Mark 1:21-22, Luke 4:31-32 (Teaching in the Synagogue at Capernaum)

Rachel Workman: Mark 1:21 Jesus and his companions went to the town of Capernaum. When the Sabbath day came, he went into the synagogue and began to teach. 22 The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike the teachers of religious law. I gather from this reading that the religious leaders were lacking in their teaching. Their teaching might resemble something close to what kids sit though in school today during math or history classes. It's hard to be on fire for God when the ones you look to are not.

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Mike Grimm: 

²¹ Jesus and his companions went to the town of Capernaum. When the Sabbath day came, he went into the synagogue and began to teach. ²² The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority—quite unlike the teachers of religious law.

The source of their amazement was not in the fact that Jesus was teaching or even in what it was He taught.  It was that He taught with such authority.

You see, the Rabbis didn’t teach that way.  Their sermons consisted of dry commentaries on what other Rabbis before them had thought.  These interpretations were collected and kept and handed down from generation to generation.  We know them as the Mishnah and the Talmud.  But Jesus didn’t teach that way.  He taught with authority.

We can teach with authority, too.  When God says that salvation is a gift of His grace, we can speak forth that message with confidence and authority.

When we witness concerning Jesus, we don’t come sharing religious opinions.  We have truth.  And because we have truth, we are able to speak with authority.

Luke 4:31-32

Jesus Casts Out a Demon

³¹ Then Jesus went to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and taught there in the synagogue every Sabbath day. ³² There, too, the people were amazed at his teaching, for he spoke with authority.

So Jesus goes to Capernaum, on the shore of the sea of Galilee, and was teaching in the synagogues on the Sabbath days. And verse 32 says that that the people were astonished at His teaching, for His word was with authority. This is the reaction Jesus gets everywhere He goes because He simply teaches the Word of God simply. He taught the Bible in ways that the average teacher of that day did not. Rather than simply quote the various Jewish teachers and commentaries as most of the teachers did, Jesus taught the actual Word of God. He read the Word. He explained the Word. He applied the Word. This has always been the divine pattern for teaching the Bible, and none did it better than Jesus Christ.