Ministry of Jesus
The ministry of Jesus, in the canonical gospels, begins with his baptism near the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and ends in Jerusalem in Judea, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry. A chronology of Jesus typically sets the date of the start of his ministry at around AD 27–29 and the end in the range AD 30–36.
Jesus' early Galilean ministry begins when after his baptism, he goes back to Galilee from his temptation in the Judaean Desert. In this early period, he preaches around Galilee and recruits his first disciples who begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church as it is believed that the apostles dispersed from Jerusalem to found the apostolic sees. The major Galilean ministry which begins in Matthew 8 includes the commissioning of the Twelve Apostles, and covers most of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. The final Galilean ministry begins after the beheading of John the Baptist as Jesus prepares to go to Jerusalem.
In the later Judean ministry Jesus starts his final journey to Jerusalem through Judea. As Jesus travels towards Jerusalem, in the later Perean ministry, about one third the way down from the Sea of Galilee along the River Jordan, he returns to the area where he was baptized.
The final ministry in Jerusalem is sometimes called the Passion week and begins with Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The gospels provide more details about the final ministry than the other periods, devoting about one third of their text to the last week of the life of Jesus in Jerusalem.
Overview
The gospel accounts place the beginning of Jesus' ministry in the countryside of Roman province Judaea, near the River Jordan.The gospels present John the Baptist's ministry as the precursor to that of Jesus and the baptism of Jesus as marking the beginning of Jesus' ministry, after which Jesus travels, preaches and performs miracles. Jesus's baptism is generally considered the beginning and the Last Supper with his disciples in Jerusalem as the end of his ministry. However, some authors also consider the period between the Resurrection and the Ascension part of the ministry of Jesus.
Luke states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry. There have been different approaches to estimating the date of the start of the ministry of Jesus. One approach, based on combining information from the Gospel of Luke with historical data about Emperor Tiberius yields a date around 28–29 AD/CE, while a second independent approach based on statements in the Gospel of John along with historical information from Josephus about the Temple in Jerusalem leads to a date around AD 27–29.
In the New Testament, the date of the Last Supper is very close before the date of the crucifixion of Jesus. Scholarly estimates for the date of the crucifixion generally fall in the range AD 30–36.
The three Synoptic Gospels refer to just one passover, specifically the Passover at the end of Jesus's ministry when he is crucified. There are three references to Passovers in John's Gospel: 2:13, 6:4, and 12:1. Some contend that the Gospel of John refers to only two actual Passovers, one at the beginning of Jesus's ministry and the second at the end of Jesus's ministry, and that the third reference to Passover is only a forecasting of the second Passover in the Gospel of John. But much scholarship recognizes that a lot of time passes between 6:4, "the Passover... was at hand," and 12:1, "Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany..," especially at the beginning of Chapter 7 which even includes another feast, and then again at 10:22 another season passes as well as the Feast of Dedication.
This third reference to a passover in the Gospel of John is why many suggest that Jesus's ministry was a period of about three years. Scholars that support a three-year ministry, such as Köstenberger state that the Gospel of John simply provides a more detailed account.
During the ministry of Jesus, the tetrarch ruling over Galilee and Perea in this period was Herod Antipas, who obtained the position upon the division of the territories following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC.
Baptism and early ministry
The gospels present John the Baptist's ministry as the precursor to that of Jesus and the Baptism of Jesus as marking the beginning of Jesus' ministry.In his sermon in, delivered in the house of Cornelius the centurion, Apostle Peter gives an overview of the ministry of Jesus, and refers to what had happened "throughout all Judaea, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached" and that Jesus whom "God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power" had gone about "doing good".
specifies the location where John was baptizing as "Bethany beyond the Jordan". This is not the village Bethany just east of Jerusalem, but the town of Bethabara in Perea. Perea is the province east of the Jordan, across the southern part of Samaria, and although the New Testament does not mention Perea by name, implicitly refers to it again when it states that John was baptising in Enon near Salim, "because there was much water there". First-century historian Flavius Josephus also wrote in the Antiquities of the Jews that John the Baptist was imprisoned and then killed in Machaerus on the border of Perea.
and indicate possible activities of Jesus near the Jordan River around the time of his baptism, as does the initial encounter with the disciples of John the Baptist in, where "two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus". Assuming that there were two incidences of Cleansing of the Temple, which was located in Jerusalem, a possible reference to an early Judean ministry may be.
Ministry in Galilee
Early Galilean ministry
The Early Galilean ministry begins when, according to Matthew, Jesus goes back to Galilee from the Judaean Desert, after rebuffing the temptation of Satan. In this early period, Jesus preaches around Galilee and, in, his first disciples encounter him, begin to travel with him and eventually form the core of the early Church.The Gospel of John includes the Wedding at Cana as the first miracle of Jesus taking place in this early period of ministry, with his return to Galilee. A few villages in Galilee have been suggested as the location of Cana.
The return of Jesus to Galilee follows the arrest of John the Baptist. The early teachings of Jesus result in his rejection at his hometown when in Jesus says in a Synagogue, "No prophet is acceptable in his own country", and the people reject him.
In this early period, Jesus' reputation begins to spread throughout Galilee. In and, Jesus goes to Capernaum, where people are "astonished at his teaching; for his word was with authority", in the Exorcism at the Synagogue in Capernaum episode, which is followed by healing the mother of Peter's wife.
includes the first Miraculous draught of fishes episode in which Jesus tells Peter, "now on you will catch men". Peter leaves his net and, along with him, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, follows Jesus as disciples thereafter.
This period includes the Sermon on the Mount, one of the major discourses of Jesus in Matthew, and the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke. The Sermon on the Mount, which covers chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew, is the first of the Five Discourses of Matthew and is the longest piece of teaching from Jesus in the New Testament. It encapsulates many of the moral teachings of Jesus and includes the Beatitudes and the widely recited Lord's Prayer.
The Beatitudes are expressed as eight blessings in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, and four similar blessings appear in the Sermon on the Plain in Luke, where they are followed by four woes that mirror the blessings. The Beatitudes present the highest ideals of the teachings of Jesus on mercy, spirituality and compassion.
Major Galilean ministry
The Major Galilean ministry, also called the Great Galilean ministry, begins in Matthew 8, after the Sermon on the Mount and refers to activities up to the death of John the Baptist.The beginnings of this period include The Centurion's Servant and Calming the storm, both dealing with the theme of faith and fear. When the Centurion shows faith in Jesus by requesting a "healing at a distance", Jesus commends him for his exceptional faith. On the other hand, when his own disciples show fear of a storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus instructs them to have more faith, after he orders the storm to stop.
File:Vittore carpaccio, vocazione di san matteo.jpg|thumb|250px|The Calling of Matthew by Vittore Carpaccio, 1502
In this period, Jesus is still gathering the twelve apostles, and the Calling of Matthew takes place in. The conflicts and criticism between Jesus and the Pharisees continue, e.g. they criticize Jesus for associating with "publicans and sinners", whereby Jesus responds: "It is not healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Commissioning the twelve Apostles relates the initial selection of the twelve Apostles among the disciples of Jesus. Jesus goes out to a mountainside to pray, and after spending the night praying to God, in the morning he calls his disciples and chooses twelve of them.
In the Mission Discourse, Jesus instructs the twelve apostles who are named in to carry no belongings as they travel from city to city and preach. Separately, relates the Seventy Disciples, where Jesus appoints a larger number of disciples and sends them out in pairs with the Missionary's Mandate to go into villages before Jesus' arrival there.
In two messengers from John the Baptist arrive to ask Jesus if he is the expected Messiah, or "shall we wait for another?" Jesus replies, "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk". Following this, Jesus begins to speak to the crowds about the Baptist.
This period is rich in parables and teachings and includes the Parabolic discourse, which provides many of the parables for the Kingdom of Heaven, beginning in. These include the parables of The Sower, The Tares, The Mustard Seed and The Leaven, addressed to the public at large, as well as The Hidden Treasure, The Pearl and Drawing in the Net.
At the end of the Major Galilean ministry, Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth. His wisdom is recognised there, questioned, and rejected.