“Jesus, Our Example for Worship on the Appointed Day”

Friday, June 06, 2025

Jesus, Our Example for Worship on the Appointed Day

By Paul Earnhart

After Jesus had been preaching for several months in Judea and Galilee, He returned once again to His hometown of Nazareth.  Would you like to guess where He went on the Sabbath day?  You will probably be right.  Luke says it this way: “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.” (Luke 4:16)

Notice three things from this verse.

• First, on the Sabbath day He went to the synagogue.  The synagogue was the place of worship during the second temple period.  The Sabbath day was the seventh day of the week—our Saturday.  This was the day ordained for worship in the Old Testament.
• Second, going to the synagogue was not something unusual for Jesus—it was His custom.  He did not go because He was back in town and hoped to meet some old friends.  It had been His custom as a citizen of Nazareth to attend the synagogue service regularly.
• Third, He was asked to read the Scriptures and willingly responded.  He had mastered the language and the Scriptures well enough to read in the synagogue when invited to do so.  The Scriptures were in Hebrew, the language which was not the everyday speech of Nazareth.  Jesus had learned that language so that He could read the Scriptures in their original form.

There are some important lessons for us here.

Jesus made it His regular custom to assemble with God’s people for worship.  If we would be like Jesus, we should do the same.

In the New Testament, the day of assembly was the first day of the week according to Acts 20:7, "when the disciples came together to break bread."  This implies that we should not be spectators, but participants.  And though we do not have to read in another language, we should surely prepare ourselves in every way that is necessary, especially by study, so that we can participate effectively.

Share