Matthew 4:17

From that time Jesus began to preach. — We have in these words St. Matthew’s record of the commencement of our Lord’s Galilean ministry. It is important to remember that it had been preceded by a ministry of some months in Judæa; that that ministry had been outwardly like that of the Baptist (John 4:1); and that He had withdrawn from it upon John’s imprisonment because He knew that His own growing fame had attracted the notice of the Pharisees. Taking the data given by John 2:13; John 2:23; John 5:1; and John 6:4, we are able to fix the time of His first appearance as a prophet in His own country in the autumn or winter of the interval between the Passover of A.D. 26 and that of A.D. 27.

Of the usual method of our Lord’s synagogue-preaching, Luke 4:17 gives us a representative example. To read the prophetic lesson for the day, to make that His text, to proclaim the necessity of repentance and the good news of forgiveness following on repentance, to bear His witness that “the kingdom of heaven” was not in the far-off future, but nigh at hand, in the midst of them — this we must believe was, at this time, as ever, the substance of His teaching and preaching. (See Notes on Matthew 4:23.)