Fishermen, a leper, a paralytic and a tax collector: Jesus calls and forgives

Luke, traditionally identified as the physician and companion of Paul (Colossians 4:14), wrote this Gospel and Acts for Theophilus and for Greek-speaking readers, to give an orderly account that confirms what they had been taught (Luke 1:1-4). Scholars differ on the date: the early 60s AD, because Acts ends without reporting Paul's trial, or about AD 80 to 90, if Luke used Mark and wrote after Jerusalem's fall in AD 70. Most hold that Luke and Matthew both drew on Mark and on a shared sayings source called Q (the two-source theory); others reject Q, and some defend Matthew's priority. Luke 5 follows Mark 1:16 to 2:22 closely, with changes that tell us what Luke wanted to stress. Matthew has parallels in chapters 4, 8 and 9.

The setting is the early Galilean ministry. The Lake of Gennesaret is the Sea of Galilee, a freshwater lake about thirteen miles long, where fishing was a major trade. Peter, James and John worked together as partners (5:10). Capernaum, on the northwest shore, lay on a trade route, and a tax collector there would have sat at a booth to levy tolls on goods in transit. Tax collectors in the Gospels are hated because they worked for Rome and often took more than was owed. The Pharisees were a lay movement that stressed careful obedience to the law and to the traditions of the elders; the scribes, or teachers of the law, were its trained interpreters. Luke notes that people had come to the paralytic's house from Jerusalem as well as Galilee and Judea, so Jesus' fame had reached the leaders in the capital.

Luke 5 is a string of episodes, each ending with a saying or a response. The episodes build a pattern: Jesus acts, someone is astonished or offended, Jesus explains who he is. Luke tells this in a sequence of five scenes that move from the lakeshore to a house to a banquet table, with a leper, a paralytic and a tax collector as the three main figures in need.

Two interpretive principles are worth keeping.

• First, the pronouncement stories, the short scenes that end in a decisive saying of Jesus, should be read for the saying. The catch of fish builds to 'From now on you will catch men.' The paralytic builds to the claim about authority to forgive. The banquet builds to the doctor image.
• Second, the parable in 5:36-39 is not a general lesson about change. It answers a specific question about fasting and explains why Jesus' presence has brought something new. The patch and wineskin sayings say that the new thing cannot be sewn onto or poured into the old forms without damage.

The last verse, 5:39, is unique to Luke and hard. 'No one after drinking old wine wants new, for he says, The old is better.' Some read it as irony, a description of people who prefer the familiar and so reject Jesus. Others read it as a more sympathetic acknowledgment that attachment to the old way is natural. In the light of the Pharisees' objections it is most likely a gentle diagnosis of why some resist, not a defense of the old.

Verses 1–3

Crowds press on Jesus to hear the word of God. He gets into Simon's boat and asks him to put out a little from shore, then sits, the teacher's posture, and teaches the people. Simon has not yet been introduced as a disciple in Luke, though Jesus had healed his mother-in-law (4:38-39), and he lends his boat.

Verses 4–7

Jesus tells Simon to put out into deep water and let down the nets. Simon objects as a professional: they have worked hard all night and caught nothing. Then he adds, 'But because You say so, I will let down the nets.' The catch is so large the nets begin to tear and the partners' boat has to help, and both boats nearly sink. Simon calls Jesus 'Master' (epistates), a word Luke uses for Jesus mostly in the mouths of disciples.

Verses 8–11

Simon Peter falls at Jesus' knees: 'Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.' Luke now gives him both names. Peter's word 'Lord' (kyrios) is a confession; the awareness of sin before holiness is like the reactions of Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5). Jesus says, 'Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.' The verb for 'catch' (zogreo) means to take alive, so the image is of drawing people out of danger alive. They bring their boats ashore, leave everything and follow him. Mark 1:16-20 and Matthew 4:18-22 tell the call without the miracle; John 21:1-11 has a similar catch after the resurrection, and scholars debate whether it is the same event or a second one.

Verses 12–16

A man 'covered with leprosy' falls facedown and says, 'Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.' The Hebrew Bible's term for leprosy covers a range of skin diseases and carried ritual uncleanness; the leper had to live apart (Leviticus 13-14). Jesus touches him, which the law would count as defiling, and says, 'I am willing. Be clean!' The leprosy leaves at once. Jesus tells him to show himself to the priest and bring the offering Moses commanded, 'as a testimony to them', which means the priests will have to examine and certify the cure. Despite the instruction to say nothing, news spreads. Luke adds that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places to pray.

Verses 17–26

Pharisees and teachers of the law sit in a house where Jesus is teaching. Four men cannot get through the crowd, so they uncover the roof and lower the paralyzed man on his mat before Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus says, 'Friend, your sins are forgiven.' The scribes and Pharisees begin to reason that this is blasphemy: who can forgive sins but God alone? They are right about God. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, asks which is easier, to say sins are forgiven or to say get up and walk. He then says that so they may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he commands the man to rise. The man gets up, takes his mat and goes home praising God. All are amazed and filled with awe.

Verses 27–32

Jesus sees Levi, a tax collector, at his booth and says, 'Follow Me.' Levi leaves everything, follows, and gives a great banquet at his house with many tax collectors and others. Mark 2:14 also calls him Levi, while Matthew 9:9 calls the tax collector Matthew, and the traditional view is that these are two names for the apostle. The Pharisees complain that Jesus eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners. He replies that the healthy do not need a doctor but the sick, and that he has come to call sinners to repentance. Luke alone adds 'to repentance'.

Verses 33–39

Critics ask why John's disciples and the Pharisees' disciples fast and pray but Jesus' disciples eat and drink. Jesus answers that wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, but days will come when the bridegroom is taken away, and then they will fast. He adds two short parables of an unshrunk patch on an old garment and new wine in old wineskins, and Luke alone adds the saying that those who drink old wine do not want new.

Luke 5 shows God's holiness and God's mercy meeting. Peter's cry, 'I am a sinful man', is the proper response of a creature to the presence of the holy, as in Isaiah 6. The answer is not a rebuke but a commission. The doctrine of calling in the Bible works in this order: God comes first, sin is exposed, and grace gives a task.

The passage also teaches that forgiveness belongs to God alone. Isaiah 43:25 has God say that he blots out transgressions for his own sake, and the Psalms confess that God forgives (Psalm 103:3). The scribes are right to ask who can forgive sins. The passage sets the question beside Jesus' action and asks the reader to see that the answer is God and that Jesus speaks for God in the first person. Forgiveness and healing belong together in the Bible's picture of salvation, but forgiveness is the deeper need.

The chapter also presents the mission of the Son as being toward sinners and the sick. The meal with tax collectors anticipates the meal of the kingdom (Isaiah 25:6; Luke 14:15-24). The saying about the bridegroom tells of a joy that the presence of the Messiah brings and of a coming absence that Luke narrates at the cross. The newness of the kingdom, like new wine, requires new forms; the Gospel will not be contained in the old categories of clean and unclean.

The chapter is a fulfillment at its sharpest. The scribes are right that only God can forgive sins (5:21), and Jesus proves he has that authority by healing the man (5:24). He does not say that God forgives through him; he says that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive. 'Son of Man' echoes Daniel 7:13-14, where one like a son of man receives dominion from the Ancient of Days, though in Jesus' use it also reads as a plain self-reference. The combination is typical: a humble title that carries a claim to divine authority.

The bridegroom image echoes the Old Testament picture of God as Israel's husband (Isaiah 54:5; Hosea 2:16-20; Ezekiel 16). Jesus takes that role for himself. His words that the bridegroom will be taken from them are a veiled forecast of his death, and Luke's readers know the sequel. The call of Levi and the table with sinners show Jesus as the physician who has come to heal, fulfilling the promise that the Lord would seek the lost (Ezekiel 34:16).

In the leper's cleansing, Jesus' touch reverses the direction of defilement: uncleanness does not pass to him, but cleanness passes to the man. He also sends the man to the priest with the Mosaic offering, which shows Jesus acting within the law's framework, while he does what the law could only diagnose. Elisha's healing of Naaman in 2 Kings 5, mentioned in Luke 4:27, is the Old Testament parallel and also the contrast.