The events Christians celebrate today took place in and around Jerusalem. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, is in the northern part of Israel. His early miracles and teachings took place around the Sea of Galilee, also in the north. From that area south to Jerusalem is about a two-hour drive today, but walking it in the first century was a lengthy ordeal.
After telling the story of Jesus’s birth and the beginning of His public ministry, Luke narrates the bulk of his Gospel as a slow progression to the holy city. Luke 9:51 says that “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem,” and the reader follows that journey through the rest of the book, concluding in chapter 24.
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