Many people say that Jesus was just a powerful teacher. That He was a good man, a humanitarian, and an example we should follow. But that He didn’t actually claim to be more than that. And that His followers added the ‘divine’ part.

Untrue. In the synagogue in Nazareth, His hometown, Jesus showed up on a Sabbath day like He’d always done and volunteered to read from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He found where (some 700 years earlier) it had been written about the coming Messiah (Note 1), and He read it out loud:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” Luke 4:18-19 NLT

Then He sat down and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (v. 21)

Here Jesus was making an unmistakable claim to be the Messiah. And on that Sabbath day in His quiet hometown, He proclaimed it in a way no one in the room misunderstood: “The long-foretold Messiah you’ve been preaching about in your synagogues for centuries? I’m Him.”

1. Isaiah 61:1-2 circa 690 BC