Morning reading Luke 5:

Luke 5 kicks off by comparing the early lives of Jesus and John the Baptist and talking about Jesus’ qualifications for ministry. Then, Luke dives into Jesus’ Galilean Ministry, where he’s busy kicking out demons, healing people, and teaching. He also shows how some folks aren’t too thrilled about Jesus’ actions.

Now, Luke doesn’t follow a strict timeline in his Gospel, but he focuses on specific themes. He gives examples of Jesus’ authority and then tells us about how Jesus handpicks His first bunch of disciples, like Peter, Andrew, James, and John. These guys witness some amazing miracles and decide to follow Jesus.

Luke also tells us about the healing of a leper and a paralyzed man. In both cases, Jesus does something incredible and shows off His power. He even calls Levi, a tax collector, to join His crew, which gets some religious folks all riled up.

Luke highlights Jesus’ willingness to hang out with sinners and takes a jab at the religious leaders’ strict adherence to the law. He emphasizes that Jesus’ message is about grace, forgiveness, and repentance, not all those rules and regulations.

Later on, Luke tackles the topic of the Sabbath and how Jesus challenges conventional thinking. He wraps up by showing the crowd what it means to be a true disciple and invites them, and us, to build our lives around Jesus.

Biggest area that jumped out for me was the healing of leprosy. I think about how God washes away all our sins too to make us clean. The fact he begged Jesus is humbling (in NKJ it says “implored”). Do we beg or implore Him to forgive us? We should.