Luke 20:1

Note

This is the last time Luke's Gospel uses the verb for bringing good news. The first time was in the temple, at the altar of incense (Luke 1:19); the last is in the temple too. A few days before the cross, Jesus is there teaching the people and proclaiming the gospel.

After entering Jerusalem Jesus drove the sellers out of the temple, saying, "It is written: ‘My house will be a house of prayer’" (Luke 19:46). From then on He taught there every day; the leaders wanted to kill Him but could find no way, "because all the people hung on His words" (Luke 19:48). This verse is one of those days. The chief priests, the scribes and the elders, the three groups that made up the council, come and demand, "by what authority are You doing these things, and who gave You this authority?" (Luke 20:2). Jesus answers with a question about John's baptism, from heaven or from men, and when they will not answer, He does not tell them either. In Luke the first human being to bring good news was John (Luke 3:18); here, at the verb's last appearance, John's name comes back.

The verb euangelizomai is a present middle participle, euangelizomenou, set beside another, didaskontos, "teaching," both in the genitive: a clause that tells what was going on when something else happened. Jesus was in the middle of teaching and proclaiming the gospel when the leaders arrived. The same pair of verbs comes back in Acts, of the apostles: "Every day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they did not stop teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ" (Acts 5:42). The place is the hieron, the whole temple precinct with its courts, not the sanctuary that only priests could enter.

The KJV reads "as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel," the LSV "as He is teaching the people in the temple, and proclaiming good news." The BSB's "temple courts" makes plain what the Greek word covers: Jesus, who was not a priest, taught where the people gathered, in the open courts. All three render the verb with "gospel" or "good news" here, and the KJV's "preached the gospel" is the plainest form of the phrase.

In the Catena Eusebius hears in the leaders' question the claim that only those of Levi's line had authority to teach and power over the sacred buildings, and answers that if they had known the Scriptures, "you would have called to mind that this is the Priest after the order of Melchisedec" Eusebius. Bede explains why Jesus answered with a question: He did it "that by their silence or their words they might condemn themselves" Bede. Matthew Henry warns that "Men often pretend to examine the evidences of revelation, and the truth of the gospel, when only seeking excuses for their own unbelief and disobedience" Matthew Henry.

In His last days before the cross Jesus was still proclaiming the gospel, and the work did not stop when His opponents stood in front of Him. The news goes on being told even while its hearers argue with it.