Following the Savior's Steps: The Perean and Later Judean Ministry

In the fall about six months before His death, Jesus left the region of Galilee for Jerusalem again.  John recorded, “Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles was at hand” (John 7:7).  The feast of tabernacles would have been in September or October, and it is here that Jesus went up to the temple and declared before the people, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.  He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38).  Around this same time in Jerusalem the woman take in adultery was brought before Him and He boldly stood before the Pharisees and declared, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8).  He also healed a man “which was blind from his birth,” taught them about spiritual blindness, and witnessed to them, “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 9-10).  After these powerful teachings Jesus left Jerusalem, and He returned to Jerusalem at “the feast of the dedication” which would have been in December (John 10:22).  Exactly where He went in the interim between these two feasts is not clear.  Elder Talmage suggests the following, “That Jesus left Jerusalem soon after the Feast of Tabernacles is certain; whether He returned to Galilee, or went only into Perea, possibly with a short detour across the border into Samaria, is not conclusively stated.”

            This time around these two feasts is labeled in our Harmony of the Gospels as The Perean and Later Judean Ministry.  Perea is where John the Baptist had baptized him and Judea consists of some of the areas surrounding Jerusalem.  It’s also possible that the Savior returned to Galilee during this time.  One writer, quoted by Elder Talmage, suggested that much of the account in the gospel of Luke that is unique to him occurred in this period and leading up to the feast of the dedication: “It is well known that the whole of one great section in St. Luke—from 9:51 to 18:30—forms an episode in the Gospel narrative of which many incidents are narrated by this Evangelist alone, and in which the few identifications of time and place all point to one slow and solemn progress from Galilee to Jerusalem (9:51; 13:22; 17:11; 10:38).”  He suggested that these events in Luke then were leading up to the arrival at Jerusalem for the feast of dedication: Christ rejected by the Samaritan village (Luke 9:51-53); the giving of the parables of the Good Samaritan, the rich fool, the barren fig tree, the wedding feast, and the great supper (Luke 10:25-37, 12:13-21, 13:6-9, 14:7-11, 14:12-24), the visit to Mary and Marth in Bethany (Luke 10:38-42), the healing of a woman on the Sabbath (Luke 13:10-17), and other teachings and stories unique to Luke.  The “lost” parables of Luke 15 were given around this time as well as that of the unjust steward and the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16.  Somewhere in Judea, Perea, or Samaria at this time He also healed the 10 lepers and spoke to the rich young ruler inviting him, “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me” (Luke 18:22).  Exactly when these events happened and in what order we are not certain, but they took place in the final months of the Savior’s life which were as busy as any for the Savior as He taught, healed, and readied the apostles and Seventy for what was to come.  He was preparing to sacrifice not just the riches He asked the young man to give but His own life in order to save all of us who are lost.