October 7, 2025 • 28 mins
JesusX30 Challenge—Scene 7: THE ADVANCE
1. Key Texts
• Mark 1:14–15 – Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom (“The Empire of God is near”).
• Luke 4:14–30 – Nazareth synagogue address.
• John 4:46–54 – Healing of the royal official’s son.
• Isaiah 61:1–2 – Messianic mission statement.
• Leviticus 25 – Jubilee background.
2. Outline / Notes
Date & Place
• Fall–Winter 27/28 AD.
• Capernaum – Fishing/trade hub on the Via Maris linking Egypt & Damascus.
• Chosen by Jesus as his campaign base—a crossroads of people, power, and ideas.
Main Account
• After meeting the Samaritan woman (John 4), Jesus relocates to Capernaum.
• Proclaims: “The Empire of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.”
• “Kingdom” = not escapism but a counter-empire confronting Rome’s rule.
• Heals a royal official’s son (John 4:46–54) from a distance—authority beyond space and ritual; creates an unexpected ally in Herod’s circle.
• Returns to Nazareth, reads Isaiah 61: Good news to the poor… freedom for prisoners… sight for the blind… and declares it fulfilled.
• Announces a Jubilee revolution—social, economic, spiritual reset.
• Hometown rejects him, tries to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:29).
• Back in Capernaum, he heals, teaches, recruits—including Matthew the tax collector—signaling no one is beyond inclusion.
• Builds a grassroots movement of fishermen, laborers, women, and outcasts.
Meanwhile
• Capernaum’s location made it a strategic hub—Jesus’ message could spread fast along trade routes.
• Each miracle = mercy + resistance, restoring health and dignity.
• Recruiting outcasts mirrored his message: God’s Empire inverts worldly hierarchies.
• Like Durham’s monastic revival, small places can become enduring centers of faith and renewal.
3. Main Point
• Jesus didn’t just preach—he planned.
• Capernaum became the launchpad of a global revolution built from the margins.
• God’s movement starts at crossroads, not capitals—through faithfulness, not fame.
4. Exegetical Insight
• Mark 1:15 – hē basileia tou theou ēngiken = “God’s kingdom has drawn near”; perfect tense = arrival with ongoing presence.
• Luke 4:18–19 (Isa 61 + Lev 25) = Jubilee of justice & release.
• John 4:50 – ho anthrōpos episteusen tō logō = “The man trusted the word” — logos as creative authority.
• Jesus embodies Temple, Torah, and Jubilee—presence, truth, and justice in one.
5. Reflection Questions
• Where is your Capernaum—the ordinary space God might use as a launchpad?
• How might your neighborhood or work become a crossroads for his Kingdom?
• When have you resisted God’s grace reaching your “outsiders”?
• What would Jubilee—debt release, freedom, restoration—look like where you live?
6. Action Step / Challenge
• Map your own sphere of influence. Where do your paths cross with others?
• Ask: “How can this place become an outpost for God’s Kingdom?”
• Do one act this week that restores dignity or belonging to someone overlooked.
You can buy or borrow the trilogy at:
Hekhal Publishing Co. (look for free samples of each book as well)
Amazon (print or ebook)
Barnes & Noble (print or ebook)
Hoopla (borrow)
Many more booksellers worldwide!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Why would a Carpenter and teacher start a revolution from
a fishing town in the Galilee? Or why would God be OK with the
base of his operations for this grand salvific plan, a plan to
save humanity, a plan that he'd been crafting in heaven since
the beginning of time? Why would he want the base of
operations for this cosmic plan to be housed and located in a
(00:31):
rural, lower tier town, days away from the halls of political
power, economic wealth, social influence?
Why not Jerusalem? Or at least why not somewhere a
little bit flashier? What's up everybody?
I'm Tyson put off. And this is scene 7 of the Jesus
X30 challenge. We're following one day at a
(00:51):
time, the scenes from my books, Jesus, the Strategic Life and
Mission of the Messiah and His Movement.
All three volumes are now in print.
You can find them in print or ebook.
Grab your copies today. Today we're in scene 7 and we're
going to look at how Jesus didn't just land in Capernaum
haphazardly. He chose Capernaum
strategically. This wasn't just kind of a stop
(01:14):
along the way. This was the place where Jesus
relocated his campaign headquarters, as we mentioned in
the previous scene. And what he did there would flip
the social, political, economic and religious expectations of
everyone around him upside down.We're now in the fall of 27 AD
heading into the winter of 27 ADor 28 AD.
(01:37):
The harvest season is in full swing.
Trade is flowing, and so is talk.
Local gossip about Jesus is spreading quickly.
So he's back in the Galilee. He's made a deliberate move to
Capernaum, which is it's a a small, but it's a lively town on
the Sea of Galilee's northwest shore.
It sat along the Via Maris, which was a major international
(02:00):
trade route. People were constantly moving
through, and this meant that word about Jesus could move just
as fast as trade goods. Capernaum was more than just a
convenient location. It had a Roman garrison's, so it
had military and imperial presence.
It had Jewish leadership, tax stations and a thriving
synagogue. So it was a perfect place to
(02:21):
launch a message that would extend outward to the streets
and eventually make it way SouthDown to Judea, to the powers in
Jerusalem. But here again, we see the
strategic nature of Jesus's movement.
He's using geography deliberately, just as he did in
the previous scene when he took his message in his movement
through Samaria and he met the Samaritan woman.
(02:43):
Jesus uses everything, words, actions, geography, encounters,
all with a purpose. And he understands that the
right location is critically important if he wants his
movement to succeed. And it's from here, Capernaum,
where Jesus starts making waves.And you've got to understand,
Jesus doesn't ease into things with safe synagogue approved
(03:05):
sermons. At this point, he's been in
action for 8-9 months, 10 monthsmaybe.
So he comes right out with a bold announcement.
Mark 115, the empire of God is near.
Repent and believe the good news.
This is picking up where John's message and his movement left
off, which Jesus remember kind of made himself a part of and
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then branched out from John's movement to start his own.
And he's carrying the same message for the the empire of
God is near. Repent and believe the good
news. Now this is what I want to talk
about for a moment. We tend to hear that phrase
Kingdom of God, Kingdom of heaven as mostly religious right
For us. It's church language.
(03:48):
It's a churchy phrase. We think of heaven, spiritual
life, spiritual well-being, maybe a personal relationship
with God through Jesus. But in Jesus's day, when you
heard the word Kingdom or betterempire, or in Jesus's language,
if you're interested in hearing it, the way he said it, the
Makuta, the Allaha, the Empire of God, It wasn't a vague
(04:10):
spiritual metaphor. It was a political term.
People lived under the Roman Empire, an empire that demanded
loyalty, collected heavy taxes, controlled your movements, and
declared that Caesar was get this Lord and savior.
So the empire wasn't just about government, it was the air you
breathed, the system you lived in, the power that shaped every
(04:32):
part of life. So when Jesus shows up saying
the empire of God is here, he's not just talking about personal
spirituality. He's announcing that there's a
new reality breaking in, one that challenges the entire Roman
way of running the world. It was like saying there's a new
king, a new way of life. It's starting now.
(04:53):
And that's not the kind of thingRome or the local power is loyal
to. Rome.
They weren't going to ignore that for long.
And then there's a miracle involved.
Early on, John tells us about a royal official probably
connected to Herod Antipas's administration.
And he's not coming for a casualchat.
His son is dying. He can feel the desperation in
(05:17):
the way John tells this story, that this man, he's powerful,
but his power can't fix anythingof this nature.
So he comes to Jesus and he begsit to come home with him and
heal his boy. And Jesus doesn't go.
And I imagine for those looking probably thought, man, Jesus,
what are you doing? But Jesus refuses to go with
him. He doesn't lay hands on the boy.
(05:37):
He doesn't even see the boy. What he does instead is he says,
simply go. Your son will live.
This is in John 450. And somehow, that's enough.
The man takes Jesus at his word,turns around, heads home, and
while he's still on the road, his servants meet him with the
news. The fever's broken.
The boy is fine. They compare notes.
(05:58):
They realize that the healing happened at the exact moment
that Jesus spoke. And here's where it gets really
interesting. Jesus lived in an honor and
chame governed culture. So this wasn't just a feel good
moment for Jesus, or for the man, or for his son or for
people watching on. This was also a moment that
(06:18):
carried social weight. So in that world, if you did a
favor for someone, that created this natural social obligation
between you and the person you did a favor for.
If you did a favor, they were obligated to do a favor in
return. It's just how it worked.
If I gave you a gift, you owed me something in return, OK?
(06:40):
It didn't matter the status if Iwas more powerful or if you were
more powerful, it didn't matter.If I do something for you, you
owe me. If you do something for me, I
owe you. If someone saves your son's
life, you're in a huge debt, notin a transactional, OK, I'm
going to pay you for this act since, but in an ongoing loyalty
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sense, because this is a massivefavor, right?
Relationships were built and maintained this way through this
honor and shame form of relationships, this this favor
giving and favor returning system.
And this official as we talked, he wasn't just some random
villager. He was tied into Herod's
political network and into the Roman world, which means Jesus
(07:23):
now had an ally, or at least someone with influence who would
be maybe a little bit slower to oppose him.
So you've got to think Jesus, he's starting a grassroots
movement. He's starting with people on the
margins, in the fringes, the outsiders, the outcasts, people
without money, without social influence, without sway.
(07:47):
But strategically, he knows he'sgot to get some people on board
in different areas of society and politics and religion, in
the economy. And in this case, he does a
favor for a powerful Roman figure who then may be more
inclined to turn a blind eye, atleast for the moment, if Jesus
(08:08):
goes and he starts stirring the pot up in the Galilee in
Capernaum, where they're both from.
So he does a favor, and he also creates this obligation.
He gets this guy on the hook. He says, I did something
incredible for you. You owe me when the time comes.
And that's not Jesus being manipulative, OK?
(08:28):
It's him being strategic. He's not doing something solely
for the reciprocal obligation that the man would owe him.
He's genuinely healing the boy. But he also knows that the
obligation is part of how this system works and he's using it
to his advantage. He's launching a public mission
in a politically volatile place.Every relationship matters.
(08:50):
Every ally buys him more time before the authorities start to
shut things down. And they're going to he knows
it. He's seen as we talked before,
there were dozens of so-called messiahs and revolutionaries and
insurgents that came from the Galilee before and during and
after Jesus lifetime. So Jesus knows how things work.
(09:10):
He knows that the authorities are eventually going to shut his
movement down, and so he's creating time so that he can
build his movement up before things really get heated and
before he goes to the cross. He knows he needs a movement in
place before all of that happens, so he's buying time.
After this, Jesus makes his way back to his hometown, Nazareth.
(09:31):
Nazareth is a tiny hill village,just a short, just a short walk
from where he is now in Capernaum.
Luke says it's the Sabbath. We're in Luke 4 and Jesus goes
through the synagogue. That's his custom.
Synagogue was the center of community life, part place of
worship, part school, part town hall.
(09:53):
It's where you heard the scriptures read, where you
discussed the law, where news was shared, where events were
held and when. A hometown boy who's been making
headlines, he's been hitting thenew circuits and, and showing up
viral on social media. When he shows up back home, you
can imagine the buzz in the room.
So naturally he's, he's established himself as a
(10:13):
teacher, as a rabbi by this point.
And they hand him the scroll of Isaiah.
It's fall. It's time to read this portion
of the lectionary, the Isaiah scroll.
And so Jesus finds the place he wants to read Isaiah 61, and he
begins to read one of my favorite texts of all time.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to
(10:36):
proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
freedom for the prisoners in recovery of sight, for the blind
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor. Isaiah 61, one to two.
And this is all in Luke 4. And then he rolls up the scroll,
sits down. This is the posture for
teaching. After you gave the reading, you
(10:58):
would sit down and then give thelecture.
You would expand on it. And Jesus says today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
In other words, this is happening right here, right now
through me. That's his mission statement.
This is basically Jesus's thesis, his motto.
If he were branding shirts and Ilike to, to print shirts.
(11:22):
If he were like me and printing shirts, he would, he would, he
would attach this as his motto to his T-shirts.
That's his mission statement. And at first people are
impressed. They they're like, man, this is
awesome. You read the right text.
You gave a good explanation. Keep going.
But then Jesus starts talking about how God's blessings that
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they've always gone to the outsiders too, and not just our
own people group, not just my own community, not just my own
political group, not just my ownsegment of society.
And and immediately that flips the mood of the synagogue.
By the end of the scene of Luke 4, this synagogue gathering is
they're, they're so angry that they literally try to run him
(12:05):
out of town and throw him off a Cliff.
So at first to the hometown crowd, they're amazed they've
known Jesus since he was a kid. And then he starts explaining
what this means. And he points out that in the
days of Elijah and Elijah, God'sblessings went to Gentile
outsiders to, to, to people who don't belong to us.
While plenty of people who do belong to us, plenty of the
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Israelites of the time went without.
And that's when the room turns. They're not hearing local boy
makes good. They're hearing local boy says
God's blessing belongs to our enemy.
By the end of the story, Luke 416 to 30, this group is so
enraged that they literally try to throw him off a Cliff.
And that's, that's a hard homecoming for Jesus.
(12:50):
But it tells us something important.
I think that Jesus wasn't interested in coming back as a
hometown celebrity. He came back as a prophet.
And prophets don't say what you want to hear.
They say what you need to hear. OK, little side note, too many
prophets out there today on the Internet from the pulpit,
politicians claiming to be speaking on behalf of God.
(13:13):
If they're standing there and telling you it's all good,
telling you what you want to hear, most likely they're wrong
because prophets don't typicallysay what you want to hear.
They say what you need to hear, just like Jesus does here.
So he heads back to Capernaum and he double s down.
And here's something you see over and over in Jesus campaign.
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What Jesus does always has layers.
So on one level it's about genuine compassion, healing,
restoring, lifting up the oppressed.
On another level, it's strategic.
He's not just doing good deeds, He's building a movement.
It's a grassroots movement from the ground up.
That means connecting with as many different kinds of people
from as many different walks of life as possible.
(13:56):
So that synagogue message in Nazareth is a perfect example of
this mode of thinking, this approach to building a movement.
On the surface, it's a real spirit filled critique of the
way society works. OK, Jesus wasn't just giving a
cute little sermon like we take texts like these today.
This was addressing the way people with resources hoard
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them. He's calling God's people back
to the ancient Jubilee command. You remember this in the Old
Testament, in the Levitical law,this was always supposed to be a
law for God's people. It was never practiced, but it
was always supposed to be a law.And Jesus is is calling them
back to this law. And this is the law of Jubilee.
Every 50 years, debts are canceled, land is returned to
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the original owners and the playing field is basically
leveled. The wealthy elite in Jesus day,
just like in ours, I would say, had every reason to ignore it
and they did. It would mean releasing land
would mean releasing their wealth.
Their power had to go back into the hands of the people that
they had spent decades taking itfrom.
OK, so it's basically a generational reset where the
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people who've been trying to survive in the wake of poor
circumstances of their their great grandparents and great,
great grandparents and difficultcircumstances that they had been
facing on their own. There was a reset.
And people who had abused the system and had had hoarded
wealth and hoarded power, they had to basically return it to
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the people they had originally taken it from.
OK, this is this is Jubilee. It was established in the
Levitical law. It was repeated among the
prophets. And here in Isaiah, Isaiah
saying basically in Isaiah 61, he's looking forward to the
Messiah. And he's saying, hey, look, you
guys have never put this law into practice, this massive
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economic and social and religious and political reset.
You've never done it. But there's coming a time when
the Messiah will establish this.This is not just spiritual
forgiveness, the release of spiritual imprisonment and
debts. This is a complete physical,
tangible, economic, social, religious and political reset.
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And Jesus comes along and he reads from that text in Isaiah
and he says, look, I'm here to establish this.
Yes, I'm concerned with the Kingdom of God in eternity, but
I'm also concerned with the Kingdom of God being established
here on earth right now, here today.
And here's what that Kingdom looks like.
It looks like reset. It looks like if you're in
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power, you relinquish that power.
If you, it looks like if you've hoarded wealth and you're a
billionaire, you relinquish thatwealth and you give back to the
community. It's a complete reset, physical,
tangible and spiritual. And Jesus knew most of the rich
and powerful weren't going to suddenly just say, Oh yeah, and
they're going to dismantle theirown privilege.
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And here's another layer. So by saying this out loud from
Scripture and tying it directly to the Messiah's mission, he's
basically lighting a fire in thehearts of the people.
This is strategic again. He's lighting a fire in the
hearts of the people who had been crushed under those systems
and generationally have been just smashed even further into
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the ground. And it was a way of saying God
hasn't forgotten you. This is the kind of Kingdom I'm
bringing. And that message is going to
spread. People are going to talk about
that sermon. And many of them would follow
Jesus because he was promising freedom from the economic and
social machinery that it kept them down their whole lives.
And that same strategic streak shows up in the way Jesus
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chooses his followers. OK, back in Capernaum, Jesus
calls Matthew Levi, he's a tax collector to join his inner
circle. You got to understand, tax
collectors weren't just sinners in some moral or religious
sense. They weren't just non Christians
or non Jews. They were despised because they
were collaborators with Rome. They were literally taking money
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from God's people to fund the empire.
That was at the same time oppressing God's people.
Having a tax collector in your core, that was a risky move, and
it made the religious establishment really suspicious.
But strategically, this was a brilliant move on the part of
Jesus, and it sent a signal to Jesus's movement wasn't going to
be built from the religious elite down.
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It was going to be built from the margins up.
You could be a wealthy and powerful tax collector, but you
were still on the margins. If a tax collector could find a
place in God's Kingdom, so couldanyone.
And practically, it also meant Jesus had someone who understood
the inner workings of the imperial tax system, trade
routes, the economic policies, information that could be useful
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in navigating the political realities of the Galilee and of
the broader Mediterranean world.And the self appointed
gatekeepers. They were welcome, but they were
welcome on Jesus terms. Everybody's welcome, but you're
welcome on Jesus terms. Hitting chase after those
already sitting comfortably in positions of power.
He told him plainly that if theywanted in, they had to become
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like the very people they'd spent their lives keeping out.
The poor, the unclean, the unwanted.
Later we're going to see children.
If you're up here and you're keeping people out and you're
hoarding wealth and you're hoarding power and you're using
it to support yourself in your own, 'cause you're welcome in
the movement, but you've got to drop all of that and become like
the people that you've always tried to ostracize.
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The gatekeepers had access to Jesus, but they had to cross the
lines that they themselves had drawn and staying shoulder to
shoulder with those they once excluded from the synagogues,
from the temple courts, and fromthe safe spaces inside the city
walls. So what Jesus was doing in
Capernaum wasn't just a string of like feel good moment, it was
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a deliberate shift in the direction of his mission.
His miracles weren't just randombursts of kindness, they were
strategic. In the ancient world, sickness
or disability wasn't only viewedas a medical condition, it was a
social sentence. If you were sick, possessed,
disabled, you were, you were pushed to the margins
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automatically. Every healing Jesus performed
didn't just restore. For health, it restored place,
dignity, belonging. Think about the centurion's
servant. The centurion represented the
occupying empire. Healing his servant wasn't just
compassion. It built an unexpected bridge
between two enemies. Or Matthew, the tax collector.
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Recruiting him wasn't just aboutpersonal redemption.
It was a public statement that Rome's collaborators could be
redeemed and included. Also, each move forced Roman and
Jewish authorities to notice what Jesus was doing.
Some quietly supported him. Others began plotting to stop
him. And while these tensions rose,
Jesus just kept moving. He'd gathered part of his core
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team and based himself by this point in Capernaum.
From here, his words and actionsnaturally had a pathway to
travel. They hit the airwaves a lot
easier from here. So what he was doing amounted to
reorganizing society from the bottom up.
Jubilee, the ancient commander, released debts, restore land,
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and reset their social order. It wasn't just a sermon topic.
It was in motion in the person and movement of Jesus.
People who were pushed out for so long were suddenly at the
center. Capernaum wasn't an accident.
It was a crossroads of people, ideas, power, and a living model
for how Jesus wanted God drain to spread.
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He didn't launch in Jerusalem orRome.
He didn't aim for the powerful. He began with Galileans, with
fishermen, Craftsman, traders, farmers, homeless, those who had
been shamed all of their lives, while still forming enough
connections with influential figures to buy the movement some
breathing room. Capernaum became Jesus
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launchpad. This was a physical,
geographical location where Jesus's divine mission and his
strategic planning met together and came together.
I think that raises the questionfor us, what if your town, your
neighborhood, your workplace could be your Capernaum, that
Launchpad location? I think we often think we need
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thousands of followers on socialmedia, a big budget, a platform.
We've got to have dynamic speaking skills to start
something. And I I wrestle with this
myself. My 3 YouTube subscribers, 2 of
them are probably me from old accounts I can't get into
anymore, books moving slowly because I tend to give them away
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instead of sell them social media platforms.
I get on social media every couple years and then delete all
my accounts and start from scratch.
So to my 7 social media followers, thank you.
But impact doesn't begin with scale.
It begins with faithfulness at your own crossroads, even if it
feels small. And maybe the bigger question,
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especially for those of us raised in more conservative
evangelical settings, is this. What if the empire of God isn't
about escaping earth someday? What if the empire of God isn't
just about going to heaven when I die?
What if it's about bringing heaven to earth right now and
reclaiming earth here and now? Jesus Strategy and Capernaum
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shows, I think, that the work starts in real places, with real
people, through mercy and justice and truth.
And it does not begin with the idea that all of this is going
to hell anyway. So I'm just going to look
forward to the time when I can escape.
I think. Here's the challenge.
Look at your own Capernaum, yourown Guinea, as Paul calls it in
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Philippians, your own generation, your community, your
circle. What would it look like to start
building a little outpost of Jesus's movement right here,
right where you are? Jesus didn't start big, He
started strategically. God meets people where they are,
but he doesn't leave systems untouched.
God meets people where they are,but he doesn't leave systems
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untouched. It is about you, it is about me,
It is about my personal salvation.
It is about your personal salvation.
It is about going to heaven whenwe die for eternity, But it's
also about here right now. Jesus didn't spend 2 years
launching a campaign emphasizinghealing the sick, showing mercy,
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enforcing justice, unseating those who use power for personal
gain for us just to ignore that He wants us to start where we
are and expand His Kingdom from there.
I had the privilege of spending several years living and
studying in Durham, up in the northeast of England, while
working on my MA and PhD. And it's interesting because
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Durham is an historic city, but it's not London, it's not
Edinburgh. It's a relatively small city
perched on a hill with the RiverWare wrapping around it like a
kind of a natural Moat. It's it's, it's like a
peninsula. It's also the home to one of the
most stunning cathedrals in the entire world, and a history that
actually reminds me a lot of Capernaum.
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So the the story goes historically, that in the 8th
century, a small community of monks lived out on Lindisfarne,
which was a little tidal island off the northeast coast.
Not far from there, they createdwhat's famously known now as the
Lindisfarne Gospels, and this isa beautiful illuminated
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manuscript of the Gospels. And when the Viking raid started
around this time and the the Vikings started coming across
the sea and and raiding the northeast, these monks living
there on this island grabbed at the book and the body of their
beloved leader, St. Cuthbert, famous St.
And they headed inland and they wandered for years until they
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found Durham. And it wasn't anything at this
time. It wasn't a political capital,
but it was the the perfect spot to settle.
It was on high ground. It had a natural defense in this
river and it was right on a key route between Scotland and
England. They built this massive
cathedral eventually and it and it became this kind of hub for
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faith and for learning in pilgrims.
So worshippers would come from all over the place to see St.
Cuthbert's shrine. Actually, once the the first
week I was there back in 20 years ago, I accidentally took
the scenic route and I was trying to get to my department
and sign some papers and I livedabout a mile outside of town.
I walked into the city, into thecity center and it turned into
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about an 8 hour wandering trek. But in those years, Durham
became more than a place on a map for me.
I made a lot of friendships there.
Still treasure those friendshipstoday.
Marius Michael Ben Hendrick, Sophie.
Every time I've gone back to visit, I've tried to slip into
the cathedral to pray at Cuthbert Shrine.
(26:51):
Over 1000 years later, that sortof out of the way place is still
shaping lives, including mine. This dude from Kansas living in
Oklahoma who studied in a place thousands of miles away, that's
what I think of when I think of Capernaum.
It wasn't Jerusalem, it wasn't Rome, but it was a crossroads.
It was the right location. It allowed Jesus to make the
(27:14):
right relationships, and it provided timing.
And from there, the message wentout to the world.
And Durham still impacts me. And, you know, I know a lot of
others today, just like Capernaum still shapes our faith
now, whether we know it or not. And I think there are a few
things we could take from this. Whether you're in a small town
(27:34):
or a big city, an outsider or aninsider, I think you still need
to know this, that you're not too far from where the
revolution begins. God still chooses locations and
locales that the world of power and prestige almost always
overlook. And I think yours is next.
We started by asking why Jesus would choose a little fishing
(27:54):
town to start something world changing.
I think what we've kind of uncovered in this scene is the
why Capernaum was strategically perfect.
It was strategically perfect forJesus.
And I think wherever you are right now, that is your
Capernaum, and that is where Jesus is calling you to
establish an outpost for his Kingdom, Lake Umad.
(28:19):
Go and learn. Come back for scene 8 of the
Jesus X30 Challenge.
Why would a Carpenter and teacher start a revolution from
a fishing town in the Galilee? Or why would God be OK with the
base of his operations for this grand salvific plan, a plan to
save humanity, a plan that he'd been crafting in heaven since
the beginning of time? Why would he want the base of
operations for this cosmic plan to be housed and located in a
(00:31):
rural, lower tier town, days away from the halls of political
power, economic wealth, social influence?
Why not Jerusalem? Or at least why not somewhere a
little bit flashier? What's up everybody?
I'm Tyson put off. And this is scene 7 of the Jesus
X30 challenge. We're following one day at a
(00:51):
time, the scenes from my books, Jesus, the Strategic Life and
Mission of the Messiah and His Movement.
All three volumes are now in print.
You can find them in print or ebook.
Grab your copies today. Today we're in scene 7 and we're
going to look at how Jesus didn't just land in Capernaum
haphazardly. He chose Capernaum
strategically. This wasn't just kind of a stop
(01:14):
along the way. This was the place where Jesus
relocated his campaign headquarters, as we mentioned in
the previous scene. And what he did there would flip
the social, political, economic and religious expectations of
everyone around him upside down.We're now in the fall of 27 AD
heading into the winter of 27 ADor 28 AD.
(01:37):
The harvest season is in full swing.
Trade is flowing, and so is talk.
Local gossip about Jesus is spreading quickly.
So he's back in the Galilee. He's made a deliberate move to
Capernaum, which is it's a a small, but it's a lively town on
the Sea of Galilee's northwest shore.
It sat along the Via Maris, which was a major international
(02:00):
trade route. People were constantly moving
through, and this meant that word about Jesus could move just
as fast as trade goods. Capernaum was more than just a
convenient location. It had a Roman garrison's, so it
had military and imperial presence.
It had Jewish leadership, tax stations and a thriving
synagogue. So it was a perfect place to
(02:21):
launch a message that would extend outward to the streets
and eventually make it way SouthDown to Judea, to the powers in
Jerusalem. But here again, we see the
strategic nature of Jesus's movement.
He's using geography deliberately, just as he did in
the previous scene when he took his message in his movement
through Samaria and he met the Samaritan woman.
(02:43):
Jesus uses everything, words, actions, geography, encounters,
all with a purpose. And he understands that the
right location is critically important if he wants his
movement to succeed. And it's from here, Capernaum,
where Jesus starts making waves.And you've got to understand,
Jesus doesn't ease into things with safe synagogue approved
(03:05):
sermons. At this point, he's been in
action for 8-9 months, 10 monthsmaybe.
So he comes right out with a bold announcement.
Mark 115, the empire of God is near.
Repent and believe the good news.
This is picking up where John's message and his movement left
off, which Jesus remember kind of made himself a part of and
(03:27):
then branched out from John's movement to start his own.
And he's carrying the same message for the the empire of
God is near. Repent and believe the good
news. Now this is what I want to talk
about for a moment. We tend to hear that phrase
Kingdom of God, Kingdom of heaven as mostly religious right
For us. It's church language.
(03:48):
It's a churchy phrase. We think of heaven, spiritual
life, spiritual well-being, maybe a personal relationship
with God through Jesus. But in Jesus's day, when you
heard the word Kingdom or betterempire, or in Jesus's language,
if you're interested in hearing it, the way he said it, the
Makuta, the Allaha, the Empire of God, It wasn't a vague
(04:10):
spiritual metaphor. It was a political term.
People lived under the Roman Empire, an empire that demanded
loyalty, collected heavy taxes, controlled your movements, and
declared that Caesar was get this Lord and savior.
So the empire wasn't just about government, it was the air you
breathed, the system you lived in, the power that shaped every
(04:32):
part of life. So when Jesus shows up saying
the empire of God is here, he's not just talking about personal
spirituality. He's announcing that there's a
new reality breaking in, one that challenges the entire Roman
way of running the world. It was like saying there's a new
king, a new way of life. It's starting now.
(04:53):
And that's not the kind of thingRome or the local power is loyal
to. Rome.
They weren't going to ignore that for long.
And then there's a miracle involved.
Early on, John tells us about a royal official probably
connected to Herod Antipas's administration.
And he's not coming for a casualchat.
His son is dying. He can feel the desperation in
(05:17):
the way John tells this story, that this man, he's powerful,
but his power can't fix anythingof this nature.
So he comes to Jesus and he begsit to come home with him and
heal his boy. And Jesus doesn't go.
And I imagine for those looking probably thought, man, Jesus,
what are you doing? But Jesus refuses to go with
him. He doesn't lay hands on the boy.
(05:37):
He doesn't even see the boy. What he does instead is he says,
simply go. Your son will live.
This is in John 450. And somehow, that's enough.
The man takes Jesus at his word,turns around, heads home, and
while he's still on the road, his servants meet him with the
news. The fever's broken.
The boy is fine. They compare notes.
(05:58):
They realize that the healing happened at the exact moment
that Jesus spoke. And here's where it gets really
interesting. Jesus lived in an honor and
chame governed culture. So this wasn't just a feel good
moment for Jesus, or for the man, or for his son or for
people watching on. This was also a moment that
(06:18):
carried social weight. So in that world, if you did a
favor for someone, that created this natural social obligation
between you and the person you did a favor for.
If you did a favor, they were obligated to do a favor in
return. It's just how it worked.
If I gave you a gift, you owed me something in return, OK?
(06:40):
It didn't matter the status if Iwas more powerful or if you were
more powerful, it didn't matter.If I do something for you, you
owe me. If you do something for me, I
owe you. If someone saves your son's
life, you're in a huge debt, notin a transactional, OK, I'm
going to pay you for this act since, but in an ongoing loyalty
(07:01):
sense, because this is a massivefavor, right?
Relationships were built and maintained this way through this
honor and shame form of relationships, this this favor
giving and favor returning system.
And this official as we talked, he wasn't just some random
villager. He was tied into Herod's
political network and into the Roman world, which means Jesus
(07:23):
now had an ally, or at least someone with influence who would
be maybe a little bit slower to oppose him.
So you've got to think Jesus, he's starting a grassroots
movement. He's starting with people on the
margins, in the fringes, the outsiders, the outcasts, people
without money, without social influence, without sway.
(07:47):
But strategically, he knows he'sgot to get some people on board
in different areas of society and politics and religion, in
the economy. And in this case, he does a
favor for a powerful Roman figure who then may be more
inclined to turn a blind eye, atleast for the moment, if Jesus
(08:08):
goes and he starts stirring the pot up in the Galilee in
Capernaum, where they're both from.
So he does a favor, and he also creates this obligation.
He gets this guy on the hook. He says, I did something
incredible for you. You owe me when the time comes.
And that's not Jesus being manipulative, OK?
(08:28):
It's him being strategic. He's not doing something solely
for the reciprocal obligation that the man would owe him.
He's genuinely healing the boy. But he also knows that the
obligation is part of how this system works and he's using it
to his advantage. He's launching a public mission
in a politically volatile place.Every relationship matters.
(08:50):
Every ally buys him more time before the authorities start to
shut things down. And they're going to he knows
it. He's seen as we talked before,
there were dozens of so-called messiahs and revolutionaries and
insurgents that came from the Galilee before and during and
after Jesus lifetime. So Jesus knows how things work.
(09:10):
He knows that the authorities are eventually going to shut his
movement down, and so he's creating time so that he can
build his movement up before things really get heated and
before he goes to the cross. He knows he needs a movement in
place before all of that happens, so he's buying time.
After this, Jesus makes his way back to his hometown, Nazareth.
(09:31):
Nazareth is a tiny hill village,just a short, just a short walk
from where he is now in Capernaum.
Luke says it's the Sabbath. We're in Luke 4 and Jesus goes
through the synagogue. That's his custom.
Synagogue was the center of community life, part place of
worship, part school, part town hall.
(09:53):
It's where you heard the scriptures read, where you
discussed the law, where news was shared, where events were
held and when. A hometown boy who's been making
headlines, he's been hitting thenew circuits and, and showing up
viral on social media. When he shows up back home, you
can imagine the buzz in the room.
So naturally he's, he's established himself as a
(10:13):
teacher, as a rabbi by this point.
And they hand him the scroll of Isaiah.
It's fall. It's time to read this portion
of the lectionary, the Isaiah scroll.
And so Jesus finds the place he wants to read Isaiah 61, and he
begins to read one of my favorite texts of all time.
The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to
(10:36):
proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim
freedom for the prisoners in recovery of sight, for the blind
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor. Isaiah 61, one to two.
And this is all in Luke 4. And then he rolls up the scroll,
sits down. This is the posture for
teaching. After you gave the reading, you
(10:58):
would sit down and then give thelecture.
You would expand on it. And Jesus says today this
scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
In other words, this is happening right here, right now
through me. That's his mission statement.
This is basically Jesus's thesis, his motto.
If he were branding shirts and Ilike to, to print shirts.
(11:22):
If he were like me and printing shirts, he would, he would, he
would attach this as his motto to his T-shirts.
That's his mission statement. And at first people are
impressed. They they're like, man, this is
awesome. You read the right text.
You gave a good explanation. Keep going.
But then Jesus starts talking about how God's blessings that
(11:43):
they've always gone to the outsiders too, and not just our
own people group, not just my own community, not just my own
political group, not just my ownsegment of society.
And and immediately that flips the mood of the synagogue.
By the end of the scene of Luke 4, this synagogue gathering is
they're, they're so angry that they literally try to run him
(12:05):
out of town and throw him off a Cliff.
So at first to the hometown crowd, they're amazed they've
known Jesus since he was a kid. And then he starts explaining
what this means. And he points out that in the
days of Elijah and Elijah, God'sblessings went to Gentile
outsiders to, to, to people who don't belong to us.
While plenty of people who do belong to us, plenty of the
(12:28):
Israelites of the time went without.
And that's when the room turns. They're not hearing local boy
makes good. They're hearing local boy says
God's blessing belongs to our enemy.
By the end of the story, Luke 416 to 30, this group is so
enraged that they literally try to throw him off a Cliff.
And that's, that's a hard homecoming for Jesus.
(12:50):
But it tells us something important.
I think that Jesus wasn't interested in coming back as a
hometown celebrity. He came back as a prophet.
And prophets don't say what you want to hear.
They say what you need to hear. OK, little side note, too many
prophets out there today on the Internet from the pulpit,
politicians claiming to be speaking on behalf of God.
(13:13):
If they're standing there and telling you it's all good,
telling you what you want to hear, most likely they're wrong
because prophets don't typicallysay what you want to hear.
They say what you need to hear, just like Jesus does here.
So he heads back to Capernaum and he double s down.
And here's something you see over and over in Jesus campaign.
(13:35):
What Jesus does always has layers.
So on one level it's about genuine compassion, healing,
restoring, lifting up the oppressed.
On another level, it's strategic.
He's not just doing good deeds, He's building a movement.
It's a grassroots movement from the ground up.
That means connecting with as many different kinds of people
from as many different walks of life as possible.
(13:56):
So that synagogue message in Nazareth is a perfect example of
this mode of thinking, this approach to building a movement.
On the surface, it's a real spirit filled critique of the
way society works. OK, Jesus wasn't just giving a
cute little sermon like we take texts like these today.
This was addressing the way people with resources hoard
(14:18):
them. He's calling God's people back
to the ancient Jubilee command. You remember this in the Old
Testament, in the Levitical law,this was always supposed to be a
law for God's people. It was never practiced, but it
was always supposed to be a law.And Jesus is is calling them
back to this law. And this is the law of Jubilee.
Every 50 years, debts are canceled, land is returned to
(14:41):
the original owners and the playing field is basically
leveled. The wealthy elite in Jesus day,
just like in ours, I would say, had every reason to ignore it
and they did. It would mean releasing land
would mean releasing their wealth.
Their power had to go back into the hands of the people that
they had spent decades taking itfrom.
OK, so it's basically a generational reset where the
(15:03):
people who've been trying to survive in the wake of poor
circumstances of their their great grandparents and great,
great grandparents and difficultcircumstances that they had been
facing on their own. There was a reset.
And people who had abused the system and had had hoarded
wealth and hoarded power, they had to basically return it to
(15:24):
the people they had originally taken it from.
OK, this is this is Jubilee. It was established in the
Levitical law. It was repeated among the
prophets. And here in Isaiah, Isaiah
saying basically in Isaiah 61, he's looking forward to the
Messiah. And he's saying, hey, look, you
guys have never put this law into practice, this massive
(15:45):
economic and social and religious and political reset.
You've never done it. But there's coming a time when
the Messiah will establish this.This is not just spiritual
forgiveness, the release of spiritual imprisonment and
debts. This is a complete physical,
tangible, economic, social, religious and political reset.
(16:06):
And Jesus comes along and he reads from that text in Isaiah
and he says, look, I'm here to establish this.
Yes, I'm concerned with the Kingdom of God in eternity, but
I'm also concerned with the Kingdom of God being established
here on earth right now, here today.
And here's what that Kingdom looks like.
It looks like reset. It looks like if you're in
(16:26):
power, you relinquish that power.
If you, it looks like if you've hoarded wealth and you're a
billionaire, you relinquish thatwealth and you give back to the
community. It's a complete reset, physical,
tangible and spiritual. And Jesus knew most of the rich
and powerful weren't going to suddenly just say, Oh yeah, and
they're going to dismantle theirown privilege.
(16:46):
And here's another layer. So by saying this out loud from
Scripture and tying it directly to the Messiah's mission, he's
basically lighting a fire in thehearts of the people.
This is strategic again. He's lighting a fire in the
hearts of the people who had been crushed under those systems
and generationally have been just smashed even further into
(17:07):
the ground. And it was a way of saying God
hasn't forgotten you. This is the kind of Kingdom I'm
bringing. And that message is going to
spread. People are going to talk about
that sermon. And many of them would follow
Jesus because he was promising freedom from the economic and
social machinery that it kept them down their whole lives.
And that same strategic streak shows up in the way Jesus
(17:29):
chooses his followers. OK, back in Capernaum, Jesus
calls Matthew Levi, he's a tax collector to join his inner
circle. You got to understand, tax
collectors weren't just sinners in some moral or religious
sense. They weren't just non Christians
or non Jews. They were despised because they
were collaborators with Rome. They were literally taking money
(17:50):
from God's people to fund the empire.
That was at the same time oppressing God's people.
Having a tax collector in your core, that was a risky move, and
it made the religious establishment really suspicious.
But strategically, this was a brilliant move on the part of
Jesus, and it sent a signal to Jesus's movement wasn't going to
be built from the religious elite down.
(18:11):
It was going to be built from the margins up.
You could be a wealthy and powerful tax collector, but you
were still on the margins. If a tax collector could find a
place in God's Kingdom, so couldanyone.
And practically, it also meant Jesus had someone who understood
the inner workings of the imperial tax system, trade
routes, the economic policies, information that could be useful
(18:35):
in navigating the political realities of the Galilee and of
the broader Mediterranean world.And the self appointed
gatekeepers. They were welcome, but they were
welcome on Jesus terms. Everybody's welcome, but you're
welcome on Jesus terms. Hitting chase after those
already sitting comfortably in positions of power.
He told him plainly that if theywanted in, they had to become
(18:58):
like the very people they'd spent their lives keeping out.
The poor, the unclean, the unwanted.
Later we're going to see children.
If you're up here and you're keeping people out and you're
hoarding wealth and you're hoarding power and you're using
it to support yourself in your own, 'cause you're welcome in
the movement, but you've got to drop all of that and become like
the people that you've always tried to ostracize.
(19:21):
The gatekeepers had access to Jesus, but they had to cross the
lines that they themselves had drawn and staying shoulder to
shoulder with those they once excluded from the synagogues,
from the temple courts, and fromthe safe spaces inside the city
walls. So what Jesus was doing in
Capernaum wasn't just a string of like feel good moment, it was
(19:41):
a deliberate shift in the direction of his mission.
His miracles weren't just randombursts of kindness, they were
strategic. In the ancient world, sickness
or disability wasn't only viewedas a medical condition, it was a
social sentence. If you were sick, possessed,
disabled, you were, you were pushed to the margins
(20:02):
automatically. Every healing Jesus performed
didn't just restore. For health, it restored place,
dignity, belonging. Think about the centurion's
servant. The centurion represented the
occupying empire. Healing his servant wasn't just
compassion. It built an unexpected bridge
between two enemies. Or Matthew, the tax collector.
(20:25):
Recruiting him wasn't just aboutpersonal redemption.
It was a public statement that Rome's collaborators could be
redeemed and included. Also, each move forced Roman and
Jewish authorities to notice what Jesus was doing.
Some quietly supported him. Others began plotting to stop
him. And while these tensions rose,
Jesus just kept moving. He'd gathered part of his core
(20:47):
team and based himself by this point in Capernaum.
From here, his words and actionsnaturally had a pathway to
travel. They hit the airwaves a lot
easier from here. So what he was doing amounted to
reorganizing society from the bottom up.
Jubilee, the ancient commander, released debts, restore land,
(21:07):
and reset their social order. It wasn't just a sermon topic.
It was in motion in the person and movement of Jesus.
People who were pushed out for so long were suddenly at the
center. Capernaum wasn't an accident.
It was a crossroads of people, ideas, power, and a living model
for how Jesus wanted God drain to spread.
(21:29):
He didn't launch in Jerusalem orRome.
He didn't aim for the powerful. He began with Galileans, with
fishermen, Craftsman, traders, farmers, homeless, those who had
been shamed all of their lives, while still forming enough
connections with influential figures to buy the movement some
breathing room. Capernaum became Jesus
(21:50):
launchpad. This was a physical,
geographical location where Jesus's divine mission and his
strategic planning met together and came together.
I think that raises the questionfor us, what if your town, your
neighborhood, your workplace could be your Capernaum, that
Launchpad location? I think we often think we need
(22:10):
thousands of followers on socialmedia, a big budget, a platform.
We've got to have dynamic speaking skills to start
something. And I I wrestle with this
myself. My 3 YouTube subscribers, 2 of
them are probably me from old accounts I can't get into
anymore, books moving slowly because I tend to give them away
(22:32):
instead of sell them social media platforms.
I get on social media every couple years and then delete all
my accounts and start from scratch.
So to my 7 social media followers, thank you.
But impact doesn't begin with scale.
It begins with faithfulness at your own crossroads, even if it
feels small. And maybe the bigger question,
(22:53):
especially for those of us raised in more conservative
evangelical settings, is this. What if the empire of God isn't
about escaping earth someday? What if the empire of God isn't
just about going to heaven when I die?
What if it's about bringing heaven to earth right now and
reclaiming earth here and now? Jesus Strategy and Capernaum
(23:14):
shows, I think, that the work starts in real places, with real
people, through mercy and justice and truth.
And it does not begin with the idea that all of this is going
to hell anyway. So I'm just going to look
forward to the time when I can escape.
I think. Here's the challenge.
Look at your own Capernaum, yourown Guinea, as Paul calls it in
(23:36):
Philippians, your own generation, your community, your
circle. What would it look like to start
building a little outpost of Jesus's movement right here,
right where you are? Jesus didn't start big, He
started strategically. God meets people where they are,
but he doesn't leave systems untouched.
God meets people where they are,but he doesn't leave systems
(23:58):
untouched. It is about you, it is about me,
It is about my personal salvation.
It is about your personal salvation.
It is about going to heaven whenwe die for eternity, But it's
also about here right now. Jesus didn't spend 2 years
launching a campaign emphasizinghealing the sick, showing mercy,
(24:18):
enforcing justice, unseating those who use power for personal
gain for us just to ignore that He wants us to start where we
are and expand His Kingdom from there.
I had the privilege of spending several years living and
studying in Durham, up in the northeast of England, while
working on my MA and PhD. And it's interesting because
(24:40):
Durham is an historic city, but it's not London, it's not
Edinburgh. It's a relatively small city
perched on a hill with the RiverWare wrapping around it like a
kind of a natural Moat. It's it's, it's like a
peninsula. It's also the home to one of the
most stunning cathedrals in the entire world, and a history that
actually reminds me a lot of Capernaum.
(25:02):
So the the story goes historically, that in the 8th
century, a small community of monks lived out on Lindisfarne,
which was a little tidal island off the northeast coast.
Not far from there, they createdwhat's famously known now as the
Lindisfarne Gospels, and this isa beautiful illuminated
(25:23):
manuscript of the Gospels. And when the Viking raid started
around this time and the the Vikings started coming across
the sea and and raiding the northeast, these monks living
there on this island grabbed at the book and the body of their
beloved leader, St. Cuthbert, famous St.
And they headed inland and they wandered for years until they
(25:45):
found Durham. And it wasn't anything at this
time. It wasn't a political capital,
but it was the the perfect spot to settle.
It was on high ground. It had a natural defense in this
river and it was right on a key route between Scotland and
England. They built this massive
cathedral eventually and it and it became this kind of hub for
(26:06):
faith and for learning in pilgrims.
So worshippers would come from all over the place to see St.
Cuthbert's shrine. Actually, once the the first
week I was there back in 20 years ago, I accidentally took
the scenic route and I was trying to get to my department
and sign some papers and I livedabout a mile outside of town.
I walked into the city, into thecity center and it turned into
(26:28):
about an 8 hour wandering trek. But in those years, Durham
became more than a place on a map for me.
I made a lot of friendships there.
Still treasure those friendshipstoday.
Marius Michael Ben Hendrick, Sophie.
Every time I've gone back to visit, I've tried to slip into
the cathedral to pray at Cuthbert Shrine.
(26:51):
Over 1000 years later, that sortof out of the way place is still
shaping lives, including mine. This dude from Kansas living in
Oklahoma who studied in a place thousands of miles away, that's
what I think of when I think of Capernaum.
It wasn't Jerusalem, it wasn't Rome, but it was a crossroads.
It was the right location. It allowed Jesus to make the
(27:14):
right relationships, and it provided timing.
And from there, the message wentout to the world.
And Durham still impacts me. And, you know, I know a lot of
others today, just like Capernaum still shapes our faith
now, whether we know it or not. And I think there are a few
things we could take from this. Whether you're in a small town
(27:34):
or a big city, an outsider or aninsider, I think you still need
to know this, that you're not too far from where the
revolution begins. God still chooses locations and
locales that the world of power and prestige almost always
overlook. And I think yours is next.
We started by asking why Jesus would choose a little fishing
(27:54):
town to start something world changing.
I think what we've kind of uncovered in this scene is the
why Capernaum was strategically perfect.
It was strategically perfect forJesus.
And I think wherever you are right now, that is your
Capernaum, and that is where Jesus is calling you to
establish an outpost for his Kingdom, Lake Umad.
(28:19):
Go and learn. Come back for scene 8 of the
Jesus X30 Challenge.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!