February 2023
Jesus Begins His Ministry
INTO THE WORD
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Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, as important as it was, served as the first step in the fulfillment of God’s plan to bring full and final salvation to His people. Much more would need to be done to redeem us from slavery to sin, death, and Satan. Jesus would have to receive the messianic anointing, succeed where Adam failed, and begin exercising His reign as covenant Mediator through His teaching and healing ministry so as to prepare Him to purchase our redemption through the cross and resurrection.
This month, our study of Luke’s gospel takes us to Luke 3–4, which records the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. We will consider the role of John the Baptist as our Lord’s herald and how the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus according to His humanity in His own baptism. These chapters also show us how Jesus is the Savior of the world and help us understand the full scope of our redemption by presenting His refusal to give in to the devil’s temptation and the basics of His teaching and healing labors.
Jesus’ ministry occurred within a particular theological context. Dr. R.C. Sproul’s teaching series What Did Jesus Do? will give us some key theological principles behind our Savior’s work.
These verses parallel the themes of the studies each week. We encourage you to hide them in your heart so that you may not sin against the Lord:
Abiding in the Word
- Zechariah 13:9
- Matthew 5:17
- Luke 4:36
- Psalm 8:6