper to return and thank him was a Samaritan. And only Luke recorded the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which the Samaritan was an example of neighborly love.

The second surprising type of people that received salvation was sinners.

Now, in an important sense, all human beings are sinners. But there were some people in Jesus’ day whose sins were so great and so public that these people were essentially ostracized by Jewish society, like the immoral woman, and Zacchaeus the tax collector. Tax collectors were sinners because they made their living by charging their countrymen exorbitant tax rates that were not required by the government. But Jesus came to save even them. He was eager to grant salvation to anyone who repented in faith.

The third surprising group of people that are saved is women.

In the ancient Eastern Mediterranean world where Jesus lived, women didn’t have many rights in society, and they weren’t highly valued. But in Luke chapter 8:41-53, Jesus healed Jairus’ daughter and the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years. He also showed great compassion toward widows, who in the ancient patriarchal society had no help and virtually no hope.

One of Luke’s most dramatic teaching techniques that highlighted the salvation of women was contrasting humble women with proud male religious leaders. For instance, in Luke 13:14-15, Jesus called the ruler of the synagogue a hypocrite, while in the very next verse he called a crippled woman “a daughter of Abraham.” We find a similar contrast in Luke 7:37-50, where Jesus accepted the adoration of an immoral woman while condemning the proud Pharisee Simon.

The fourth surprising type of people that are saved is the poor.

Listen to Luke 4:18, where Jesus read from Isaiah 61:1:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

Luke was the only gospel writer to report this event. And he included it as a model for Jesus’ entire ministry.

“The Gospel of Luke presents Jesus as the glorious Son of God who came to earth as the loving Savior of the world. He extends the good news of God’s salvation to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, wealth or status. In his own day, Luke’s gospel assured Gentile Christians that they hadn’t made a mistake by following a Jewish messiah. And the same is true in every age.”

Dr. Pete Alwinson, Founder, FORGE Ministries