Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 8:1
And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve [were] with him,
Luk 8:1-3. The Ministering Women.
1. And it came to pass afterward ] The expression marks a new phase, a new departure, in Christ’s mode of action. Hitherto He had made Capernaum His head-quarters; regarded it as “His own city,” and not gone to any great distance from it. At this period the exact beginning of which is only vaguely marked He began a wider range of missions.
shewing the glad tidings ] The Baptist had preached ‘repentance’ as the preparation for the Kingdom: our Lord preached of the Kingdom itself, and this was ‘glad tidings,’ because the Kingdom of God is “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Rom 14:17.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Every city and village – Of Galilee.
Preaching an showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God – That the kingdom of God was about to come, or that his reign in the gospel was about to be set up over people. See the notes at Mat 3:2.
The twelve – The twelve apostles.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Luk 8:1
He went throughout every city and village, preaching
Village preaching
I.
WE HAVE HERE THE SUBJECT OF OUR LORDS MINISTRY–the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. In these words there is a manifest allusion to the predictions in which the prophets foretold the dispensation of grace and truth by Jesus Christ. The Greek word translated kingdom is of a more extensive meaning than the English one by which it is rendered, being equally adapted to express both the terms reign and kingdom. The first relates to the time or duration of the sovereignty, the second to the place or country over which it extends. Yet although it is much oftener the time than the place that is alluded to in the Gospels, it is never in our common version translated reign, but always kingdom. The expression is thereby often rendered obscure and awkward, as for instance, when motion is applied to a kingdom; when it is spoken of as coming, approaching, being near at hand, and the like. The word is rightly translated kingdom when it refers to the state of perfect felicity to be enjoyed in the world to come; but it is not always thus rendered with the same propriety when it relates to the reign of Christ, by His truth and Spirit upon earth. If, therefore, it be asked, when did the reign of heaven properly begin? we answer, When that prediction in the Psalms was fulfilled–Thou hast ascended up on high, Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God (the Holy Spirit) might dwell amongst them. To a limited extent Jesus reigned before His ascension. He pardoned sins, promulgated laws, and brought very many under the dominion of His truth and grace. But the plenitude of the Holy Spirits miraculous gifts and sanctifying influences was reserved till Christ was glorified, to grace His inauguration as King of Zion; as monarchs when they are crowned, although they may have reigned some time before, on that great occasion bestow favours on their subjects, and elevate sonic to distinctions and honours.
II. WE NOW PROCEED TO CONSIDER THE SCENE OF OUR LORDS MINISTRY. He preached in Judaea, and Samaria; in Jerusalem, in Sychar; but His time was chiefly spent in the towns and villages of Galilee–a distant and despised province, which the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judaea regarded with such contempt that it was asked, Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? One would think that had our Saviour intended that secular princes should rule in His Church, that the head of the State should by virtue of His office be also the head of the Church within His dominions, instead of spending so much of His time in Galilee, He would have converted Herod, and given him authority to settle all matters of doctrine and discipline for His subjects.
1. We have fully revealed to us and in our possession that truth by which Christ reigns, and accomplishes His gracious purposes. No new, additional revelation will be granted to the end of time.
2. We have Christ, enthroned in universal dominion, full of grace and power, present by His Spirit, with all His faithful servants, to make His truth effectual in the accomplishment of the purposes of eternal mercy. (Essex Congregational Remembrancer.)
Preaching everywhere
Three commercials entered the railway carriage at C, and it was not long before all in the compartment were in conversation, Being one of the number, I took my part in the discussions which were held upon various topics. As per usual, the weather was commented upon, the state of Ireland, and the dulness of trade. This last subject seemed to be the most fruitful, for each traveller had his own tale to tell. As the different towns were mentioned which were the markets for the goods travelled in by the three gentlemen, I mentioned various incidents in connection with most of them, and through constantly visiting these places displayed some acquaintance with nearly every one spoken of by the commercials; until one of them said, Are you on the road? Yes, said I, I have been on the road ever since I was nine years old. All looked surprised, and then another made the remark, That was rather early to begin such a rough life! This produced the following reply upon my part: Oh, there is nothing like starting young–a good beginning is half the race. May I ask what you travel for? inquired a third. I am on the road to heaven, and I travel for my Master; preaching everywhere for the salvation of souls. (T. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VIII.
Jesus preaches through every city and village, 1.
Women minister to him, 2, 3.
Instructs the multitudes by the parable of the sower, 4-8.
Explains it at large to his disciples, 9-15.
Directions how to improve by hearing the Gospel, 16-18.
His mother and brethren seek him, 19-21.
He and his disciples go upon the lake, and are taken in a
storm, 22-25.
They arrive among the Gadarenes, 26,
where he cures a demoniac, 27-39.
He returns from the Gadarenes, and is requested by Jairus to
heal his daughter, 40-42.
On the way he cures a diseased woman, 43-48.
Receives information that the daughter of Jairus is dead, 49.
Exhorts the father to believe; arrives at the house, and raises
the dead child to life, 60-66.
NOTES ON CHAP VIII.
Verse 1. Throughout every city and village] That is, of Galilee.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Still I cannot but observe, that preaching the gospel, and thereby showing the glad tidings of salvation, (the principal means to bring men to the kingdom of God, whether that in this life, or the kingdom of glory in the life which is to come), was Christs great work. His working miracles was but subservient to this, and for the confirmation of the doctrine which he preached; hence, when a people showed a contempt of his word, he refused to work any miracles before them. How any one can dream, that either praying, or government, or administering sacraments, or any thing else, should be more the work of a minister of Christ than preaching, may justly amaze any thinking soul that ever read the gospel.
Christ went every where about preaching, and the twelve were with him, sometimes hearing, (as his disciples), sometimes preaching; some women also were with him, such as had been healed of evil spirits and other diseases. Mary Magdalene was one, out of whom he had cast seven devils, that is, many devils. Most think she had her name from Magdala, a city in Galilee, where she was bred, or dwelt. It is a great error to think she was the Mary mentioned Joh 11:1-57, the sister of Lazarus; she lived in Bethany, near to Jerusalem. Yet it is plain from Mar 16:1-20 that she was at Jerusalem at the time of Christs death and resurrection; but so were many that followed him from Galilee, Mar 15:41; Luk 23:49.
And Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herods steward. Christ hath his elect in all places, his Joseph in Pharaohs court, his Daniel and three children in Nebuchadnezzars court, his saints in Neros household, Phi 4:22, his Joanna in Herods family. This was that Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, he who put John the Baptist to death, and himself with his soldiers mocked Christ; possibly his steward was as bad, but his wife was one that followed Christ, knowing that though her husband had power over her body, he had none over her soul.
And they ministered to him of their substance. They were not ashamed to be seen following of Christ, though doubtless they met with scoffs enough. Nor were they ashamed to be reproached for their former failing; nor was Christ, because of their former lives, or the life of some of them, to have them following him. It is a glory to Christ, and to the church of Christ, to have great sinners brought to him, and brought into it; the only shame is to such as, being in the church, or pretending at least to be Christians, are debauchees still. Christ did not give himself for a people that were pure and holy, without spot or wrinkle, but that he might sanctify them and cleanse them, with the washing of water by the word, Eph 5:25-27. Following Christ they ministered to him. This was according to Christs doctrine, Mat 10:10, and his apostles after him, 1Co 9:11; 2Co 8:9; Gal 6:6. Some of them might be virgins, some widows, some wives, who had an allowance for themselves from their husbands; however, it could be no robbery to give of what was their husbands to him who was the Lord of all, which either their husbands or they possessed. Nor was Christ ashamed to live upon the baskets of others, while he was providing spiritual food for the souls of all, 2Co 8:9.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. wenttravelled, made aprogress.
throughout every city andvillagethrough town and village.
preaching, &c.thePrince of itinerant preachers scattering far and wide the seed of theKingdom.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And it came to pass afterwards, c] After Christ had healed the centurion’s servant at Capernaum, and had raised a widow’s son that was dead, to life, at Naim; after John’s disciples had been with and he had dismissed them, and had said many things in commendation of John, and in vindication both of him, and of himself: and after he had taken a meal in a Pharisee’s house, where he met with a woman that had been a notorious sinner, who showed great affection for him, which occasioned much course between him and the Pharisee:
that he went throughout every city and village: that is, in Galilee, where he now was, as is clear from the foregoing chapter, and from what follows in this, Lu 8:26 and besides, it was by the sea of Galilee that he delivered the following parable concerning the sower; see Mt 13:1
preaching, and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; of the Gospel dispensation, which was now taking place, and had been long expected; publishing the doctrines and mysteries of it, such as free and full remission of sins for his own sake, justification by his righteousness, acceptance in him the beloved Son of God, and complete salvation by him as the Saviour of his people, than which nothing could be more welcome news, or better tidings; pointing out the ordinances of that dispensation, and showing who were the proper subjects of them, and directing and encouraging such to submit unto them; as also signifying what the kingdom of grace lies in, not in meats and drinks, or any outward things, but in inward holiness, peace, and joy; and what is a meetness for entrance into the kingdom of glory, namely, regenerating grace; and what gives a right unto it, even a better righteousness than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, and which was no other than his own:
and the twelve were with him; the twelve apostles, whom Christ had chose, and ordained as such: these attended him wherever he went, that they might be witnesses of his miracles, and learn his doctrines; that so they might be thoroughly furnished for their future ministry, both in Judea, and among the Gentiles.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Ministry of Christ. |
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1 And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, 2 And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, 3 And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.
We are here told,
I. What Christ made the constant business of his life–it was preaching; in that work he was indefatigable, and went about doing good (v. 1), afterward—en to kathexes—ordine, in the proper time or method. Christ took his work before him and went about it regularly. He observed a series or order of business, so that the end of one good work was the beginning of another. Now observe here, 1. Where he preached: He went about—diodeue—peragrabat. He was an itinerant preacher, did not confine himself to one place, but diffused the beams of his light. Circumibat–He went his circuit, as a judge, having found his preaching perhaps most acceptable where it was new. He went about through every city, that none might plead ignorance. Hereby he set an example to his disciples; they must traverse the nations of the earth, as he did the cities of Israel. Nor did he confine himself to the cities, but went into the villages, among the plain country-people, to preach to the inhabitants of the villages, Judg. v. 11. 2. What he preached: He showed the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, that it was now to be set up among them. Tidings of the kingdom of God are glad tidings, and those Jesus Christ came to bring; to tell the children of men that God was willing to take all those under his protection that were willing to return to their allegiance. It was glad tidings to the world that there was hope of its being reformed and reconciled. 3. Who were his attendants: The twelve were with him, not to preach if he were present, but to learn from him what and how to preach hereafter, and, if occasion were, to be sent to places where he could not go. Happy were these his servants that heard his wisdom.
II. Whence he had the necessary supports of life: He lived upon the kindness of his friends. There were certain women, who frequently attended his ministry, that ministered to him of their substance,Luk 8:2; Luk 8:3. Some of them are named; but there were many others, who were zealously affected to the doctrine of Christ, and thought themselves bound in justice to encourage it, having themselves found benefit, and in charity, hoping that many others might find benefit by it too.
1. They were such, for the most part, as had been Christ’s patients, and were the monuments of his power and mercy; they had been healed by him of evil spirits and infirmities. Some of them had been troubled in mind, had been melancholy, others of them afflicted in body, and he had been to them a powerful healer. He is the physician both of body and soul, and those who have been healed by him ought to study what they shall render to him. We are bound in interest to attend him, that we may be ready to apply ourselves to him for help in case of a relapse; and we are bound in gratitude to serve him and his gospel, who hath saved us, and saved us by it.
2. One of them was Mary Magdalene, out of whom had been cast seven devils; a certain number for an uncertain. Some think that she was one that had been very wicked, and then we may suppose her to be the woman that was a sinner mentioned just before, ch. vii. 37. Dr. Lightfoot, finding in some of the Talmudists’ writings that Mary Magdalene signified Mary the plaiter of hair, thinks it applicable to her, she having been noted, in the days of her iniquity and infamy, for that plaiting of hair which is opposed to modest apparel, 1 Tim. ii. 9. But, though she had been an immodest woman, upon her repentance and reformation she found mercy, and became a zealous disciple of Christ. Note, The greatest of sinners must not despair of pardon; and the worse any have been before their conversion the more they should study to do for Christ after. Or, rather, she was one that had been very melancholy, and then, probably, it was Mary the sister of Lazarus, who was a woman of a sorrowful spirit, who might have been originally of Magdala, but removed to Bethany. This Mary Magdalene was attending on Christ’s cross and his sepulchre, and, if she was not Mary the sister of Lazarus, either that particular friend and favourite of Christ’s did not attend then, or the evangelists did not take notice of her, neither of which we can suppose; thus Dr. Lightfoot argues. Yet there is this to be objected against it that Mary Magdalene is reckoned among the women that followed Jesus from Galilee (Mat 27:55; Mat 27:56); whereas Mary the sister of Lazarus had her residence in Bethany.
3. Another of them was Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward. She had been his wife (so some), but was now a widow, and left in good circumstances. If she was now his wife, we have reason to think that her husband, though preferred in Herod’s court, had received the gospel, and was very willing that his wife should be both a hearer of Christ and a contributor to him.
4. There were many of them that ministered to Christ of their substance. It was an instance of the meanness of that condition to which our Saviour humbled himself that he needed it, and of his great humility and condescension that he accepted it. Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, and lived upon alms. Let none say that they scorn to be beholden to the charity of their neighbours, when Providence has brought them into straits; but let them ask and be thankful for it as a favour. Christ would rather be beholden to his known friends for a maintenance for himself and his disciples than be burdensome to strangers in the cities and villages whither he came to preach. Note, It is the duty of those who are taught in the word to communicate to them who teach them in all good things; and those who are herein liberal and cheerful honour the Lord with their substance, and bring a blessing upon it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Soon afterwards ( ). In 7:11 we have . This word means one after the other, successively, but that gives no definite data as to the time, only that this incident in 8:1-3 follows that in 7:36-50. Both in Luke alone.
That (). One of Luke’s idioms with like Hebrew wav. Went about (). Imperfect active of , to make one’s way through (, ), common in late Greek writers. In the N.T. here only and Ac 17:1.
Through cities and villages ( ). Distributive use of (up and down). The clause is amphibolous and goes equally well with or with (heralding) (evangelizing, gospelizing). This is the second tour of Galilee, this time the Twelve with him.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Afterward [ ] . Rev., soon afterward. See on ch. Luk 7:11. Throughout every city and village [ ] . Lit., by city and village. See on ver. 4.
Preaching [] . Or proclaiming, as a herald. Compare ch. 4 18, and see on 1Pe 2:5.
And the twelve were with him. The were is supplied by the translators. Better, “he himself went about,” etc., “and the twelve (went) with him;” or, as Rev., and with him the twelve.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
JESUS PREACHED THROUGHOUT GALILEE V. 1-3
1) “And it came to pass afterward,” (kai egeto en to kathekses) “And it occurred afterwards,” a short time after His raising the widow’s son of Nain, and His anointing by the fallen woman at a feast in the residence of a Pharisee, Luk 7:1-50.
2) “That he went throughout every city and village,” (kai autos diodeuen kata polin kai komen) “And he journeyed through every city and village,” departing from His normal residence in Capernaum, extending the range of His activities and labors, Mar 1:38, through town and village.
3) “Preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God:” (kerusson kai euangelizomenos ten basileian tou theou) “Heralding and continually preaching the kingdom of God,” Mar 1:14-15; Mar 1:38; For this is what He came to do, based on Isa 61:1-2; Mat 10:5-6. Jesus was the prince of itinerant preachers.
4) “And the twelve were with him.” (kai hoi dideka sun auto) “And the twelve who were in company or colleague of service with him,” also went forth from Capernaum and north central Galilee around the Sea of Galilee, the area where He had called and chosen them as apostles, Mat 10:1-10. They went both as learners and witnesses.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
What I have here introduced from Luke belongs, perhaps, to another time; but I saw no necessity for separating what he has placed in immediate connection. First, he says that the twelve apostles preached the kingdom of God along with Christ; from which we infer that, though the ordinary office of teaching had not yet been committed to them, they constantly attended as heralds to procure an audience for their Master; and, therefore, though they held an inferior rank, they are said to have been Christ’s assistants. Next, he adds, that among those who accompanied Christ were certain women, who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases, such as Mary Magdalene, who had been tormented by seven devils To be associated with such persons might be thought dishonorable; for what could be more unworthy of the Son of God than to lead about with him women who were marked with infamy? But this enables us more clearly to perceive that the crimes with which we were loaded before we believed, are so far from diminishing the glory of Christ, that they tend rather to raise it to a higher pitch. And, certainly, it is not said, that the Church which he elected was found by him to be without spot and blemish, but that he cleansed it with his blood, and made it pure and fair.
The wretched and disgraceful condition of those women, now that they had been delivered from it, redounded greatly to the glory of Christ, by holding out public manifestations of his power and grace. At the same time, Luke applauds their gratitude in following their Deliverer, and disregarding the ridicule of the world. (174) Beyond all question, they were pointed at with the finger on every side, and the presence of Christ served for a platform to exhibit them; but they do not refuse to have their own shame made generally known, provided that the grace of Christ be not concealed. On the contrary, they willingly endure to be humbled, in order to become a mirror, by which he may be illustriously displayed.
In Mary, the boundless goodness of Christ was displayed in an astonishing manner. A woman, who had been possessed by seven devils, and might be said to have been the meanest slave of Satan, was not merely honored to be his disciple, but admitted to enjoy his society. Luke adds the surname Magdalene, to distinguish her from the sister of Martha, and other persons of the name of Mary, who are mentioned in other passages, (Joh 11:1.)
(174) “ D’autant qu’elles ont suyvi leur Liberateur, nonobstant l’ignominie du monde qu’il leur faloit endurer en ce faisant;” — “because they followed their Deliverer, notwithstanding the ignominy of the world which they must endure by so doing.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk. 8:1. Went throughout every city.This marks a new departure in the work of Christ: hitherto He had made Capernaum His headquarters, and had not gone very far away from it: now He began to extend the range of His activity. The time, however, is not precisely indicated. Shewing the glad tidings.There is only one word in the originalevangelising.
Luk. 8:2. Certain women. Cf. Mat. 27:55-56; Mar. 15:40-41. Mary called Magdalene.I.e. of Magdala, on the Lake of Gennesaret. As stated in a previous note, there is no authority for identifying her with the sinner of the last chapter. She is introduced here as one whose gratitude to Jesus had been excited by His having delivered her from the direst form of Satanic possession, and as a person evidently of wealth, both of which circumstances seem incompatible with those of the woman there named. Joanna.Mentioned again in Luk. 24:10 : nothing more known of her. As here stated, she had been cured by Jesus of some infirmity. Chuza.Conjectured by some to be that nobleman (or courtier) whose son Jesus had healed (Joh. 4:46). Herod.I.e. Herod Antipas. Steward.The word is a very vague one, and may denote lieutenant of a province, treasurer, house or land steward, agent or manager. The fact of Christ having a disciple or disciples among those in the court of Herod explains what is said (in Mat. 14:2) about Herods speaking to his servants about Jesus. Susanna.Not again mentioned.
Luk. 8:3. Ministered.Supplied the necessaries of life. Unto Him.Rather, unto them (R.V.), i.e. to the apostolic company.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Luk. 8:1-3
Grateful Disciples.In some instances those who had profited by the exercise of Christs miraculous power, and had been healed of their diseases, rewarded Him with ingratitude, and did not even thank Him for their cure. But in many, perhaps in most cases, those whom He healed became His disciples. Yet only some of these became, or were allowed to become, His followers in the literal sense of the word. One, at any rate, who wished to accompany Him whither soever He went was not allowed to do so, but was told to return to his friends and tell them of the great things God had done for him (Luk. 8:39). In this paragraph of the gospel history we read of a number of women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities being permitted to manifest their gratitude by following Him and by ministering to His necessities and to those of His apostles. There is something very pleasing in this eager desire to be with Christto listen to His teaching and to see His beneficent works, more especially those works of healing which would remind them of their own deliverance. Yet the love and gratitude thus manifested implied devotion of a heroic type, for many things conjoined to interpose obstacles in the way of carrying out the desire to accompany the Saviour in His missionary journeys. Two of these obstacles we may indicate.
I. The life they shared was not without hardships and dangers.Perhaps, as we view them from this distance, the journeyings of the Saviour and His disciples seem full of excitement and interest; the varied scenes, the picturesque incidents, the remarkable persons who figure in them, the wonderful deeds of the Saviour and His gracious discourses, appear to us as clothed with an almost romantic charm. What could be more delightful than to listen to the Sermon on the Mount, to witness the raising of the widows son from the dead, to partake of the food miraculously multiplied, or to be present on occasions when Christ showed mercy to the outcast and friendless, or overcame His adversaries by a wisdom which they would neither gainsay nor resist! But we need to remember that there must have been many days of hardship and discomfort. Sometimes the Son of man was wearied and exhausted, sad in heart at the sight of misery, distressed by the unbelief of the multitude and the hatred of the ruling classes. It was no light matter to follow Him day after dayto share His fatigues, and griefs, and humiliations, and to become subject to the danger which loyalty to Him often involved. Following Him when there was not leisure so much as to eatwhen He spoke words which sifted the crowds and drove many awaywhen His enemies took Him up to the cliff to cast Him down, or when they were on the point of stoning Himwas possible only for those of strong love and ardent faith. We who are wedded to ease, and ruled by habit and custom, need not delude ourselves by imagining that following Christ in these circumstances was a privilege we would have been eager to secure. We are only too easily discouraged by obstacles in the religious lifeby our aversion to discomfort and our regard for the worlds opinionto be sure that if we had lived in the days of Christs earthly ministry we should have displayed a devotion like that of these disciples.
II. The perfect holiness of Christ, too, hindered many from following Him.It did not hinder these. If holiness does not attract, it repels. It is a constant rebuke to all insincerity, double-mindedness, self-righteousness, and conceit, as well as to all positively vicious tendencies and practices: it assails the faulty motive as well as the sinful act. And the only way in which to live with any degree of comfort in the society of one who is truly holy is to strive to become the same. Following Christ, therefore, meant imitation of Him. In no other way could the spectacle of His piety, love, humility, and heavenly-mindedness be borne day after day. If we find ourselves incapable of a devotion to the Saviour like that of this faithful band of women, we may well ask ourselves, Have we like them known Him as a Healer and Deliverer? If we had really passed through their experience, we could scarcely fail to manifest a gratitude like theirs.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk. 8:1-3
Luk. 8:1. Throughout every city and village.Christ now began to enlarge the sphere of His work, and, instead of making Capernaum His headquarters, to enter upon a systematic and complete visitation of the whole province of Galilee. From this time it is that He speaks of Himself as not having where to lay His head. His apostles too are called to give up their secular occupations and place themselves at His complete disposaleither to be with Him as He preached, or to go upon missions He might give them. The difference between the subject-matter of His preaching and that of John the Baptist is very plainly indicated. John spoke of preparing for the coming of the kingdom of God; Jesus announced the glad tidings that it had come. The main duty of the Christian preacher is, like Christ, to proclaim the good news of Gods love to men, though he will feel bound also to speak words of warning to the indifferent and impenitent.
Luk. 8:2-3. Ministered unto them (R.V.).A subordinate but still an interesting question suggests itself as to how Christ and the twelve were sustained now that they had given themselves up to spiritual work among men. From what source was the common purse replenished? (Joh. 13:29). How did they provide for bodily necessities and have wherewith to give to the poor? (Joh. 12:6). St. Luke here gives the answer. It was not by making use of His miraculous power that Jesus provided sustenance for Himself and for His apostles, but by consenting to receive assistance from some of those who were grateful to Him for blessings they had obtained from Him. He who was the support of the spiritual life of His people disdained not to be supported by their gifts of things necessary for bodily life. He was not ashamed to penetrate so far into the depths of poverty as to live upon the alms of love. He only fed others miraculously; for Himself, He lived upon the love of His people. He gave all things to men His brethren, and received all things from them, enjoying thereby the pure blessing of love; which is then only perfect when it is at the same time both giving and receiving. Who could invent such things as these? It was necessary to live in this manner that it might be so recorded (Olshausen).
All these things shall be added.Jesus thus fulfilled the precepts, and found the accomplishment of the promises He gave to His disciples: Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things (food, clothing, etc.) shall be added unto you (Mat. 6:33); Every one that hath forsaken houses, or father, or mother, or lands, shall receive an hundredfold (ibid. Luk. 19:29).
A Messiah living on the Bounty of Men.What a Messiah to the eyes of the flesh was this One who lived on the bounty of men! But what a Messiah, to the eyes of the spirit, was this Son of God, living by the love of those whom His love had made to live!Godet.
The Maintenance of Ministers of Religion.The principle according to which Christ acted is that laid down in the New Testament for the guidance of the Christian Church in the matter of maintaining those who minister to the spiritual needs of the community. The labourer is worthy of his hire, and the Lord hath ordained that they who preach the gospel should live of the gospel (chap. Luk. 10:7; 1Co. 9:14).
Certain women.The part played by women in ministering to the necessities of Christ and His apostles is most appropriate; for it is to Him that they owe their emancipation from degradation, and admittance on equal terms with men to all the privileges of His kingdom. In Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28).
The Notices of Women in the Gospels.It is interesting to notice that the Gospel history does not mention the case of any woman who was hostile to Jesus, but speaks of many who were devoted to Him. Martha served Him in Bethany, and Mary sat at His feet; Mary anointed Him, and so did the woman in the house of Simon; most signal examples of faith were afforded by the Canaanitish woman and by her who touched the hem of His garment; a woman, the wife of Pilate, bore witness to His innocence at the time the unjust sentence was passed on Him; women lamented Him on His way to crucifixion, and drew near to the cross; women went forth early to the grave of the risen Lord, and a woman was the first to see Him after His resurrection.
The Same Kind of Devotion, still Possible.May not His loving people, and particularly those of the tender, clinging sex, still accompany Him as He goes from land to land preaching, by His servants, and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God? and may they not minister to Him of their substance by sustaining and cheering these agents of His? Verily they may; and they do. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me. Yes, as He is with them alway, even unto the end of the world, in preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, even so, as many as are with the faithful workers of this work, and helpful to them in it, are accompanying Him and ministering to Him of their substance.Brown.
Mary out of whom went seven devils.She had been
(1) delivered from the direst form of misery, and
(2) was now admitted to the highest felicity in following her Lord and in ministering to His wants.
Joanna wife of Herods steward.Not even the corruptions of Herods court could hinder the holy influence of Christ from penetrating to the hearts of some of those there. In like manner there were Christians in the household of Nero (Php. 4:22).
Susanna.Otherwise unknown; but what more glorious record could be preserved of any life than is here indicated by the mention of her name in this connection? what purer or more lasting fame can any one win than that of having ministered to Christ?
The Needs of an Oriental comparatively Few.It must be borne in mind that the needs of an Oriental are very small. A few dates, a little parched corn, a draught of water, a few figs or grapes plucked from the roadside trees, suffice him; and in that climate he can sleep during most of the year in the open air, wrapped up in the same outer garment which serves him for the day. Hence the maintenance of a poor man in Palestine is wholly different from the standard of maintenance required in such countries as ours with their many artificial needs.Farrar.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Appleburys Comments
Those Who Accompanied Jesus
Scripture
Luk. 8:1-3 And it came to pass soon afterwards, that he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God, and with him the twelve, 2 and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuzas Herods steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered unto them of their substance.
Comments
And it came to pass soon afterwards.Luke indicates that this is a continuous story about the teaching ministry of Jesus and the miracles He performed to confirm His preaching. Our chapter divisions sometimes keep us from seeing the connection between the incidents he selected to make up his logically arranged story of the Life of Christ.
that he went about through the cities and villages.Jesus went where the people were. He did not remain at the temple in Jerusalem, but visited even the little towns and villages that all might have an opportunity to hear Him.
Jesus and the apostles, of course, did not overlook the importance of preaching in the great centers of population. Jerusalem was one of those centers, and some of Jesus greatest discourses were delivered there. Antioch of Syria and Ephesus became radiating centers from which the gospel was heard. While Paul was at Ephesus all Asia Minor heard about the gospel. It was his plan to preach where no one had ever told the story of Jesus. Finally, he realized his dream to preach the gospel in Rome also. Wherever he went, he preached the whole counsel of God, publically and from house to house. In doing so, he was following the pattern of Jesuss ministry of teaching and healing.
The methods that proved so effective in the ministries of Jesus and of the apostles are, where they are being tried, proving effective today. Church buildings for the assembly of the saints are necessary, but so many of those who are lost never set foot inside of them. Just as Paul did, the church must teach the Word in all the homes where permission can be had to do so. Many practical aids are available to assist those who want to share in this task. The assembly of the saints is designed, among other things, to give encouragement to the people of God, to instruct them in the Word, and to help them to know how to share the gospel with others. See Jesus emphasis on this very thing in Luk. 8:38-39.
preaching and bringing good tidings of the kingdom.Preaching on current issues on which the people may be as well or even better informed than the preacher tends to make the whole experience useless. The authoritarian approach of the preacherthis is entirely different from preaching the authoritative Word of Godoften points to the importance of the preacher, but fails to help the people in the task of sharing the good news with those who so desperately need it. When Jesus preached, He proclaimed the good news about Gods rule in the hearts of men. He trained His apostles and sent them out to preach repentance and remission of sins. Luk. 24:46-47. In this day when we demandand rightly sothat there shall be relevance in preaching, is there anything more relevant to the sinner than the message of salvation? In this sinful age, can we do better than point to Jesus whose very name indicates that He came to save His people from their sins? There was need for social reform in Jesus day. His answer to the problem was to proclaim Gods rule in the hearts of men that their lives might be transformed, for a transformed life is the only sure way of transforming the social structure of any day.
certain women who had been healed.Jesus meant something to those who faithfully followed and ministered to His and the apostles needs. The reason for their devotion is to be found in their appreciation for what Jesus had done for them. Church people may need to reexamine their own relation to the Lord. Has He done anything for them? Does salvation from sin mean much to many who make up the churches today? Or is the church composed of nice people whose company is enjoyed by those who join?
Every sinnerevery one who has transgressed Gods lawis in desperate need of the salvation and forgiveness that Christ alone can give (Act. 4:12). Devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ depends on the awareness of what it means to be saved from eternal death. Great as release from demon possession was, it does not compare with the importance of release from slavery to sin.
Mary that was called Magdalene.She was called Magdalene because she was from Magdala, a town near Tiberias on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. Matthew mentions a town by the name of Magadan (Mat. 15:39), and Mark speaks of Dalmanutha (Mar. 8:10) in connection with the journeys of Jesus. There is not sufficient evidence to identify either with the home of Mary Magdalene, although some assume that Magadan may be a variant of Magdala.
Luke says that seven demons had gone out from Mary Magdalene. Mark states that Jesus had cast them out (Mar. 6:9). Her demon possession is the basis of the totally unfounded tradition that Mary Magdalene is the woman of the city mentioned in Luk. 7:37. There isnt the slightest evidence in the record that would indicate that she was responsible for the demon possession or that it in any way proves that she was a sinner. Marys great loyalty to Jesus evidently grew out of her sincere appreciation for what He had done for her. Her loyalty did not lag, for she was among those who were at the cross when Jesus died for the sins of the world (Mar. 15:44-47). After His resurrection, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene (Mar. 16:9; Joh. 19:1-18). She was with the women who brought the news of the resurrection to the apostles (Luk. 24:10).
the wife of Chuzas Herods steward.The Herodian family arrayed itself against Christ and the church, but the wife of one of Herods servants was among those who ministered to Jesus and His apostles.
who ministered unto them of their substance.This answers in part the question about Jesus source of support. He and His disciples had not time to make a living. These women contributed to the support of the Teacher and His disciples, for teachers were highly regarded by the people; and this was particularly true of Jesus and the people for whom He had done so much.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Butlers Comments
SECTION 1
In Educating The Ego (Luk. 8:1-21)
8 Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, 2and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herods steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
4 And when a great crowd came together and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: 5A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the path, and was trodden under foot, and the birds of the air devoured it. 6And some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. 7And some fell among thorns; and the thorns grew with it and choked it. 8And some fell into good soil and grew, and yielded a hundredfold. As he said this, he called out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
9 And when his disciples asked him what this parable meant, 10he said, To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but for others they are in parables, so that seeing they may not understand. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, that they may not believe and be saved. 13And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy; but these have no root, they believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. 14And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures, of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 And as for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience.
16 No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a vessel, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, that those who enter may see the light. 17For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light. 18Take heed then how you hear; for to him who has will more be given, and from him who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.
19 Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him for the crowd. 20And he was told, Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you. 21 But he said to them, My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.
Luk. 8:1-3 Dogma: Jesus went about from one city and village to another (Gr. kata polin kai komen) making proclamation (Gr. kerusson) and delivering a message (euangelizomenos) or evangelizing. The message was: the kingdom of God has come! This is the essential dogma for the education of the human ego or soul. God is Sovereign! He has never and will never be dethroned. That is good news! G. Campbell Morgan suggests a slight change in translation of the Greek phrase, ten basileian tou Theou, to read the kingdom of God. There is no grammatical reason for objection to such a change. Actually, kingship is the primary meaning of the word basileian, (see Arndt & Gingrich, Greek lexicon, page 134). Territory is the secondary meaning of the word. The fact that God rules and He has made a way for rebellious man to be reconciled and receive citizenship in His kingdom, is what Jesus proclaimed. This is the Gospelthe good news. God is in chargehistory will ultimately be consummated under His sovereignty, and man has an opportunity to harmonize himself to that absolute dogma and become the recipient of its consequences. No human mind or heart has been educated until it has heard the Gospel and no human being can be a citizen of the kingdom of God without surrendering to the kingship of Christ.
In the ministry of the women to Jesus and the twelve we have an example of the kingship of Christ taking root in the human heart. These women lovingly expressed their citizenship by participating in heralding the good news through their financial support of Christs evangelizing. The Greek imperfect verb diekonoun indicates they kept on deaconessing, or ministering (RSV providing) for Jesus and the twelve out of their own belongings. Supernaturally speaking, Jesus did not have to depend on anyone for physical subsistence. He could change water to wine and multiply bread and fish. He had the power to create or destroy. But if He is to capture the hearts of men and women for God He must, by humble grace, allow them to share in the work (kingdom) of God. G. Campbell Morgan writes, I always see here for myself the grace of Christ, that He was content to be supported in that way, while He carried on His work. It is more blessed to give than receive, and it takes more grace to receive than it does to give. He was content to live on charity, while He carried on His mighty ministry.
Mary is from the Hebrew name Miriam (which means, rebel) called Magdalene, out of whom Jesus had cast seven demons; Joanna (means, dove) the wife of Herods steward (Gr. epitropos, one who looks after the kings financial affairs); and Susanna (means, lily), who had also been healed of some infirmity. Barclay notes the significance that in this group of women are united such diverse backgroundsMary, with the dark past and Joanna, a lady of the kings court in one company. He says, There is nothing which the Church needs more than to learn how to yoke in common harness the diverse temperaments and qualities of different people. If we are failing it is our own fault, for, in Christ, it can be doneit has been done.
It is also significant that the only mention of how Jesus was supported in His ministry tells of women leading out. Womanhood is glorified as it serves God:
a.
Jesus, the Messiah, was born of woman.
b.
Women supported His ministry. Luk. 8:1-3.
c.
Women stayed with Him in His agony at the cross, Joh. 19:25.
d.
Women were first to the tomb, Luk. 23:55.
e.
Women were prominent in service in the early church, Act. 1:14; Act. 12:12; Act. 16:13-15.
f.
Many women served in the church at Rome, Rom. 16:3-23.
g.
Women supported the apostle Pauls ministry, Php. 4:3.
The glory of womanhood is in helping others serve Christ!
Luk. 8:4-15 Dynamic: The dynamic, the germinating power in the education of the human ego is the Word of God. Jesus makes this dramatically clear in His parable of the sower. Actually, it is a parable of the soils. The word parable in Greek is parabole and literally means, that which is cast alongside, or something deliberately placed parallel. Someone has graphically described a parable as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The essential rule in interpreting parables is to find the one central truth which the parable intends to teach. Parables are mainly illustrative and many of the details in a parable are window dressing and have nothing to do with doctrine. Doctrine does not lean on parables; parables lean on doctrine. In other words, parables do not constitute or give rise to the formation of doctrinesthey simply explain and help apply doctrines already constituted.
At this very crucial point in Jesus public ministry, it is apparent that He begins to make much more use of parables. This may be due to a number of circumstances:
a.
There is a growing opposition from the religious and political authorities toward His teaching (cf. Mat. 12:22-45, etc.).
b.
His own family and twelve disciples are expressing anxieties about His welfare (cf. Mat. 12:46-50; Luk. 8:19-21).
c.
Great multitudes are following Him but their minds are so enthralled with the materialistic aspects of the kingdom of God He is having difficulty penetrating that with any spiritual concepts (cf. Mat. 13:10-13; Mat. 13:34-35).
e.
His own select group of twelve disciples have also manifested a need to have some truths concerning the kingdom more graphically imprinted on their minds.
Parables are enigmatic enough and require just enough self-honesty and effort to know the truth that they will conceal the truth from those who would oppose the truth and only use it for violent purposes. Parables have a way of stripping the human mind bare of all bias and rationalization and laying it open to reality so that those who hate the truth have their opposition intensified. Jesus now tells a parable to explain this about parables:
a.
the way (Gr. hodos) is more than a path (Gr. tribos). Hodos is translated highway in Mat. 22:10; Luk. 14:23 and means the hard, packed-down roadway. It is impenetrable. Some seed falls on such soil and because it cannot take root it never produces. It is vulnerable. Birds come and take the seed away.
b.
the rock (Gr. petran) is the ground which is underlaid with limestone. It is very shallow soil on top of hard rock which will not retain moisture. Seed sown on such soil may sprout but the young plant withers almost immediately.
c.
the thorns (Gr. akanthon) may be a generic term for the many thorns and thistles and prickly weeds which grow in Palestine. Seed falling in soil not thoroughly plowed and weeded will find thorns and thistles growing up with the young plants. The weeds are more prolific and hardier and will soon choke out the domestic plants. Soil must be constantly plowed and cultivated so the plants will grow.
d.
the good soil (Gr. agathev) is that which is prepared. It is broken up, plowed, fertile, retains moisture and is cleared of weeds and other hindrances.
Jesus concluded the parable with an admonition to hear. In the Hebrew language the word shema means hear and obey; to the Hebrew mind to hear was to obey. The same is true of the Greek word hupakouo obey which comes from the root akouw which means hear, hearken. The person who really hears the teaching of Jesus will obey it. Jesus came to accomplish mans salvation by His death and resurrection, but man must hear and obey to receive that salvation. When the Gospel is taught people are held responsible by God as to how they hear. Those who teach the gospel have responsibilities to be faithful in proclamation, but those who are taught also have awesome responsibilities in hearing and obeying!
The disciples asked Jesus what this parable meant. He replied it was to teach the truth that proclaiming the kingship of God would not be easy. In effect, Jesus is explaining why He has suddenly intensified His use of the parabolic method of preaching. The truth of Gods sovereignty may be widely disseminated but it will have limited receptionnot because the truth has no germinating power nor because the proclaimer is inept but because the hearts of men refuse to receive it. This parable was to show the difference between His disciples who heard His proclamation that the kingdom of God had come and left all and followed Him and the self-righteous religious leaders and materialistic multitudes who heard but did not produce the fruit of repentance in their lives. Most of the time Jesus could speak plainly to His disciples and they understood. Of course, there were times when they did not understand because of their finite limitations, but they were good men and His teaching did not motivate them to want to kill Him as it did the rulers. The Greek word musteria (mysteries, KJV) is translated secrets in the RSV. The word in Biblical context means revelation. It is not mysterious in that it cannot be known but in the sense that it is unknown until it is revealed. What Jesus is actually saying is He could reveal the things concerning the kingdom of God plainly to His disciples most of the time without fear of being misunderstood and opposed but for the rest of the people then He must speak of the kingdom in parables. So Jesus explained the parable to His disciples:
a.
the seed is the word of God. The Greek is, ho logos tou theou. Jesus is the Logos in Joh. 1:1-18 and Rev. 19:13. The word of Jesus is Life (cf. Joh. 6:63). The gospel of Christ is the seed by which men are born again (1Pe. 1:22-24) and it must be obeyed to produce the new life. This is of primary importance. The dynamic for eternal life is not religious systems or human traditions but faith in a Person, Jesus Christ, which is expressed by obedience to His commandments.
b.
the wayside soil represents people with hardened hearts. The word of God cannot bear fruit there because they do not love the truth but take pleasure in unrighteousness (2Th. 2:9-12) and the devil is allowed to come and take the truth away and replace it with delusion and falsehood. This is the mind that has become calloused with continued rejection of truth (cf. Rom. 1:18-32; Heb. 3:7-13; 2Pe. 3:5; Pro. 21:29; Pro. 28:14, etc.). This represents the coldly indifferent, close-minded, arrogant, self-righteous person, obstinately impervious to the historical reality of scripture because of the moral implications for his life-style. The disciple of Jesus who goes proclaiming the kingship of God will find that the Word can be absolutely resisted, that there is a real devil who will take away any word of God when a person does not want it, and, all who sow the seed of the kingdom will meet with some hard hearts.
c.
the rocky of shallow soil represents those who respond quickly and emotionally to the Word, but superficially. This person never really thinks about the hard historical realities of discipleship, stewardship, persecution, and self-controlthey just feel. These have no endurance when the heat of worldly opposition comes to their life because they have not allowed the Word of God to have root in their character. Their relationship to the Word is emotional but not mental and practical. The disciple of Jesus who sows the seed of the Gospel must understand that if the Word is to produce any lasting fruit it must be sown in minds characterized by stability, reality, endurance and depth.
d.
the thorny soil represents those who want the best of both worlds at the same time. It is the heart with potential (for if it will grow thorns, it will grow wheat) but it allows the weeds of worldliness to grow alongside the wheat of the Word. The desires and cares of this world, if allowed to go unchecked, will choke out desires and cares for the next world. If Jesus ever emphasized anything it was that Christian discipleship is impossible with divided loyalties. We must set our minds on things above . . . not on things on the earth (Col. 3:2). The rich young ruler and Demas are examples of thorny soil.
e.
the good soil represents people with honest and good (Gr. kale, agathe) hearts. They are fair-minded, know what is right when it is proclaimed and practiced, and desire the truth even though it may involve suffering in the flesh. They hold on to all the truth they know and are loyal to it because they recognize its value. They have patience (Gr. hupomone, endurance). They are not fickle, but steadfast. They are not shallow but deep. The seed of the gospel sown in their hearts grows automatically (Gr. automate, Mar. 4:28), or, of its own accord. No manipulation is necessary, it grows according to its own schedule.
Jesus revealed in this parable that the kingdom of God (Gods rule in the hearts of men) is produced by the Word of God preached to men. Those who proclaim the Word must be warned that it will fall on four different types of hearts. The Word will produce the fruit of salvation in only one kind of heart, honest and good; in all others it will not produce. Thus, by implication, Jesus is also teaching that sowing requires caring, training, work, persuasiveness, honesty, humility, patience, and faith. The student should definitely study Mat. 13:1-53 and Mar. 4:1-34 in conjunction with Luk. 8:4-18. We also recommend the very fine comments of Harold Fowler in, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. III, pages 14172, pub. College Press.
Luk. 8:16-18 Development: If the sower sows and the seed has automatic life in itself, then the ultimate responsibility for producing fruit lies with the soil. Hearing is the ultimate responsibility! The disciples may have wondered about Jesus statement, but for others they (the revelations of the kingdom) are in parables, so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Jesus answer to their perplexity: Lamps are made for lighting and light may be seen unless one is blind. Jesus is not going to refuse to reveal the kingdom to anyone. He will preach the kingdom to everyone He possibly can. He is not going to conceal the light of the gospelHe is going to let it shine. The light of truth, so far as it depends on Him and His disciples, will be made available to all who are willing to see it. But truth is perceived only to the degree of honesty, and desire which the mind has toward it. Truth will not be forced upon anyone. Jesus is using parabolic form to present truth simply because for those who refuse to let God tell them anything, the door to the kingdom of God must be closed. Take heed then how you hear (obey)! The truth about the kingdom has all been revealed in Jesus and the apostolic writings. Nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light. God has no more revelation about the kingdom than what the New Testament reveals. The Light is there! It is up to man to see it! Those who put the most faith in Jesus words will understand them and profit from them most. Those who do not believe Jesus, even what little truth they have will soon become meaningless and lost. What a man does not use he will lose!
Luk. 8:19-21 Disposition: Matthew and Mark (Mat. 12:46-50; Mar. 3:31-35) place this incident in a different position in their accounts. Most commentators think the incident should chronologically come before the sermon in parables and that Luke has placed it according to literary usage. Whatever the case, it is a classic example of the Son of Man exercising authority in the realm of the human ego. It also exemplifies the very thing Jesus warned against in the parable of the soils (the thorny soil) that the word of the kingdom may be choked out by worldly-mindedness. Jesus mother and brothers may have been altogether sincere in trying to call Him, aside from the intensity of His present situation. Jesus had been so busy He had not even taken time to eat (cf. Mar. 3:20); the Pharisees were openly intensifying their attacks upon Him (Mat. 12:24) and saying He was demon possessed; they probably thought Jesus was so carried away with His cause that He had become oblivious to the dangers all about Him and they must take things in hand and give corrective guidance. At first, Jesus answer seems flippant. But Jesus is not being frivolous toward family love at allHe is simply putting it in its proper place. Family relationships must come behind our spiritual relationship with the Heavenly Father. The true man of God is loyal to God and His work first. The old adage that blood is thicker than water (originally intended to advocate that family ties are stronger than the ties of baptism into the spiritual family of God) is wrong! The mother and brothers of Jesus needed to understand that they had no right to use their family relationship to hinder His spiritual mission. They were, in fact, dangerously close to becoming thorny soil by their worldly attitude toward His work. The ultimate criterion of our relationship to Jesus is not human family ties, or any other circumstance of human birth, but spiritual rebirth. As Jesus put it, our relationship to Him depends entirely upon whether we are doing the will of God or not. That is the kingdom disposition; Jesus wishes to exercise His authority through His word upon the human ego to produce that disposition.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
VIII.
(1) And it came to pass afterward.The last word is the same as that translated in order, in Luk. 1:3, and is interesting as showing the continuance of St. Lukes purpose to narrate events, so far as he could, in their exact sequence. He is the only writer in the New Testament who uses it. The verse sums up an undefined and otherwise unrecorded range of work.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 8
ON THE ROAD ( Luk 8:1-3 ) 8:1-3 After that, Jesus travelled through the country, town by town, and village by village, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, as were certain women, who had been cured from evil spirits and from illnesses. There was Mary, who is called Mary Magdalene, out of whom there went seven devils, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, who was Herod’s agent, and Susanna and many others. It was their habit to minister to their needs out of their resources.
The time we saw coming had now come. Jesus was on the road. The synagogues were not now open to him, as once they had been. He had begun, as it were, in the church, where any man with a message from God might expect to find a responsive and receptive audience. Instead of a welcome he had found opposition; instead of eager listeners he had found the scribes and Pharisees bleakly waiting to catch him out; so now he took to the open road and the hillside and the lake shore.
(i) Once more we are confronted with a fact which we have already noted. This passage lists a little group of women who served him out of their resources. It was always considered to be a pious act to support a Rabbi, and the fact that the devoted followers of Jesus helped him in this way was in direct line with ordinary practice. But, as with the disciples, so with these women, we cannot fail to see how mixed a company they were. There was Mary Magdalene, that is Mary from the town of Magdala, out of whom he had cast seven devils. Clearly she had a past that was a dark and terrible thing. There was Joanna. She was the wife of Chuza, Herod’s epitropos ( G2012) . A king had many perquisites and much private property; his epitropos ( G2012) was the official who looked after the king’s financial interests. In the Roman Empire, even in provinces which were governed by proconsuls appointed by the senate, the Emperor still had his epitropos ( G2012) to safeguard his interests. There could be no more trusted and important official. It is an amazing thing to find Mary Magdalene, with the dark past, and Joanna, the lady of the court, in the one company.
It is one of the supreme achievements of Jesus that he can enable the most diverse people to live together without in the least losing their own personalities or qualities. G. K. Chesterton writes about the text which says that the lion will lie down with the lamb. “But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. It is constantly assumed … that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is–Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the Church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved.” There is nothing which the church needs more than to learn how to yoke in common harness the diverse temperaments and qualities of different people. If we are failing it is our own fault, for, in Christ, it can be done–and has been done.
(ii) In this list of women we have a group whose help was practical. Being women, they would not be allowed to preach; but they gave the gifts they had. There was an old shoemaker who once had wished to become a minister but the way had never opened up. He was the friend of a young divinity student; and when the lad one day was called to his first charge the old man asked him for a favour. He asked to be allowed always to make his shoes so that he might feel the preacher was wearing his shoes in that pulpit into which he could never go himself.
It is not always the person in the foreground who is doing the greatest work. Many a man who occupies a public position could not sustain it for one week without the help of the home behind him! There is no gift which cannot be used in the service of Christ. Many of his greatest servants are in the background, unseen but essential to his cause.
THE SOWER AND THE SEED ( Luk 8:4-15 )
8:4-15 When a great crowd had gathered, and when they came to him from every city, Jesus spoke to them by means of a parable. The sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed some seed fell by the wayside. It was trampled upon and the birds of the heaven devoured it. Other seed fell on rocky ground where it grew up and withered because there was no moisture. Other seed fell in the middle of thorns and the thorns grew up along with it and choked the life out of it. Other seed fell into good ground and it produced a crop a hundredfold. As he told the story he said, “He that has an ear to hear let him hear.”
The disciples asked him what the parable meant. He said, “It is given to you to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. To the others it is presented in parables, so that they may see, and yet not see, and so that they may hear and yet not understand.”
The meaning of the parable is this. The seed is the word of God. Those by the wayside stand for those who have heard, and then the devil comes and takes the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky ground stand for those, who, whenever they hear the word, gladly receive it; but they have no root; they believe for a time; but when a time of trial comes they fall away. The seed that falls among thorns stands for those, who, when they have heard, go their way and are suffocated by the cares, the wealth and the pleasures of this life, and so never complete their crop. The seed that is in the good ground stands for those who have heard the word and keep hold of it in a heart that is fine and good, and bear fruit with fortitude.
In this parable Jesus used a picture that all his hearers would recognize. It is in fact quite likely that he was looking at some sower sowing his seed as he spoke.
The parable speaks of four kinds of ground.
(i) The common ground in Palestine was split into long narrow strips; between the strips there were paths which were rights of way; when the seed fell on these paths, which were beaten as hard as the road, it had no chance of getting in.
(ii) There was the rocky ground. This does not mean ground that was full of stones but ground which was only a thin skin of earth over a shelf of limestone rock. In such ground there was no moisture or nourishment, and the growing plant was bound to wither and die.
(iii) The ground which was full of thorns was ground which at the moment looked clean enough. It is possible to make any bit of ground look clean simply by turning it over. But the seeds of the weeds and the fibrous roots of the wild grasses had been left in it. The good seed and the weeds grew together, but the weeds grew more strongly; and so the life was choked out of the good seed.
(iv) The good ground was ground that was deep and clean and well-prepared.
Luk 8:9-10 have always been puzzling. It sounds as if Jesus is saying that he spoke in parables so that people would not be able to understand; but we cannot believe he would deliberately cloak his meaning from his listeners. Various explanations have been suggested.
(i) Mat 13:13, puts it slightly differently. He says that Jesus spoke in parables because people could not rightly see and understand. Matthew seems to say that it was not to hinder people from seeing and understanding but to help them that Jesus so spoke.
(ii) Matthew quotes immediately after this a saying of Isa 6:9-10, which in effect says, “I have spoken to them the word of God and the only result is that they have not understood a word of it.” So then the saying of Jesus may indicate not the object of his teaching in parables but the result of it.
(iii) What Jesus really meant is this–people can become so dull and heavy and blunted in mind that when God’s truth comes to them they cannot see it. It is not God’s fault. They have become so mentally lazy, so blinded by prejudice, so unwilling to see anything they do not want to see, that they have become incapable of assimilating God’s truth.
There are two interpretations of this parable.
(i) It is suggested that it means that the fate of the word of God depends on the heart into which it is sown.
(a) The hard path represents the shut mind, the mind which refuses to take it in.
(b) The shallow ground represents those who accept the word but who never think it out and never realize its consequences and who therefore collapse when the strain comes.
(c) The thorny ground stands for those whose lives are so busy that the things of God get crowded out. We must ever remember that the things which crowd out the highest need not necessarily be bad. The worst enemy of the best is the second best.
(d) The good ground stands for the good heart. The good hearer does three things. First, he listens attentively. Second, he keeps what he hears in his mind and heart and thinks over it until he discovers its meaning for himself. Third, he acts upon it. He translates what he has heard into action.
(ii) It is suggested that the parable is really a counsel against despair. Think of the situation. Jesus has been banished from the synagogues. The scribes and the Pharisees and the religious leaders are up against him. Inevitably the disciples would be disheartened. It is to them Jesus speaks this parable and in it he is saying, “Every farmer knows that some of his seed will be lost; it cannot all grow. But that does not discourage him or make him stop sowing because he knows that in spite of all the harvest is sure. I know we have our setbacks and our discouragements; I know we have our enemies and our opponents; but, never despair, in the end the harvest is sure.”
This parable can be both a warning as to how we hear and receive the word of God and an encouragement to banish all despair in the certainty that not all the setbacks can defeat the ultimate harvest of God.
LAWS FOR LIFE ( Luk 8:16-18 ) 8:16-18 No one lights a lamp and then hides it under a vessel or puts it under a bed. No! he puts it on a lamp-stand so that those who come in may see the light. There is nothing hidden which will not be made manifest; there is nothing secret which will not be known and brought into the open. Take care, then, how you listen; for to him who has it will be given; and from him who has not there shall be taken away even what he thinks he has.
Here we have three sayings, each with its own warning for life.
(i) Luk 8:16 stresses the essential conspicuousness of the Christian life. Christianity is in its very nature something which must be seen. It is easy to find prudential reasons why we should not flaunt our Christianity in the world’s face. In almost every person there is an instinctive fear of being different; and the world is always likely to persecute those who do not conform to pattern.
A writer tells how he kept hens. In the hen-run all the hens were precisely the same in marking except one. The one different hen was pecked to death by the other occupants of the hen-run. Even in the animal world, being different is a crime.
Hard as it may be, the duty is laid upon us of never being ashamed to show whose we are and whom we serve; and if we regard the matter in the right way it will be, not a duty, but a privilege.
A short time before the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II most houses and shops were displaying flags. I was out on a country road at that time; and in a little copse by the roadside I came upon a tinker’s camp. It consisted of only one little tent, and beside the tent there fluttered on a pole a Union Jack nearly as big as the tent itself. It was as if that vagrant tinker said, “I haven’t got much in this world; but I am going to attach my colours to what I have.”
The Christian, however humble his position and his sphere, must never be ashamed to show his colours.
(ii) Luk 8:17 stresses the impossibility of secrecy. There are three people from whom we try to hide things.
(a) Sometimes we try to hide things from ourselves. We shut our eyes to the consequences of certain actions and habits, consequences of which we are well aware. It is like a man deliberately shutting his eyes to symptoms of an illness which he knows he has. We have only to state that to see its incredible folly.
(b) Sometimes we try to hide things from our fellow men. Things have a way of coming out. The man with a secret is an unhappy man. The happy man is the man with nothing to hide. It is told that once an architect offered to build for Plato a house in which every room would be hidden from the public eye. “I will give you twice the money,” said Plato, “if you build me a house into every room of which all men’s eyes can see.” Happy is the man who can speak like that.
(c) Sometimes we try to hide things from God. No man ever attempted a more impossible task. We would do well to have before our eyes forever the text which says, “Thou art a God of seeing.” ( Gen 16:13.)
(iii) Luk 8:18 lays down the universal law that the man who has will get more; and that the man who has not will lose what he has. If a man is physically fit and keeps himself so, his body will be ready for ever greater efforts; if he lets himself go flabby, he will lose even the abilities he has. The more a student learns, the more he can learn; but if he refuses to go on learning, he will lose the knowledge he has. This is just another way of saying that there is no standing still in life. All the time we are either going forward or going back. The seeker will always find; but the man who stops seeking will lose even what he has.
TRUE KINSHIP ( Luk 8:19-21 ) 8:19-21 Jesus’ mother and brothers came to him, and they could not get at him because of the crowd. He was given a message. “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and they want to see you.” “My mother and my brothers,” he answered them, “are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
It is not difficult to see that, at least during his lifetime, Jesus’ family were not in sympathy with him. Mar 3:21 tells us how his kinsmen came and tried to restrain him because they believed him to be mad. In Mat 10:36 Jesus warns his followers that a man’s foes may well be those of his own household–and he was speaking out of hard and bitter experience.
There is in this passage a great and practical truth. It may very well be that a man finds himself closer to people who are not related to him than he does to his own kith and kin. The deepest relationship of life is not merely a blood relationship; it is the relationship of mind to mind and heart to heart. It is when people have common aims, common principles, common interests, a common goal that they become really and truly kin.
Let us remember that definition of the kingdom which we already worked out. The kingdom of God is a society upon earth where God’s will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven. It was Jesus’ supreme quality that he alone succeeded in fully achieving the identity of his will and the will of God. Therefore, all whose one aim in life is to make God’s will their will are the true kindred of Jesus. We speak of all men being the sons of God; and in a very real and precious sense that is true, because God loves saint and sinner; but the deepest kind of sonship is ethically conditioned. It is when a man puts his will in line with God’s will by the help of the Holy Spirit, that real kinship begins.
The Stoics declared that that was the only way to happiness in this life. They had the conviction that everything that happens–joy and sorrow, triumph and disaster, gain and loss, sunshine and shadow–was the will of God. When a man refused to accept it he battered his head against the walls of the universe and could bring himself nothing but pain and trouble of heart.
When a man looks up to God and says, “Do with me as you wish,” he has found the way to joy.
Two things emerge:
(i) There is a loyalty which surpasses all earthly loyalties; there is something which takes precedence of the dearest things on earth. In that sense Jesus Christ is a demanding master, for he will share a man’s heart with nothing and with no one. Love is necessarily exclusive. We can love only one person at a time and serve only one master at a time.
(ii) That is hard; but there is this great wonder–that when a man gives himself absolutely to Christ he becomes one of a family whose boundaries are the earth. Whatever loss he may experience is counterbalanced by his gain. As John Oxenham wrote:
“In Christ there is no East or West,
In him no South or North,
But one great fellowship of love
Throughout the whole wide earth.
In him shall true hearts everywhere
Their high communion find,
His service is the golden cord
Close-binding all mankind.
Join hands, then, brother of the faith,
Whate’er your race may be!
Who serves my Father as a son
Is surely kin to me.
In Christ now meet both East and West,
In him meet South and North,
All Christly souls are one in him,
Throughout the whole wide earth.”
The man who, through Jesus Christ, seeks the will of God has entered into a family which includes all the saints in earth and in heaven.
CALM AMIDST THE STORM ( Luk 8:22-25 ) 8:22-25 One day Jesus and his disciples embarked upon a ship. “Let us go over,” he said to them, “to the other side of the lake.” So they set sail. As they sailed he fell asleep. A violent squall of wind came down upon the lake; and the boat began to fill with water; and they were in peril. They came to him and woke him. “Master, Master,” they said, “we are perishing.” When he awoke, he rebuked the wind and the surf of the water. They ceased their raging, and there was a calm. “Where is your faith?” he said to them. But they were awe-stricken and amazed. “Who can this be,” they said to each other, “because he gives his orders even to the winds and the water, and they obey him?”
Luke tells this story with an extraordinary economy of words, and yet with extraordinary vividness. It was no doubt for much needed rest and quiet that Jesus decided to cross the lake. As they sailed, he fell asleep.
It is a lovely thing to think of the sleeping Jesus. He was tired, just as we become tired. He, too, could reach the point of exhaustion when the claim of sleep is imperative. He trusted his men; they were the fishermen of the lake and he was content to leave things to their skill and seamanship, and to relax. He trusted God; he knew that he was as near to God by sea as ever he was by land.
Then the storm came down. The Sea of Galilee is famous for its sudden squalls. A traveller says, “The sun had scarcely set when the wind began to rush down towards the lake, and it continued all night long with increasing violence, so that when we reached the shore next morning the face of the lake was like a huge boiling caldron.” The reason is this. The Sea of Galilee is more than six hundred feet below sea level. It is surrounded by table lands beyond which the great mountains rise. The rivers have cut deep ravines through the table lands down into the sea. These ravines act like great funnels to draw down the cold winds from the mountains; and thus the storms arise. The same traveller tells how they tried to pitch their tents in such a gale. “We had to double-pin all the tent-ropes, and frequently were obliged to hang on with our whole weight upon them to keep the quivering tabernacle from being carried up bodily into the air.”
It was just such a sudden storm that struck the boat that day, and Jesus and his disciples were in peril of their lives. The disciples woke Jesus and with a word he calmed the storm.
Everything that Jesus did had more than a merely temporal significance. And the real meaning of this incident is that, wherever Jesus is, the storm becomes a calm.
(i) Jesus comes, calms the storms of temptation. Sometimes temptation comes with almost overmastering force. As Stevenson once said, “You know the Caledonian Railway Station in Edinburgh? One cold bleak morning I met Satan there.” It comes to us all to meet Satan. If we meet the tempest of temptation alone we will perish; but Christ brings the calm in which temptations lose their power.
(ii) Jesus calms the storms of passion. Life is doubly difficult for the man with the hot heart and the blazing temper. A friend met such a man. “I see,” he said, “that you have succeeded in conquering your temper.” “No,” said the man, “I didn’t conquer it. Jesus conquered it for me.”
“When deep within our swelling hearts
The thoughts of pride and anger rise,
When bitter words are on our tongues
And tears of passion in our eyes,
Then we may stay the angry blow,
Then we may check the hasty word,
Give gentle answers back again,
And fight a battle for our Lord.”
It is a losing battle unless Jesus gives us the calm of victory.
(iii) Jesus calms the storms of sorrow. Into every life some day the tempest of sorrow must come, for sorrow is ever the penalty of love and if a man loves he will sorrow. When Pusey’s wife died, he said, “It was as if there was a hand beneath my chin to hold me up.” In that day, in the presence of Jesus, the tears are wiped away and the wounded heart is soothed.
THE DEFEAT OF THE DEMONS ( Luk 8:26-39 ) 8:26-39 They came in their voyage to the district of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus had disembarked on the land there met him a man from the town who had demons. For a long time he had gone unclothed, and he did not stay in a house and fell down before him and shouted, “What have you and I to do with each other, Jesus, you Son of the Most High God? I beseech you–don’t torture me!”–for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many a time it had snatched at him, and he was kept bound with chains and fetters, but when he was driven into the deserted places by the demons, he would burst the fetters. Jesus answered, “What is your name?” He said, “A regiment”–because many demons had entered into him, and they begged him not to order them to depart to the abyss. There was a herd of many pigs there, feeding on the mountainside. The demons asked him to allow them to go into them. He did so. So the demons came out of the man and into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the precipice into the lake and were drowned. When those who were in charge of them saw what had happened, they fled and brought the story to the town and to the countryside round about. They came out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone out sitting there at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his senses–and they were afraid. Those who had seen what had happened told them how the demon-possessed man had been cured; and the whole crowd from the Gerasene countryside asked him to go away from them, because they were in the grip of a great fear. So he embarked on the ship and went away. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to be allowed to go with him; but he sent him away. “Go back,” he said, “to your home and tell the story of all that God did for you.” So he went away and proclaimed throughout the whole town all that God had done for him.
We will never even begin to understand this story unless we realize that, whatever we think about the demons, they were intensely real to the people of Gerasa and to the man whose mind was deranged. This man was a case of violent insanity. He was too dangerous to live amongst men and he lived amidst the tombs, which were believed to be the home and the haunt of demons. We may well note the sheer courage of Jesus in dealing with him. The man had a maniacal strength which enabled him to snap his fetters. His fellow-men were so terrified of him that they would never try to do anything for him; but Jesus faced him calm and unafraid.
When Jesus asked the man his name, he answered, “Legion.” A Roman legion was a regiment of 6,000 soldiers. Doubtless this man had seen a Roman legion on the march, and his poor, afflicted mind felt that there was not one demon but a whole regiment inside him. It may well be that the word haunted him because he had seen atrocities carried out by a Roman legion when he was a child. It is possible that it was the sight of such atrocities which left a scar upon his mind and ultimately sent him mad.
Far too much difficulty has been made out of the pigs. Jesus has been condemned for sending the demons into the innocent swine. That has been characterised as a cruel and immoral action. Again we must remember the intensity of the belief in demons. The man, thinking the demons were speaking through him, pleaded with Jesus not to send them into the abyss of hell to which they would be consigned in the final judgment. He would never have believed that he was cured unless he had visible demonstration. Nothing less than the visible departure of the demons would have convinced him.
Surely what happened was this. The herd of swine was feeding there on the mountain side. Jesus was exerting his power to cure what was a very stubborn case. Suddenly the man’s wild shouts and screams disturbed the swine and they went dashing down the steep place into the sea in blind terror. “Look!” said Jesus, “Look! Your demons are gone!” Jesus had to find a way to get into the mind of this poor man; and in that way he found it.
In any event, can we compare the value of a herd of swine with the value of a man’s immortal soul? If it cost the lives of these swine to save that soul, are we to complain? Is it not perverse fastidiousness which complains that swine were killed in order to heal a man? Surely we ought to preserve a sense of proportion. If the only way to convince this man of his cure was that the swine should perish, it seems quite extraordinarily blind to object that they did.
We must look at the reaction of two sets of people.
(i) There were the Gerasenes. They asked Jesus to go away.
(a) They hated having the routine of life disturbed. Life went peacefully on till there arrived this disturbing Jesus; and they hated him. More people hate Jesus because he disturbs them than for any other reason. If he says to a man, “You must give up this habit, you must change your life”; if he says to an employer, “You can’t be a Christian and make people work under conditions like that”; if he says to a landlord, “You can’t take money for slums like that”–one and all are liable to say to him, “Go away and let me be in peace.”
(b) They loved their swine more than they valued the soul of a man. One of life’s supreme dangers is to value things more than persons. That is what created slums and vicious working conditions. Nearer home, that is what makes us selfishly demand our ease and comfort even if it means that someone who is tired has to slave for us. No thing in this world can ever be as important as a person.
(ii) There was the man who was cured. Very naturally he wanted to come with Jesus but Jesus sent him home. Christian witness, like Christian charity, begins at home. It would be so much easier to live and speak for Christ among people who do not know us. But it is our duty, where Christ has set us, there to witness for him. And if it should happen that we are the only Christian in the shop, the office, the school, the factory, the circle in which we live or work, that is not matter for lamentation. It is a challenge in which God says, “Go and tell the people you meet every day what I have done for you.”
AN ONLY CHILD IS HEALED ( Luk 8:40-42 ; Luk 8:49-56 ) 8:40-42,49-56 When Jesus came back the crowd welcomed him for they were all waiting for him. A man called Jairus came to him. He was the president of the synagogue. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and asked him to come to his house, because he had an only daughter who was about twelve years of age and she was dying. As he went the crowd pressed round him … While he was still speaking someone came from the president’s house. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the Master any more.” Jesus heard this. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Just have faith and she will be cured.” When he had come to the house he allowed no one to come in with him, except Peter and John and James, and the girl’s father and mother. They were all weeping and wailing for her. “Stop weeping,” he said, “for she is not dead but sleeping.” They laughed him down because they were sure she was dead. He took hold of her hand and said to her, “Child, rise!” Her breath came back to her and immediately she rose. He told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were out of themselves with amazement; but he enjoined them to tell no one what had happened.
Here is the pathos of life suddenly turned to gladness. Very keenly Luke felt the tragedy of this girl’s death. There were three things which made it so poignant.
(a) She was an only child. Only Luke tells us that. The light of her parents’ life had gone out.
(b) She was about twelve years of age. That is to say she was just at the dawn of womanhood because children in the East develop much more quickly than in the West. She could even have been contemplating marriage at that age. What should have been the morning of life had become the night.
(c) Jairus was the president of the synagogue. That is to say, he was the man who was responsible for the administration of the synagogue and the ordering of public worship. He had reached the highest post that life could give him in the respect of his fellow-men. No doubt he was well to do; no doubt he had climbed the ladder of earthly ambition and prestige. It seemed as if life–as it sometimes does–had given lavishly of many things but was about to take the most precious thing away. All the pathos of life is in the background of this story.
The wailing women had already come. To us it sounds almost repulsively artificial. But to hire these wailing women was a token of respect to the dead that was never omitted. They were sure she was dead, but Jesus said she was asleep. It is perfectly possible that Jesus meant this literally. It may well be that here we have a real miracle of diagnosis; that Jesus saw the girl was in a deep trance and that she was on the point of being buried alive. From the evidence of the tombs in Palestine it is clear that many were buried alive. It could happen the more easily because climatic conditions in Palestine made burial within a matter of hours a sheer necessity. However that may be, Jesus gave her back her life.
We must note one very practical touch. Jesus ordered that the girl should be given something to eat. Is it possible that he was thinking just as much of the mother as of the girl? The mother, with the pain of grief and the sudden shock of joy, must have been almost on the point of collapse. At such a time to do some practical thing with one’s hands is a life-saver. And it may well be that Jesus, in his kindly wisdom which knew human nature so well, was giving the overwrought mother a job to do to calm her nerves.
But by far the most interesting character in this story is Jairus.
(i) He was clearly a man who could pocket his pride. He was the president of the synagogue. By this time the synagogue doors were rapidly closing on Jesus, if indeed they had not already closed. He could have had no love for Jesus and he must have regarded Jesus as a breaker of the law. But in his hour of need, he pocketed his pride and asked for help.
There is a famous story of Roland, the paladin of Charlemagne. He was in charge of the rearguard of the army and he was suddenly caught by the Saracens at Roncesvalles. The battle raged fiercely against terrible odds. Now Roland had a horn called Olivant which he had taken from the giant Jatmund and its blast could be heard thirty miles away. So mighty was it that, so they said, the birds fell dead when its blast tore through the air. Oliver, his friend, besought him to blow the horn so that Charlemagne would hear and come back to help. But Roland was too proud to ask for help. One by one his men fell fighting till only he was left. Then at last with his dying breath he blew the horn, and Charlemagne came hasting back. But it was too late, for Roland was dead–because he was too proud to ask for help.
It is easy to think that we can handle life ourselves. But the way to find the miracles of the grace of God is to pocket our pride and humbly to confess our need and ask. Ask, and you will receive–but there is no receiving without asking.
(ii) Jairus was clearly a man of a stubborn faith. Whatever he felt, he did not wholly accept the verdict of the wailing women; for with his wife he went into the room where the girl lay. He hoped against hope. No doubt in his heart there was the feeling, “You never know what this Jesus can do.” And none of us knows all that Jesus can do. In the darkest day we can still hope in the unsearchable riches and the all-sufficient grace and the unconquerable power of God.
NOT LOST IN THE CROWD ( Luk 8:43-48 ) 8:43-48 There was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years. She had spent all her living on doctors and she could not be cured by any of them. She came up behind Jesus and she touched the tassel of his robe; and immediately her flow of blood was stayed. Jesus said, “Who touched me?” When they were all denying that they had done so, Peter and his companions said, “Master, the crowds are all round you and press in upon you.” Jesus said, “Someone has touched me, for I know that power has gone out of me.” The woman saw that she could not hide. She came all trembling; she threw herself at his feet; and in front of everyone she had told him why she had touched him, and that she had been cured there and then. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has cured you. Go in peace.”
This story laid hold on the heart and the imagination of the early church. It was believed that the woman was a gentile from Caesarea Philippi. Eusebius, the great church historian (A.D. 300), relates how it was said that the woman had at her own cost erected a statue commemorating her cure in her native city. It was said that that statue remained there until Julian, the Roman Emperor who tried to bring back the pagan gods, destroyed it, and erected his own in place of it, only to see his own statue blasted by a thunderbolt from God.
The shame of the woman was that ceremonially she was unclean ( Lev 15:19-33). Her issue of blood had cut her off from life. That was why she did not come openly to Jesus but crept up in the crowd; and that was why at first she was so embarrassed when Jesus asked who touched him.
All devout Jews wore robes with fringes on them ( Num 15:37-41; Deu 22:12). The fringes ended in four tassels of white thread with a blue thread woven through them. They were to remind the Jew every time he dressed that he was a man of God and committed to the keeping of God’s laws. Later, when it was dangerous to be a Jew, these tassels were worn on the undergarments. Nowadays they still exist on the talith or shawl that the Jew wears round his head and shoulders when he is at prayer. But in the time of Jesus they were worn on the outer garment, and it was one of these the woman touched.
Luke the doctor is here in evidence again. Mark says of the woman that she had spent her all on the doctors and was no better but rather grew worse ( Mar 5:26). Luke misses out the final phrase, because he did not like this gibe against the doctors!
The lovely thing about this story is that from the moment Jesus was face to face with the woman, there seemed to be nobody there but he and she. It happened in the middle of a crowd; but the crowd was forgotten and Jesus spoke to that woman as if she was the only person in the world. She was a poor, unimportant sufferer, with a trouble that made her unclean, and yet to that one unimportant person Jesus gave all of himself.
We are very apt to attach labels to people and to treat them according to their relative importance. To Jesus a person had none of these man-made labels. He or she was simply a human soul in need. Love never thinks of people in terms of human importances.
A distinguished visitor once came to call on Thomas Carlyle. He was working and could not be disturbed, but Jane, his wife, agreed to take this visitor up and open the door just a chink that he might at least see the sage. She did so, and as they looked in at Carlyle, immersed in his work and oblivious of all else, penning the books that made him famous, she said, “That’s Tammas Carlyle about whom all the world is talking–and he’s my man.” It was not in terms of the world’s labels Jane thought, but in terms of love.
A traveller tells how she was travelling in Georgia in the days before the Second World War. She was taken to see a very humble old woman in a little cottage. The old peasant woman asked her if she was going to Moscow. The traveller said she was. “Then,” asked the woman, “would you mind delivering a parcel of home-made toffee to my son? He can not get anything like it in Moscow.” Her son’s name was Josef Stalin. We do not normally think of the man who was once dictator of all the Russias as a man who liked toffee–but his mother did! For her the man-made labels did not matter.
Almost everybody would have regarded the woman in the crowd as totally unimportant. For Jesus she was someone in need, and therefore he, as it were, withdrew from the crowd and gave himself to her. “God loves each one of us as if there was only one of us to love.”
-Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)
Fuente: Barclay Daily Study Bible
42. SECOND ITINERANCY IN GALILEE HEALING A DEMONIAC BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST, Luk 8:1-3 .
See Mat 9:35; Mat 12:22-37; Mar 6:6.
1. Afterward After the laying of the Platform of the new dispensation, by preaching the Sermon on the Mount, and confirming it by miracles indicating his power over body and soul, Jesus entered upon an extensive range of ministry in Galilee.
The twelve were with him As they had been regularly installed in their number before the Sermon on the Mount Their number was adjusted to that of the twelve tribes, so that Jesus was now fully prepared to receive all Israel into that kingdom of God which he and they went forth to announce.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
The Good News of the Kingly Rule of God Continues To Go Out: A Summary of the Forces At His Disposal For Winning Men to Come Under the Kingly Rule of God (8:1-3).
Jesus’ ministry of teaching the Good News of the Kingly Rule of God continues (compare Luk 4:18; Luk 4:43; Luk 6:20), and He is accompanied by the twelve and a group of godly women, no doubt along with other disciples.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
‘And it came about soon afterwards, that he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the Kingly Rule of God, and with him the twelve, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to them of their substance.’
Following on the previous successes Jesus continued going through the towns and villages of Galilee proclaiming the Good News of the presence of the Kingly Rule of God, and with Him went His ‘army’, the twelve Apostles and a group of influential women who helped to provide sustenance. These last had experienced His healing power and in their love and gratitude followed Him, ministering to Him and His disciples. It was in fact quite common for women to support Rabbis materially, indeed sometimes to the point of bankruptcy. Jesus Himself criticised the Rabbis for ‘devouring widow’s houses’ (Luk 20:47). How much more then would wealthy women support One Who had done them so much good. But it would have been unusual for them to follow them continually. These women were equally ‘disciples’ with the men, but they would stay, and camp together, separate from the men.
Note that this description of the women disciples follows immediately after the incident of the sinful woman whose love for Him has also been spoken of. Luke wants to avoid any slur on Jesus as a result of someone suggesting that only women of a certain type came to Him. He indicates here that even the highest and most reputable in society followed Him. It is also contrasts in the chiasmus which follows with the mother love of Mary. That love was in contrast to this and was a hindrance to His ministry, although it should not have been. But here with Him were His spiritual ‘mother, sisters and brothers’ who helped Him all the way.
There seems to be no thought that the women should give away all their wealth. Women in those days could not support themselves as men could, nor did they have the freedom that men had. A woman could not just ‘enter into a city and there abide’. She had to be careful not to give a wrong impression of herself.
No doubt there were other disciples with them also. Some would follow Him on and off depending on when they could get free time, and there may have been others with Him permanently, but if so they are not mentioned here (but compare the seventy later on), although verse 62 would suggest that it was so.
‘Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others.’ Both Mary and Joanna are mentioned in Luk 24:10 as having seen the empty tomb, they thus appear to have remained with Him through much of His ministry. Joanna had moved in the highest circles, but she had chosen the better part. There are no grounds for thinking that Mary had been a prostitute or a particularly evil woman. Possession by multiple evil spirits was not unusual (compare Luk 11:26). But it may suggest that she had once been a medium and had delved deep in the occult. The mention of ‘seven’ (completeness in the realm of the spirit) probably indicates a severe case of complete control (compare ‘legion’ – Luk 8:30). She had clearly been a deeply troubled woman, and was a continual testimony to the power of Jesus to save. We know nothing further about Susanna, but she was apparently prominent, probably famed for her works of compassion (compare Act 9:36; Rom 16:1; 1Ti 5:10). But later traditions concerning all these were probably based on mere speculation and wishful thinking.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Chapter 8.
Jesus Proclaims the Parables of the Kingly Rule of God (8:1-18).
Having commenced this part section with the new Law of the Kingly Rule of God (Luk 6:20-49), and having in various ways revealed the advance of that Kingly Rule over Gentiles (Luk 7:1-10), over death (Luk 7:11-17), over disease and evil spirits (Luk 7:18-23), as an advance on the work of John the Baptiser (Luk 7:24-35), and over the outcasts of Israel (Luk 7:36-50), Luke closes this it with the proclamation of the advance of the Kingly Rule of God through the word, in parables.
This passage may be analysed as follows:
a He went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the Kingly Rule of God, and with him the twelve, and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuzas Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to them of their substance. (Luk 8:2-3).
b And when a great crowd came together, and those of every city resorted to him, he spoke by a parable: ‘The sower went forth to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it. And other fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other fell amidst the thorns, and the thorns grew with it, and choked it. And other fell into the good ground, and grew, and brought forth fruit a hundredfold. As He said these things, He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” And His disciples asked Him what this parable might be (Luk 8:8 b-9).
c And He said, To you it is given to know the mysteries of the Kingly Rule of God, but to the rest in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand (Luk 8:10).
d Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God (Luk 8:11).
e And those by the way side are those who have heard. Then comes the Devil, and takes away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved (Luk 8:12).
f And those on the rock are they who, when they have heard, receive the word with joy, and these have no root, who for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away (Luk 8:13).
e And that which fell among the thorns, these are they who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection (Luk 8:14).
d And that in the good ground, these are such as in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it fast, and bring forth fruit with patience (Luk 8:15).
c And no man, when he has lighted a lamp, covers it with a vessel, or puts it under a bed, but he puts it on a stand, that those who enter in may see the light, for nothing is hid, that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret, that shall not be known and come to light (Luk 8:16-17).
b Take heed therefore how you hear, for whoever has, to him shall be given, and whoever has not, from him shall be taken away even that which he thinks that he has (Luk 8:18).
a And there came to him his mother and brethren, and they could not come at him for the crowd. And it was told him, “Your mother and your brethren are standing outside, desiring to see you, but he answered and said to them, “My mother and my brethren are these who hear the word of God, and do it” (Luk 8:19-21)
In ‘a’ the proclamation is made of the Kingly Rule of God and with him are the twelve and certain women who are within that Kingly Rule, and in the parallel His brothers and mother are not with Him and are not within that Kingly Rule. In ‘b’ the sower sows the seed and the one who has ears to hear must hear, and in the parallel they are to take heed how they hear lest they lose what they have. In ‘c’ the disciples are given the secrets of the Kingly Rule of God, and in the parallel what is hidden is to be made manifest. In ‘d’ the seed sown is the word and in the parallel the word produces fruit. In ‘e’ the Devil takes away the word from men’s hearts and in the parallel the word is choked in their hearts. Central in ‘e’ is the word that flourishes but then withers because it has no root. The main part of the parable is stressing not the final harvest but the dangers of not receiving the word correctly.
It should be noted that Luk 8:19-21 are incorporated by Luke in the chiasmus in order to balance it, and in order to draw out its connection with the parable of the sower. His family were perfect examples of hardened ground, in contrast with those in Luk 8:1-3. But it will also be used to open to following chiasmus because of its contrast with the glory of the Messiah yet to be revealed. While this double use is unusual, there are similar examples of overlapping chiasmi elsewhere in the Scriptures.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
2). THE FOUNDING OF THE NEW ISRAEL UNDER THE KINGLY RULE OF GOD (6:20-8:18)
In this second part of the section Luk 5:1 to Luk 9:50, Jesus now reveals Himself as the founder of the new Israel under the Kingly Rule of God:
a He proclaims the new Law of the Kingly Rule of God (Luk 6:20-49).
b He sends out His power to the Gentiles, to those who are seen as unclean, but who have believed. They too are to benefit from His Kingly Rule (Luk 7:1-10).
c He raises the dead, a foretaste of the resurrection, revealing Him as ‘the Lord’. The Kingly Rule of God is here (Luk 7:11-17).
d John’s disciples come to ‘the Lord’ enquiring on behalf of John, and He points to His signs and wonders as evidence that He is the promised One. The King is present to heal and proclaim the Good News of the Kingly Rule of God (Luk 7:18-23).
c He exalts, yet also sets in his rightful place, John the Baptiser as the greatest of the prophets and points beyond him to the new Kingly Rule of God, emphasising again that the Kingly Rule of God is here (Luk 7:24-35).
b He is greeted by the transformed prostitute, who has believed, a picture of restored Israel (Eze 16:59-63) and of the fact that the Kingly Rule of God is available to all Who seek Him and hear Him.
a He proclaims the parables of the Kingly Rule of God (Luk 8:1-18).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Discourse: Jesus Teaches on Obeying His Word (Galilee) In Luk 8:1-21 Jesus teaches parables that reflect an emphasis on the Word of God and how it operates in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Outline: Here is a proposed outline:
1. Jesus Ministers with His Disciples Luk 8:1-3
2. Jesus Teaches the Parable of the Sower Luk 8:4-15
3. The Parable of the Light Under the Bushel Luk 8:16-18
4. His Family is the One Who Obeys the Word Luk 8:19-21
Luk 8:1-3 His Disciples in Service (The Women) Luk 8:1-3 emphasizes the fact that many other disciples ministered to Jesus, especially women. Women are practical in that they understand a family’s daily physical needs. They understand the need to dress the children, to cook the food and to have comforts in life. Although they were not ordained as were the twelve apostles, they joined together and began to do what they can do, which was to give financial and material support to the ministry. They were obedient to God’s Word. This passage of Scripture is contrasted to Luk 8:19-21 where the family of Jesus comes to Him and He declares that His mother and brothers are those who hear and do the Word of God.
Luk 8:2-3 Comments Luk 8:2-3 records the first incident of partners in the ministry of Jesus Christ. These early partners were women. These women partnered with Jesus Christ in order to make sure that He was free to walk in his Anointing and minister to others without being short of the basic necessities of life.
Luk 8:4-15 The Parable of the Sower ( Mat 13:1-23 , Mar 4:1-20 ) Luk 8:4-15 gives us the Parable of the Sower and its interpretation. Luke places this story at a strategic place in the narrative of Jesus’ Galilean ministry. His public ministry has now reached its peak of acceptance among the multitudes. Jesus needed to balance the true picture for His disciples of what was taking place in the hearts of the people. They were seeing some people reject His ministry, while others simply sought Jesus for their own personal gain. The disciples observed others following Him with some devotion for a while and then depart. There were a few who fully committed themselves to Jesus and served Him, such as the women listed in the opening verses of Luk 8:1-3. After this teaching, we are about to see even His own family reject His Messiahship. In the midst of these many relationships and observations, Jesus took the opportunity to teach His disciples about the hearts of men by using an analogy of a sower sowing seed in the ground.
The First Recorded Parable of Jesus According to the Synoptic Gospel accounts, the Parable of the Sower is the first parable that Jesus Christ taught to the people (Mat 13:3, Mar 4:2, Luk 8:4). Jesus explains in Mar 4:13 that this parable is a key to understanding all of the other parables He will teach. This implies that all other parables teach on various aspects of this parable or base their truths upon the principles laid down in the Parable of the Sower. This implication is seen in Mark’s record of the parables that follow this opening parable (Mk).
Mar 4:13, “And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? and how then will ye know all parables?”
The Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower – Here is the interpretation of the Parable of the Sower:
The Sower – On November 4, 2001, I had a dream where I saw one person scattering seeds randomly and with no cultivation and care. I then saw a well-maintained field, cultivated and well watered. I believe that the first picture is representative of how many believers are ministering the Gospel and receiving very little results. The second picture represents a ministry that is producing results for the Kingdom of God. I believe that Lighthouse Television is one of these productive ministries. We often focus on the harvest of the seed in this parable, but it is clear that the sower is making a decision on just where to cast his seed. I believe that the sower represents ministries that use various methods of spreading the Gospel. Some ministries are much more productive than others because they find good soil and cultivate the seed that is sown. Other ministries, with very little leadership from God scatter seed so randomly that the harvest is poor.
The Seed – The seed represents the Word of God.
The Soils – In the Parable of the Sower, the soil represents the spirit of man, and the different types of soils represent the different types of hearts that are found in man. God sends His Word to all people, into all types of hearts. Andrew Wommack notes that the life of the plant is in the seed, and not in the soil. We must learn to be nourished by God’s Word rather than by man or circumstances. As individuals, we can prepare our lives and hearts to become more and more receptive to God’s Word as we grow in Christian maturity, so that God’s Word can eventually take root and produce fruit in our lives. [208] Note other passages that give an analogy of man’s heart in comparison to soil.
[208] Andrew Wommack, “Laying a Sure Foundation,” in the series “A Sure Foundation,” [on-line]; accessed on 4 January 2010; available at http://www.awmi.net/podcasts/television/MP3 Audio; Internet.
Jer 4:3, “For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground , and sow not among thorns. “
Hos 10:12, “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground : for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”
1Co 3:9, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry , ye are God’s building.”
The different types of soil also reveal to us the progression of events in the development of every believer’s life. The soil in the roadside represents the initial proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the hardened hearts of the world. Satan is often able to steal this Word out of their hearts before they are saved. For those hearts that are receptive, the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World is the first step in discipleship. We find in the four Gospels and Acts an emphasis upon the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world.
The stony soil represents the heart that has received the message of the Gospel, but it has no depth. That is, this person has not learned the doctrines of the Church in order to become established. He has not grown in the grace and knowledge of the things of God. We find Church doctrine in the nine Church epistles of Romans through 2 Thessalonians. If they will become established in the teachings of the Word of God, they will be able to persevere. Others will be offended because of persecutions from the world. We find in the epistles of Hebrews, James and 1 Peter the exhortations to persevere under persecution from the world.
The soil with thorns represents the heart in which the Word of God is choked out because of worldly pursuits. This person has grown in the doctrines of the Word of God and even overcome persecutions. However, in the life of a believer, he must persevere not only amidst persecutions, but against backsliding due to false doctrines embraced by the Church itself. We see exhortations to persevere despite false doctrines from within the Church in the epistles of 2 Peter , 1, 2, 3 John and Jude. These epistles place emphasis upon the believer’s perseverance against false doctrines. For, if they are embraced, a believer will fall back into the deceptions of the world and be overcome.
Finally, the fertile soil represents the heart that fully embraces the Word of God and grows thereby. This person has become established in the doctrines of the Church. He has persevered against persecutions (stony soil) and against false doctrines (thorny soil). He has come to a place of producing fruit for the Kingdom of God. The degrees of fruit described as thirty, sixty and one hundred-fold represent the fact that there are various levels of Christian maturity. Another insight is to say that growth of a person’s fruit may be based upon the talents given to him initially by God. Or, we can say that the 30-60-100-fold harvest is determined by how much of the Word of God a person applies to his life.
When trying to understand the meaning of “30-60-100 fold” we may go to Rom 12:2 and note that there are three levels of which a believer can walk within God’s will. He may be walking in God’s good acceptable or perfect will. Perhaps these three levels of walking within God’s will produce three levels of fruit, just as we read in Mar 4:20, “and bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred.”
Rom 12:2, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
Thus, the Parable of the Sower (Mar 4:1-20) reveals the first aspect of our spiritual journey when a believer first embraces the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is justified by faith. The next parable of the Light Under the Bushel (Mar 4:21-25) explains how he then becomes rooted and grounded in the faith through the knowledge of the doctrines of the Church. With such a foundation, he is able to persevere against persecutions and false doctrines while continuing to sow his seed, as reflected in the Parable of the Growing Seed (Mar 4:26-29), so that he can reach the goal of his salvation, which is glorification in Heaven with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, which is reflected in the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mar 4:30-32).
Luk 8:4 And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable:
Luk 8:4
Mat 13:10-13, “And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”
Thus, all of Jesus’ recorded speeches were addressed either to His disciples with plainness, or to the multitudes in parables, and thirdly to the religious leaders in rebukes and woes. We must recognize His intended audience in each of His speeches in order to better understand His message. For example, we can see that the five major discourses found in the Gospel of Matthew were directed to His disciples, while the story of the Parable of the Sower was told to the multitudes.
Luk 8:10 Comments Of our five sense gates by which we receive all information about our natural world, it is the seeing and hearing that most influences our decisions.
Luk 8:13 “which for a while believe” – Comments Faith is God can be temporary and non-enduring.
Luk 8:16-18 The Parable of the Light Under the Bushel ( Mar 4:21-25 ) In Mar 4:21-25 Jesus gives us the illustration of the light hid under the bushel as way of explaining how hearing and receiving God’s Word works in our lives. This parable follows immediately after the Parable of the Sower. He explained that if we will hear and obey what we know to do, more understanding would be given unto us.
The Parable of the Light Under the Bushel teaches us that as the light of the Gospel shines forth into our hearts, we become indoctrinated with God’s Word; and we are not to hide this light and hold back our testimonies of God’s goodness in our lives, but are to continue sowing seeds of God’s Word to others. This light is symbolic of our indoctrination into the Word of God, which follows our justification after having received God’s Word.
As we examine this parallel passage in Luk 8:16-18 we gain further insight into the meaning of this parable. As the Gospel is preached, the hearts of men are exposed to the light and their true qualities identified (Luk 8:17). For those who repent, their hearts are transformed so that they can receive more light. But for those whose hearts are hardened and reject what little light they have been given, their hearts are darkened even more (Luk 8:18).
Luk 8:19-21 His Family are Those who Obey the Word ( Mat 12:46-50 , Mar 3:31-35 ) Luk 8:19-21 gives us the account of Jesus being approached by His family and how He responded to their requests to see Him. His passage of Scripture is contrasted to Luk 8:1-3 where the twelve disciples are following Jesus while certain women minister to them of their substance. These are the ones who are truly obeying God’s Word.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Witnesses of Jesus Justifying Him as the Saviour of the World (God the Father’s Justification of Jesus) Luk 4:31 to Luk 21:38 contains the testimony of Jesus’ public ministry, as He justifies Himself as the Saviour of the world. In this major section Jesus demonstrates His divine authority over man, over the Law, and over creation itself, until finally He reveals Himself to His three close disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration as God manifested in the flesh. Jesus is the Saviour over every area of man’s life and over creation itself, a role that can only be identified with God Himself. This was the revelation that Peter had when he said that Jesus was Christ, the Son of the Living God. Luk 4:14 to Luk 9:50 begins with His rejection in His hometown of Nazareth and this section culminates in Luk 9:50 with Peter’s confession and testimony of Jesus as the Anointed One sent from God. In summary, this section of material is a collection of narratives that testifies to Jesus’ authority over every aspect of humanity to be called the Christ, or the Saviour of the world.
Luke presents Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world that was presently under the authority of Roman rule. He was writing to a Roman official who was able to exercise his authority over men. Thus, Luke was able to contrast Jesus’ divine authority and power to that of the Roman rule. Jesus rightfully held the title as the Saviour of the world because of the fact that He had authority over mankind as well as the rest of God’s creation. Someone who saves and delivers a person does it because he has the authority and power over that which oppresses the person.
In a similar way, Matthew portrays Jesus Christ as the Messiah who fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. Matthew’s presentation of Jesus as the King of the Jews supports His claim as the Messiah. John gives us the testimony of God the Father, who says that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. John uses the additional testimonies of John the Baptist, of His miracles, of the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies and of Jesus Himself to support this claim. Mark testifies of the many miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ by emphasizing the preaching of the Gospel as the way in which these miracles take place.
This major section of the public ministry of Jesus Christ can be subdivided into His prophetic testimonies. In Luk 4:31 to Luk 6:49 Jesus testifies of true justification in the Kingdom of God. In Luk 7:1 to Luk 8:21 Jesus testifies of His doctrine. In Luk 8:22 to Luk 10:37 Jesus testifies of divine service in the Kingdom of God as He sets His face towards Jerusalem. In Luk 10:38 to Luk 17:10 Jesus testifies of perseverance in the Kingdom of God as He travels towards Jerusalem. Finally, in Luk 17:11 to Luk 21:38 Jesus teaches on glorification in the Kingdom of God.
The Two-Fold Structure in Luke of Doing/Teaching As Reflected in the Prologue to the Book of Acts – The prologue to the book of Acts serves as a brief summary and outline of the Gospel of Luke. In Act 1:1 the writer makes a clear reference to the Gospel of Luke, as a companion book to the book of Acts, by telling us that this “former treatise” was about “all that Jesus began to do and to teach.” If we examine the Gospel of Luke we can find two major divisions in the narrative material of Jesus’ earthly ministry leading up to His Passion. In Luk 4:14 to Luk 9:50 we have the testimony of His Galilean Ministry in which Jesus did many wonderful miracles to reveal His divine authority as the Christ, the Son of God. This passage emphasized the works that Jesus did to testify of Himself as the Saviour of the world. The emphasis then shifts beginning in Luk 9:51 to Luk 21:38 as it focuses upon Jesus teaching and preparing His disciples to do the work of the Kingdom of God. Thus, Luk 4:14 to Luk 21:38 can be divided into this two-fold emphasis of Jesus’ works and His teachings. [186]
[186] We can also see this two-fold aspect of doing and teaching in the Gospel of Matthew, as Jesus always demonstrated the work of the ministry before teaching it in one of His five major discourses. The narrative material preceding his discourses serves as a demonstration of what He then taught. For example, in Matthew 8:1 to 9:38, Jesus performed nine miracles before teaching His disciples in Matthew 10:1-42 and sending them out to perform these same types of miracles. In Matthew 11:1 to 12:50 this Gospel records examples of how people reacted to the preaching of the Gospel before Jesus teaches on this same subject in the parables of Matthew 13:1-52. We see examples of how Jesus handled offences in Matthew 13:53 to 17:27 before He teaches on this subject in Matthew 18:1-35. Jesus also prepares for His departure in Matthew 19:1 to 25:46 before teaching on His second coming in Matthew 24-25.
Jesus’ Public Ministry One observation that can be made about Jesus’ Galilean ministry and his lengthy travel narrative to Jerusalem is that He attempts to visit every city and village in Israel that will receive Him. He even sends out His disciples in order to reach them all. But why is such an effort made to preach the Gospel to all of Israel during Jesus’ earthly ministry? Part of the answer lies in the fact that Jesus wanted everyone to have the opportunity to hear and believe. For those who rejected Him, they now will stand before God on the great Judgment Day without an excuse for their sinful lifestyles. Jesus wanted everyone to have the opportunity to believe and be saved. This seemed to be His passion throughout His Public Ministry. Another aspect of the answer is the impending outpouring of the Holy Ghost and the sending out of the Twelve to the uttermost parts of the earth. Jesus understood the necessity to first preach the Gospel to all of Israel before sending out the apostles to other cities and nations.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Indoctrination: Jesus Testifies of His Word In Luk 7:1 to Luk 8:21 Jesus testifies about His Word. He first demonstrates the power of His Word to heal the centurion’s servant (Luk 7:1-10), to raise the dead son of the widow of Nain (Luk 7:11-17), to work miracles (Luk 7:18-35), and to forgive sins (Luk 7:36-50). He then teaches a discourse on the Parable of the Sower in order to explain how the preaching of the Gospel affects the hearts of men (Luk 8:1-21).
Outline: Here is a proposed outline:
1. Narrative: Jesus Demonstrates His Doctrine (Capernaum) Luk 7:1-50
2. Discourse: Jesus Teaches on Obeying His Word (Galilee) Luk 8:1-21
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Teaching in Parables. Women minister unto Christ:
v. 1. And it came to pass afterward that He went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; and the Twelve were with Him,
v. 2. and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
v. 3. and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance. As usual, Luke is not concerned about the exact sequence of events that happened at about the same time, in this case during the ministry of Jesus in Galilee. Sometime afterward, while the Lord was still in Galilee, He passed along through, He made a tour of the cities and towns of, that part of Palestine. His chief work is again brought into the foreground, proclaiming and gospeling the kingdom of God, preaching the good news of the salvation of mankind. This fact cannot be emphasized often enough, especially in these days of the perversion of the doctrine of redemption. The twelve apostles were with the Lord on this tour; they were the theological students, receiving both theoretical and practical training in the school of Jesus. But there were also others with Him, certain women whom Luke mentions by name, a feature of his gospel. Mary, who was called Magdalene, had been healed by Jesus when He drove seven demons out of her. Johanna, or Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the administrator, or steward, of Herod, and Susanna, and many others, Mat 27:55, had also received special favors at the hand of Jesus, as being healed of evil spirits and sicknesses. These were bound to Jesus by the bonds of gratitude, and they were glad and proud to be of service to Him with their goods, for some of them were well-to-do. Christian women have at all times counted it an honor to be able to serve their Master with their substance and with their service. We see here an emancipation of woman in the noblest sense of the word, and the beginning of the service of women in the Church of Christ, and at the same time a decided triumph of the evangelical spirit over the limitation of Jewish rabbinism.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Luk 8:1-3
St. Luke‘s brief notice of the women who formed part of the company of Jesus.
Luk 8:1
And it came to pass afterward. St. Luke here notices an alteration in the Master’s way of life. From this time forward Jesus ceased to make Capernaum “his city,” his usual residence; he now journeys with his little band of followers from place to place. From this time there was also a distinct change in the tone of his teaching. The Greek word rendered “afterward” is the same as that translated “in order” in Luk 1:3. Showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. The public work of Jesus may be well arranged under three heads: his work as Master, as Evangelist, and as Prophet. The first had especial relation to his own immediate followers, women as well as men. In the second, as the Preacher of the grace, mercy, and the love of God, he peculiarly addressed himself to the general population;this was the special side of the Lord’s work which St. Luke loved to dwell on; this is what he alludes to here. In the third, as Prophet, the Master spoke generally to an evil generation, and especially to the political and religious leaders of the Jewish society of his day.
Luk 8:2
And certain women. It has before been noticed that St. Luke, in several places, especially notices the love and devotion of women to the Master. The present position of women is owing to the teaching of the Lord and his disciples. Fellow-heirs with men of the kingdom of heaven, it was obvious that they could no longer occupy on earth their old inferior and subordinate position. The sex, as a sex, has made a noble return to the Master. Much of the untold misery and suffering which tormented the old world has been at least alleviated in great measure by the labours of the women of Christianity. Several of these kindly grateful souls here alluded to evidently belonged to the wealthy class; some even occupied a high position in the society of that time. It was by their gifts, no doubt, that Jesus and his company were enabled to live during the thirty or more months of the public ministry. He had given up, as had also his companions, his earthly occupation, and we know that he deliberately refrained from ever using his miraculous power to supply his daily wants. The presence and loving interest of these and such like kindly generous friends answers the questionHow did the Master and his disciples, poor men among poor men, live during the years of public teaching? Mary called Magdalene. The name Mary (Miriam) was a very favourite name among the Hebrew women; we meet with several in the gospel story. This one was called “Magdalene,” or “of Magdala,” to distinguish her from others bearing the same name. Magdala was a little town near Tiberias. There is nothing definite to connect her with the “sinner” of Luk 7:1-50. The early tradition which identified these two women was probably derived from Tal-mudic sources. There are many wild stories in these writings connected with one called Mary of Magdala, a grievous sinner. The “seven devils” probably allude to some aggravated form of demoniacal possession. Two sets of ecclesiastical legends busy themselves with the after-life of Mary of Magdala. The one represents her as coming with Lazarus and Martha to Marseilles; the other, as accompanying the Virgin and John to Ephesus.
Luk 8:3
Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward. She must have been a person of wealth and high rank at the court of Herod Antipas. There were evidently not a few believers in that wicked and dissolute centre. Some years later we read of Manaen, the foster-brother of Herod, as a notable Christian (Act 13:1). Even Herod himself, we know, at first heard John the Baptist gladly. and, after the terrible judicial murder, we find that unhappy prince fancying that his victim had risen from the dead. It has been suggested that this Chuza was the nobleman of Capernaum whose dying son was healed by Jesus (Joh 4:46). If this be the case, there would be a special reason for the loving devotion of this Joanna to the Master. She reappears among the faithful women in the history of the Resurrection (Luk 24:10). Susanna. The name signifies “lily.” The Jews were fond of giving the names of flowers and trees to their girls; thus Rhoda, a rose (Act 12:13), Tamar, a palm (2Sa 13:2), among many instances. Of this Susanna nothing further is known.
Luk 8:4-15
The parable of the sower, and the Lord‘s interpretation of it.
Luk 8:4
And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable. A great change, it is clear, took place in our Lord’s way of working at this period. We have already (in the note on Luk 8:1) remarked that from henceforth he dwelt no longer in one centre, his own city Capernaum, but moved about from place to place. A new way of teaching was now adoptedthat of the “parable.” It was from this time onward that, when he taught, he seems generally to have spoken in those famous parables, or stories, in which so much of his recorded teaching is shrined. Hitherto in his preaching he had occasionally made use of similes or comparisons, as in Luk 5:6 and Luk 6:29, Luk 6:48; but he only began the formal use of the parable at this period, and the parable of the sower seems to have been the earliest spoken. Perhaps because it was the first, perhaps on account of the far-reaching nature of its contents, the story of “the sower” evidently impressed itself with singular force upon the minds of the disciples. It evidently formed a favourite “memory” among the first heralds of the new faith. It is the only one, with the exception of the vine-dressers, one of the latest spoken, which has been preserved by the threeMatthew, Mark, and Luke. It is identical in structure and in teaching in all the three, which shows that they were relating the same story. It differs, however, in detail; we thus gather that the three did not copy from one primitive document, but that these “memories” were derived either from their own recollections or at least from different sources. Now, what induced the Master thus deliberately to change the manner of his teaching? In other words, why, from this time forward, does he veil so much of his deep Divine thought in parables? Let us consider the attitude of the crowds who till now had been listening to him. What may be termed the Galilaean revival had well-nigh come to an end. The enthusiasm he had evoked by his burning words, his true wisdom, his novel exposition of what belonged to human life and duty, was, when he left Capernaum and began his preaching in every little village (verse 1), at its height. But the great Heart-reader knew well that the hour of reaction was at hand. Then the pressure of the crowds which thronged him was so great that, to speak this first parable, he had to get into a boat and address the multitude standing on the shore (Mat 13:2); but the moment was at hand which St. John (Joh 6:66) refers to in his sad words, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” It was in view of that moment that Jesus commenced his parable-teaching with “the sower.” As regards the great mass of the people who had crowded to hear his words and look on his miracles, the Lord knew that his work had practically failed. At the first he spoke to the people plainly. The sermon on the mount, for instance, contains little, if anything, of the parable form; but they understood him not, forming altogether false views of the kingdom he described to them. He now changes his method of teaching, veiling his thoughts in parables, in order that his own, to whom privately he gave the key to the right understanding of the parables, should see more clearly, and that those who deliberately misunderstood himthe hostile Pharisee and Sadducee, for instanceshould be simply mystified and perplexed as to the Teacher’s meaning; while the merely thoughtless might possibly be fascinated and attracted by this new manner of teaching, which evidently veiled some hidden meaning. These last would probably be induced to inquire further as to the meaning of these strange parable-stories. Professor Bruce, who has very ably discussed the reasons which induced Christ at this period of his ministry to speak in parables, says there is a mood which leads a man to present his thoughts in this form. “It is the mood of one whose heart is chilled, and whose spirit is saddened by a sense of loneliness, and who, retiring within himself by a process of reflection, frames for his thoughts forms which half conceal, half reveal themreveal them more perfectly to those who understand, hide them from those who do not (and will not)forms beautiful, but also melancholy, as the hues of forest in late autumn. It’ this view be correct, we should expect the teaching in parables would not form a feature of the initial stage of Christ’s ministry. And such accordingly was the fact.” As regarded the men of his own generation, did he use the parable way of teaching almost as a fan to separate the wheat from the chaff? “That he had to speak in parables was one of the burdens of the Son of man, to be placed side by side with the fact that he had not where to lay his head” (Professor Bruce, ‘Parabolic Teaching of Christ,’ book 1. Joh 1:1-51.). And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city. The impression of the witness who told the story to Luke and Paul evidently was that at this period of the Lord’s ministry vast crowds flocked to listen or to see.. St. Matthew expresses the same conviction in a different but in an equally forcible manner. Only the Lord knew how hollow all this seeming popularity was, and how soon the crowds would melt away. He spake by a parable. Roughly to distinguish between the parable and the fable: The fable would tell its moral truth, but its imagery might be purely fanciful; for instance, animals, or even trees, might be represented as reasoning and speaking. The parable, on the contrary, never violated probability, but told its solemn lesson, often certainly in a dramatic form, but its imagery was never fanciful or impossible.
Luk 8:5
A sower went out to sow his seed. The Master’s words, in after-days, must often have come home to the disciples. They would feel that in each of them, if they were faithful to their work, the “sower” of the parable was reproduced; they would remember what they had heard from his lips; how he had warned them of the reception which their words would surely meet with; how by far the greater proportion of the seed they would sow, would perish. But though the disciples and all true Christian men in a greater or less degree reproduce the sower of the parable, still the great Sower, it must be remembered, is the Holy Spirit. Every true teacher or sower of the Word does but repeat what they have learned from him. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside. Dean Stanley, on the scenery of the parable, thus writes: “Is there anything on the spot to suggest the images thus conveyed? So I asked as I rode along the tract under the hillside, by which the Plain of Gennesaret is approached. So I asked at the moment, seeing nothing but the steep sides of the hill, alternately of rock and grass. And when I thought of the parable of the sower, I answered that here at least was nothing on which the Divine teaching could fasten; it must have been the distant corn-fields of Samaria or Esdraelon on which his mind was dwelling. The thought had hardly occurred to me when a slight recess in the hillside, close upon the plain, disclosed at once, in detail, and with a conjunction which I remember nowhere else in Palestine, every feature of the great parable. There was the undulating corn-field descending to the water’s edge; there was the trodden pathway running through the midst of it, with no fence or hedge to prevent the seed from falling here and there on either side of it, or upon it; itself hard with the constant tramp of horse and mule and human foot” (‘Sinai and Palestine,’ ch. 13.).
Luk 8:6
And some fell upon a rock. The picture here is not of a soil full of stones, but of a rocky portion of the corn-land where the rock is only covered with a thin layer of earth.
Luk 8:7
And some fell among thorns. “Every one who has been in Palestine must have been struck with the number of thorny shrubs and plants that abound there. The traveller finds them in his path, go where he may. Many of them are small, but some grow as high as a man’s head. The rabbinical writers say that there are no less than twenty-two words in the Hebrew Bible denoting thorny and prickly plants” (Professor Hacker).
Luk 8:8
And bare fruit an hundredfold. This is by no means an unheard-of increase even in the West, where vegetation is less luxuriant. Herodotus, quoted by Trench (‘Parables’), mentions that two hundredfold was a common return in the Plain of Babylon, and sometimes three hundredfold; and Niebuhr mentions a species of maize that returns four hundredfold. On the marvellous fruit-bearing which would take place in the days of the Lord’s future kingdom on earth, Irenaeus gives a quotation from Papias, who gave it on the authority of those who had heard St. John speak of the teaching of the Lord to that effect. Professor Westcott (‘Introduction to the Study of the Gospels,’ Appendix C, 21) thinks that the tradition was based on the real discourses of the Lord. It is, of course, allegorical, for is it not a memory of. a conversation between Jesus and his disciples arising out of this parable of the sower? “The Lord taught of those days (of his future kingdom on earth) and said, The days will come in which vines shall spring up, each having, ten thousand stocks, and on each stock ten thousand branches, and on each branch ten thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thousand bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand grapes, and each grape when pressed shalt give five and twenty measures of wine. And when any saint shall have seized one bunch, another shall cry, I am a better bunch; take me; through me bless the Lord. Likewise also (he said) that a grain of wheat shall produce ten thousand ears of corn, and each grain ten pounds of fine pure flour; and so all other fruits, and seeds, and each herb according to its proper nature.. And he (Papias) added, saying, Now, these things are credible to them that believe. And when Judas the traitor believed not, and askedHow, then, shall such productions proceed from the Lord? the Lord said, They shall see who come to those times“ (Papias; see Irenaeus, 5.33. 3).
Luk 8:9
.And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be! This is the only parable St. Luke gives as spoken by our Lord in this place. St. Matthewwho gives the additional detail that on account of the pressure of the crowd on the lake-shore it was spoken from a boat moored close to the bankrelates seven parables here in sequence. It is probable that the Master spoke some of these at least on this occasion, but St. Luke, possibly on account of its extreme solemnity, possibly because he wished to mark this parable as the first of this new kind of teaching, relates it and its interpretation only, saying nothing further respecting that day’s parable-teaching. It is most probable that all these reported discourses, parables, expositions, or sermons, are simply a resume of the original words. The disciples evidently by their questionwhich St. Mark tells us was put to Jesus when they were alone with himwere surprised and puzzled, first at the strange change which that eventful day inaugurated in the method of their Master’s teaching, and secondly, at the peculiar character of this his first great parable-lesson. It was, indeed, a sombre and depressing announcement whatever way it was looked atsombre as a picture of the results of his own past ministry, depressing if regarded as a prophecy of their future success as teachers.
Luk 8:10
And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. In St. Matthew we have the Lord’s reply given at greater length; the same prophecy of Isaiah which here forms the basis of St. Luke’s account of Jesus’ reply is given in full. St. Mark weaves the Isaiah-words into the Master’s answer. The thought, however, in each of the three accounts is exactly the same. The parable mode of teaching was adopted by Jesus who, as Heart-reader, was aware now by sad experience and still sadder foreknowledge, that his glorious news rather repelled than attracted the ordinary hearer. They did not want to be disturbed from their earthly hopes and loves and fears. They preferred not to be healed as God would heal them. The Master then spoke his parables with the intention of veiling his Divine story from the careless and indifferent. These, he knew, would for the most part be repelled by such teaching, while it would specially attract the earnest inquirer. “The veil which it (the parable) throws over the truth becomes transparent to the attentive mind, while it remains impenetrable to the careless” (Godet). It was therefore his deliberate wish that such hearers might neither see nor understand. Dr. Morrison well and clearly puts the Lord’s thought here: “It is the sinner’s deeply rooted wish that he should not see and understand, and the sad explanation of this wish is given by St. Markthe sinner is afraid lest he should be prevailed to turn. Lest at any time they should be converted (Mar 4:12).”
Luk 8:11-15
The Lord‘s interpretation of the parable of the sower.
Luk 8:11
The seed is the Word of God. It was his own sad experience the Master was relating. The picture was of things, too, which had already happened in the case of many of his own true servants, the prophets. It mirrored, too, the many future failures and the few future successes of the listening disciples; it warned them not to be deluded by appearances, not to be discouraged by apparent failure. The Word, of course, in the first instance is his own teaching; it comprehends, however, any preaching or teaching, whether of prophet of the past or minister of the future, winch tries faithfully to copy his own.
Luk 8:12
Those by the wayside are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. The wayside hearers represent the great outer circle of men and women who more or less respect religion. It must be carefully borne in mind that in none of the four classes pictured in the parable are despisers of God, declared enemies of religion, portrayed. To these the gospel, with its warnings and its promises, rarely if ever speaks. These of “the wayside” are they whose hearts resemble a footpath, beaten hard and fiat by the constant passing to and fro of wishes of the flesh, of thoughts concerning earthly things, mere sordid hopes and fears. Into these hearts the Word can never really penetrate. Momentary influence now anti again seems to have been gained, but the many watchful agents of the evil one, with swift wings, like birds of the air, swoop down and snatch away the scattered seed which for a moment seemed as though it would take root. Judas Iscariot the Jew, and Pontius Pilate the Roman, might be instanced as types of this class. Thesebefore their awful fateboth appeared to have been moved. The one for long months followed the Lord and was trusted by him; the other pitied, and for a moment in hisPilate’s casepity seemed passing into love and admiration, and tried to find a way of escape for the innocent Prisoner. But the one betrayed, and the other delivered to death, the sinless Son of God!
Luk 8:13
They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the Word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. These represent natures at once impressionable and excitable; impulsive men and women who, charmed with the beauty, perhaps (to them) the novelty, of the gospel message, receive the Word, take up the Master’s yoke with joy, but without thought. These hastily make a religious profession, but they forget altogether to count what the real cost of such a profession amounts to. Upon these superficial but kindly natures come trouble, perplexity, discouragement, perhaps persecution; then quickly the once-loved religion withers away like corn growing on rocky places beneath the burning summer sun. John Mark, the would-be missionary companion of Paul and Barnabas, was one of this impulsive but little-enduring class; and Demas, once the friend of Paul, but who loved too well the present world. Another instance would be the man who offered to follow Jesus “whithersoever thou goest,” as he phrased it, till he found, by the Lord’s grave answer, that the Master he offered to follow had neither home nor resting-place; then he seems quickly to have turned back.
Luk 8:14
And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. There is something very sad in this, the thorn-choked class of believers. Each of them represents the vie manquee; the beautiful flower just spoiled as it was bursting into full bloom. These hear the Word, and, hearing it, grasp its deep solemn meaning, and for a part of each day honestly try to live the life which that Divine Word pressed home to them. But with these there is another life; side by side with the golden grain has grown up a crop of thorns, which, unless destroyed in time, will choke and utterly mar, as, alas, it often does, the true corn. Such men and women, the double-minded ones of St. James, try to serve two mastersGod and the world. Dr. Morrison has a good note on the parallel passage in St. Mark, where, after suggesting that the cares, the riches, and the pleasures of this life in our time are such things as houses, land, works of art and virtue, posts of honour, gaiety of garments, grandeur of entertainments, and in general the myriad appliances of luxury, he goes on to say, “These come more or less in upon all men, but some men lay themselves peculiarly open to their influence, and allow them to twine and twist themselves like the serpents of Laocoon around every energy and susceptibility of their being.” The rich young ruler whom Jesus loved is a fair instance of this not uncommon character, which perhaps is more often met with among the more cultured of society than among the poor and the artisan class. There must have been much that was really beautiful and true in that young man, or Jesus never had singled him out as one whom he especially loved, and yet in his case the thorns of riches and luxury had so twined themselves among the real corn that, as far as we know, it never brought fruit to perfection. Ananias and Sapphira may, too, be instanced. They had given up much for the Name’s sake, associated themselves with a hated and persecuted sect, sacrificed a large portion of their property to help the poor of the flock, and yet these apparently devoted ones were living a double life; the thorns had so grown up and twined about the corn that in their field nothing ever ripened.
Luk 8:15
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. In this portraiture of the fourth class of our Lord’s great life-picture of hearers of and inquirers concerning religion, the Greek words rendered in the Authorized Version “honest” and “good” (“in an honest and good heart “) were words well known and in familiar use among the widely spread Greek-speaking peoples for whom especially St. Luke’s Gospel was compiled. Professor Bruce (‘Parabolic Teaching of Christ,’ ch. 1.) remarks that “the man who united the two qualities expressed by the term ‘honest’ (better rendered ‘noble’) and ‘good,’ represented the beau-ideal of manhood. He was one whose aim was noble, and who was generously devoted to his aim. The expression rendered ‘honest’ (better translated ‘noble,’ ) has reference to aims or chief ends, and describes one whose mind is raised above moral vulgarity, and is bent, not on money-making and such low pursuits, but on the attainment of wisdom, holiness, and righteousness. The epithet rendered ‘good’ () denotes generous self-abandonment in the prosecution of lofty ends; large-heartedness, magnanimous, overflowing devotion.” Mary of Bethany, with her devoted love and her generous friendship; the centurion Cornelius, with his fervent piety and his noble generosity towards a despised and hated race; Barnabas, with his splendid liberality, his utter absence of care for self, his bright, loving trust in human nature, his true charity, “bearing all things, hoping all things;”are good examples, drawn from different sexes and from varied races, and out of diverse paths of life, of these true inquirers, who not only hear the Word, but keep it.
Luk 8:16-18
A solemn conclusion of the Lord‘s to his exposition of his first great parable.
Luk 8:16
No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. The meaning of the Lord’s saying here isthe disciples must not look on this parable-method of teaching, which from henceforth he purposed frequently to adopt, as mysterious, or as containing anything beyond ordinary human comprehension. The explanation of “the sower,” which he had just given them, showed them how really simple and adapted to everyday life his teaching was. “No man,” said the Lord, “when he hath lighted the candle of the true knowledge, really wishes to hide ithe rather displays it that men may see the light; and that is what I have been doing for you in my careful explanation of my story.”
Luk 8:17
For nothing is secret, that shall net be made manifest; neither anything hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. “All will gradually become clear to them. Whilst the night thickens over Israel on account of its unbelief, the disciples will advance into even fuller light, until there is nothing left in the plan of God which is obscure or hidden. The heart of Jesus is lifted up at this prospect. This accounts for the poetical rhythm which always appears at such moments” (Godet). This is very good, but Godet scarcely goes far enough. The Master’s words surely promise that, as the ages advance, more and ever more light on the subject of God’s dealings with men will be vouchsafed to the humble, patient searcher after the Divine wisdom. This apophthegm seems to have been a very favourite one of our Lord; he evidently used it on several occasions (see, for instance, Mat 10:26, where the same words are reported to have been spoken in a different connection).
Luk 8:18
Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have. A grave warning to his disciples primarily, and then to all who take upon themselves any work, even the humblest, connected with teaching Divine truth. The real strident, patient, humble, and restlessly industrious, he shall be endowed with ever-increasing powers; while the make-believe, lazy, and self-sufficient one shall be punished by the gradual waning of the little light which once shone in his soul.
Luk 8:19-21
Interference of Christ‘s mother and his brethren.
Luk 8:19
Then came to him his mother and his brethren. St. Mark, in his third chapter, gives us the reasons which led to this scene. It had been bruited abroad that a species of frenzy had seized upon that strange Man who had been brought up in their midst, and who had lately aroused such enthusiasm in all the crowded lake-district of Galilee. It is difficult to estimate aright the feelings of his own family towards him; admiration and love seem to have struggled in their hearts with prejudice and jealousynot in the case of Mary, but in the case of the so-called brothers. They seem ever to have been close to him during his public ministry, not among his “own,” but still near him, watching him, and listening to him with a half-wondering, half-grudging admiration. But John tells us (Joh 7:5) that they did not believe in him. It needed the Resurrection to convert them. The crowd round the Master at this juncture was so great that theyhis kinsmencould not press through it to speak to him. They conveyed to him, however, a message. The Heart-reader knew well what were the motives which induced them to come to him just then; the brothers were so distrustful that they had suffered themselves to be carried away by the Pharisees’ evil surmises, that Jesus was possessed by a devil. The mother, influenced by her earthly fears for her Son, was induced to accompany the brothers, no doubt hoping to induce him to withdraw himself from the scene of excitement, at all events for a season.
Luk 8:21
And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the Word of God, and do it. The Master used the opportunity to send home into the hearts of the many listeners the stern, grave lesson that there was something more solemn even than family ties, and that these, holy and binding though they were, must not be allowed to stand in the way of plain, unmistakable duty.
Luk 8:22-25
The lake-storm is stilled.
Luk 8:23
But as they sailed he fell asleep; and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. In the three Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this and the three following incidents are closely unitedthe lake-storm; the devils sent into the herd of swine; the raising of the little daughter of Jairus; the healing of the woman afflicted with the issue of blood. Although this cycle of acts is always united by the three, yet they do not occupy the same position chronologically in the three Gospels. The explanation of this probably is that in the primitive apostolic teaching it was usual to relate these four incidents of the Master’s work together. In St. Matthew, between the recital of the healing of the demoniac and the raising of the daughter of Jairus, are intercalated the healing of the paralytic, and the call of Matthew, and the feast which followed. These incidents, in a more extended primitive discourse, were no doubt joined to the other four recitals. Had they used a common document, the three would surely have placed them in the same connection with other events. They most likely were worked, with many other signs, somewhere in this period of public work, and were chosen by the first preachers of “the Name” as specially illustrative acts, showing the Lord’s power over the elements, over the unseen spirits of evil, over death, over wearying chronic sickness. On the sudden storm, travellers remark how, without warning, winds from the snowy summits of the neighbouring Hermon rush down the mountain gorges into the warm tropical air of the lake-basin, and in a short space of time the calm Galilee sea is lashed into storm and foam. The graphic description of Mark is, as usual, the most vivid, and gives us, in a few master-touches, the aspect of the scene. The weary Master sleeping in the stern of the fishing-boat; the pillow beneath his head; the disciples, terrified by the sudden uproar of the waves surging round their frail bark, as the wild winds rushed down on the lake, hastily awaking their tired Master. The danger must have been very real to have alarmed these Gennesaret fishermen; the storm must have been something more than the usual lake-tempests. The very words the Lord used when he lifted up his head and saw the danger, St. Mark preserves for us. With his “Hush!” he silenced the wild roar of the winds and waters; with his “Be still!” he quieted the heaving waves. Some commentators, reasoning from the Master’s personal address to the elementsthe winds and the waterssuppose that, in the midst of the storm, was some evil presence, who, taking advantage of our Lord’s helpless conditionasleep in that frail fisher’s boatraised up the wild storm, hoping, perhaps, to cut short his life. The idea of spirits thus blending with the elements is one by no means unknown to Scripture. “Who maketh his angels winds [rather than the usual, better-known translation, ‘spirits’], his ministers a flaming fire” (Psa 104:4; Heb 1:7;. Job 1:12).
Luk 8:26-39
The evil spirit in the Gergesene demoniac is dismissed into the herd of swine.
Luk 8:26
And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes. There is a perplexing difference in the reading of the older manuscripts here, but it is simply a question of the precise name of the locality where the great miracle was worked. In the three narratives of Matthew, Mark, and Luke the older manuscripts vary between “Gergesenes,” “Gerasenes,” and” Gadarenes.” Gatiara was a city of some importance, about three hours’ journey distant from the southern end of the Lake of Gennesaret. Its ruins are well known, and are distinguished by the remains of two amphitheatres. Gerasa was also a place of mark, and was situate about fifty miles from the lake. These cities might in the days of our Lord have either given its name to a great district stretching to the borders of the lake. Gergesa was a small and very obscure town nearly opposite Capernaum. There are some ruins now on this spot still known by the very slight corruption of Kerzha. There is scarcely any doubt that the scene of the miracle on the poor demoniac, and of the subsequent possession of the swine, must be looked for on this spot. But it was an obscure, little-known spot, and in very early days the preachers who told the story of the great miracle may have often spoken of the country as the district of the well-known Gerasa or Gadara, rather than of the unknown village of Gergesa. Hence probably the variations in the name in the older manuscripts here.
Luk 8:27
There met him out of the city a certain man; better rendered, there met him a man of the city. He had been a dweller in Gergesa in old days before the terrible possession began. St. Matthew, in his account, tells us of two demoniacs. SS, Mark and Luke, however, both only mention one, the other for some reason or other had passed out of their thoughtspossibly the malady was much less severe, and the strange dialogue and its results had not taken place in his case. Which had devils long time; better, daemons (daimonia). One of the current Jewish traditions was that these evil spirits were not fallen angels, but the spirits of wicked men who were dead (see Josephus, ‘Bell. Jud.,’ 7.6. 3). The plural form “devils”bitterly referred to later by the sufferer, when he was asked his nameseems in his case to speak of a very aggravated form of the awful malady. And ware no clothes, neither abode in any house. These were no uncommon features of the soul-maladythe horror at any bodily restraint, either connected with clothes or dwellings; a similar shrinking is not unusual even in the comparatively modified modern phases of madness. But in the tombs. Until the teaching and spirit of Jesus had suggested, even among men who had no faith in his Name, some thought and consideration for the helpless sufferers of humanity, neither hospital, nor home, nor asylum existed where these unhappy ones could find a refuge. In these gloomy tombs hollowed out of the rock on the mountain-sidepolluted spots for the living, according to the Jewish ritualthese maniacs found the utter solitude they craved for.
Luk 8:28
When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice ,aid, What have I to do with thee, Jesus? “The sight of Jesus appears to have produced an extraordinary impression upon him. The holy, calm, gentle majesty, the tender compassion, and the conscious sovereignty which were expressed in the aspect of our Lord, awakened in him, by force of contrast, the humbling consciousness of his own state of moral disorder” (Godet). Thou Son of God most high. There seems some probability that this expression was frequently used in cases of exorcism of evil spirits; for again in Act 16:17 the poor slave-girl, who we read had a Pythoness-spirit, which brought in no small gain to her masters, speaks of Paul and his friends, just before the apostle in his Master’s Name cast the spirit out, as servants of the most high God. I beseech thee, torment me not. In this form of possession one remarkable and very terrible feature seems to have been the divided consciousness; the sufferer identifies himself with the demons, and now one speaks, now the other. St. Matthew adds a dread detail to this petition to the Lord, “before the time:” the evil spirits thus recognizing a period when certain torment would be their hapless destiny. The expression “torment” meets us in the parable of Lazarus; the dwelling-place of the rich man after death is a place of torment. In Mat 18:34 the ministers of judgment are the tormentors. One very solemn reason why this special case of exorcism on the part of our Lord is related with so much detail and repeated by the three evangelists, SS. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, seems to be the glimpse which the dialogue between the evil spirits and the Master opens to us of the dread realities hidden in the future for those who sin deliberately against the will of God. The existence of the place or state of torment is affirmed very pointedly by our Lord and his disciples; but having done this they dwell but little on it. There is a striking and solemn quotation in Dr. Morrison’s ‘Commentary on St. Mark’ on this clear but guarded reference to the final sufferings of those who will not be submissive to the moral will of God, “Further curiosity as to the when, the where, and the how, does not become beings whose main business and greatest wisdom is to fly from, not to pry too close into, these terrible secrets of the dark kingdom.”
Luk 8:30
And Jesus asked him; saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him The Master vouchsafed no reply to the demons’ prayer, but puts a quiet suggestive question to their unhappy victim. The Lord’s words, as Dean Plumptre suggests, would serve “to recall to the man’s mind that he had once a human name, with all its memories of human fellowship. It was a stage, even in spite of the paroxysm that followed, in the process of recovery, in so far as it helped to disentangle him from the confusion between himself and the demons which caused his misery. But, at first, the question seems only to increase the evil. ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ The irresistible might, the full array of the Roman legion, with its six thousand soldiers, seemed to the demoniac the one adequate symbol of the wild, uncontrollable impulses of passion and of dread that were sweeping through his soul.”
Luk 8:31
And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. This time the voice and the request apparently proceed from the terrible presence which had made the soul of the unhappy man their temporary habitation. The direful confusion in the state of the poor demoniac is shown by this request. By whom was it made? The bystanders could discern no difference between the possessed and the spirits dwelling in the afflicted human being. So St. Mark, in his relation, puts these words into the demoniac’s mouth, “And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country;” apparently here partly conscious of his own personal being, and partly identifying himself with the demoniac forces which were afflicting him. The request is a strange one, and suggests much anxious thought. What is the abyss these rebel-spirits dreaded with so great a dread? It would seem as though, to use Godet’s thought, that for beings alienated from God, the power of acting on the world is a temporary solace to their unrest, and that to be deprived of this power is for them just what a return to prison is for the captive. St. Mark’s expression here is a curious one. He represents the spirits requesting Jesus “not to send them away out of the country.” The two accounts put together tell us that these spirits were aware, if they were driven out of the countrywhatever that expression signified, this earth possiblythey must go out into the deep, the abyss, what is called “the bottomless pit” in Rev 9:1, Rev 9:2, Rev 9:11. Any doom seemed to these lost ones preferable to that. The whole train of thought suggested by the incident and the words of the Lord is very terrible. We see at least one reason why the first preachers of the Word have selected this exorcism. It indeed lifts a bit of the curtain which hangs between us and the night of endless woe!
Luk 8:32
And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. For what end was this request? Was it simply the way they chose to enter the abyss by? We know that the lives of the creatures, after the permission was given, lasted but a few minutes at most. Was it a desire to do more mischief during their brief sojourn on earth? Theophylact (eighth century) suggests that the purpose of the evil spirits, in their request, was to injure Jesus in that part of the country by arousing fears among the covetous inhabitants lest they too might lose, in a similar way, their herds. But to the writer of this note it seems best to confess that no satisfactory answer can ever be given here. We know so little of these dread spirits of evil. The reason of the Lord’s permission is more obvious. Some such visible proof as the sight of the evil and unclean forces that had mastered him so long, transferred to the bodies of other creatures and working their wild will upon them, was probably a necessary element in his perfect cure. It is likely also that Jesus wished to show his indignation at the flagrant disregard of the Mosaic Law, at the open disobedience to the Divine injunctions respecting swine, which was shown by the presence of so vast a herd of these animals pronounced unclean by the Mosaic Law under which these people were professedly living. In this district the large majority of the inhabitants were Jews. The keeping or the rearing of swine was strictly forbidden by the Jewish canon law. Other Oriental peoples also held these animals as unclean. Herodotus (it. 47) tells us that in Egypt there was a special class of swineherds, who alone among the inhabitants of the country were forbidden to enter a temple. This degraded caste were only allowed to marry among themselves. The eating of swine’s flesh is referred to by Isaiah (Isa 65:3, Isa 65:4)as among the acts of the people which continually provoked the Lord to anger.
Luk 8:33
And the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. Some exception has been taken at our Lord’s action here in connection with the swine, but it has been well said “that the antedating of the death of a herd of unclean animals was as nothing compared with the deliverance of a human soul.” But it seems better to see, in the permitted destruction of the herd, the Lord’s grave rebuke to the open disregarders of the holy ritual law of Israel, for the sake of selfish lucre.
Luk 8:34
When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country. The men who kept the swine had witnessed the whole transaction; and as the Master uttered the word “Go,” they saw a change in a moment pass through the vast herd. A wild panic seemed to seize the creatures, something: had filled them with a great fear,they would hurry from the unseen but felt presence; the cool blue waters of the lake, clearly seen from the upland down where they were feeding, seemed to premise the best refuge; they rushed from the plateau down a steep incline, which travellers since think they have identified, and the deep waters or’ (Gennesaret put a quick end to the creatures’ torments.
Luk 8:35, Luk 8:36
Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and. found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. They also which saw it told them by what means he that was possessed of the devils was healed. The swineherds told their story, quickly the news spread; a great concourse from all the country-side soon gathered round the scene of the catastrophe. It was quiet then; the waters of the lake had closed over the tormented creatures, The demoniac, so long the terror of the neighbourhood, now sane, clothed, too, like one of them, was sitting peacefully full of deep, aweful gratitude at the Master’s feet; the disciples were standing round; Jesus was no doubt teaching them the deep import of the scene they had lately witnessed.
Luk 8:37
Then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again. The recital had no effect upon. the headmen of the neighbouring towns and villages. They were probably for the most part owners of similar herds of swine, perhaps sharers in nameless sins, all specially hateful to the Rabbi Jesus, whom they no doubt knew well by repute. But he was, they saw, something more than a poor wandering moral Teacher; he possessed strange and awful powers: had they not had terribler experience of them? Which of them in that law-breaking, dissolute neighbourhood might not he the next victim whose unclean possessions were to be swept away? So they would have none of him: let him, as quickly as possible depart from their coasts. They felt they could not keep both the Saviour and their swine, and of the two they preferred their swine! And returned back again. The chance, as far as the Gadarene district was concerned, was gone for ever. Jesus probably returned thither no more. Within forty years this district was the scene of one of the terrible calamities of the great Roman war. The sack of Gadara, and the desolation and ruin which was the hapless lot of this once wealthy but evil-living district, is one of the many melancholy chapters of the hopeless Jewish revolt, (see Josephus, ‘Bell. Jud.,’ 3. 7. 1; Luk 4:7. 4). A modern traveller, Dr. Thomson, remarks, singularly enough, that the old district of Gadara at the present day is infested with wild, fierce hogs: “Everywhere,” he writes, “the land is ploughed up by wild hogs in search of roots on which they live” (‘The Land and the Book,’ 2. ch. 25).
Luk 8:38
Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying. The restored man longed to remain with his Deliverer, but this was not permittedthe great Teacher bade him stay behind in his own country. Perhaps, thought the Redeemer, “some of these hardhearted Gadarenes will be won by his testimonyone of themselves, too, and so notorious a sufferer.” His work, the Master told him, was there among his own people; so he stayed, and the next verse (Luk 8:39) tells us how he worked as a diligent evangelist. It is noteworthy how the Master referred the great act of deliverance to God. But to the restored, Jesus was at once his Deliverer and his God. The text of his preaching was “how great things Jesus had done unto him.”
Luk 8:40-56
The healing of the woman with the issue of blood, and the raising of the daughter of Jairus.
Luk 8:40
When Jesus was returned, the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him. Allusion has already been made, in the notes which preceded the parable of the sower, to the enthusiasm for Jesus in the Galilee lake-cities and their neighbourhood. This, as the Master well knew, was only a temporary religious revival, but still while it lasted it gathered great crowds in every place where he visited. He had not been long in the Gadarene district, but his return was eagerly looked for in Galilee. This verse describes his reception on his return by the people, and introduces the recital of two famous miracles which he worked in this period of his ministry after his brief visit to the other shore of the lake. St. Matthew, before speaking of the request of Jairus that the Master would visit his dying child, relates the healing of the paralytic at Capernaum, and the calling of Matthew the apostle. It is scarcely possible now to arrange the events related, in their proper chronological order. The Gospel histories pretty faithfully represent the teaching of the first days, in which it was evidently the practice of apostles and apostolic men to group their accounts of particular incidents in the Lord’s life with a view to teaching certain lessons connected with doctrine or with daily living, often disregarding the order in which these incidents really happened. Hence so many of the differences in detail in our Gospels.
Luk 8:41
And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. The public request, made too with intense earnestness, of one holding such a position, is a clear proof that the Galilee enthusiasm for Jesus was by no means confined to the poorer part of the population, or even to the more careless and thoughtless; such a man as Jairus is a fair representative of the well-to-do, perhaps wealthy, orthodox Jew; strict and rigid in his ritual observances, and held in high honour by his fellow Jewish citizens. The name is only a form of the Hebrew Jair (Jdg 10:3).
Luk 8:42
One only daughter. This is not the only place where the same touching detail is recorded by this evangelist. Compare the story of the widow’s son at Nain (Luk 7:12), and the healing of the lunatic boy (Luk 9:38). St. Luke’s Gospel owes these and many similar touches of deep true sympathy to the great loving heart of the real author of the third Gospel, Paul.
Luk 8:43, Luk 8:44
And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment. It may be assumed that the disease from which she suffered made her, according to the Levitical Law, ceremonially unclean: this had separated her in a great measure for a very long period from all contact with the outer world. This would well account for her shrinking from any public appeal to the great Physician. The border of the Lord’s garment which the woman touched was one of the four tassels which formed part of the Jewish tallith, or mantle; one of these was always arranged so as to hang down over the shoulder at the back; it was this one which the sufferer’s fingers grasped. There was a certain sacredness about these tassels, as being part of the memorial dress enjoined by the Levitical Law, which, no doubt, induced the woman to touch this particular portion of the Saviour’s dress. And immediately her issue of blood stanched. This is not the only instance of this kind of strange faith mingled with superstition being signally rewarded. The case of the miraculous efficacy of the handkerchiefs and aprons which had had contact with Paul’s body (Act 19:12) is an interesting example. A still more startling one exists in the healing influence of the shadow of Peter falling on the sick as he passed along the street (Act 5:15). The lesson evidently intended to be left on the Church of Christ by this and similar incidents is a very instructive one. Faith in Christ is a broad inclusive term: it is accepted and blest by the Master, as we see from the gospel story, in all its many degrees of development, from the elementary shape which it assumed in the case of this poor loving superstitious soul, to the splendid proportions which it reached in the lives of a Stephen and a Paul. Faith in him, from its rudest form to its grandest development, the Master knew would ever purify and elevate the character. It would, as it grew, be the best teacher and the truest monitor of the noble, generous life he loved. Therefore he watched for it, encouraged it, helped it; and his Church, if it would imitate its Master, would do well to follow his wise and loving example by fostering in every form, however crude, faith m Jesus Christ; for this incident in the Divine and perfect life which we have just dwelt on, teaches us with striking clearness that he can and will bless the dimmest, most imperfect faith, the faith of the little child, and of the poorest untaught one.
Luk 8:45
Who touched me? The Master’s words here and the statement of Luk 8:46, “For I perceive that virtue is gone out of me,” tell us something of the earnestness and faith of the suppliant. Many, as Peter said, in that crowd were touching Jesus as they pressed round him to look on his face or to listen to his words, but of them all none save this poor sufferer “touched” him in the true deep sense of touching, with the fixed idea that contact with his blessed Person would benefit or heal them.
Luk 8:48
Daughter, be of good comfort. This is the only place in the Gospels where our Lord is reported to have used this loving word to any woman. Eusebius preserves a curious legend in connection with this act of healing. In his time (fourth century) the house of this happy one who met Jesus in her sad life-journey, was shown at Paneas, a town in the north of Palestine. At the entrance of the house, on a stone pedestal, stood two brazen statuesone represented a woman kneeling; the other, a man with his cloak over his shoulder and his hand stretched out toward the kneeling woman. Eusebius relates how he had seen the house and statues and heard the legend (‘Hist. Eccl.,’ 7.18). In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, a very early writing, though not one possessing much critical value, the name of the woman is stated to be Veronica. It was she, goes on the story to re]ate, who, on the Via Dolorosa, when the Lord, on his way to Calvary, stumbled and fell, gave the handkerchief to wipe the blessed face.
Luk 8:49
While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. This interruption, which must have occupied some time, was, no doubt, a sore trial to the ruler’s faith. His little daughter was, he knew well, dying; and though he trusted that the famous Rabbi had power to arrest the progress of disease, he never seems for a moment to have contemplated his wrestling with death; indeed, the bare thought of recalling the spirit to the deserted clay tenement evidently never occurred to any of that sad household, while the hired mourners, too accustomed to the sight of death in all its forms to dream of any man, however great a physician, recalling the dead to life, transgressing all courtesy, positively laughed him to scorn. It seems to us strange now that this supreme miracle should have seemed so much harder a thing to accomplish than the healing of blindness or deafness, or the creation of wine and bread and fish, or the instantaneous quieting of the elements, the waves, and the wind. While sufferers and their friends and the Lord’s disciples, in countless instances, asked him to put forth his power in cases of disease and sickness, neither friend nor disciple ever asked him to raise the dead to life. To the last, in spite of what they had seen, none, till after the Resurrection, could persuade themselves that he was, indeed, the Lord of death as well as of life.
Luk 8:50
But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. No shadow of hesitation crossed the Redeemer’s mind; with unruffled calmness he whispered his words of cheer to the grief-stricken father, and bade him fear nothing, for that all would yet be well with the child. Then follows the well-known, often-read story told in such few words, yet are they so vivid, so dramatic, that we seem to be looking on the scene. The grief-stricken household, the hired mourners, the still death-room, the white motionless form of the dead girlthe ruler’s only childlying on her little bed, the group of the six with tear-dimmed eyes standing round; the loving Master bending over the little dead, his smile as for a moment he took back the all-power he had laid aside a little season for our sakes; the far-off look in his eyes as for a moment his vision ranged over his old home of peace and grandeur; and then the two words spoken in the familiar Aramaic (Hebrew), which Mark, or rather Mark’s master, Peter, remembered so well, “Talitha, kumi!” and the dead child rose up again, the spirit had returned to its frail tenement.
Luk 8:53
They laughed him to scorn. These were, no doubt, the hired mourners. Familiar as they were with death, they ridiculed the idea of one whom they knew had passed away, awaking again as from a sleep. These public mourners were customary figures in all Jewish homes, even in the poorest where a death had occurred. They are still usual throughout the Levant. The expression, “laughed him to scorn,” is found in Shakespeare
“Our castle’s strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn.”
(‘Macbeth,’ act 5. sc. 5.)
The Aramaic words, Talitha, kumi! “Maid, arise!” were just homely words, spoken in the language which the little girl was in the habit of hearing and using. The Master’s tender care for the child was shown not merely in the choice of the language and the words, but in his loving thought after her resurrection, for we read how
Luk 8:55
He commanded to give her meat. She had been grievously ill, sick, we know, even to death; and now that the old strength and health had come back again, the Master felt she would at once, after her long abstinence, need food. Even the child’s mother was not so motherly as Jesus.
Luk 8:56
He charged them that they should tell no man what was done. The enthusiasm in Galilee just then needed no extra spur. The crowds which followed him were increasing. The excitement, the Master felt, was unreal and evanescent; he wished rather to calm it than to increase it.
HOMILETICS
Luk 8:1-21
The evangelistic circuit.
Observe
I. THE PLAN OF CIRCUIT. (Luk 8:1.) “He went,” or “went about,” or “kept journeying.” Hitherto Capernaum had been the centre from which short excursions were taken, the Lord always returning to it. Now he moves steadily on from place to place, “passing in patience until his work is done.” “Through cities and villages.” He will not omit any abode of man. If social influence and power had been the aim, this Prophet would have limited his operations to the chief centres of life; but his meat is to do the Father’s will, and where there is even one soul waiting for the message, there is he. To the Father, to him, there is the same value in the soul of the. peasant as in that of the prince. “Preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God.” The distinction between the words, “preaching and showing the good tidings”or, to give the exact English rendering, “evangelizing”is not to be pressed too far; but the latter word seems to mark an advance of thought on the former. The “preaching” was the more general proclamation, and the “evangelizing” was the presentation of the gospel thus proclaimed to the diversities of experience and need, the opening up of its several aspects of blessing, so that men from their different standpoints might realize the great love of God and behold the glories of his kingdom. Kings grant pardons, but they only send them; this King comes himself with the pardon, and deals personally with the sinner. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him thus bringing good tidings, and publishing peace; bringing good tidings of good, publishing salvation, saying unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!”
II. A NEW STYLE OF DISCOURSE. One which thenceforth becomes a marked feature of the teaching. He had frequently used comparisons, traced likenesses between the natural and the spiritual. But what had been an occasional trait now became a characteristic mode of conveying truth, and for the reason given by himself (Luk 8:10). To us, familiar with the sound and meaning of the parable, nothing can seem more apposite and happy as a means of communicating thought. By it the highest and deepest mysteries of the kingdom are most gently infused into the apprehension of the mind, whilst there is always a reserve of meaning on which we can draw. But the gamble was not all this to those who heard it. It stimulated inquiry rather than imparted knowledge. It brought the disciples to Jesus, saying, “Expound to us;” “What might this story be?” Those who did not wish to learn were sent away with the feeling, “A dark saying has been uttered: who can hear it?” Jesus says that this defined his purpose in adopting it. He meant it to be a test of the spirit of the mind. Thus he laid his hearers in the balances. May we be of those “to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven”!
III. THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER. This is the only one of the famous seven given in Mat 13:1-58. which St. Luke places in our view. It falls more naturally to be considered at length in connection with the former of the accounts. Observe hereon this St. Luke is explicitthe point to which the discourse of Jesus looks (verse 18), “Take heed therefore how ye hear.” In this connection recall the four kinds of place in which the seed is sown: the wayside, where the seed is trodden down and devoured by the fowls; the rock, or stony places, where the seed springs up, but soon withers through want of moisture; the thorny ground, where the seed and the thorns grow together, and the thorns choke the seed; and the good ground, where the seed springs up and bears a hundredfold. These places are identified (verses 12-15) with classes of hearers. There are the wayside hearersthose in whom there is no mental exercise on that which they hear, whose minds are thoroughfares for all sorts of thought. And what follows? As soon as they hear, the devil comessome impish fancy or distracting influence, and takes away the word. “I never heard a sermon,” said a man, who for years attended church, “I attended, but, whilst you were speaking, I reviewed the last week’s task and arranged for the next.” There are the rocky-place hearersthose who hear with interest, with emotion; you can see the response to the word in the animation of the countenance, in the tokens of lively feeling. But the message does not grasp the character, the centres of the life remain unchanged, and thus “in time of temptation they fall away.” There are the thorny-ground hearersthose who have heard and yielded to the truth, but the busy, care-crowded, or pleasure-seeking world is waiting for them; the seed is not altogether lost, but the mind is choked with alien interests or pursuits. The poet Robert Burns compares himself to a lonely man walking where fragments of marble columns lie on the ground, overgrown by rank, tall weeds. There are the good-soil hearersthose in whom the earnest longing to know, to do, God’s truth is a preparation for the word; who, having heard, hide the word in the heart, and patiently and habitually submit to it-, and, through the blessing of the Holy Spirit, bring forth fruit abundantly. To which of these types of hearers does each of us belong? Oh the responsibility of hearing! Note the distinction, in verse 18, between those who have and those who seem to have, or think they have. What is the warning? Whoso only thinks that he has, or is content with the appearance of having, is losing his possession. The life is really moving on other lines than those laid down in the word. The power of reception is diminishing: “Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he thinketh he hath.” “Take heed therefore how ye hear.” It is the manner of hearing that is the main thingthe motive, the desire, the extent to which the heart and the soul are engaged whilst hearing. Persons are apt to blame the speaker, to lay the want of effect at his door. It may be so; no doubt it often is so. But what of these persons themselves? Let each examine himself. Eloquence, it has been said, is in the audience; and, undoubtedly, the sympathy of the audience has much to do with the power of the utterance. Christ reminds us that, where there is failure, the hearer at least divides the blame. He reminds us, too, that the life declares the quality of the hearing. Verses 16, 17, “For nothing is hid, that shall not be made manifest; nor anything secret, that shall not be known and come to light.”
IV. THE HELPERS AND THE HINDERERS IN THE MINISTRY. The twelve are with him. It is their university curriculum. Would to God that all who pass through universities and seminaries realized this curriculum also”Eye-witnesses first, and then ministers of the Word”! But he has other companions than the apostles; and the noteworthy thing as to these other companions is that they ministered to him of their substance. “The Son of God,” says Godet, “lived by the love of those whom his love had made to live.” Who are they? Women. Three names are singled out. Mary of Magdala,” from whom seven devils had gone out” (vide previous section), once passionate, perhaps depraved, in her life; but henceforth the most loving and devoted; the one to whom the risen Saviour first appeared (Joh 20:1-31.). And with her are named the wife of Herod’s steward, and Susanna, of whom nothing is known. “Many others,” we are told. But we do not find, as Farrar has pointed out, the wives of Peter or of the married apostles; nor yet the mother of our Lord. The ministry of woman to Jesus! There is a deep sympathy between the true woman-heart and the Lord; the self-sacrificing love so pure and strong in the true woman-heart being the special attraction. Christianity has exalted woman, has raised her position, and purified her influence. But woman has more than paid back all that she owes to Christianity in respect of this. Who, indeed, that has been blessed by Christian mother, wife, sister, friend, does not know that God has created the ministry of his Word male and female?giving to the female an even more winning beauty and a more spiritually educative service than the male. The apostles are with, Jesus; but certain women minister to him of their substance. These are the helpers: who are the hinderers? His mother and his brethren (verse 19). The Lord is compelled to say that, whilst the relation according to the flesh is respected, they are not at that moment connected with him by the affinities which alone are permanent. See how this bears on the idolatrous honour paid by the Roman Church to Mary. She has been prevailed on by her children, not to intercede with Jesus, but to join them in the effortprobably meant in kindness, but showing deficiency of insightto prevent him from continuance in toils and prayers. And note, he distinctly declines to recognize any rights grounded on the motherhood with regard to his work; only spiritual relationships will he recognize. Even when he looks down from the cross and sees her standing, he says to the beloved disciple only, “Behold thy mother.” But, apart from this, is it not suggestive, mournfully suggestive, that the hinderers are the nearest of relationsmother and brethren? So it has been often since. An unsympathetic home and circle of friends sometimes constitute the sorest trial which one must face who wills to have fellowship with the Son of God, “He goeth forth weeping, bearing the precious seed.”
Luk 8:22-25
Storm and calm.
“He entered into a boat, himself and his disciples.” The association of Christ with the beat, with which we are so familiar in the gospel history, has been preserved in much of the poetry, the literature, and the art of the Church. A very old seal-ring represents the Church as a ship struggling against the winds, supported by a great fish in the sea beneath, and with two doves sitting on its mast and prow. The shape often given to Christian places of worship in the early ages was that of a beat. And the idea has entered into all Christian song and thought, Keble catches up the tone of centuries when he inserts the verse in the evening hymn
”Thou Framer of the light and dark,
Steer through the tempest thine own ark:
Amid the howling wintry sea
We are in port if we have thee.”
The key-note to all this symbolism is given in the incident reported in these verses.
I. IT IS A PICTURE OF LIFE. The sea was at rest when the disciples took Jesus as he was. As they sailed on the smooth waters the weary Prophet fell asleep. On a sudden down comes the squallone of those furious hurricanes which sweep across a lake six hundred feet lower than the ocean, with gigantic funnels supplied by deep ravines cut by the action of wild watercourses. All is changed; there is heard now only the despairing cry, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?’ Such is lifo: changeful, now the smiling sunshine with the clear blue sky, again the driving cloud and rain, with angry waves breaking over the craft. Job was at rest; his sons and daughters feasting together; he himself, with abundance and peace, fearing God and eschewing evil, when the one terrible day came on which messenger chased messenger, completing a tale of destruction and bereavement. How often does destruction fall as in a moment! The fitful weather of the inland lake is a type of the fitful climate, followed by the rapidly dissolving scenery, of the present time. How foolish to set the affection on things below! How sad when there is no Christ in the ship! when there is no fixture, among the sundry and manifold changes of this world, where the only true joys are to be found!
II. IT IS A SIGN OF CHRIST. The stilling of the tempest is a miracle. We seem to see the sleeping Master quietly raising himself, looking around, meeting the gaze of the all but frantic men, standing erect in the boat, sending forth the majestic, “Peace; be still!” “What manner of man is this, for he commandeth even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” Yes; what manner of man! He is himself the miracle, the One “made of God to us Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption.” The work is the sign of himself in that deeper work in which he is manifest as the Saviour of sinners. What is that work but the rebuking of the storm of passion, and all the influences which are adverse to peace of mind and holiness of life? “Be still,” is the Christ-word; “Peace to you,” is the Christ-breath. In the world of man, “he maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they are quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven” Is not this the experience of every truly converted life? Miss Havergal’s verse expresses it.
“There were strange soul-depths, restless, vast and broad,
Unfathomed as the sea;
An infinite longing for an infinite stilling.
But now thy love is perfect filling:
Lord Jesus Christ, my Lord, my God,
Thou, thou art enough for me!”
And so for all the days. “Let Christ be awakened,” writes Augustine, “Though the tempest beat into, yet it win not fill, thy ship; thy faith will now command the winds and the waves, and thy danger will be over.” Oh, see to it, that thou take Christ into thy heart, even as he is. Blessed for thee, O needy sinner, when the Master is really the occupant of thy life, thy “present Help in trouble.”
III. IT IS A REPROOF OF LITTLE FAITH. “Why are ye so fearful?” is the part of Jesus’ word reported by Matthew. Why, when you know who is with you; when you know that he is there, that it is not some enemy, some devil, that has the control of elements, of circumstances? Why are ye so easily cast down? Why do ye give way so readily? Why do ye fall into such despendencies, such paroxysms of grief? May we not, in many an hour of shrinking, if not of terror, hear this “why” sounding in our hearts? “Where is your faith?” is the part of the word reported by Luke. Assume that you have it, that you are really trusting in Christ as your Master: whither does the faith vanish when you are so fearful? Is it not the moment of trial that proves the readiness and serviceableness of the faith? Do we not often need to seek it when we have occasion for it? Verily a question most pertinent to us in the varying circumstances and demands of our life. Think, think over the adverb, so suggestive, “Where is your faith?.
Luk 8:26-39
The demoniac whose name was Legion.
Two miserable creatures are mentioned in Matthew. No sooner has Jesus come forth on the land than they rush towards him. Human, yet without the mental attributes of humanity, shunned by all, left in the lonely place, to rend the air with fearful cries, to clash themselves against stones, wretched beyond all names of wretchedness. One of the two is singled out by St. Luke, and described (verses 27, 29). Observe the effect of Jesus’ presence. Instantly some long-silent chord was touched, some new sense of the awful misery into which the man had been plunged was awakened, some conflict between a mind made suddenly active, and the nameless power of darkness was originated. The maniac falls down, and with a loud voice cries, as if some other one were crying through him, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most High God? I beseech thee, torment me not.” Marvellous confession! which, however, had been preceded by a word of authority (verse 29), and which is followed by a kind of confused perception. “What is thy name?” What name had he? What personality? The only word which seemed to describe the situation was the Roman name for a host, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Poor Legion! there is in thee a groaning which cannot be uttered; and that groaning, unawares to thyself, has the form of the old prayer, “Unite my heart to fear thy Name!” Lo! he who knows the mind of the Spirit has heard thee, and he has given a new song to thy mouth. Henceforth thou shalt say, “I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify thy Name for evermore. For great is thy mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell” Thus far, all, though wonderful, is beautiful and Christ-like. But now comes the strange portion of the narrative. Jesus is described as giving the demons which had laid waste the son of Abraham leave to possess the herd of swine feeding on the mountain-side; the consequence being that the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and were choked. Against this destruction many objections have been brought; it is a stone of stumbling and offence even to believers. Even to faith it seems at variance with the mercifulness of the Lord, and the transference of the evil power from the man to the herd of swine bristles with things hard to be understood. Explanations offered, some of them ingenious, all unsatisfactory, are not here to be dwelt on. It is assumed that we take the evangelist to be a trustworthy guide as to events which are out of the plane of ordinary life. Somewhere, somehow, the work done is reconcilable with the true nature of things, with the mercy and the truth which are around all God’s paths. Observe two points by way of practical improvement.
I. TO THE DEMONIAC HIMSELF THERE WAS GIVEN A TESTIMONY NEVER TO BE FORGOTTEN OF THE SIN AND MISERY FROM WHICH THE STRONGER THAN THE STRONG ONE HAD DELIVERED HIM. The effect on character, the influence which some action or course of conduct would have in the establishment of trust in himself or in the education of the disciple, was always before the mind of Christ. Now, what an evidencein a form which one whose shattered intellect was not yet fully restored could understandwas given of the awful waste of spiritual life, the awful force of an untrained, unsanctified nature, by the sight of that precipitate rush down the steep place into the sea! Recollect, too, that, according to the correspondences of Scripture, these swine represent the more bestial and corrupt propensities of our nature. Pascal, in one of his most cynical sayings, speaks of man as “half-beast, half-devil” There is something of the beast in men; and what happened that day is the token of what does happen when the lower animal is acted on by spirits of malignity or darknesswhen, from some cause operating from without, that which is animal is acted on by that which is devilish. Is not that same violent rushing down steep places of poor animalized beings, their true life checked and destroyed, witnessed every day? Do we not constantly see infatuations similar to that portrayed in the herd of swine? In England more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons die every year directly in consequence of indulgence in strong drink. If, as has been asked, there was such a destruction of cattle or swine in the country, what attention would be called to it! what a host of remedies and measures with a view to its prevention would be propounded! But the matter passes with little notice. Undoubtedly, the event at Gergesa is a sign of what mere carnal appetite, when fed by some exciting cause, brings about; and, being so, it is a standing witness for the blessings of his salvation, whose gospel is a new order as well as a new life, who controls what is lawless by the law of liberty, and at whose feet the man from whom devils are departed sits clothed and in his right mind.
II. TO ALL OF US THERE IS A SAD SIGNIFICANCE IN THE CONDUCT OF THE GADARENES. The two facts before them werethe swine lost, and the man gained. Which of the two was the greater? The swine lost. That spoke to them of a fearful power in the Man who had landed on their shore. Perhaps their consciences were uneasy. If they were Jews, and some of them must have been, they knew that, for the purpose of gain, they had broken Moses’ Law. Why should he continue in their midst whose glance burnt like an oven? Anyhow, instead of remembering what attracted and spoke of healing in the cure of the man, they remember only what had caused them loss in the destruction of the swine. “Away!” they cry, “thou holy and terrible One! We don’t wish to be disturbed in our way. Trouble us no longer l” Fearful prayer! But do not more than the Gadarenes pray it? Are there not many whose secret heart protests, “Let us alone, Lord God! Let us make money as best we can; eat, drink, and enjoy ourselves. Away with the spiritualwith Church, with God! Give us our swine, and let heaven go!” Fearful prayer, and fearful answer! “God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, and flings the thing we have asked for in our facea ganutlet with a gift in it.” “He entered into a boat, and returned.” There is only one of another spirit in the multitude. He who a few minutes before had cried, “What have I to do with thee?” now beseeches, like Ruth of old, “Entreat me not to leave thee: where thou goest I will go, and where thou dwellest I will dwell.” Nay, he must remainChrist’s missionary and witness to his unbelieving countrymen. Not to luxuriate in him, but to live and work for him, is the call to the redeemed. “And he went his way, publishing throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done for him.”
Luk 8:41-56
Jarius and what happened on the way to his house.
A beautiful Scripture, whose beauty we feel all the more that, in this Gospel, it follows the rejection of Christ by the “witless Gadarenes.” Its exact place in the history cannot with certainty be fixed; for the accounts of the three synoptists vary as to the time of the works. But whatever the precise period in the biography to which it belongs, the tale told is one which appeals to the more domestic affections of the heart; one too which gives a graciously full manifestation of Jesus the Resurrection and the Life. The transaction realized as he went illustrates chiefly Christ the Life; that which was done in answer to the ruler’s pleading illustrates chiefly Christ the Resurrectionthe two aspects of the incarnate I Am.
With regard to the former of these events, consider the touch of the Lord by the woman who had found her way to his presence, and what came of the touch.
I. The touch represents THE ONLY HOPE. She had nothing else to which to cling. For twelve long years she had been a sick and weary woman. There is something interesting in the circumstance which Luke the physician records, that all her means had been spent on physicians, but that she could not be healed of any. Mark adds that she rather grew worse. The physician-evangelist has no such addition; but “he knew what human skill could do, and, Still better, what it could not do, and he bowed himself humbly in the presence of Christ.” Well, all the living has been spent. A little before the moment of Jesus passing, she might not have been so ready. A portion of her income would still have been left. The temptation would have been to try another doctor. But now there is only this chance. It is the energy of despair. “Thou must save, and thou alone.” Ah! sinner, if thou wouldst know the virtue that there is in the Son of God for thee, thou must come to an end with self, with all strivings after a righteousness of thine own. Thy living, all that is thine, must be wholly removed from thy sight. Jesus wholly! Jesus only!
II. The touch represents AN IMMEDIATE ACT OF WILL. “When she had heard,” says Mark, “the things concerning Jesus, she came.” There is no delay over questions such as, “How can I reach his presence? How can I get through this multitude? Will he care for me?” All such self-inquiry is at once dismissed. The true faith is busied only with its Object. The mind is too much in earnest to stop over problems concerning the act or the manner of faith. “If thou wert sick for want of God, how swiftly wouldst thou move!” Two things are seenthe need, and Christ the only answer to the need; and, these things seen, the will is supreme over all that savours of intellectual doubt and difficulty. “If I may but get to him, I shall be whole.”
III. The touch represents A PERSONAL CONTACT. “Only to put my hand on the clothes, or even the fringe of the garment.” So she says to herself. Not, perhaps, a very lofty faith. A good deal in it, possibly, of the superstition to which she had been accustomed; of an idea of magical charm, and so forth. But the real thing in it was the conviction that he was able to save to the uttermost; that the cure was certain if she could get to him. The touch meant herself in her want laying hold of Christ himself, the Saviour and his salvation. And this is the vital force of faith. Notions may be confused, may be very poor and deficient; the Lord will rectify that. The saving grace is such a confidence as will bring into direct relation to the love of God in Christ. And this touch is at once distinguished. Every one who has to do with multitudes understands, so far, the secret of the quick “Who touched me?” He knows by intuition the souls that are really sympathetic with him. These touch; the others only press around. In the crowd surging about Jesus there is only one who touches. The people have welcomed him, and are following him; but their handling of him and her touch are quite different. Blessed among women! type of the souls blessed eternally: “I perceived that power had gone forth from me.”
IV. The touch is the way to THE CURE BOTH OF BODY AND SOUL. “Immediately she was healed.” “Straightway,” says Mark, “she felt in her body that she was healed.” What a sensation that instant bound of health! Observe that “immediately” or “straightway” in the reports of Jesus’ works of healing in the Gospels. The health does not come as the end of a laborious discipline or regimen; it is not the end, but the beginning of a new life. We do not work to salvation; we work from it The moment a life is really surrendered to God and the affiance of the soul with the Redeemer is fulfilled, that moment it is healed, it is cleansed. There is a new life introduceda ]ire which is henceforth the power of God to salvation. It is not perfect, but it is there. This Divine life is the health of the soul. It is then in a healthy condition before God. And henceforth, according to his power that worketh in us, he completes and perfects the life which himself has imparted. Was it not so with the woman? After she was healed he brought her into the spiritual knowledge of himself and his will. She had stolen to Jesus, but she must not steal from him. He searches her out. She sees that she is not hid; and trembling, fearing, she falls down and tells him all the truth. Precisely what he desired. And what he desires evermore is frankness, openness to him. There must be no guile and no concealment; there must be perfect truthfulness between the Lord and the soul. When any shadow comes in there, the cleansing of the conscience, the working out of the salvation, is hindered. Notice the word “daughter,” the only woman who received this title from the Lord, and she the woman who was brought to tell all the truth. “For this let every one that is godly pray unto thee.”
This interview, with its great work, is by the way. He who desires the opportunity of usefulness meets the opportunity even in travelling to the duty more immediately contemplated. All the while another work has been waiting. What parent does not enter into the feeling of the ruler of the synagogue? His only daughter, the darling, the desire of his eyes, is dying. And he must stand and listen to the talk which involves some delay. And then the message, “Thy daughter is dead: trouble not the Master!” We do not hear of any complaint or impatience, of any word of reproach like that which fell from the sisters of Bethany. Jesus meets a confidence such as this with loving frankness: “Fear not: only believe, and she shall be made whole.” Look at the sign that is given of Christ the Resurrection.
I. IT HAS ITS SPECIALTY OF MEANING. Of the three acts of raising from the dead related by the evangelists, it is, adhering to the chronology of Luke, the second. The son of the widow of Nain was not only dead, but the body was being carried out to burial Lazarus had been four days dead. The girl of twelve had only expired. The attendants knew that she was dead; Luke the physician is careful to add this. It was no trance; she was undoubtedly dead, but Death had only a short time before put his stamp on the countenance. Trench, writing on the miracle, beautifully speaks of “the fresh-trodden way between the body and the soul which has just forsaken it, and which lingers for a season near the tabernacle where it has dwelt so long. Even science itself,” he adds, “has arrived at the conclusion that the last echoes of life ring in the body much longer than is commonly supposed; that, for a while, it is fall of the reminiscences of life.” Observe, when Christ says, “She is not dead, but sleepeth,” the unbelieving mourners laugh; they have only scorn for such a saying. The sorrow is hard, cheerless sorrow, when there is no conception of deathas a sleep! “Asleep in Jesus;” “He fell on sleep;”such words the Church has substituted for the cold, forbidding word “death.” Look, O mourner in Zion, on the lifeless form of thy dear one, and as thou thinkest of “the fresh-trodden way between the body and the soul which has just forsaken it,” remember the saying of him who is the Resurrection: “Not dead, but sleepeth.“ Believest thou this?
II. NOTE THE WITNESSES OF THE WORK. It is the first occasion on which the three of the apostolic band are singled outPeter and James and John. None except they and the parents are allowed to enter. There is a sacredness in great grief which demands protection from the rude gaze of mere curiosity. The hired mourners, with their shouts and cries, their ostentation and display, are abhorrent to the Lord. Simplicity and genuineness of emotion befit the house of the dead, and all connected with death and burial.
III. SEE THE GENTLE THOUGHTFULNESS OF CHRIST. When the maid arises, he commands that meat be given her. The life restored must be supported. He is sparing of the supernatural and extraordinary. Where the ordinary and natural come into play, there the call is to use them. The Church, in her spiritual work, must learn of her Lord. “Keep life living,” said Bunsen. When the Divine life is bestowed, it must be nourished by the appropriate means of grace; it must be fed by food convenient to it, nourished through the Word, sacraments, and prayer, unto everlasting life.
IV. CONTEMPLATE THE WHOLE ACTION. How simple! how quiet I The touch of the hand, the head bent over the child; the voice soft yet clear in the familiar Aramaic, “Talitha cumi!”these are the features of the action. Thus simple and quiet was the way of the Lord when, in the beginning, he “said, Let there be light! And there was light.” Thus simple and quiet is his way when he comes to the human soul “as the rain, as the former and latter rain on the earth.” The wind bloweth, indeed, where it listeth, sometimes with the fury of the hurricane tearing up the old refuges and joys of the life. But the hurricane prepares for the Lord. The Lord is in the still small voice which comes after. Wherefore he saith, in tones of imperial authority, but of thriling tenderness, to thee, little maid, to thee, young man rejoicing in thy youth, to thee on whom the weight of years is resting, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light!”
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Luk 8:1
The gospel of the kingdom.
In a parallel passage in Matthew (Mat 4:23) we read that Jesus went about all Galilee, “preaching the gospel of the kingdom;” here we read of the same thing in a very slightly different form”showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” It will clear away all possible confusion of thought respecting “the gospel” and “the kingdom” if we dwell upon the gospel (or the glad tidings) of the kingdom.
I. THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This kingdom of God, or of heaven, or of Christ (for our Lord sometimes spoke of it as his own), is something transcendently nobler than anything which the most pious or the most sanguine Jew ever hoped for in his heart or pictured in his imagination (see homily on Luk 1:31-33). As Jesus Christ conceived it, and as it will be when it has been fully and finally established, this glorious kingdom is or is to be:
1. A kingdom of God; one in which God himself will be the one Sovereign, all men everywhere being his subjects, owning his sway and loyal to his will
2. An essentially spiritual kingdom; all the obedience and submission rendered being that of the heart and the will, as well as of the tongue and the hand.
3. A righteous kingdom; in which every citizen will act in accordance with “the golden rule” (Luk 6:31).
4. A beneficent kingdom; the spirit of kindness, of practical helpfulness, animating every subject.
5. A universal kingdom; coextensive with the human race.
6. An everlasting kingdom; going down to the remotest generation. Such, in its purity, its nobility, its inherent greatness, its absolute uniqueness, is the “kingdom of God.”
II. THE GOSPEL (THE GLAD TIDINGS) OF THE KINGDOM. The features of this kingdom which so much commend it to the hearts of erring, sinful, dying men, constituting “the glad tidings of the kingdom,” are:
1. That entrance into it is open to every child of man. This is now so familiar to us as to be quite commonplace. But lock at it in the light of the doctrine of Divine favouritism once prevalent; in the light of the incident recorded in the fourth chapter of this Gospel (verses 23-29);then we cannot be too thankful that the gates of this blessed kingdom are open, stand wide open, to every comerto the poor, to the despised, to the neglected, to the barbarous, to those whom men may consider irrecoverable or not worth redeeming.
2. That its Divine Sovereign is actively seeking all souls, that they may enter. It is not only that no one is excluded; the good news, the glad tidings, is more and better than thatit is that every one is being individually, lovingly invited, nay, pressed and urged to enter; it is that out into the “far country” of forgetfulness and dislike the heavenly Father goes in parental yearning, and bids each wandering child “Return;” it is that away over hill and mountain of estrangement and guilt the good Shepherd goes, seeking and finding and bringing back the sheep which was lost; it is that long and lovingly, at the door of each human soul, the patient Saviour stands and knocks, and cries, “If any man will open the door, I will come in to him, and sup with him.”
3. That admission is open to every humble and trustful soul at once. If we have grieved some human friend and become estranged from him, and if there be a proposal to seek reconciliation, our decision will probably be determined by the consideration whether we shall be at once fully restored or whether there will be a long interval before full reconciliation is effected. It is the gospel (the glad tidings) of the kingdom of God that every penitent and believing soul is immediately and without any delay whatever taken into the favour of God. As soon as the submissive spirit of the man says, “Father, I have sinned,” so soon is grace bestowed, so soon is the name entered on the roll of the heavenly citizenship.
4. That citizenship now means citizenship for ever. It is a large part of the gospel of Jesus Christ that this earth is only an antechamber of the Father’s house, or only a small outlying province of his boundless empire. To be a faithful citizen here and now means being a happy citizen somewhere for evermore. Life under the benign sway of this heavenly King is not counted by years or decades; it is without a bound; it is continued, perpetuated, in other regions of his glorious domain. This is the “glorious gospel” of the kingdom. Is it well to wait for a better? Dare we hope that, if we reject these glad tidings, we shall over hear any that we shall accept? “Behold, now is the accepted time.”C.
Luk 8:2, Luk 8:3
Christianity and woman.
We have seen (Luk 2:36-38) that woman, in the person of Anna, welcomed the infant Saviour to the world; it was most fitting that she should do so, for Christianity and womanhood have had a very ‘close relationship, and undoubtedly will have even to the end.
I. WHAT CHRISTIANITY OWES TO WOMAN.
1. Its Divine Author and the Object of its worship was, “as concerning the flesh,” born of a woman (Gal 4:4). The Son of God was, in a true and important sense, the “Son of Mary.”
2. He owed the care and the training of his childhood to a human mother.
3. He received, during his active life, the generous provision of ministering women (see text); these, out of” their substance,“ supplied his necessities.
4. He found some of his best disciples and of his most faithful attendants in women (Mat 27:65).
5. He had the comfort of the near presence of three devoted women in his last agonies (Joh 19:25). Closer to him in that awful hour than the ruthless soldier and the taunting enemy, rendering him a silent and sorrowful but not unvalued sympathy, stood three women who loved him for all that he was in himself and for all he had been to them.
6. Last at the cross, women were first at the sepulchre (Luk 23:55, Luk 23:56; Luk 24:1).
7. Women were united with the apostles in the upper room, waiting and praying for the further manifestation of the Lord after his ascension (Act 1:14).
8. The apostle of the Gentiles owed much to women in his abundant and fruitful labours (Php 4:3).
9. From that time to this, women have been rendering valuable service to the cause of Jesus Christ: the mother of Augustine, the mother of the Wesleys, and many hundreds more have, by their holy and faithful motherhood, done signal service to the gospel. In these later days, moved by the Spirit of God, women have, by their writings and by their “prophesyings,” effected great things for the furtherance of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. And it is right that it should be so; for we have to consider
II. WHAT WOMAN OWES TO CHRISTIANITY.
1. We know what barbarism does, and fails to do, for woman.
2. We know also what Greek and Roman civilization did, and failed to do, for her; in how unsatisfactory a condition it left her; how completely it failed to raise her. to her true spiritual dignity. We know what Christianity has done and is doing for her.
(1) Jesus Christ taught and enforced the transcendent value of every human soul.
(2) He admitted women into his kingdom on the same terms on which he received men: “In him is neither male nor female.”
(3) He gave to women a sphere of honorable service in his kingdom; not only (as above) accepting their loving ministry for himself, but for his disciples also.
(4) Influenced increasingly by these ideas, the Church of Christ has been giving to woman a place of growing honour and usefulness; it has made her the full helpmeet and equal companion of man; it has opened for her the gateway of knowledge and influence; it has placed her on the highest seat to receive its respect, its affection, its service. We may look at
III. THE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTIONS WHICH WOMAN MAY RENDER.
1. When not bound by domestic ties, she can offer, as these women did, of her worldly substance.
2. She can minister, as man cannot, to the sick and suffering; she has a gentle touch of hand and a tenderness and patience of spirit for which we look to man in vain.
3. She can train the child in the home, and, by giving to him or her the earliest and deepest impressions concerning Divine love, prepare for noblest work in after-years in various fields of holy service.C.
Luk 8:4-8
Failure and success in hearing.
The produce of our spiritual fields does not always answer to our hopes or reward our labours; there is much sowing, but little reaping. How do we account for it?
I. THE ACCOUNT OF THE FAILURE.
1. Inattention on the part of the bearer. The truth is spoken faithfully, but so little heed is given to it that it is no sooner uttered and beard than it has disappeared from view. Sown on the hard wayside (Luk 8:5), it does not enter into the soil, and is readily borne away. They who do not know how to listen when God speaks to them, need not be surprised if they are of those who are “ever learning, and never coming to a knowledge of the truth.” “Give earnest heed” as the Word is being spoken.
2. Want of reflection. (Luk 8:6.) Many listen with delight, and consider themselves the better for their present gladness. But they do not reflect on what they have heard; there is nothing to nourish the feeble lifeno “moisture,“ no “earth,“ no thoughtfulness and prayer; and the end is that the emotion that was aroused as the hearer listened withers away.
3. Incapacity to stand tests. (Luk 8:7.) There may be earnest attention, and this may be followed by some consideration and even prayer; but the root of conviction does not go down far enough to become resolute consecration, and the result is that the “thorns“ choke the corn as it is growing. There are two kinds of thorn which are of a deadly influence in the spiritual fieldone is that of worldly cares, and the other that of unspiritual pleasure. These are not evil things in themselves, but, just as the weeds in the field draw up and into themselves the nourishment which should be given to the useful plant, so do these lower anxieties and gratifications absorb the time, the thought, the energy, which should go to the maintenance of the new spiritual life, and, being unfed and unsustained, it languishes and perishes.
II. THE CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS. What is the good ground? What is the honest and good heart (Luk 8:8-15)? It is that of:
1. Sincere inquiry. The hearer goes to learn what is the will of God concerning himto “inquire in his temple.” The question of his heart is, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” Hence he listens eagerly and continuously.
2. Devout meditation. He ponders, he dwells upon, he prays over, the truth he has been receiving.
3. Intelligent, deliberate dedication. The man takes all things into his mind that must be taken; he counts the cost; he considers what the service of Christ means, and how much it involves in the way of surrender and of activity, and he solemnly devotes himself to the service, or, as the case may be, to the work of the Lord.
Jesus cried, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” He spoke that word in a striking, impressive, emphatic voice. He would say to us:
1. Your privilege in having access to the gospel is very great, and as is your privilege so also is your responsibility.
2. Many are the children of opportunity who are not heirs of the kingdom of God; many go into the “house of God” who remain outside the Church of Christ; who hear but do not heed, or who listen but do not ponder and pray, or who pray but do not determine and devote; who at some point or other fall short of the kingdom. It is a sad thing to be “in the way of salvation,” and yet to be unsaved.
3. Very blessed are the children of wisdom. When the Word of God takes deep root and brings ‘forth fruit, its fertility is great indeed; the increase may be “an hundredfold” (Luk 8:8). In the heart itself in which it is sown, it may produce all the graces of the Spirit of God; and in the better life thus called forth there may shine all the excellences which are in Christ Jesus our Lord and Exemplar; and/tom that life there may flow forth influences for good, of which the number and the nature and the duration only God can tell.C.
Luk 8:16
Covered character.
If we have a large object immediately before us in the daytime, and yet are unable to see it, we are driven to the conclusion that, if we are not blind, there must be something opaque between the object and our eye. Now:
1. There is much of solid goodness in Christian men. All who name the name of Christ are under bond to depart from all iniquity; their life is a life of holy endeavour after the character of their Lord; they are seeking daily the aid and inspiration of the Divine Spirit; they must be wiser and worthier than those who are living for themselves.
2. This light of Christian character is shining straight before the eyes of unholy men. In the great field of the human world the wheat and the tares grow together. Here we meet together, good and bad, the irreverent and the profane, under the same roof, at the same table and hearth, in the same shop and warehouse. We witness one another’s lives. Christian character is near enough to be seen by all.
3. We are sometimes asked to be shown the light of Christian worth. Men say, “Where is this excellency, this supposed superiority of spirit and conduct, these fruits? we should like to see them.” What shall we say to this challenge? That they who thus complain do not see what they look for because there is something the matter with their vision, because it is distorted by prejudice? Or shall we say that where no goodness is seen it is because there is none to see; that piety, being popular, is simulated, and they are looking at those who are only pretending to be Christian men, and that godliness is no more accountable for hypocrisy than the good coin is answerable for the counterfeit? We might often make one of these two replies, with right and reason on our side. But that would not meet the case; it would leave the question partially unanswered. The fact is that goodness is often unseen in consequence of the intervening of some surface faults which hide it from view. There is
I. THE COVERING OF RETICENCE. Many a man is right at heart, sound in faith, well fitted by his knowledge and intelligence to render essential service; but he is so reserved, so self-contained, so inaccessible, lives so much in the inner circle of his own familiar friends, that he is far less forcible and influential than he is capable of being;he is hiding the light of his character under the covering of reserve, instead of setting it on the candlestick of open-heartedness and expressiveness.
II. THE COVERING OF RESENTFULNESS. Other men are warm-hearted, good-natured, diligent, and devoted in every good work, capable of rendering admirable service; but they are quick-tempered, irascible, ready to take offence; so hasty and resentful that they are shunned when they would otherwise be approached;they hide the light of their character under the vessel of ill temper.
III. THE COVERING OF SELF–ASSERTION. Some men are upright, honourable, zealous, resolute, forcible, well fitted to effect great things, but they hide their light under the bushel of self-assertion; they insist on everything being done in the way they prefer; they make co-operation impossible; they cut their influence in twain by their want of conciliation and concession.
IV. THE COVERING OF DISCOURTESY. There are those who are honest, and even earnest and hardworking Christian men, acting along the lines of holy usefulness; but they cover their character with the vessel of bluntness, or ignorance, or positive rudeness, instead of putting the light of piety and zeal on the candlestick of courtesy.
Now, it has to be remembered that our children and our neighbours, all with whom we have to do, judge of our character not only by its solid and essential elements, but also (and rather) by its superficial features; they will be affected and influenced, not more by that in us which is deep and decisive than by those outside qualities which are visible to them just because they are outside. Hence, if we care, as we are bound to do, that our character should be telling on those with whom we are connected, and for whom we are responsible, we shall strive and pray to be not only pure and just and true, but also frank and amiable and courteous. If we would not go through our life with our Christian character covered over and lost by some superficial failing, if we would have it fixed on the candlestick on which it will “give light to all that are in the house,”we must not only think on the things which are true, honest, just, and pure, but also on those things which are “lovely and of good report;”C,
Luk 8:17
Revelationa duty, a fact, a certainty.
These words of our Lord may have been a familiar aphorism of his time, or they may have been a sententious saying of his own, having many applications. Certainly they are significant of many things. They may be regarded as expressing for us
I. A SACRED DUTY WE ARE CALLED UPON TO DISCHARGE. It is in this sense our Lord used them on the occasion reported by Matthew (Mat 10:25-27). What was then hidden in the minds of the disciples they were to reveal to the world in due time; the truth which the Master was making known to them “in the darkness” they were to “speak in the light.” And this duty is of universal obligation. What God reveals to us and what is, at first, hidden in our own soul we are bound to bring forth into the light of day. It may be any kind of truthmedical, agricultural, commercial, economical, moral, or directly and positively religious; whatever we have learned that is of value to the world we have no right to retain for our own private benefit, Truth is common property; it should be open to all men, like the air and the sunshine. When God, in any way, says to us, “Know;” he also says, “Teach; pass on to your brethren what I have revealed to you; ‘there is nothing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hid that shall not be known.'”
II. A SERIOUS FACT WE DO WELL TO CONSIDER. Guilt loves secrecy. “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light.., lest his deeds should be reproved.” Men that sin against God and their own conscience would be only too glad to know that their deeds were finally buried and would never reappear. But no man may take this consolation to his soul. Secret things are disclosed; there is an instinctive feeling expressed in the common Belief that “murder will out,” that flagrant wrong will sooner or later be exposed. We may not say that no crimes have ever been successfully concealed; but we may safely say that no man, however careful and ingenious he may be in the art of concealing, can be at all sure that his iniquity will not be laid bare. And this will apply to lesser as well as larger evils. Habits of secret drinking, of impurity, of dishonesty, of vindictive passion, will sooner or later betray themselves and bring shame on their victim. Indeed, so closely allied are the body and the spirit, so constantly does the former receive impressions from the latter, that there is no emotion, however deep it may be within the soul, which will not, after a time, reveal itself in the countenance, or write its signature in some way on “the flesh.” If illegible to the many, it is still there, to he read by those who have eyes to see, and to be seen of God. There is a very true sense in which “nothing is secret that shall not be made manifest” even here. But this is more perfectly and strikingly true of the future.
III. A CERTAINTY IN THE FUTURE WE SHALL WISELY ANTICIPATE. There is a “day when God shall judge the secrets of men” Rom 2:16). when he “will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1Co 4:5). Then shall these words be indeed fulfilled. Then may we know how:
1. This language will prove a terrible prediction; our buried and forgotten iniquities being Brought back to us, God “reproving us, and setting them [our sins] before our face” (Psa 50:21).
2. This warning may be met and modified; our sins, having been repented of and forgiven, will be buried in those depths of Divine mercy whence they will never be brought back (Psa 103:11, Psa 103:12; Mic 7:18, Mic 7:19).
3. These words may constitute a blessed promiseall acts of pity, of patience, of kindness, of mercy, of magnanimity, of self-sacrifice, reappearing for Divine approval and award. “Then shall every man have praise of God.”C.
Luk 8:19-21
Christ’s one relationship.
How is Christ related to us? And is he related to us in a way other than that in which he was related to men and women during his life on earth? The answer to this question is that there is only one way in which he has been or will be permanently related to mankind. We look at
I. THE VERY TEMPORARY CHARACTER OF HIS FLESHLY RELATIONSHIP. He was, of course, most intimately associated, in purely human bends, with “his mother and his brethren.” But he gave the clearest intimation that this was only to last during his sojourn on the earth, and that it was not to be relied upon as a source of life even then.
1. He checked his mother in her eagerness at the very first miracle he wrought (Joh 2:4).
2. He intimated in the text that his human connections were already merging in those of a higher, a spiritual hind.
3. He disengaged himself, tenderly but decidedly, from his human, filial obligations as he was about to consummate his redemptive work (Joh 19:26).
4. He declined the demonstrativeness of his warm-hearted disciple as partaking too much of the fleshly, and intimated that all approach thenceforward must be of a heavenly and spiritual character (Joh 20:16, Joh 20:17).
5. He instructed his apostle to declare that all further knowledge of Jesus Christ must not be “after the flesh,” but spiritual (2Co 5:16).
6. He gave no position in his Church to his mother or his brethren because they had been such. They cud not derive anything, in their after-relation to him, from the fact of their motherhood or brotherhood; they stood related to him just as all other souls did, by their reverence, their trust, their love, their service, and by these alone.
II. THE PERMANENT AND INTIMATE CHARACTER OF HIS SPIRITUAL RELATIONS WITH US. “My mother and my brethren are these which hear the Word of God and do it.” “Whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mat 12:50). From these words of truth and grace we gather:
1. That what unites us to Christ is practical godliness. It is reverent attention followed by obedient life; hearing and doing the will of God. It is well to place ourselves where the will of God is made known; better to listen attentively when it is revealed; better still to be excited to solemn and earnest feeling concerning it; but we do not become Christ’s, we are not numbered amongst his own, until we so hear and heed and feel that we resolve to be and strive to do what we know is his holy will concerning us. We may fail frequently to realize our own intention; we may strive upwards and Godwards with many a stumble on our way; but if there be an honest and earnest effort towards the good and the true, animated and inspired By the fear and the love of God, then Christ acknowledges us as his, we are citizens of his kingdom. We are something more than that; for we learn from the text:
2. That those who are truly united to Christ are in very close affinity with him. So much are they to him that the nearest and dearest human relationships are called in to express it. Dear as the mother is to her child, as the sister to her brother, so dear are all true and earnest souls to their Divine Lord. With filial, with brotherly love will he watch and guard them, will he provide for their necessities, will he sympathize with them in their sorrows, will he attend their steps, will he secure their lasting interest in the Father’s home.C.
Luk 8:22-25
Christ the Lord of nature.
We shall find two things concerning the miracles of Jesus Christthat he never refused to put forth his power if by its exercise he could do an act of pure pity and kindness; and that he never consented to do so for the mere purpose of display. Hence there is a most marked difference between his “works’ and the pretences of the impostor. The perfect suitableness of the occasion and the moral character of the action are the signature of Divinity. Yet it was fitting that the strong desire on the part of the Jews to see a miracle wrought “in the heavens’ should, if occasion offered, have at least one fulfilment. And such it certainly had in this stilling of the storm. And in this incident we have
I. AN IMPRESSIVE ILLUSTRATION OF CHRIST‘S DIVINE COMMAND. It would only be right, we may argue, that our Lord should give to his disciples one illustration of his Divine power that would be exceedingly impressive, and therefore convincing and permanently effective. There was no more virtue or force in the stilling of the storm on the lake than in the expulsion of the demon on the other side of the water; to control the elements of nature did not require more Divine power than to control the will of an evil spirit; perhaps less. But the moral effect upon the observer’s mind was much greater in the former instance than in the latter. It appealed most influentially to the imagination as well as to the reason. And considering all that these disciples would be called upon to pass through in his cause, remembering the severity of the trial of their faith, it was surely well that, in addition to many other proofs of their Lord’s Divinity, they should be able to recall this scene upon the lake, and be assured that he whom the winds and the waves obeyed was the Christ of God indeed.
II. AN ASSURANCE THAT HE IS LORD OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF OUR LIFE. AS we ply our little bark across the lake of our life, we shall find storm as well as calm, rough adverse winds as well as favourable breezes. It will help us to think that the Divine will which subdued that tempest is the will that is ruling wind and wave beneath every sky; that Christ is Lord of the circumstances of our life; and that if only we have him on board as our chief Passenger, we may count on his controlling power in the time of danger or of trouble. But we must be sure that Christ/s with us; for the promises of gracious guidance and merciful interposition can only be pleaded by those who are loyal to him and to his cause.
III. A PICTURE OF THE PRESENT CHRIST IN THE TRIAL–HOUR OF HIS CHURCH. In that little boat was the Christian Church: if that vessel had sunk, the Church would have perished with it. But the Church that has Christ with it cannot sink. The question of questions, therefore, is thisIs Christ with us or not? And the answer to that question will be found, not in the shape of the vessel, but in the character of the crew; not in the peculiarity of the ecclesiastical structure, but in the spirit and character of those who compose and who direct the Church. Is his truth, is he himself, preached and taught in our sanctuaries and our schools? Are his principles inculcated in our homes and illustrated in our lives? Is his spirit breathed by us in our intercourse with one another, and with “them that are without”? These are the questions we must answer satisfactorily if we would reply in the affirmative to that one vital questionIs Christ with us or not?
IV. A. REMINDER OF THE DIVINE PEACE–BRINGER TO THE HUMAN SOUL. There is something unspeakably grand in a storm in nature; we are affected, awed, subdued, by it. But in the estimate of Divine wisdom there is something of profounder interest in the unrest and perturbation of a human soul. Jesus Christ cares more to speak peace to one troubled human heart than to produce the most striking change in the whole face of nature. There are many sources of spiritual disquietude; but the most constant and the worst of all is guilt, the sin with which we have sinned against the Lord and the sense of his condemnation we carry in our hearts. It is that which takes the light out of our skies, the joy out of our homes, the beauty and the brightness out of our lives. The deepest question that wells from the human soul is this
“Oh! where shall rest Be found
Rest for the weary soul?”
And in reply
“The voice of Jesus sounds o’er land and sea;”
a voice which has brought and will ever bring peace to the aching, burdened, stricken heart; “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’C.
Luk 8:23
The sleep of Christ.
“As they sailed he fell asleep” Christ asleep! Christ asleep in the daytime! Christ asleep in the storm! Christ asleep with his disciples in danger and distress! What have we here?
I. THE SON OF MAN ASLEEP IN THE HOUR OF HIS OWN BODILY WEARINESS. A hard and long day’s work had the Master that day. He had thought much, taught much, wrought much; and each one of these had been laborious and exhausting to One who was what he was and felt as he felt. He was completely spent with his strenuous and sustained exertion. And as they sailed he fell asleep; so fast asleep that, though the winds raged round him and the spray fell upon him, he did not awake. The incident points to:
1. The devoted diligence of his life. Other things might have accounted for this simple fact of being overcome, but that was the true account of it. How laboriously he must have worked to do all that he did in the few months at his command! we might well argue; how devotedly he did labour the memoirs of the evangelists assure us.
2. The generous impulse which he allowed himself in the conduct of his life. That life was not without plan, arrangement. But our Lord permitted himself to be guided by the conduct and attitude of others; he went back when repelled (Luk 8:37), he went on when invited (Luk 8:41). On this occasion he allowed the importunity of the people to hold him longer in teaching and healing than he would otherwise have remained; thus he left room in his life for the play of generous impulse. By all means let us be methodical, laying out our time intelligently and wisely; but let us leave room also for an unselfish responsiveness in the structure of our life, even as our Lord did.
3. The thoroughness of his humanity. Who but the Son of God could, of his own will and in his own name, command the mighty elements of nature? Who but a veritable Son of man could be overcome by weariness, and sleep in the midst of the raging of the storm? He was one of ourselveswalking wearied him, teaching tired him, healing exhausted him; he expended himself as he wrought day by day; his manhood was real and true.
II. THE MASTER ASLEEP IN THE HOUR OF THE DISCIPLES‘ DANGER AND DISTRESS. Christ sleeping when the boat was sinking I It looked like negligence! “Carest thou not that we perish?” That negligence was only apparent; there was no real danger. As it was right for him to sleep under such exhaustion, he could with perfect safety commit himself and his cause to the care of the unsleeping Father. As it was, the greatness of the apparent peril brought about an illustration of Divine power which otherwise they would have missed. That was not the last time that the Master seemed negligent of his own. To his Church in its storm of terrible persecution, to his people (in their individual lives) in the tempests of temptation or adversity through which they have passed, Christ may often, indeed has often, seemed to be heedless and indifferent. But he has always been at hand, always ready for action at the right moment. We have but to make our earnest appeal to him, and if the right time has come for the manifestation of his powerthough on this point we may be mistaken (see Joh 2:4; Act 2:6, Act 2:7)he will most effectually respond; he will say to the mightiest forces with which we are in conflict, “Peace, be still!” and there will be “a great calm.”C.
Luk 8:38, Luk 8:39
Our return for God’s greater kindnesses.
The outcasting of a demon from a man was certainly one of the greater miracles Christ wrought, and the greater benefits he bestowed. It required special power, and it conferred a boon of the highest order. We look at
I. THE GREATER KINDNESSES WE RECEIVE FROM GOD. It might be argued that all God’s mercies are great, inasmuch as
(1) coming from his heart, all his kindnesses are loving-kindnesses; and
(2) they are all so thoroughly undeserved. God sends us a gift when he might send us a blow, a blessing when we deserve a rebuke (Gen 32:10). Yet some of God’s gifts to us are greater than others, and we may ask which they are that might fairly draw such words as these from Christ concerning them, “how great things God hath done for thee.” And it is worthy of remark:
1. That some of them are little marked by us. Among these are:
(1) Our being itself, our intelligent, immortal nature, with all its illimitable capacities. We so gradually awaken to the realization of this, that the boundless value of the gift does not impress us as it should.
(2) Our health. We accept this as a matter of course, little affected by it until we lose it.
(3) Our kindred. So does the mantle of parental, filial, fraternal love wrap us round from our infancy, that its beauty and its blessedness do not strike us as they might well do, and we live on for years, failing to appreciate all the mercies which are associated with the one word “home.”
(4) Our education; all those educational influences and privileges which build and shape our mind and character. But it is clear:
2. That there are special kindnesses we cannot fail to note. Of these are
(1) deliverance from sudden peril, from the railway accident, from death by drowning, etc.;
(2) recovery from dangerous sickness;
(3) rescue from the grasp of some fell temptation;
(4) special Divine influences, those which make the truth of God clear to our understanding, and bring it home to our heart and conscience, thus placing eternal life within our reach.
II. THE RETURN WHICH WE MAKE TO GOD for these greater kindnesses. Jesus Christ bade this man to whom he rendered such signal service return and show his friends what great things he had received; and he did so freely and fully. What is our response to our heavenly Father, our Divine Saviour?
1. What are we being to him? What is the measure of our thought concerning him who never for one moment forgets us, and who, in so full and deep a sense, “remembered us in our low estate”? of our feeling toward him who has spent on us such generous, such self-sacrificing love? of our service of him whose we are and to whom we owe everything we are and have?
2. What testimony are we bearing to himwhat testimony concerning the goodness, the patience, the faithfulness of God are we bearing in the home in which we live? Are parents impressing on their children by their whole bearing and demeanour that, in their deliberate judgment, the service of Christ and likeness to Christ are things of immeasurably greater concern to them than the making of money or the gaining of position? Are elder brothers and sisters doing their best to commend the truth they have come to appreciate to the understanding and the affection of those who are younger, and who are taking their cue from them? What testimony are we bearing in the shop and the factory, to our fellow-workers, to those whom we are employing? What testimony in the Church? Are we avowing our faith, our love, our hope, our joy? Are we, who have received greater kindness by far than even this poor demoniac, so acting that as much is ascribed to us in God’s book of account as is here recorded of him, that “he published throughout the whole city how great things,” etc.?C.
Luk 8:37, Luk 8:40
Jesus Christ: rejection and welcome.
We have in these two passages a very striking contrast; we have in the one a very deliberate and consentaneous dismissal, and in the other a very cordial and unanimous reception of our Lord,it is illustrative of the treatment he is now receiving at the hands of men.
I. THE REJECTION OF JESUS CHRIST.
1. It may be deliberate and determined. In the case of the Gadarenes it was emphatically so. They all came together to seek him and to entreat of him that he would leave their neighbourhood. Their request was unqualified with any condition; it was decisive, absolute. It is not often that men suddenly arrive at the conclusion that ‘they will not have the Son of man to reign over them; but the long postponement of his claims leads on and down to a decisive rejection; at length the mind is fully made up, the soul resolved that it will seek its good elsewhere, that the patient Saviour may knock but he will wait in vain.
2. It may proceed from motives that are distinctly unworthy. It was a procedure on the part of these Gadarenes that was simply shameful; they preferred their swine to a Divine Restorer; they would rather keep their property than entertain One who would bring health to their homes and wisdom to their hearts. When men reject Christ, they seldom put before their minds the alternative as it really is in the sight of God; but traced far enough, seen in the light of truth, viewed as it will have to be one day regarded, it is an unholy and an unworthy preference of the human to the Divine, or of the present to the future, or of the fleshly to the spiritual; it is a preference which God condemns, and for making which the soul will one day reproach itself.
3. It may be only too successful. It was so here. Jesus did not contest the point; he did not assert his fight to go where he pleased and labour where he liked. He yielded to their urgency; “He went up into the ship, and returned back again,” Man has a power which may well make him tremble, of resisting and rejecting the Divine; of sending away the messenger and the message which come from God himself; of silencing the voice which speaks from heaven “How often would I! but ye would not;” “Ye shall not see me until,” etc. (Luk 13:1-35.). This is the record of many a soul’s history in its relation to Christ. We send away from our hearts and homes the Lord that would heal and save and enrich us.
II. THE WELCOME OF CHRIST. “The people gladly received him” (Luk 8:40); they welcomed him, “for they were all waiting for him”were in expectation of his coming.
1. The spirit in which it is offered. We cannot suppose that every one then present had the same feeling about our Lord’s return. Probably there were those who were influenced by a legitimate but unspiritual curiosity; others by a desire to be healed, or to secure his services as Healer of sickness for their friends; others by a wish to learn more of his wondrous wisdom; others by a reverent thankfulness and a desire to manifest their gratitude to him. Many motives take men into the presence of Christ. Some are low and very near the ground, that may or may not go unblessed. Others are higher and more hopeful. And yet others are certain to be recompensed. They who receive Christ’s word in the love of it, who go to him to learn of him and to be healed by him, or who want to be employed by him in his cause, may make sure of a full-handed welcome by him.
2. Its reception by our Lord. We know that this is cordial and full of blessing. “If any man open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me” If, when Jesus Christ offers himself to us as our Teacher and Saviour, we heartily welcome him as such, there will be for us an enrichment of soul surpassing all that we can imaginereconciliation to the living God; his own blessed and unfailing friendship; a life of sacred service, holy usefulness, and abiding joy; a death of peace and hope; an immortality of glory.C.
Luk 8:45, Luk 8:46
Christ’s discriminating notice.
Who can help being interested in the woman who is the subject of this sacred story? She has suffered long; she has wasted her substance in vain endeavours to be healed. Now a new hope springs up in her heart; though excited by this hope she shrinks from the publicity which she fears is necessary for its fulfilment. At last faith and hope triumph over timidity, and she comes into the presence of Christ. We are sympathetically present in that crowd; we see her stealing into it, pushing her way nearer and nearer to the Master, at length timidly stretching out her hand and touching the sacred fringe of his garment. We almost pity this trembling woman, albeit we know that she is healed, as Jesus turns and says, “Who touched me?” We know that it is only by a great spiritual effort that she tells her story to the Master in the presence of the people, and our hearts draw yet nearer in trust and love to that Divine Healer, to our Divine Lord, as we hear him say, “Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.” The incident may speak to us of
I. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BODILY AND REAL SPIRITUAL CONTACT, “There are times when hands touch ours, but only send an icy chill of unsympathizing indifference to the heart; when eyes gaze into ours, but with a glazed look that cannot read our souls; when the multitude throng and press us, but we cannot say, ‘ Somebody hath touched me,’ for the contact has not been between soul and soul, but only between form and form.” We are very much thronged in this modern life we live, but we are not very often touched to newness of thought and feeling; and except we live a life of prayer and genuine human sympathy, we must not expect to “touch” other souls so as to quicken and inspire them.
II. THE USELESSNESS OF ANY REMEDY BUT THE GOSPEL FOR OUR SPIRITUAL NEED. This woman in her helplessness is a picture of humanity. It is sick with the worst of all maladiessin. It is suffering all the wretched consequences of guiltweariness, restlessness, misery, remorse. It often spends its resources on things which have no healing virtue, and which leave it ill as ever. At length it repairs unto him in whom is no disappointment, in the shelter of whose cross, and in the shadow of whose love, and in the sunshine of whose service is pardon for every sin, comfort for every sorrow, rest for every soul.
III. THE DUTY OF DECLARING WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US. That sensitive heart, trying to screen herself from the observation of the crowd, and wishing to come and go unnoticed, was not rejected. Nevertheless, the Lord, by his repeated questioning, constrained her to come forward and acknowledge the blessing she had received. Christ does not wish for an ostentatious piety; he hates all pretence; but he approves and desires a suitable and grateful avowal of our indebtedness to him. Though we come with a trembling heart, yet we are to come and tell our friends what great things the Lord has done for us.
IV. THE DISTINGUISHING NOTICE CHRIST TAKES OF US. “Who touched me?” asked the Lord. “Master, the multitude throng thee; is it wonderful that somebody should touch thee? Anybody might chance to touch thee in such a crowd; can it matter who it was?” urges Peter. “Ah! but that is not enough. Somebody, some one, hath touched me; there is one individual, whom I distinguish from the others, that has laid an appealing hand upon me. You see nothing in that touch but an accidental encounter. I see much more than thatthe approach of a human mind, the appeal of a human heart, the contact of a human soul with mine.” This is the spirit of our Lord’s reply. And it conveys to us the important truth that we are not lost in the crowd. It is not so true to say, “God loves man,” as to say, “God loves men.” “He tasted death for every man;” “He loved me, and gave himself for me.” There are no limitations in the Infinite One. The fact that he controls the universe is no reason why he should not watch the workings of each humblest human soul The vastness of the range of his observation does not diminish the fulness of his knowledge of every member of his family. Disciples see only a pressing, pushing throng; but the Master singles out the woman who has come to see whether her last chance will fail her. The crowd may hide us from one another, but not from our Lord. God sees us, every one; follows us; pursues us with his watchful and redeeming love; guides us with his hand; leads us into his kingdom. But we must see that our touch is one that will call forth such a response as this. Christ discriminates between the touch of this woman and that of the unmannerly crowd. It is not necessary for us to have a full and perfect understanding of his nature, or even a perfect, unwavering assurance of the success of our appeal. This woman had neither of these. It is necessary that we should have what she hadearnestness of spirit, and a measure of genuine faith in him. Then will he say to us, as to her, “Be of good comfort go in peace.”C.
Luk 8:49
A needless anxiety concerning Christ.
“Trouble not the Master.” This ruler of the synagogue showed a commendable desire not to give useless trouble to the Prophet of Nazareth; he could not expect that his power would extend so far as to raise the dead, and he wished to save him fruitless trouble. Equally creditable was the behaviour of the centurion whose action is recorded in a previous chapter (Luk 7:6). He felt that the Lord could accomplish in the distance the object of his perhaps toilsome journey, and he sent to say, “Trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.” It was right that, by considerate kindness, the Son of man should be saved all that those who loved and honoured him could save him from. And the same is true enough to-day of the Son of God. There are
I. WISE AND RIGHT SOLICITUDES CONCERNING HIM. We are bound to refrain most carefully and conscientiously from troubling the Master by:
1. Doing in his name that which he would disown; e.g. carrying on a cruel, though it may be a refined, persecution of those who “follow not with us” in the mode of our worship, or the method of our Christian work.
2. Asking his blessing on that which he disapproves; e.g. on the war which is an unrighteous one, on the cause which is an unsound one, on the business which is not conducted on principles he can acknowledge as his own.
3. Misrepresenting him by the spirit which we manifest; instead of breathing the spirit of graciousness and self-sacrifice toward those who are weaker or younger or less cultured or less privileged than ourselves, adopting a tone of haughty superiority, or doing that which “causes them to offend.”
4. Failing to approach him in prayer, to seek his aid and his influence, to apply for his redeeming touch. Christ may be much troubled by our distance and neglect; he is not likely to be burdened by our earnest approaches and appeals.
II. NEEDLESS ANXIETIES CONCERNING HIM.
1. Inviting him to stay too long with us. The centurion, modestly and properly enough, felt that he was not worthy that Christ should come under his roof. We may feel that also, and especially that we are not worthy that he should make our hearts his home, as he has promised us. But we must not refrain from inviting him to come and to stay with us. We must ask him earnestly to “abide with us from morn till eve,” not “to sojourn, but abide with us.” He will not count that a trouble; he will honour our faith and appreciate our welcome. “Abide in me, and I [will abide] in you.”
2. Going to him too often. He places no limit on our spiritual approach to him. He says ever to us, “Come unto me;” “Draw nigh unto me;” “Seek ye my face?’ We shall not burden him by our fellowship; we may grieve him by our absence and by our preference of the society of those who are his enemies.
3. Asking too much of himeither for ourselves or for others. There is no magnitude or multitude of sins we may not ask him to forgive; no depth of evil we may not ask him to eradicate; no severity of disease we may not ask him to undertake. The maiden may be dead (text), the cause may be very low, the heart may be very cold, the character may be very corrupt, the life may be very base, the case may seem very hopeless; but do not shrink from “troubling the Master;” his touch “has still its ancient power;” to the lifeless form he can say, “Arise!” and into the cause that seems wholly gone, and the soul that seems utterly lost, he can infuse newness of life.
4. Doing too much in his cause for him to watch and bless. The more often we ask him to crown our holy labours with his energizing touch, the better we shall please his yearning and loving spirit.C.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR
Luk 8:1-21
Incidents in evangelistic work.
We have now to contemplate Jesus as fairly loosed from Capernaum as the centre of his mission work, and as making systematically the tour of the province of Galilee. The “beloved physician” gives to us here just such an insight into the material conditions of Christ’s evangelistic work as we naturally desire. Let us, then, notice
I. THE SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL SIDES OF OUR LORD‘S EVANGELISTIC WORK. (Luk 8:1-3.) Twelve men and a number of holy women form Christ’s banda choir, so to speak, of joyful evangelists. The substance of the message was “the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” Christ himself was Preacher. None of the others could enter into the nature of this coming kingdom. But it was to be a kingdom of peace and of joy to all who became members of it. Hence the preaching was “glad tidings.” The spiritual side of the work was, therefore, joy-inspiring. The temporal conditions of the work are here revealed. Our Lord lived on charity, or, as we should put it, on love. Hospitality, especially to every one who professed to be a rabbi, would supply Christ with much; but it could not cover the whole case; consequently, certain women, who had been delivered from demoniacal possessions, and who were correspondingly grateful to their Deliverer, were proud to follow him and minister to him of their substance. Joanna, whose husband seems to have looked after Herod’s housekeeping, transfers her attentions to a greater King,. and becomes chief minister, we may believe, to her Master’s wants. The twelve disciples were candidates for the ministry under training; the holy women were the caterers for the college; and so our Lord, as President, received the help of men and women in their respective spheres.
II. THE ELEMENT OF JUDGMENT IN PARABOLIC TEACHING. Before noticing briefly the parable of the sower, we must ask attention to the change m our Lord’s method of ministration. It would seem that up to this time he had preached less figuratively, but as the Pharisees had taken up their position of hostility, it was absolutely necessary for him to exercise what may be called intermediate judgment (cf. Godet, in loc.). This was by taking to parabolic teaching. While to a docile and childlike spirit a parable sets truth in its most attractive aspect, to a proud, self-sufficient spirit it veils and hides the truth. It is light or darkness according to our spiritual attitude. Hence the change in the Preacher’s method heralded a new stage in his work. The common people would still hear him gladly, but the proud would be kept at a convenient distance through the veiled character of the truth presented in parables.
III. THE PARABLE OF WARNING. (Luk 8:4-8, Luk 8:11-15.) This, according to all the evangelists, was the first parable. It was breaking ground in the delivery of parables. Hence its character as a warning. Its subject is the hearing of the Word. Its warning is that there are three bad ways of hearing as against one good way. These are:
1. Careless hearingrepresented by wayside seed devoured by the birds before it can fall into the earth and bear any fruit. The devil visits careless hearers, and takes the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
2. Rapturous hearingrepresented by seed failing into rocky soil and springing up suddenly, only to wither away. Hence the danger of hearing with rapture and resting in the rapture. It is the religion of feeling, of happy times, and such superficialities. Something deeper is needed than this.
3. Careworn and preoccupied hearingrepresented by seed falling into soil that is not cleansed of roots and thorns, and where the seed is choked. We cannot hear to advantage if we put anything before the Word. Unless it is put before worldly concerns, there will not be much fruit.
4. Honest and good-hearted hearingrepresented by the seed falling into good and cleansed ground. In this ease there is knit-bearing, in some cases up to an hundredfold. Hence the warning voice, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” Unless the multitude hearing Jesus, unless in particular the disciples, took the Word of God ministered by Jesus patiently and honestly into their consideration, they could not bring forth fruit unto perfection.
IV. THE APPLICATION TO THE TWELVE. (Luk 8:16-18.) The disciples had received Jesus’ explanation of the first parable. And now he further applies it to their case. They are intended, he tells them, to be lights in the world; and he has no intention of putting them under a bushel or bed, where the light would be lost and useless, but on a candlestick to illuminate all who enter the house. In this beautiful and figurative way our Lord indicates the position he means to give them in his Church. Consequently, they must remember that every secret thing is on its way to manifestation (Luk 8:17), and so their lives, no matter how secret and apparently insignificant, are public lives. By this thought all hearing will be intensified with a new sense of responsibility. Besides, he tells them that the law of capital obtains in hearing as well as in everything else This is the law by which the person, who has something to start with, gets something more. For example, if we bring to the contemplation of the truth a “good and honest heart,” then its goodness and honesty will be intensified and increased by the truth; whereas, if we bring a vacant heart, an inattentive mind, then our heart will be still more vacant, and our mind still more inattentive. We lose power by indifferent hearing, just as we gain power by attentive and honest hearing. This was a most important lesson for the candidates about him. Doubtless they profited by it.
V. BLOOD–RELATIONSHIP VERSUS SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP. (Luk 8:19-21.) We learn from the parallel passages that this incident occurred in consequence of our Lord’s enthusiasm. His relatives thought him mad, and that he ought to be put under restraint. His reply to their message is most significant. As Gess says, “He draws his true disciples the more closely around him as the hostility of his own relatives increases, and calls them his family.” We have thus, as Sanrin puts it, the family of Jesus Christ according to the flesh contrasted with the family of Jesus Christ according to the Spirit. The spiritual relationship is put before the blood-relationship, other things being equal. It is not that Jesus loved his brothers and mother less, but that he regarded the Father’s will and those who obeyed it as more to him than they can be. His conduct on this occasion most likely conduced to the conversion of his kindred to believe upon him. It enabled them to see exactly the principle of his work. And in this loyalty to members of God’s family we must follow our Lord. We must not allow others to usurp their rights under any pretence of relationship or authority.R.M.E.
Luk 8:22-56
A group of miracles.
The mother and brethren of Jesus had tried in vain to interfere with the important work in which he was engaged; he clung to his disciples as the real members of his Father’s family. And so we find his career as a merciful Miracle-worker continuing. We have here a group of notable miracles; it was, as Godet suggests, the culmination of his miraculous work. Nature, human nature, and death yield to his authority in their order.
I. SAFETY IN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. (Luk 8:22-25.) The disciples and Jesus had embarked to visit the country of the Gadarenes. His object in doing so, as we shall presently see, was to rescue from diabolical possession a single soul. But to rescue this soul they had all to pass through storms in crossing. It was surely worth all the risk they ran! The weary Saviour fell asleep soon after embarking, and it was while he was sleeping the storm arose in nature, and the storm of fear in the souls of the disciples. It argued little faith on their part to suppose that they were in danger when beside them is the sleeping Christ. Yet so it was. Jesus may lead his people into danger, but he always shares it with them, and leads them in due time out of it. No sooner do they appeal to him to save them from perishing, than he arises, rebukes the wind and the wave, so that, contrary to custom, there is an immediate calm; and then proceeds to rebuke the storm within their souls, and make all these also to be peace. In this way our Lord showed his sovereignty over nature, and his sovereignty over man. He can rebuke “the noise of their seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumult of the people” (Psa 65:7). No wonder that the strangers who were in the beat with the disciples were astonished at One who could command wind and wave, and they obeyed him!
II. JESUS THE MINISTER TO MINDS DISEASED. (Luk 8:26-40.) In the greatest peace the disciples and their Master approached the shore. But here a more terrible storm confronted himthe mania of the poor possessed one. “The beloved physician,” who writes this Gospel, brings out the characteristics of the mania as a physician would. No sooner does the case present itself to Jesus, than he commands the devil to depart from him. No protest on the part of the unclean tenant avails; the spirit and his companions are compelled to prepare for departure. They bargain hard not to be sent “into the abyss” ( ), where their final doom awaits them, and, as an alternative, ask to be permitted to enter into an adjoining herd of swine. This association of evil spirits with animals is illustrated in the Edenic temptation, and it may account for the reign of terror in the geologic times. The possession of the animals may be different from that of a moral being like man, as Godet suggests; yet it shows surely the sensualism into which evil spirits can descend. The prodigal son only desired to satisfy himself with the swinish life; but these demons actually made the experiment (cf. Luk 15:16). But now the swine, reinforced by the devils, rush madly onwards to the sea, and perish in the waters. The result is that one human being is delivered from his mania, while a herd of swine are sacrificed. If such an alternative is presented, there can be no doubt as to the decision. Better that all the swine in the world should perish, if as the result a single human soul is delivered from his mental disease. Hence the wretched souls, who came from the city and lamented the loss of the swine instead of rejoicing in the cure of the demoniac, show thereby that they deserved the judgment which had overtaken them. Jesus can “minister to minds diseased;” he can bring the maniac to his right mind again; and he can cure us of the insanity of sin and have us sitting clothed at his feet and anxious to be with him evermore. When, besides, the Gadarenes desire his departure, he can make arrangements for witness-bearing, so that when he returns after a time, the unwilling people shall be found to have renounced their unwillingness and to gladly welcome him. So may we all witness among our friends to the power of our Lord.
III. THE TOUCH OF FAITH. (Luk 8:43-48.) We have next to notice the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. This was the solitary miracle where faith anticipates our Lord’s consent, and finds healing through the touch of his garment. Having presented herself so often to the physicians, she in this case refuses to obtrude upon his notice, but thinks she will escape in the crowd. But our Lord, perceiving that from his sacred Person healing power had flowed, inquires for the patient, who in due season comes and confesses all. But she has been brought before him that he might convey to her the lesson that it was her faith, and not a mere physical touch, which had saved her. That is to say, the process was moral, and not merely physical. And surely this case of the issue of blood is to represent certain aspects of sin. It is a drain upon the moral system which man cannot staunch. But once we look to Jesus by faith and touch the hem of his garment, we are instantly healed, and power begins again to rise within us. We ought not to let our vital power be undermined when such a Saviour is at hand to heal us!
IV. THE AWAKENING OF THE DEAD. (Luk 8:41, Luk 8:42, Luk 8:49-56.) This case of resurrection-power presents Jesus in the culmination of his miraculous work. The command of nature and of human nature is important, but still more magnificent is the command of death, the power to enter into the gloomy realm, and there assert one’s authority. This is what Jesus does. He is humbly asked by Jairus to come to his dying daughter. He finds that he has to face the little daughter already dead. The father, ready to despair, is told to “believe only, and she shall be made whole.” He believed, and lo! he found in Jesus One who could awake the dead! The resurrection is witnessed by the parents and three discipleschosen witnesses. And after she is raised, he gives directions that she should be fed, and then that they should be silent about the miracle. He did not desire to be overwhelmed by the miraculous part of his work, but that he might be able to give a due proportion of his attention to teaching, Similarly may each of us experience Christ’s resurrection-power in our souls now, and in our bodies afterwards.R.M.E.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Luk 8:1. And it came to pass afterward ; that is, The day after our Lord dined with Simon,he and his twelve apostles departed from Capernaum with an intention to go up to Jerusalem to the passover. He did not, however, keep the direct road; he set out early, and preached in many towns and villages by the way, the glad tidings of the kingdom of God, that is, the joyful tidings of God’s reconcileableness to man, of the necessity of regeneration, and of the acceptableness of repentance and faith even in the chief of sinners. His going through the cities and villages to preach, are the terms made use of by the evangelists, when they describe our Lord’s departure from Capernaum; therefore, as it is used on this occasion, it is highly probable that Simon the Pharisee, with whom our Lord dined the day before, lived in Capernaum: and as this latter gave him an invitation immediately after he had finished his discourse occasioned by the Baptist’s message, Jesus must have been in Capernaum, or near it, when that message came to him.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Luk 8:1-3 . A general historical statement in regard to the continued official teaching in Galilee, and the ministry of women connected therewith.
] Comp. Luk 7:11 .
] is that which carries forward the narrative after (see on Luk 5:12 ), and prepares the way for the mention of the followers of Jesus ( . . .).
.] as Luk 8:4 .
.] see on Mat 27:56 . She is neither the woman that anointed Jesus, Luk 7:37 , nor the sister of Lazarus.
. .] Comp. Mar 16:9 . A simultaneous possession by seven devils is to be conceived of, so far similar to the condition of the possessed man at Gadara, Luk 8:30 . Comp., even at so early a period, Tertullian, De Anim . 25. Lange, L. J. II. 1, p. 292, rationalizes: [113] “a convert whom Jesus had rescued from the heavy curse of sin .” Comp. also Hengstenberg on John, II. p. 206, according to whom she was “an emancipated woman ” who found in Christ the tranquillizing of the tumult of her emotional nature . The express , healed , should certainly have guarded against this view.
] Mat 20:8 . He had probably been a steward, and she was his widow . She is also named at Luk 24:10 .
] Probably Antipas , because without any distinguishing limitation. Neither Joanna nor Susanna is known in any other relation.
] with means of living and other kinds of necessaries, Mat 27:55 .
[113] That what is here meant is “the ethically culpable and therefore metaphorical possession of an erring soul that was completely under the power of the spirit of the world.” This explaining away of the literal possession (in which, moreover, Fathers such as Gregory and Bede have already preceded him) is not to be defended by comparison of Mat 12:43 ff., Luk 20:24 ff., where certainly the seven demons only serve the purpose of the parable . Besides, it is pure invention to find in the seven demons the representation of the spirit of the world in its whole power . At least, according to this the demon in Mat 12:45 would only have needed to take with him six other demons.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
D. Galilee and the Surrounding Regions, without excluding Capernaum. Luk 8:1 to Luk 9:50
1. The First Christian Family Circle.Luk 8:1-3
1And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve werewith him, 2And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, 3And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herods steward, and Susanna, and many others, Which ministered unto him [them, V. O.1] of their substance.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Luk 8:1. Afterward, . sc. .Luke is here not concerned to arrange the different events in a strict chronological succession, but only in general to call attention to the fact that the activity of the Saviour, in His journeys through Galilee, was continued uninterruptedly, while he now adjoins a mention of the services rendered by women in this period, of which none of the other Evangelists make mention. Occasion to do this he more than probably found in the immediately preceding narrative.
. From town to town, and from village to village; comp. Act 15:21. The unweariedness of the Saviours activity comes here with especial clearness into view.
Luk 8:2. And certain women.In the earlier period the disciples still wondered when they saw their Master in conversation with a woman, Joh 4:27. Now there has already been formed a circle of female disciples, who were joined to the Master by thankful love.Mary of Magdala. See above. Respecting Magdala, see Lange, on Mat 15:39.
Luk 8:3. Joanna is only here and in Luk 24:10 referred to by name, as the consort, perhaps the widow, of Chuza, steward of Herod. If we assume with some that Chuza was the (Joh 4:46-54), we might suppose that grateful love for the deliverer of her son had brought the mother to Jesus.Susanna, that is, Lily, , is not further known.And many others.Comp. Mat 27:55.
which ministered unto them.The female friends of our Lord appear for the most part to have belonged to the well-circumstanced higher class, since the here-mentioned ministration doubtless consisted principally in support rendered to earthly necessities from their property. This ministration was rendered to the whole travelling company. The reading is perhaps in some manuscripts a correction, which visibly arose from the effort to represent the service of these women as an act of Divine service, which was exclusively limited to the Master.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The brief account which Luke gives us respecting these women is peculiarly adapted to awaken a vivid conception of the journeyings of the Saviour through Galilee. We see Him proceeding from one town to another, wearing as clothing the simple yet becoming tunic, which was not sewed but woven from above throughout, perhaps the gift of love; the sandals bound crosswise over His uncovered feet; the disciples near by without money in their girdles, without shoes, staff, on wallet; perhaps a little flask with oil, after the Oriental usage, hanging over their shoulders, for the refreshment of their wearied limbs (Mar 6:13; Luk 10:34; Gen 28:18); and at a beseeming distance the women covered with their veils, who were concerned with tender affection for the wants of the company, now and then preparing for their beloved Master a refreshing surprise, and now holding discourse with one another, now with Him. The view of such a circle of brethren and sisters, whose centre the Lord is, makes an impression that elevates the heart.
2. The unhesitating way in which the Saviour admitted and accepted the loving services of these women is a striking proof not only of His condescending love, which endures services rendered to Him, although He did not come to be ministered unto (Mat 20:28), but at the same time of His firm confidence in the purity and faithfulness of these Galilean friends, which indeed did remain, even beyond His death, unchangeably the same.
3. We see here an emancipation of woman in the noblest sense of the word, and the beginning of the service of women in the church of Christ (Wichern), and at the same time also a decided triumph of the evangelical spirit over the limitation of the Jewish Rabbinism, and the prophecy of the new world of love called into being through Christ.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, man nor woman, but a new creature.Thankful ministration of love well pleasing to the Lord.Diversity and agreement among the first female friends of Jesus.What the Saviour is for woman, and what woman must be for the Saviour.Woman in Christ no longer slave of the man, but a fellow-heir of the grace of life, 1Pe 3:1.Women of high condition also cannot possibly dispense with the Saviour.The Head of the church served by and in His members.The destination of earthly good also to the advancement of the kingdom of God.The first Christian circle of sisters united for a work of love, 1. Whose origin is pure, 2. whose character is that of power, 3. whose fruit is abundant, 4. whose duration is perennial.The service of the poor, Divine service (Angelus Merula).Among the women of the evangelical history not one enemy of the Lord.
Starke:Whoever hath tasted that the Lord is gracious, such an one cannot abandon Him.If Christ was not ashamed of the ministrations of others, why should we be ashamed when we find ourselves in like circumstances?Quesnel:Godly women have at all times helped to build up the kingdom of God by the exercise of love towards Christs servants and His poor members, Rom 16:1-2; Rom 16:6.Majus:For spiritual benefits to render something temporal is becoming, and yet a poor payment.For His poor children God knows well how to provide.
Footnotes:
[1]Luk 8:3.Rec.: . has preponderating authority, see Tischendorf ad loc. The singular appeared more obvious to the copyists, partly because . preceded, partly through reminiscence of Mat 27:55; Mar 15:41. Meyer. [, A., L., M., X., Cod. Sin.; , B., D., E.2, 10 other uncials.C. C. S.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
We have here an Account of some Women who ministered unto Christ. The Parable of the Sower. Jesus on the Water. The Man dispossessed of the Legion: the Daughter of Jairus raised from the dead; and the Woman healed of the bloody Issue.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, (2) And certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, (3) And Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others which ministered unto him of their substance.
It must have been very blessed to have followed the Lord Jesus in this circuit of his preaching. Our Great High Priest and Bishop going through his diocese, attended by the twelve, proclaiming the glad tidings of the kingdom. Reader! do not forget, however, that spiritually, the same is daily doing now. Mat 28:19-20 . Concerning those women, it will be proper to observe, that having received from the Lord Jesus spiritual mercies to their souls, as well as temporal mercies to their bodies, they gladly ministered to Jesus of their time and substance. It is remarkable, that none of the Evangelists have recorded this great miracle shewn to Mary Magdalene, they only speak of the thing itself being done; but have not mentioned, as in other cases, the time. That this Mary Magdalene was not the woman noticed in the preceding chapter, hath been shewn there. And to which it may be added here, in confirmation of the same, that she is said to have gone about with Christ in this circuit of preaching: whereas Jesus dismissed the woman in Simon’s house, when he said, Go in peace. Joanna and Susanna, no doubt, were persons of some property; and it is blessed to behold, such as the Lord hath dealt bountifully by, in temporals, as well as spirituals, ministering to the necessities of Christ and his family. The Corpus Christi, that is, the body of Christ, in his mystical members, is in every place; and Jesus takes every act done to them, in his name, as done to himself. See, in proof, Mat 25:40 ; Mar 9:41-42 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Luk 8:2-3
This passage, one of Luke’s special contributions to the gospel narrative, describes the double circle of Christ’s followers.
(a) And with Him, the twelve, i.e. those specially called to high enterprise and service. This represents the circle of people in the Church who are conscious of a definite vocation and moved by the Spirit of Christ to serve the Church with consecrated lives.
(b) But alongside of these are certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, e.g. Mary Magdalene, etc. The dominating motion of their discipleship is gratitude for personal benefits. Theirs is not the vocation of the twelve, but they have their own place and work. The memory of their deliverance moves them to support by their gifts the disciples who form Christ’s inner circle (cp. Gal 6:6 ). This represents the subordinate role of many in the Church, who rank among the followers of Christ, and who, though they cannot take part personally in the great Christian mission, can make the task of the active servants easier by their liberality and sympathy.
James Moffatt.
References. VIII. 3. J. Baines, Sermons, p. 214. Expositor (5th Series), vol. ix. pp. 118, 121. VIII 4-8. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi. No. 308. VIII. 4-16. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture St. Luke, p. 229.
A Sower
Luk 8:5
I. We have here, first of all, the Christian work described. It is sowing. But sowing is not the first agricultural process. The soil in its natural state will not receive the good seed and bring forth fruit. There are the primaeval forests to be cleared, there is the tangled undergrowth of thorns and briers to be removed. And then the ploughman must come with his share and break up the soil before ever there can be any harvest from the seed. ‘A sower went out to sow his seed.’ Not a pioneer with his axe, not a ploughman with his share, but a sower with his seed-basket scattering his seed. And why? Because this is pre-eminently the work of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. There was pioneer work to be done; that was done by the iron ploughshare of the law; that came first. And then, again, it is not merely that the Gospel work is this gentle work of the sower, but the sower gives to the earth that which it had not before; he gives life, he gives that which has life in itself, and which can produce life, by which the mineral can be raised up into the vegetable. The seed, as it were, the Godhead coming down into this dead earth and raising it up into beauteous life. Now this the function of the sower is our function.
II. Notice the loneliness of this sower. A sower. Contrast the loneliness of the sower with the sociability of the reaper. The reapers go forth in bands, the sower goes forth alone. The great Sower was always a lonely Man. All the great sowers of the world have been lonely men.
III. The sphere of the sower. ‘A sower went out to sow his seed.’ And you must go out And this implies self-denial, it means leaving many comforts, many luxuries, it means going out into the darkness. There can be no real reaping until, first of all, there has been the sorrowful sowing.
IV. The seed must be your own seed. His seed. Not, of course, that he made it. He cannot make it; the seed is something which is far beyond his power. But it must be his seed, he must have toiled for it, it must be the fruit of his last year of labour; it is part of his brain, part of his hands’ toil. And so it must be with ourselves. The seed must be ours. Have we this seed? Do we know something of this life-giving power of Jesus Christ? It is only thus that we can scatter the seed. God is calling out for sowers. We are told that when Captain Cook circumnavigated the world, he used to take with him parcels of our English seeds, and leaving his boat’s crew down on the beach, he would go inland and empty out one of these packets of our common English seeds, so that he belted the whole world with these same flowers. So we have come into this world, and we want to scatter those seeds of heaven wherever we go.
E. A. Stuart, Elisha’s Call and other Sermons, vol. viii. p. 193.
Sowers ( Sexagesima )
Luk 8:5
Subject: All Men are Sowers.
The meaning of the text has been explained by Jesus Himself. The sower is the Son of Man, the seed is the Word of God, which is sown in different people with varying results. We may take the text, however, in another way. We are all sowers. As soon as we know right from wrong, we begin to go out and sow our seed. The child in the nursery, the child at school, the youth entering on life, the busy man or woman, all are sowers, sowing the seed of habit, of character:
Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
II. Cultivating our Life Garden. First, there is the weeding. The fairest garden will be ruined if the weeds are not kept under, the noblest life will be spoilt if sins and bad habits are allowed to get the mastery. How to get rid of the weeds. Take two hands to them, and pull them up. That is, clasp your hands in prayer and struggle with the evil, crying out to God to help you. Get the weeds up by the roots.
III. The Seed and the Sowers. We are all sowers, but we do not sow the same seed.
1. Some sow the seed of frivolity or idle pleasure. To these life has no responsibilities, no serious purpose, the world is a playground, and like the Roman Emperor, they would give anything for a new form of amusement. Their motto is Gather ye roses while ye may. But the time of harvest comes. To all sowers comes the time of ingathering, and whatsoever we sow, that shall we reap. If we sow only the seed of life’s roses, if pleasure be our only aim, the harvest is a sorry one.
2. There are those who sow the seeds of selfish greed. The world is a mere gold mine, where they toil, shut out of the light of God’s countenance. If, like the fabled king of old, they have turned all things golden by their touch, they find they have no pleasure in them. They know that they must leave their riches to others, and strangers shall spend the selfish gathering of their lives. Like the French Cardinal, they may walk among their treasures, and weep over the thought of leaving them, but they must leave them all the same. However rich they may be, they die as paupers, for in the land whither they go, worldly money is not current.
3. Some there are who sow the seed of extravagance and dissipation.
4. Men sow the seed of selfishness, and they reap as a harvest a lonely old age, without love or companionship.
If we would have a fair garden, we must sow good seed. If we would have a beautiful life, we must cultivate it for God.
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Notes of Sermons for the Year, p. 121.
References. VIII. 5. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. i. p. 203. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlix. No. 2843. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i. p. 123. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 207. VIII. 6-8. R. Winterbotham, The Kingdom of Heaven, p. 14. VIII. 6. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xlix. No. 2845. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 454; ibid. vol. vii. p. 390. VIII. 7 H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year, p. 44. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i. p. 168. VIII. 9. Expositor (6th Series), vol. i. p. 236.
The Word As Seed
Luk 8:11
The similitude is so apt, that it seems to come of itself, and to be so familiar to us that we fancy it must always have been obvious to men. One is surprised to be told that it is not found in the Old Testament. Even in our classic literature parallels that are like it are few, and not very close. In fact, it is our Lord’s own, and bears the stamp of His original mind upon it that truth operates in the sphere of our spiritual life as seeds do in nature, carrying a germinating or fructifying power wherever it meets suitable soil and favourable environment, so that we disseminate the Divine truth among men like sowing seed broadcast, to grow where it can, trusting to the native vitality that is in it.
I. My first point is that it is the truth of God by which we have to seek for the ultimate power of the new life. Of course, reason forbids us to divorce this truth from the Son of Man. Truth is sought apart from Him who is the Truth. Scripture bids us recognise the Holy Spirit at work vivifying the soul. Truth finds its adequate soil in human nature, and draws its fertilising and transforming energy from the presence within it of God Himself.
II. My next point is that the truth of the Gospel reaches us through the Word of God. I have employed the word ‘truth ‘in preference to the expression ‘the word,’ because the latter is wider and governs something else besides. It governs the truth, but it also governs the expression and form and medium of the truth. The ‘word ‘is thought uttered in language. It is the sign that conveys the idea. It is both in one, and not the one without the other. It seems to me of some consequence that we should rightly comprehend the relation between the Gospel truth and its language or verbal form of utterance. Notice this, language of some sort is essential, and for the truth of God to reach the spirit of man it must clothe itself in something, either in the visible language of symbol, or in the clearer spoken and written word language. Unless it come to us in such a form we could not receive and understand it, or convey it to our fellows, or sow it abroad among men. Through words the truth must come; words acted, spoken, written, and printed. Through that marvellous medium, human speech, God Himself must speak His thought to me. And He has spoken.
J. Oswald Dykes, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lxi. p. 308.
The Parable of the Sower (For Sexagesimal)
Luk 8:11
Perhaps the Parable of the Sower is the easiest of all our Lord’s parables; and happily it is also the pattern of all, the one by which the rest are best explained (see Mark iv. 13). All our Lord’s teaching is most truly practical, and it is only when we begin to try to live according to its spirit that its full meaning becomes clear; and even before putting it into practice our best chance of understanding it is to compare it, step by step, with what we already know of ourselves and our own hearts and our own lives.
I. Who is this ‘Sower?’ None of the Evangelists tell us precisely. Christ Himself says that the seed is the Word of God: and the Sower is often said to represent those whose duty it is to preach, the Ministers of God’s word. This is no doubt a lawful application of the figure, but assuredly it is not its first meaning. We may borrow the explanation from the next Parable, ‘The Tares’. There we are plainly told that ‘He that soweth the seed is the Son of Man’. He, without doubt, is the Sower here. The Parable is about Christ Himself, not merely about what He did or said as a Sower in the days of His flesh, but about His ‘sowings ‘from the beginning of the world till His Incarnation; His ‘sowings ‘from then till His Ascension; and from then till now, the sowings He is daily making among ourselves.
II. But how does He sow His seed? Assuredly not by the lips alone; or how little by comparison would be included in the heavenly sowing. We are influenced by much which is never actually spoken. The ground cannot be the ear. That is a mere passage to our hearts and minds. It is there within that the Divine Sower, sowing good seed, and the enemy, sowing tares, are both at work; in the heart. He who sows the good seed is the same that made the ear and the heart, too. Whatever becomes of the seed, He, the Sower, is always the same, and He has a hand in every part of the process. He made us to be His tillage, to be under His constant care. The Heavenly Sower’s work is everywhere and at all times.
III. ‘He that soweth the seed is the Son of Man.’ The (Incarnate) Son of God is known to us as ‘The Son of Man’. Thus He speaks to us in the still small voice of our own nature. He can speak straight to the heart, without anything coming between. The difference between good and evil men (and God has spoken to both) lies in how they hear, whether they take heed, and act on what they have heard. It is the same good seed which is sown, whether it grows or perishes.
IV. The different soils require little explaining, if we have any knowledge of ourselves. Have we not often felt and known that seeds from God have fallen on (a) the outside of careless hearts: that we have let them lie there uncared for, till in a week, a day, an hour, we have looked for them, and lo! they were gone? They had no hold on us, and were carried away without our making any resistance or effort to keep them.
(b) Again, we have received other seed easily, perhaps gladly. We have not been hard, we have even been soft-hearted, emotional, enthusiastic; yet, withal with no steady resolve, no resolute conflict with evil thoughts, no quiet endurance; beneath the soft surface there was a rock of hard selfishness, and so the seed grew with a feverish growth, but lacking depth of soil, and moisture, it soon withered away.
(c) Or, again, the plant of God’s sowing may be most surely choked and killed; and it will, if we do not see that the space round each seed is free. We all have our cares; we cannot change our place, but we can see that the seed is allowed free growth.
However men may be divided, each of us has all the soils in his heart, and he has the sower always with him. God’s ministers may preach, His Bible may teach, but it is within that the true Word of Words is sounding. Though the corn may have failed, He will sow other; He neither faints nor is weary. Whatever resists is not from Him, but from the enemy. When we learn not to harden our hearts against the blessed influences of His Holy Spirit, then all barrenness and failure will cease.
F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons.
Luk 8:11
Speaking of the Norfolk peasantry and their vein of coarseness, Dr. Jessopp, in The Trials of a Country Parson, concludes that it is idle to remonstrate. ‘You might as well preach of duty to an antelope If you want to make any impression or exercise any influence for good upon your neighbours, you must take them as you find them, and not expect too much of them. You must work in faith, and you must work upon the material that presents itself. “The sower soweth the word.” The mistake we commit so often is in assuming that because we sow which is our duty therefore we have a right to reap the crop and garner it. ‘It grows to guerdon afterdays.’
References. VIII. 11. F. B. Cowl, Preacher’s Magazine, vol. xvii. p. 190. F. St. John Corbett, The Preacher’s Year, p. 44. C. E. Beeby, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 331. F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. i. p. 82. VIII. 11-15. R. Winterbotham, The Kingdom of Heaven, p. 14. VIII. 12. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year (2nd Series), vol. i. p. 121. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv. No. 1459.
Seed Among Thorns
Luk 8:14
The three different instances of failure in this parable represent to us: I. The seed carried off at the very beginning, before it has sunk into the ground and before it has had time to germinate. The picture of my text is that of a man who in a real fashion has accepted the Gospel, but who has accepted it so superficially as that it has not exercised upon him the effect that it ought to produce, of expelling from him the tendencies which may become hindrances to his Christian life. If we have known nothing of ‘the expulsive power of a new affection,’ and if we thought it was enough to cut down the thickest and tallest thorn-bushes, and to leave all the seeds and the roots of them in our hearts, no wonder if, as we get along in life, they grow up and choke the Word. ‘Ye cannot serve God and Mammon,’ that is just putting into a sentence the lesson of my text.
II. Note the growth of the thorns. Luke employs a very significant phrase. He says: ‘When they have heard, they go forth and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life’. That is to say, the path of daily life upon which we all have to walk will certainly stimulate the growth of the thorns if these are not rooted out. As surely as we are living, and have to go out into the world day by day, so surely will the thorns grow if they are left in us. Let us make certain that we have cast out the thorns. There is an old German proverb, the vulgarity of which may be excused for its point. ‘You must not sit near the fire if your head is made of butter.’ We should not try to walk through this wicked world without making very certain that we have stubbed the thorns out of our hearts.
III. Lastly, mark the choking of the growth. Of course it is rapid, according to the old saying, ‘Ill weeds grow apace’. You cannot grow two crops on one field. It must be one thing or another, and we must make up our minds whether we are going to cultivate corn or thorn. Our text tells us that this man, represented by the seed among thorns, was a Christian, did and does bear fruit, but, as Luke says, ‘brings no fruit to perfection’. Is not that a picture of so many Christian people? They are Christian men and Christian women bringing forth many of the fruits of the Christian life, but the climax is somehow or other always absent. The pyramid goes up many stages, but there is never the gilded summit flashing in the light, ‘No fruit to perfection’.
A. Maclaren, The Baptist Times and Freeman, vol. li. p. 155.
References. VIII. 14. W. H. Evans, Sermons for the Church’s Year, p. 66. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. i. p. 168. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 208. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. ix. p. 448. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture St. Luke, p. 236.
Patience with Slow Growth
Luk 8:15
This is part of our Lord’s description of the growth of Divine life in the human soul and in the world. If it were not for this allusion to patience with slow growth, we might have imagined that after once receiving the germ of new life in our hearts, we need not expect anything more than the easy, natural, and swift development of it. But here we are reminded that, as a matter of fact, we need patience in regard to it: and this is the point towards which we shall direct our attention.
I. Let us first consider the need there is for the patience referred to in the text. Patience is not indifference; it is not self-contentment, it is not religious indolence it is self-control in presence of disappointment, suffering, temptation, and seeming failure. It is the capacity to hold ourselves in calmness when our adversary is scorning us: it is the steady resolve which attempts new effort, and hopes for better things even when all seems to be against us for evil. There are few things more likely to bring about failure, whether in the spiritual life or in any other kind of life, than the expectation of failure. We may be helped to resist the temptation to inpatience by the reflection that as a rule what is slowest in reaching its end is highest in nature, grandest in result. You might almost measure the value of an effect produced by the length of time taken to produce it. As the loftiest moral nature is higher than the loftiest mental gift, so its attainment is slower.
II. Let us turn our thoughts to the occasions for patience. (1) Our first application of it shall be to the development of our own Christian character, which is likened to seed, springing upward and rooting downward, appearing first as the blade, then as the ear and afterwards as the full corn in the ear bringing forth fruit with patience. I can imagine that some get to be disheartened because they do not now seem to make the progress that they did at the beginning. In the first realisation they had of Christ’s love and ownership, they abandoned certain practices and changed very considerably their mode of life, but now there is not much alteration from year to year. They should remember that then they had to deal with what was lower, and therefore more swiftly attained; whereas now they are concerned with what is higher, and in it they ought not to be discouraged if only the heart is right and the aim is straight and the love to God is true, for already a process is set up which in God’s good time shall conform them to the image of Christ. (2) Apply this to our work for the Master. We are working, remember, in the higher sphere where results are more slowly reached, and are less easily tabulated! (3) I would venture to apply this thought still more broadly. It may give us cheer when we are downcast about Christ’s work in general. Christ is patient with the world, and would have us patient too; ploughing, sowing, working, praying, believing that a harvest will come at last, and that we shall see issues by-and-bye which we never saw or even expected here.
A. Rowland, Open Windows and other Sermons, p. 144.
References. VIII. 15. H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 150. F. B. Woodward, Sermons (2nd Series), p. 158. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 287. VIII. 16. Ibid., p. 459.
Luk 8:17
Compare Lord Bacon’s phrase, in The Advancement of Learning, about ‘the inseparable propriety of time, which is evermore to disclose truth’.
Reference. VIII. 17. Expositor (6th Series), vol. ii. p. 381.
The Transiency of the Unreal
Luk 8:18
These words are the climax of Christ’s discriminating study of those who listened to His Gospel. He has been explaining to His disciples the parable of the seed and the soil, and has told of the different classes to whom His Evangel comes and who receive it with such diverse result. In view of the dark possibility there is of men hearing and receiving His Word in such wise as to bring forth no abiding fruit in holiness of life and character, He warns them to take heed how they hear, and expresses in these sentences the inevitable end of a mere profession which is not verified in actual possession and present experience. There is a law which governs the permanence of all things in the realm of the moral and spiritual just as on lower planes. The real alone is abiding, the unreal is only transient And this is the lesson which the Saviour enforces when He declares that that which a man only seems to have shall inevitably be taken away from him.
I. He is not here declaiming against mere hypocrisy, but is rather warning those who are in danger of self-deception. The hypocrite is one who endeavours to deceive others, but there are many who, though they are far from having such a desire, are nevertheless being themselves deceived as to the reality of the things which they imagine themselves to possess. Reality is one of the keynotes of the Gospel, nor is it too much to say that Christ sets greater store on reality in His followers than on any other possible attitude of heart. For reality conditions all things else, and He is ever seeking for the man who honestly ‘willeth to do His will’. Such an one cannot but abide for ever.
Whatever be the cause of self-deception, it is certain that a man’s seeming possessions will be taken away from him. This law operates with regard to things material and spiritual alike, and it is only a matter of time and experience for a man to stand before his own conscience, naked and miserable, and blind and poor.
1. For life is made up of occasions of test, first among which are the tests of duty by which a man is tried. He imagines himself to be strong to do the right, but his strength is in reality only a sense which has grown within him by reason of the lack of test Swiftly and suddenly the imperative voice of duty demands the application of the principles of Christ of which he has always thought himself to be master, on some level of life, to some phase of conduct, or regarding some attitude toward men and things, and he suddenly discovers that he is unable to obey the dictates of God and of conscience. The things which he seemed to have are suddenly taken from him. Blessed is the man who in that hour of self-discovery betakes him to the place of forgiveness and renewal, there to exchange that which has profited not for the true and abiding riches.
2. Again, a time of crisis or of special need testa the reality of our spiritual possessions.
3. And then, again, it is certain that a man’s seeming possessions will be taken from him when face to face with death. And if this be true of the portal, what can be said of that which follows in the Presence-chamber the Judgment? Reality alone will endure the trial of the revealing fire, and all the wood, hay, and stubble which has been painted to represent ‘gold, silver, and precious stones’ will be consumed. In the face of these things how important it is therefore that we assure ourselves as to the reality of our hold upon and by the things of abiding worth!
J. Stuart Holden, The Pre-Eminent Lord, p. 51.
Seeming to Have
Luk 8:18
You will observe that when our Lord speaks of the man who seems to have, He is not referring to the hypocrite. The hypocrite deceives others, not himself. But this is a case of genuine self-deception. The man is not practising trickery on anybody. There are things that a man may imagine that he has, and Jesus says he only seems to have them.
I. There is probably no one of us, in pew or pulpit, but is giving himself credit for what he does not possess. Can we detect the causes of this delusion?
(1) The first and the most innocent of all is inexperience. In all inexperience there is a seeming to have, which the rough and pushing world helps to dispel.
(2) Again, this strange deception is intimately connected with self-love. We seem to have much that we do not really have, simply because we love ourselves so well. In all love, even the very purest, there is a subtle and most exquisite flattery. (3) Often, again, we imagine we possess, because of the pressure of the general life around us. There is always the danger of mistaking for our own the support we get from the society we move in. And it is only when that external pressure is removed that we discover how we only seemed to have. Sooner or later, as our life advances, we shall have our eyes opened to these fond delusions.
II. What are God’s commoner methods for making clear to us what we only seem to have. (1) One of the commonest of them all is action. We learn what we possess by what we do. There are powers within each of us waiting to be developed; there are dreams within each of us waiting to be dispelled, and it is by going forward in the strength of God that we learn our limitation and our gift. (2) This, too, is one great gain of life’s variety. It shows us what is really our own. We are tested on every side as life proceeds, and every mood and change and tear is needed, if we are to be wakened to what we seem to have. (3) And if life fails, remember death is left. There will be no delusions concerning our possessions when our eyes open on that eternal dawn.
III. The words might apply even to those we love. Is it not true, in the realm of the affections, that sometimes we have and sometimes we seem to have. We are thrown into close relationship with others; we are bound to them with this tie and with that. We call them friends; we think we love them, perhaps. Is it real, or is it only seeming? Nothing can tell that but the strum of life, and the testing of friendship through its lights and shadows. Nothing can tell that finally but death.
G. H. Morrison, Sun-Rise: Addresses from a City Pulpit, p. 114.
Prayerful Hearing
Luk 8:18
In his sermon entitled ‘Take heed how ye hear,’ J. M. Neale has the following passage: ‘Did it ever strike you that how ye hear and what ye hear depends to a certain extent on yourselves? You knew, for example, all of you, when you first got up this morning that I was going to preach to you this evening. Did any one of you, either then or at any time today, ask God that what I said might be blessed to you? I might say what Joseph said to Pharaoh: “It is not in me; God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace”. See how St. Paul asks those to whom he was writing to pray for him. “For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through through what through your prayers”. We can do or say nothing of ourselves, however hard we try, whereas, if God helps us what then?
Sermons in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i. p. 92.
References. VIII. 18. Phillips Brooks, The Law of Growth, p. 1. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 188. H. C. Beeching, Seven Sermons to Schoolboys, p. 73. T. Barker, Plain Sermons, p. 109. J. J. Blunt, Plain Sermons, p. 282. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, vol. ii. p. 245.
Desert Flowers
Luk 8:21
St. Jerome sent to his friend Heliodorus a tender and eloquent letter, pleading for his return to the desert from Aquileia, where the young officer had adopted the family of his widowed sister. ‘Ah!’ wrote Jerome, ‘I am not insensible to the ties by which you will plead that you are held back. My breast, too, is not of iron, nor my heart of stone; I was not begotten of the rocks of Caucasus; the milk I sucked was not that of Hyrcanian tigresses. I also have gone through similar trials. I picture to myself your widowed sister hanging about your neck, and trying to detain you with caresses; and your old nurse, and the tutor who had all a father’s anxieties over you, telling you they have not long to live, and begging you not to leave them till they die; and your mother, with wrinkled face and withered bosom, complaining of your desertion. The love of God, and the fear of hell, easily break through such bonds as these!
‘You will say the Holy Spirit bids us obey our parents. Yes; but He teaches also that he who loves them more than Christ, loses his own soul…. “My mother and my brethren,” He says, “are they who do the will of my Father which is in heaven.” If they believe in Christ, let them encourage you to go forth and fight in His name; if they do not believe “let the dead bury their dead”…. O desert, blooming with the flowers of Christ. O wilderness, where are shaped the stones of which the city of the great King is built! O solitude, where men converse familiarly with God! What are you doing among the worldly, O Heliodorus, you who are greater than all the world? How long shall the cover of roofs weigh you down; how long shall the prison of the smoking city confine you?
‘Do you fear poverty? But Christ calls the poor blessed. Are you frightened at the prospect of labour? But no athlete is crowned without sweat. Are you thinking about daily food? But faith fears not hunger. Do you dread to lay your fasting body on the bare ground? But Christ lies beside you. Do the tangled locks of a neglected toilet shock you? But your head is Christ. Your skin will grow rough and discoloured without the accustomed bath, but he who is once washed by Christ needs not to wash again. And, in fine, listen to the Apostle, who answers all your objections, ‘The sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory which shall be revealed in us’. You are too luxurious, my brother, if you wish both to enjoy yourself here with the world and afterwards to reign with Christ. Does the infinite vastness of the wilderness terrify you? Walk in spirit through the land of Paradise, and while your thoughts are there, you will not be in the desert.’
E. L. Cutts, Saint Jerome, p. 41.
References. VIII. 21. Expositor (6th Series), vol. iv. p. 288. VIII. 22. Expositor (4th Series), vol. vii. p. 377. VIII. 22-25. J. P. Lange, Preacher’s Magazine, vol. xviii. p. 370. VIII. 25 H. Allen, Penny Pulpit, No. 1596, p. 163. VIII. 26-40. C. Perren, Outline Sermons, p. 270. VIII. 28. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii. No. 778. VIII. 35. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v. p. 145. J. S. Maver, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvii. p. 252. Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 80. VIII. 36. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. pp. 213, 216.
Religious Use of Excited Feelings
Luk 8:38-39
In his sermon on ‘The Religious Use of Excited Feelings,’ based on this text, J. H. Newman says: ‘Let not these visitings pass away “as the morning cloud of early dew”. Surely you must still have occasional compunctions of conscience for your neglect of Him. Your sin stares you in the face; your ingratitude to God affects you. Follow on to know the Lord, and to secure His favour by acting upon these impulses; by them He pleads with you, as well as by your conscience; they are the instruments of His spirit, stirring you up to seek your true peace. Nor be surprised, though you obey them, that they die away; they have done their office, and if they die, it is but as blossom changes into the fruit, which is far better. They must die. Perhaps you will need to labour in darkness afterwards, out of your Saviour’s sight, in the home of your own thoughts, surrounded by sights of this world, and showing forth His praise among those who are cold-hearted. Still be quite sure that resolute, consistent obedience, though unattended with high transport and warm emotion, is far more acceptable to Him than all those passionate longings to live in His sight, which look more like religion to the uninstructed. At the very best these latter are but the graceful beginnings of obedience, graceful and becoming in children, but in grown spiritual men indecorous, as the sports of boyhood would seem in advanced years. Learn to live by faith, which is a calm, deliberate, rational principle, full of peace and comfort, and sees Christ, and rejoices in Him, though sent away from His presence to labour in the world. You will have your reward. He will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.’
Waiting for Christ
Luk 8:40
Why did they not go on? There were plenty of them, a hundred men or a thousand; why did they wait for another man? We pay unconscious tributes to the Son of God. To be waited for is a creed, a faith, an uprising and an outgoing of the soul, a testimony rich as blood, quivering and tender as anxious love. ‘They were all waiting for Him.’ He was but one, why wait? why not proceed? We know why; the heart always knows why. There is a great gathering in the church, and every attendant has flowers in her hand or his hand; there is a light on every face, there is a subtle joy thrilling the air: why do these people wait? why does the priest tarry? why do all the attendants look at one another? Because the bride has not yet arrived. What, waiting for one woman? Ay! If thou, poor fool, couldst read life aright, that is life waiting for one, the other one, the completing one, the vital one. I was sitting in a great hall thronged with some five thousand enthusiasts: why did we not go on? Because he had not yet come. Sitting immediately in front of me was Henry Rogers, the famous Edinburgh reviewer, and a great critic and philosopher; and turning round, he said, ‘Now we are all ready for the great man’. Rogers himself was immeasurably the greatest man in that assembly, but he, too, was waiting, and presently the whole air rent with a thrilling cheer, a noise of gladness, for John Bright came up the platform stairs and passed to the chairman’s side. Now! Why not an hour ago? The magnetic presence was wanting, and the magnetic touch was waited for; no other man could take up just the position which that man was about to assume; when he came, beat the drum, wave the red banner, for the man for whom we have been waiting is face to face with us, and we shall catch his solemn music in a moment. They all waited for Christ.
I. ‘They were all waiting for Him.’ So shall it be one day with the whole earth. The earth has always been waiting for some one, not knowing the name, and being quite unable to give expression to its own aspirations and mystic desires. What makes you uneasy today? Because he has not come. Who has not come? I do not know, but the mysterious pronoun, the being that is always alluded to rather than specifically indicated. A prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you. Has He not sent one? He has sent a hundred, but not the one. We are thankful for Moses and the prophets and the great singing ones, the minstrels of Israel, but I am expecting another one that shall gather them all up into a personality more majestic than anyone of themselves could sustain. Are you sure He is coming? Certainly. What makes you so certain? My soul. There is an aching heart that means to prophesy, there is a broken sob that is a fragment of a song; and we know, without being able to tell psychologically and literally why, that there is another coming, always coming, must come; the circle is nearly complete, one more turning of the compasses, and it will be beautiful as the circle of a completed desire and completed love.
II. There has always been a great expectation of another coming one, some one who can interpret the waiting of the world; some man of rare genius who understands what it is the poor dumb world wants, and is looking about for and is quite sure will come, but does not know when he will come; he may come now, or as a thief in the night, or like a flash of lightning, or like an unforetold impression upon the soul. The isles shall wait for his law. There is not a soul that is fully satisfied, but it is to be satisfied tomorrow; it may be satisfied in the dawn, or it may have to wait until sultry midday, or it may be taxed in patience until the gathering shades of the sunset, but tomorrow it will be satisfied, or tomorrow the other morrow, throbbing, coming, pledged, if God so will. There is a great cry going up from the brokenhearted and disappointed world, saying, Who will show us any good?
III. The congregation that waits for Christ is never disappointed; the congregation that waits for anyone but Christ ought never to be gratified. If we wait for Christ, He will come to us; for He knows that we are waiting for Him, and He knows everything, He never breaks His word. ‘Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst.’ He is there before they are; He only waits to be manifested, revealed, and set in concrete and unmistakable figure and emphasis; He is there all the time. Said John the Baptist, ‘There standeth one among you whom you know not; He it is’. The people had been looking to the horizon when they should have been looking at the man who was standing next to them. God is nearer than we often suppose, and His satisfactions are prepared before our desires are formulated.
Joseph Parker, C ity Temple Pulpit, vol. vii. p. 108.
References. VIII. 40. J. Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol. vii. p. 108. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xliv. No. 2593. VIII. 41. Expositor (4th Series), vol. viii. p. 309. VIII. 41, 49. Ibid. (5th Series), vol. i. p. 276.
Luk 8:42
Oh! it is a distressing thing to see children die. A dying child is to me one of the most dreadful sights in the world. A dying man, a man dying on the field of battle, that is a small sight; he has taken his chance; he has had his excitement, he has had his glory, if that will be any consolation to him; if he is a wise man, he has the feeling that he is doing his duty by his country and by his Queen. It does not horrify or shock me to see a man dying in a good old age. But it does shock me, it does make me feel that the world is indeed out of joint, to see a child die.
From a speech of Charles Kingsley at a Sanitary Association.
References. VIII. 42. C. S. Robinson, Simon Peter, p. 196. Expositor (6th Series), vol. x. p. 358. VIII. 42-48. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. liii. No. 3020. VIII. 43. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iii. p. 456. VIII. 43, 44. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2018. VIII. 43-48. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture St. Luke, p. 242. VIII. 45. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year (2nd Series), vol. ii. p. 201. C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 205.
Nobody, Somebody, Everybody
Luk 8:47
Here is a story beautiful as it is blessed, the story of how nobody became somebody, and how somebody became everybody.
I. First then, Nobody. The story opens with the picture of a woman not important enough to have a name. Poor and feeble, she comes before us thrust hither and thither in a crowd. And this woman was enfeebled by twelve long years of sickness. She was poor, wretchedly poor. The very sympathy of those about her had spent itself. How many there are in a like evil case who seem to have everything against them, who are shut off from all help, look where they will.
II. But now let us turn to the second chapter of our story, Somebody. We see again this feeble woman wasted and wearied by being pushed and hustled to and fro in the crowd, all unable to hold her own amongst the press. Then suddenly some happy chance brings her close to Jesus. Without a moment’s delay, or the opportunity will be lost, she thrusts forth a trembling hand and touches the hem of His garment. Instantly she feels the healing virtue flowing like a tide of new life within her, and she is whole. But see, Jesus stops, and the host of people stand still. ‘ Somebody hath touched Me.’ So then this poor nobody was somebody now; somebody. He who felt the touch read with infallible love all that it meant.
III. Everybody. Look at her at His feet where Jairus had been, she, the poor wasted woman in the place of the ruler of the synagogue! As they stood, and watched, and listened, they saw Him, the Almighty Prophet, lay His hands upon her tenderly, and He said, ‘Daughter, be of good comfort’. It fell like healing balm upon her timid soul. ‘Be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. Go in peace.’ Now is it indeed as if she were everybody thus to have His tender recognition of her, to hear His benediction, to feel His virtue healing her, to have the blessing of His touch and the sweetness of such a name from His lips, and to go away as into an atmosphere that He has charmed and hallowed. Everything about the Lord Jesus, everything that He said, and everything that He did, and everything that is said of Him, reveals to us this separate and individual love. All that religion really means is a separate, personal work, or it is nothing at all.
M. G. Pearse, The Gentleness of Jesus, p. 67.
References. VIII. 47. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxiv. No. 2019. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 222. VIII. 48. Ibid. (6th Series), vol. vi. p. 359. VIII. 49. C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 233. VIII. 50. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture St. Luke, p. 245.
The Weapon of Ridicule
Luk 8:53
It is of ridicule, in some of its aspects and suggestions, that I wish to speak.
I. Now the first thing which I want you to observe is how often Jesus was assailed with ridicule. When a man is loved, his nature expands and ripens as does a flower under the genial sunshine. When a man is hated, that very hate may brace him as the wind out of the north braces the pine. But when a man is ridiculed, only the grace of heaven can keep him courteous and reverent and tender; and Jesus Christ was ridiculed continually. Men ridiculed His origin. Men ridiculed His actions. Men ridiculed His claims to be Messiah.
II. Nor should we think that because Christ was Christ He was therefore impervious to ridicule. On the contrary, just because Christ was Christ He was most keenly susceptible to its assault. It is not the coarsest but the finest natures that are most exposed to the wounding of such weapons, and in the most sensitive and tender heart scorn, like calumny, inflicts the sorest pain. Probably it is thus we may explain why ridicule is most keenly felt when we are young. ‘He was one of those sarcastic young fellows,’ says Thackeray of young Pendennis, ‘that did not bear a laugh at his own expense, and of all things in the world feared ridicule most’; and Sir Walter Scott, speaking of the enthusiasms of his own boyhood, said, ‘At that time I feared ridicule more than I have ever done since’.
III. It is notable, too, that Christ was laughed to scorn because the people failed to understand Him. The same truth meets us in the story of Pentecost, as we read it in the vivid narrative of Acts. There also, on the birthday of the Church, we light on ridicule, and there also it is the child of ignorance.
IV. We must appraise ridicule at its true value. It is not always the token of superior cleverness. It is far oftener the mark of incapacity. You cannot refute a sneer, said Dr. Johnson; but if you cannot refute it, at least you can despise it. Of course I am aware that in a world like this there is a certain work for ridicule to do. So long as shams and pretensions are abroad, a little gentle ridicule is needed. A jest is sometimes the wisest of all answers, and a little raillery the best of refutations. I should like to say also to those who are tempted to see only the ridiculous side of things, that perhaps in the whole gamut of the character there is nothing quite so dangerous as that. When we take to ridiculing all that is best and worthiest in others, by that very habit we destroy the power of believing in what is worthiest in ourselves.
G. H. Morrison, The Wings of the Morning, p. 256.
Reference. VIII. 64. Expositor (4th Series), vol. iv. p. 381.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
Christ’s Sustenance Accounted for
Luk 8
We have wondered how Jesus Christ subsisted. The explanation would seem to be given here. There are with him not only the twelve, but also “certain women,” some of whose names are given, “which ministered unto him of their substance.” We are not wholly unfamiliar with that species of action; we have read in the ancient books of a woman who “said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth “by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, in the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick; and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.” It was not unusual in Bible times, and even down to New Testament days, for the richer women to keep a Rabbi or a prophet out of their income, sustaining the good man in his educational and evangelistic works. Here we find the Son of God subsisting by similar means. “There were with him many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.” Yet the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. And yet both statements are open to the most perfect reconciliation. Thus we work in different ways the divine Minister who does everything, the Christ of God; and the lesser ministers who do their work on a small scale, but whatever is done is taken, and is magnified and glorified by the living God. Some of the names are given. We ought always to be thankful for what is written, not only because it shows itself within its own boundaries so vividly, but because it enables us to draw inferences regarding many things which are not explained. “And certain women, which had been healed.” What a key is there! Jesus Christ does not want any others to follow him than those to whom he himself has first ministered. It is possible so to read the passage as to omit the fact that Jesus Christ’s ministry was first. The mind comes suddenly upon the statement that certain women ministered unto him of their substance, and the mind is apt to dwell upon that circumstance with magnifying emphasis; whereas we ought to read the narrative so carefully as to get out of it all its music, and so reading it we shall find that Jesus was first, for the women who followed him “had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities,” and, as we shall presently see, their attachment to him was grounded upon a still wider basis.
“Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils.” Some have said, seven evil spirits or dispositions; unwilling to recognise what is termed demoniacal possession, they have regarded these as seven evil tempers, bad dispositions, wicked desires. Practically, it comes to the same thing: whatever they were, devils or dispositions, they were cast out by the Son of God; there is the working of the divine power; there is the miracle of wisdom and grace, of human compassion and divine ability. “And Joanna” do we know anything of her? She was “the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward.” Some have traced her by critical processes to be the mother of the nobleman’s son who, when at the point of death, was healed by the Son of God. Out of her there was cast no evil spirit, and she was not cured of any personal infirmity: why, then, did she follow this Nazarene? Ask her. Try to detach her from his following, and she will tell you, with tears of gratitude and joy, that Jesus Christ was the resurrection and the life in her house; say of him what others may, she knows that he cured her son, and from that point she cannot be dislodged by any evil suggestion or by any sophism. Hers was a personal gratitude for personal favours. Jesus Christ thus is followed by people who have understood him at some point. It is not necessary that all who follow Jesus Christ should understand every phase of his personality, and be able to explain every section of his ministry, and to answer all the questions which may be put concerning him; the people who followed Jesus Christ knew him at some point, and that became emphatically their point, and one of them gave expression to the sentiment of the whole when he said, “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”
How much has Christianity itself suffered from the delusion that those who profess it must be able to answer the questions; that every Christian must be a theologian, a man of science, a profound philosopher, an accurate logician, and an eloquent speaker. Nothing of the kind. It is for every Christian to have his own view of Christ, his own particular song of praise concerning what the Son of God has done; and so long as men keep to that personal testimony their utterance will be unbroken as to emphasis, and direct and unanswerable as to practical appeal. “And Joanna” do we ever hear of her again? The time came when Jesus Christ was in the tomb, and certain women went to see where the Lord lay. “It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them.” Here is constancy. The names do not appear upon great occasions of triumph; the women were not ornamental pillars who came out on state occasions; they were not sun-flowers that could live only in all their freshness at midday: they were with the Son of God, ministering unto him, and when he was dead they still thought they could do something for him. Who can allow the dead to go without some last touch, or kiss, or flower reverently laid on the door of the black prison? There is always some other little thing that can be done. This is how Jesus Christ subsisted then taking nothing from any one to whom he had not himself first ministered.
This is the only way of sustaining Christianity. It lives by the enthusiasm of its followers. It is not to be mechanically buttressed and supported and patronised. Jesus Christ, so long as the earth exists and his Church abides, must be ministered unto by those out of whom he has cast devils, whose children he has blessed, whose houses he has lighted up from the very fountain of the sun. Christianity lives upon enthusiasm, or it does not live at all. Christ has a right to look to those who bear his name, because if they bear it honestly they bear it on account of what he himself has done for them. Men do not come and take up Christianity for the purpose of doing it some favour, saying, We have looked at you from a distance, and the more we have looked the better we have been pleased with your banners, and now we are about to show you some regard for your general respectability, and therefore we will speak of you wherever we have suitable opportunities. Christianity disdains the paltry patronage. Christianity must be spoken about because it is in a man, and will not allow him to be dumb; it is a new spirit, the eloquent spirit, the burning spirit, and it must declare its presence in the soul by touching the tongue with eloquence, and leading the hand forth into constant and generous service. When we are asked why we minister to Christ, we reply, Because he first ministered unto us: we love him because he first loved us.
That is one view of Jesus Christ which this chapter supplies. Now we have another aspect of the Son of God in relation to his teaching. He taught positively, and he taught negatively. How did he teach positively? By fact and by parable, and by giving the larger meanings of things. He found a man sowing, and he said, That is my text. He found a woman putting leaven into three measures of meal, and he said, That is my subject. He found men selling all that they had for the purpose of buying one particular gem, and said, That is what you have to do in your spiritual education, if you are wise. Sometimes all things must go for the sake of one thing. To the eye of Jesus Christ all men were revealing the kingdom of heaven in some aspect, although they were doing it unconsciously: the sower did not know that he was supplying the Son of God with the basis of a parable. We limit ourselves too severely by excluding the poetry and the apocalyptic view and issue of things, supposing that when we lift a hand we do nothing more; when we utter a word we have simply uttered a vocable, and there is an end of the exercise: whereas, if we were wise, we should find that our outgoing, our incoming, our downsitting, our uprising yea, every breath of our respiratory system, all things are parabolic and suggestive, the beginnings and the germs of great spiritual thoughts and possibilities. So Jesus came to give the great meanings of things. In explanation he said, “The parable is this: The seed is the word of God.” What a key is here, as in the former instance! Jesus Christ seems always to deliver up the key to men when they are in a right mood of mind and heart. Once Peter gave such a great answer to a question put to him by the Son of God, that Jesus Christ took the keys and gave them to him at once. Thus he rewards faith, the genius of love, the passion of enthusiasm. We should have more keys if we had more qualification for sustaining them and using them aright. Not only was this a key to a particular instance, it is a key which opens a thousand locks. The seed is the word of God; the leaven is the spirit of truth; the pearl of great price is truth itself; the returning prodigal is the returning soul; the music and dancing in the father’s house is heaven’s rapture when heaven’s number is increased. Oh that we had eyes to see and hearts to understand I then all the world would come with its spring lessons and summer and autumn and winter lessons, and the snow would be as eloquent as the blossoms, and the hard ice would have its gospel as well as all the rains of summer. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
Not only did he teach thus positively, but he exhorted; he said, “Take heed therefore how ye hear” ( Luk 8:18 ). In Jesus Christ’s sermons there is always a line of exhortation. We ought to notice more and more that without exhortation a sermon is not complete, and is little worth. The preacher must come down upon the hearer with all the power he can command of appeal, persuasion, entreaty; he should beseech men to be reconciled to God. Here, again, is a key. “Never man spake like this man!” He begins by pronouncing a number of beatitudes, and we listen with delight to his mellifluous voice; his lips were formed for eloquence, his eye was set in his head for illumination, for it assists the tongue to make his meaning plain: but presently we are awakened out of this intellectual reverie, and are withdrawn from this spiritual luxury, by an exhortation sharp as a crack of thunder, and we are called to be, to do, to stand, to go, to die! How many of us leave Christ at the point of exhortation! In exposition we like to hear him, because then we can partly contradict him, and contend our own opinion after he is exhausted as to speech; in poetry we love to listen to him, for the words know one another, and recognise their mutual kinship, and the whole speech flows like a deep and all but silent river; but when he comes to bid us follow him, take up our cross, deny ourselves, take heed, we begin to feel that he is imposing upon us discipline, and discipline is never acceptable to a nature that loves indulgence. But Christianity is discipline. Christianity is a commandment as well as a theology. Some can obey who cannot fully understand, and, alas, many have great understanding who never attempt to obey.
Not only did Jesus Christ teach positively, but he taught negatively. There was an occasion upon which he went into a ship with his disciples; and “he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep.” Can he teach in sleep? He always teaches. Every look is a lesson; every word a condensed volume. How will Jesus Christ teach by falling asleep? He will teach by showing the disciples what they can do without him. This is the only way, if we may so put it, that Jesus Christ can awaken us to true self-consciousness. So long as we have the sun in the heavens we expect him to return; we treat him as in some sense a hired servant: he is looked for, and if he does not do his duty we complain of his neglect: but we cannot restore him to his place; we have no power over the clouds, and we must wait until the sun reappears. It is so with the Sun of Righteousness; Jesus Christ must withdraw from us to teach us of what value he has been. We do not know sometimes that a prophet has been amongst us until the prophet is dead. Then we feel a strange vacancy; we miss a personality, an influence, a presence, an effect, a blessing; then we ask questions, and then we discover that the King has passed by, and we failed to recognise his crown and sceptre. Jesus Christ might have lived with his disciples so long that they imagined they could do very well with him or without him; they had seen his method, they knew the lines which he traversed, and they could supply what was lacking if he himself was not present. Such was their infatuation upon some occasions that they attempted to work miracles when Jesus was not there, and they said to devils, Depart, and the devils mocked them with bitter laughter, and tore their subjects with still greater strength, and inflamed and excited them by still more appalling paroxysms. Then Jesus himself drew nigh and said, What is it? And the man most in question as a sympathiser said, I brought my son to thy disciples that they might heal him, and they cannot. Thus Jesus Christ teaches by withdrawment, by falling asleep, by simply standing aside, by becoming an onlooker, instead of an active worker. Thus he teaches. The withdrawment is not an arbitrary act, the sleep is not merely a natural necessity; out of these things must come lessons, showing how true it is that without Christ we can do nothing. Evil spirits utter their scorn at our incantations, and the waters pour their billows upon our little craft, heedless of our impotent cry. Do not let us have any Christianity without Christ, any mechanism that is not wrought from within by a dynamic agency, a spiritual inspiration; then every wheel will roll smoothly, and the whole machinery (which we are obliged to have for the execution of religious purposes) will move on, each part answering the other part as with intelligent obedience and co-operation. We may retain the altar without Christ, but there can be no sacrifice upon it; we may retain the Church, but it will be but a set of gilded walls, not a centre of power and a fountain of refreshment, if Jesus Christ himself be not in it.
Then see not only how he subsisted and how he taught, but how he healed. A man representing the uttermost distress had come under his attention, and Jesus had renewed the man, and the issue is thus stated “Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind.” These are the tests, and we cannot alter them; we cannot lower the standard; these alone, and standards equal to them, are the tests by which Christ’s work in society must be judged. Let us judge ourselves by them. What was the man doing? He was “sitting at the feet of Jesus.” Then he was subdued, chastened, refined, docile. Has the same miracle been wrought in us? sitting as a learner; not as an equal, not as a dictator, not as a critic, but sitting at the feet of Jesus to hear what the Master had to say, and to embody it in beautiful and generous life. “Sitting at the feet of Jesus.” If I may but touch the hem of his garment I shall be healed; if I may sit at his feet it will be heaven enough for me; if I might but just feel his shadow passing over me I shall ask for no other benediction. Thus we begin. To what heights we may ascend none can tell; but Jesus Christ himself says that if we overcome, being faithful unto death, we shall sit with him on his throne. Meanwhile, it is enough to be led into the city like the blind Saul; in after years he will be blind again, but it will be in the third heaven. “Clothed,” that is a common expression to us, but in this instance it was a most uncommon circumstance. The man who had been healed had not been clothed a long time “A certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs,” is the description we read of him in the 27th verse. Now he is renewed in habit, civilised, part of a commonalty; no longer a rude solitary man, but tesselated socially, related civically, and now part of organised society.
Sometimes little things show what has been wrought in a man, sitting in a new place, sitting in a new attitude, sitting in the house of God reverently; not looking at other people and wondering what they are doing, but looking to the centre with an eye that cannot be diverted. For some men to sit still is a miracle; for some poor light heads to listen betokens that God has been at work with them; such their natural frivolity that they cannot maintain an attitude of reverence and dignity in the house of God, and when you see them in such attitude then know that Omnipotence has not failed. “And in his right mind”: the clouds all gone, the trance broken, the madness subsided, ruled like an angry sea that has been tranquillised by a divine fiat; now looking squarely at men, the eye no longer unsteady, fiery, wandering, but fixed and calm as a planet. These are the standards by which we must judge. Are we sitting at Christ’s feet? Have all our habits been changed, and are we in our right mind humble, modest, self-distrustful, dependent upon God every moment, saying to him, “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: do not leave me for a single instant to myself, or I shall commit suicide, and go to hell”? These are the tests; not our little power of criticising one another, and distinguishing between Christian sects and denominations, and playing the artificial theologian, and talking unintelligible metaphysics; but these practical standards seated as scholars at the great Teacher’s feet, part of the great society and brotherhood of man, with a steady, calm, aspiring mind that has realised its dignity, and is endeavouring to discharge its obligations.
How many ways there are all leading to Christ! Here are the women who have been healed doing something for him according to their resources and their opportunities; here are others coming in through the gate of parable, having had the kingdom of heaven revealed to them by signs and by things which are being done in common life, and by spiritual interpretations of the commonplaces of the day; and here are others being taught by feeling how nothing and less than nothing they are when Jesus Christ is not actively present how they bungle over their work, how they begin at the wrong end, sow in the wrong field, reap nothing but darkness in the harvest-time, and at winter are left in desolation and poverty; and here are others who are healed from great extremities drunkards, who had been given up as losses, turned into sober citizens; madmen, who never spoke but irrationally, subdued and chastened into a docile spirit; wanderers on the face of the earth set in their right places in society. Let us go to Christ in some way. It is not for any man to say, This is the only way by which you can come. The chariots of God are twenty thousand, yea, thousands of thousands, and men may go to God in twenty thousand different ways; and provided they wish to go to God with their whole love, they will realise their desire. “While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and ran.” That is how God does towards us. Whilst we are yet a great way off, wrong in our thinking, mistaken in our intellectual conceptions, hesitating as to certain moral positions, poor and ignorant and weak, he sees us, and has compassion upon us, and runs toward us, lest another step should turn us backward, lest the foe should prevail were he himself to tarry too long. The question which each man has to ask himself is this, Can I get to the Son of God in any way? I cannot understand the preachers, the theologians, the churches, the literature religious, and therefore I feel that I am kept outside; but here is an opportunity given to me, because a preacher says, Come to Christ in some way your own way only insist upon seeing Christ Then perhaps some poor heart may say, I will go in this way broken-hearted, contrite, desolate, ashamed; I will go at night, when everybody is asleep, and I will utter my first prayer when the house is quiet as a cemetery: I think I dare go in that way. Then Go!
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXIX
OUR LORD’S GREAT MINISTRY IN GALILEE
Part IV The Centurion’s Servant Healed, the Widow’s Son Raised, The Sin Against the Holy Spirit
Harmony -pages 52-59 and Mat 8:1
When Jesus, who spoke with authority, had finished the Sermon on the Mount, he returned to Capernaum where he acted with authority in performing some noted miracles. Here he was met by a deputation from a centurion, a heathen, beseeching him to heal his servant who was at the point of death. This Jewish deputation entered the plea for the centurion that he had favored the Jews greatly and had built for them a synagogue. Jesus set out at once to go to the house of the centurion, but was met by a second deputation, saying to Jesus that he not trouble himself but just speak the word and the work would be done. The centurion referred in this message to his own authority over his soldiers, reasoning that Christ’s authority was greater and therefore he could speak the word and his servant should be healed. This called forth from our Lord the highest commendation of his faith. No Jew up to this time had manifested such faith as this Roman centurion. Then our Lord draws the picture of the Gentiles coming from the east, west, north, and south to feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven while the Jews, the sons of the kingdom, were cast out. Jesus then granted the petition of the centurion according to his faith.
The second great miracle of Jesus in this region was the raising of the widow’s son at Nain, which was a great blessing to the widow and caused very much comment upon the work of our Lord, so that his fame spread over all Judea and the region roundabout. His fame as a miracle worker and “a great prophet, “ reached John the Baptist and brought forth his message of inquiry.
This inquiry of John, which reflects the state of discouragement, and also the testimony of Jesus concerning John, is discussed in Joh 10 of this volume (which see), but there are some points in this incident not brought out in that discussion which also need to be emphasized. First, what is the meaning of “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence” (Mat 11:12 )? The image is not precisely that of taking a city by storm, but of an eager, invading host, each trying to be first, pressing and jostling each other, as when gold was discovered in California, or at the settlement of the Oklahoma strip. It means impassioned earnestness and indomitable resolution in the entrance upon and pursuit of a Christian life, making religion the chief concern and salvation the foremost thing as expressed in the precepts: “Seek first the kingdom, etc.,” “Agonize to enter in at the strait gate.” It rightly expresses the absorbing interest and enthusiasm of a revival. “Thus Christianity was born in a revival and all its mighty advances have come from revivals which are yet the hope of the world.” This thought is illustrated in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, pp. 47-49. Following this is the contrast between the publicans and scribes, the one justifying God and the other rejecting for themselves the counsel of God. Then he likens them unto children in the market, playing funeral. One side piped but the other side did not dance; then they wailed but the others did not weep. So, John was an ascetic and that did not suit them; Jesus ate and drank and that did not suit them. So it has ever been with the faultfinders. But in spite of that, wisdom is justified of her works (or children), i.e., wisdom is evidenced by her children, whether in the conduct of John or Jesus. But this statement does not justify the liquor business as the defendants of it claim.
There is no evidence that Jesus either made or drank intoxicating wine
Then began Jesus to upbraid the cities wherein were done these mighty works, including Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, because they had not repented. This shows that light brings with it the obligation to repent, and that this will be the governing principle of the judgment. Men shall be judged according to the light they have. Then follows the announcement of a great principle of revelation. God makes it to babes rather than to the worldly-wise man, and that Jesus himself is the medium of the revelation from God to man, but only the humble in spirit and contrite in heart can receive it. Because he is the medium of the blessing, the God-man, his compassion here finds expression in this great, broad invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for am I meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Note the two kinds of rest here: First, the given rest, which is accepted by grace, and second, the found rest, which is attained in service.
The next incident is the anointing of our Saviour’s feet by a woman who was a sinner. This incident occurred in Galilee just where I do not know possibly, but not probably, in Nain. It is recorded by Luke alone, who, following a custom of the historians of mentioning only one incident of a special kind, omits the narrative of a later anointing.
Two preceding things seem to be implied by the story: (a) That the host had been a beneficiary in some way of Christ’s healing power over the body; (b) That the woman had been a beneficiary” of his saving power. It is quite probable that her weary and sin-burdened soul had heard and accepted the gracious invitation: “Come unto me, etc.,” just given by the Saviour. At any rate her case is an incarnate illustration of the power of that text and is a living exposition of it. It is far more beautiful and impressive in the Greek than any translation can make it. Several customs prevalent then but obsolete now, constitute the setting of the story, and must be understood in order to appreciate its full meaning.
(1) The Oriental courtesies of hospitality usually extended to an honored guest. The footwear of the times open sandals and the dust of travel in so dry a country, necessitated the washing of the feet of an incoming guest the first act of hospitality. See Abraham’s example (Gen 18:4 ) and Lot’s (Gen 19:2 ) and Laban’s (Gen 24:32 ) and the old Benjaminite (Jdg 19:20-21 ) and Abigail (1Sa 25:41 ). See as later instances (Joh 13 ) our Lord’s washing the feet of his disciples and the Christian customs (1Ti 5:10 ). This office was usually performed by servants, but was a mark of great respect and honor to a guest if performed by the host himself.
(2) The custom of saluting a guest with a kiss. See case of Moses (Exo 18:7 ) and of David (2Sa 19:39 ). To observe this mode of showing affectionate respect is frequently enjoined in the New Testament epistles. As employed by Absalom for purposes of demagogy (2Sa 15:5 ), and as employed toward Amasa by Joab when murder was in his heart (2Sa 20:9-10 ), and by Judas to our Lord when treachery was in his heart, rendered their crimes the more heinous. To this Patrick Henry refers: “Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss.”
(3) The custom of anointing the head at meals (Ecc 9:7-8 ; Psa 23:5 ). Hence for the Pharisee to omit these marks of courteous hospitality was to show his light esteem for his guest. It proves that the invitation was not very hearty.
(4) The custom of reclining at meals (Amo 6:4-6 ). This explains “sat at meat” and “behind at his feet.”
With these items of background we are prepared to understand and appreciate that wonderful story of the compassion of Jesus. His lesson on forgiveness and proportionate love as illustrated in the case of this wicked woman has been the sweet consolation of thousands. The announcement to the woman that her faith had saved her throws light on the question, “What must I do to be saved?” There are here also the usual contrasts where the work of salvation is going on. The woman was overflowing with love and praise while others were questioning in their hearts and abounding in hate and censure. This scene has been re-enacted many a time since, as Christianity has held out the hand of compassion to the outcasts and Satan has questioned and jeered at her beautiful offers of mercy.
In Section 47 (Luk 8:1-3 ) of the Harmony we have a further account of our Lord’s ministry in Galilee with the twelve, and certain women who had been the beneficiaries of his ministry, who also ministered to him of their substance. This is the first Ladies’ Aid Society of which we have any record and they were of the right sort.
We now take up the discussion of the sin against -the Holy Spirit found in Section 48 (Mat 12:22-37 ; Mar 3:19-30 ). Before opening the discussion of it, allow me to group certain passages of both Testaments bearing on this question: Psa 19:13 : “Innocent of the great transgression.” Mar 3:29 : “Guilty of an eternal sin.” Num 15:28-31 : “If any soul sin through ignorance, the priest shall make an atonement for the soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by ignorance before the Lord, to make an atonement for him and it shall be forgiven him. But the soul that doeth presumptuously, born in the land of a stranger, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.” Heb 10:26-29 : “For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set at naught Moses’ law, dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” Jer 15:1 : “Then said the Lord unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.” 1Jn 5:16 : “If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request.” Eze 14:13-14 : “Son of man, when a land sinneth against me, by committing a trespass, and I stretch out mine hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof, and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast; though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God.”
The scriptures just cited have excited profound interest in every age of the world since they were recorded. In all the intervening centuries they have so stirred the hearts of those affected by them as to strip life of enjoyment. They have driven many to despair. In every community there are guilty and awakened consciences as spellbound by these scriptures as was Belshazzar when with pallid lips and shaking knees he confronted the mysterious handwriting on the wall, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. In almost every community we can find some troubled soul, tortured with the apprehension that he has committed the unpardonable sin. Sympathetic and kindly-disposed expositors in every age have tried in vain to break the natural force or soften in some way the prima facie import of these divine utterances. Some have denied that there ever was, or ever could be an unpardonable sin. Others conceded that such sin might have been committed in the days of Christ’s earthly ministry, but the hazard passed away with the cessation of miracles. All the power of great scholarship has been brought to bear with microscopic inspection of words and phrases to establish one or the other of these propositions. And, indeed, if great names could avail in such cases, this slough of despond would have been safely bridged. But no such explanation ever satisfies a guilty conscience or removes from the hearts of the masses of plain people, the solemn conviction that the Bible teaches two things:
First, that in every age of the past, men were liable to commit the unpardonable sin and that as a matter of fact, some did commit it.
Second, that there is now not only the same liability, but that some do now actually commit it. There is something in man which tells him that these scriptures possess for him an awful admonition whose truth is eternal.
Whether all the scriptures just cited admit of one classification matters nothing, so far as the prevalent conviction is concerned. Where one of the group may be successfully detached by exegesis another rises up to take its place. The interest in the doctrine founded on them is a never-dying interest. Because of this interest, it is purposed now to examine somewhat carefully, the principal passages bearing on this momentous theme. Most humbly, self-distrustingly and reverently will the awful subject be approached.
It is deemed best to approach it by considering specially the case recorded by Matthew and Mark. The words are spoken by our Lord himself. The antecedent facts which occasioned their utterance may be briefly stated thus:
(1) Jesus had just delivered a miserable demoniac by casting out the demon who possessed him.
(2) It was a daylight affair, a public transaction, all the circumstances so open and visible, and the fact so incontrovertible and stupendous that many recognized the divine power and presence.
(3) But certain Pharisees who had been pursuing him with hostile intent, who had been obstructing his work in every possible way, finding themselves unable to dispute the fact of the miracle, sought to break its force by attributing its origin to Beelzebub, the prince of demons, charging Jesus with collusion with Satan.
(4) The issue raised was specific. This issue rested on three indisputable facts conceded by all parties. It is important to note these facts carefully and to impress our minds with the thought that as conceded facts, they underlie the issue. The facts are, first, that an evil and unwilling demon had been forcibly ejected from his much desired stronghold and dispossessed of his ill-gotten spoils. It was no good spirit. It was no willing spirit. It was a violent ejectment. It was a despoiling ejectment. Second, the one who so summarily ejected the demon and despoiled him was Jesus of Nazareth. Third fact, the ejectment was by supernatural miraculous power by some spirit mightier than the outcast demon. Evidently Jesus had, by some spirit, wrought a notable miracle. He claimed that he did it by the Holy Spirit of God resting on him and dwelling in him. The Pharisees alleged that he did it by an unclean spirit, even Satan himself. The contrast is between “unclean-spirit” and “Holy Spirit.” An awful sin was committed by one or the other. Somebody was guilty of blasphemy. If Jesus was in collusion with Satan if he attributed the devil’s work by him to the Holy Spirit, he was guilty of blasphemy. If the Pharisees, on the other hand, attributed the work of the Holy Spirit to an unclean spirit, this was slandering God. They were guilty of blasphemy.
(5) Jesus answers the charge against himself by three arguments: First, as the demon cast out belonged to Satan’s kingdom and was doing Satan’s work, evidently he was not cast out by Satan’s power, for a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, and none could justly accuse Satan of the folly of undermining his own kingdom. Second, the demon could not have been despoiled and cast out unless first overpowered by some stronger spirit than himself, who, if not Satan, must be the Holy Spirit, Satan’s antagonist and master. Third, as the Pharisees themselves claimed to be exorcists of demons, it became them to consider how their argument against Jesus might be applied to their own exorcisms.
Then he in turn became the accuser. In grief and indignation he said, “Therefore I say unto you, every sin and blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him, but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in that which is to come.”
Or as Mark expresses it, “Verily I say unto you, All their sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and their blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin; because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.” Having the case now before us, let us next define or explain certain terms expressed or implied in the record.
Unpardonable. Pardonable means not that which is or must be pardoned, but which may be pardoned on compliance with proper conditions that while any sin unrepented of, leads ultimately to death, yet as long as the sinner lives, a way of escape is offered to him. But an unpardonable sin is one which from the moment of its committal is forever without a possible remedy. Though such a sinner may be permitted to live many years, yet the very door of hope is closed against him. It is an eternal sin. It hath never forgiveness. Sermons, prayers, songs, and exhortations avail nothing in his case. The next expression needing explanation is, “Neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” Construed by itself this language might imply one of two things:
First, that God will pardon some sins in the next world, i.e., there may be for many, though not all, a probation after death. So Romanists teach. On such interpretation is purgatory founded.
Second, or it may imply that God puts away some sins so far as the next world is concerned, but yet does not remit chastisement for them in this world.
Where the meaning of a given passage is doubtful, then we apply the analogy of the faith. That is, we compare the doubtful with the certain. The application of this rule necessitates discarding the first possible meaning assigned. It is utterly repugnant to the tenor of the Scriptures. Men are judged and their destiny decided by the deeds done in the body, not out of it. If they die unjust they are raised unjust. There is no probation after death. It remains to inquire if the second possible implication agrees with the tenor of the Scriptures. Here we find no difficulty whatever. The general Bible teaching is in harmony with the second meaning. The Scriptures abundantly show three things:
First, some sins are remitted both for time and eternity. That is, when they are pardoned for eternity, even chastisement on earth is also remitted.
Second, much graver sins are, on repentance, put away as to eternity, but very sore chastisement is inflicted in time. As when God said to David after Nathan visited him: “The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.” The Lord also announced to him that “the sword should never depart from his house” because he had caused the death of Uriah (see 2Sa 12:7-14 ). Here is one unmistakable case out of many that could be cited where sin was forgiven as to the next world, but not as to this world.
The thought is that God, in fatherly discipline, chastises all Christians in this world. To be without chastisement in this world proves we are not God’s children. An awful token of utter alienation from God is to be deprived of correction here, when we sin. To be sinners and yet to prosper. To die sinners and yet have no “bands in our death.” So that the expression “hath never forgiveness, neither in this world nor in the world to come,” implies nothing about a probation after death, but refers to God’s method of withholding correction in this world, from some sinners, but never withholding punishment of this class in the next, and to his method of correcting Christians in this world, but never punishing them in the next world.
Third, the expression teaches that in the case of those who sin against the Holy Spirit, God’s method of dealing is different from both the foregoing methods. In the case of the unpardonable sin, punishment commences now and continues forever. There is no remission of either temporal or eternal penalties. They have the pleasures of neither world. To illustrate: Lazarus had the next world, but not this; Dives had this world, but not the next. But the man who commits the unpardonable sin has neither world, as Judas Iscariot, Ananias, and others.
To further illustrate, by earthly things, we might say that Benedict Arnold committed the unpardonable sin as to nations. He lost the United States and did not gain England. Hated here; despised yonder. The price of his treason could not be enjoyed. He had never forgiveness, neither on this side the ocean nor on the other side. Another term needing explanation is the word,
Blasphemy. This is strictly a compound Greek word Anglicized. It is transferred bodily to our language. In Greek literature it is quite familiar and often used. Its meaning is thoroughly established. According to strict etymology, it is an offense of speech, i.e., of spoken words. Literally, as a verb, it means to speak ill or injuriously of any one, to revile or defame. As a noun, it means detraction or slander. I say it means to defame any one whether man or God. Even in the Bible usage of both the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament, the word is generally applied to both man and God.
When Paul says he was “slanderously reported,” as saying a certain thing, and when Peter says “speak evil of no man,” they both correctly employ the Greek word “blaspheme.” Even this passage refers to other blasphemies than those against God, “all manner of blasphemies except the blasphemies against the Holy Spirit.” In both English and American law, blasphemy has ever been an indictable offense, whether against man or God. Later usages, however, restrict the term “blasphemy” to an offense against God, while the term “slander” is applied to the same offense against men. According to strict derivation, it is an offense of spoken words. To this our Saviour refers in the context when he says, “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” But one is quite mistaken who limits the meaning of the term to strict etymology. In both human and divine law, the offense of “blasphemy” may be committed by writing the words, or publishing them, as well as by speaking them. We may blaspheme by either printing, painting, or pantomime. Any overt, provable action which intentionally conveys a false and injurious impression against any one comes within the scope of the offense. Under the more spiritual, divine law, the offense may be committed in the mind, whether ever spoken aloud. Our context says, “Jesus knowing their thoughts.” Indeed, the very essence of the offense is in the heart the intent the idea. Words are matters of judgment, solely because they are signs of ideas and expressions of the heart. This our context abundantly shows. Our Saviour says, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by its fruit. Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. The good man out of his good treasure, bringeth forth good things: and the evil man out of his evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”
From this exhibition of the meaning of the word “blasphemy,” we can easily see that either Jesus or the Pharisees were guilty of the offense. Both could not be innocent. If Jesus, while claiming to act by the Holy Spirit, was but the organ of “an unclean spirit,” then he blasphemed or slandered the Holy Spirit. If his work was wrought by the Holy Spirit, then the Pharisees, by attributing that work to an “unclean spirit,” blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
Having clearly before us the meaning of “blasphemy,” let us advance to another explanation. The character of any code or government is revealed by its capital offenses; the grade of any nation’s civilization is registered by its penal code. If capital punishment, or the extreme limit of punishment is inflicted for many and slight offenses, the government is called barbarian. If for only a few extraordinary and very heinous crimes, the government is called civilized. For instance, under the English law of long ago, a man might be legally put to death for snaring a bird or rabbit. The extreme limit of punishment was visited upon many who now would be pronounced guilty of only misdemeanors or petit larceny. It was a bloody code. The enlightened mind intuitively revolts against undue severity. Modern civilization has reduced capital offense to a minimum. Even in these few cases three things at least must always be proved:
(1) That the offender had arrived at the age of discretion, and possessed a sound mind. A mere child, a lunatic or idiot cannot commit a capital offense.
(2) Premeditation. The crime must be deliberately committed.
(3) Malice. The evil intent must be proved.
The higher benevolence of the divine law will appear from the fact that there is but one unpardonable offense, and that even more must be proved against one accused of this offense than the age of discretion, a sound mind, premeditation, and malice. Indeed, the sin against the Holy Spirit must outrank all others in intrinsic heinousness. This will abundantly appear when we reach the Bible definition and analysis of the sin against the Holy Spirit. We are not ready even yet, however, to enter upon the discussion of the sin itself. Two other preliminary explanations are needed.
Why must the one unpardonable sin be necessarily against the Holy Spirit? What is the philosophy or rationale of this necessity? This question and the answer to it cannot be understood unless we give due weight, both separately and collectively, to the following correlated proposition: There is one law giver, God. His law is the one supreme standard which defines right and wrong prescribing the right, proscribing the wrong. God himself is the sole, authoritative interpreter of his law. The scope of its obligations cannot be limited by finite knowledge, or human conscience. Any failure whatever at conformity thereto, or any deflection therefrom, to the right or left, however slight, and from whatever cause, is unrighteousness. All unrighteousness is sin. The wages of sin is death. All men are sinners by nature and practice.
Therefore, by the deeds of the law can no man be justified in the sight of God. The law condemns every man. It also follows: First, that any possible salvation must flow from God’s free grace. Second, that not even grace can provide a way of escape for the condemned inconsistent with God’s Justice and holiness. That is, any possible scheme of salvation for sinners must both satisfy the law penalty, thereby appeasing justice, and provide for the personal holiness of the forgiven sinner.
To put it in yet other words, the plan of salvation, to be feasible, must secure for every sinner to be saved, three things at least: (a) justification, (b) regeneration, (c) sanctification, which are equivalent to deliverance from the law penalty, a new nature, and personal holiness. I say that these three things are absolutely requisite. I cite just now only three scriptural proofs, one under each head:
Rom 3:23-26 declares that a propitiation must be made for sin in order that God might be just in justifying the sinner. Joh 3:3-7 sets forth the absolute necessity of the new birth the imparting of a new nature.
Heb 12:14 declares that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
To admit into heaven even one unjustified man, one man in his carnal nature, one unholy man, would necessarily dethrone God, while inflicting worse than the tortures of hell on the one so admitted.
No fish out of water, no wolf or owl in the daylight, could be so unutterably wretched as such a man. He would be utterly out of harmony with his surroundings. I think he would prefer hell. The gates of the holy city stand open day and night, which means that no saint would go out, and no sinner would go in. After the judgment as well as now, the sinner loves darkness rather than light. It therefore naturally, philosophically and necessarily follows that salvation must have limitations. A careful study of these limitations will disclose to us the rationale of the unpardonable sin. What, then, are these limitations?
(1) Outside of grace, no salvation.
(2) Outside of Christ, no grace.
(3) Outside of the Spirit, no Christ.
In other words, Christ alone reveals the Father, and the Spirit alone reveals Christ; or no man can reach the Father except through Christ Christ is the door and no man can find that door except through the Spirit. It necessarily follows that an unpardonable sin is a sin against the Spirit. This would necessarily follow from the order of the manifestations of the Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. From the order of the dispensations: First, the Father’s dispensation of law; second, the Son’s dispensation of atonement; third, the Spirit’s dispensation of applying the atonement. The Spirit is heaven’s ultimatum heaven’s last overture. If we sin against the Father directly, the Son remains. We may reach him through the Son. If we sin directly against the Son, the Spirit remains. We may reach him through the Spirit. If we sin against the Spirit, nothing remains. Therefore that sin is without remedy. So argues our Saviour: “Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come. He is guilty of an eternal sin.”
Our last preliminary explanation answers this question: Are men now liable to commit this sin? If not liable, the reasons for discussing the matter at all are much reduced. If liable, the reasons for discussion are infinitely enhanced. It is of infinitely greater moment to point out to the unwary of a possible immediate danger, than to relieve the mind from the fear of an unreal danger, however great and torturing may be that fear. It is claimed by many intelligent expositors that this sin cannot be committed apart from an age of miracles, nor apart from the specific miracle of casting out demons, nor apart from attributing the supernatural, miraculous power of the Holy Spirit in said miracle to Beelzebub, the prince of demons.
Very deep love have I for the great and good men who take this position, as, I believe, led away by sentiment, sympathy, and amiability on the one hand, and horrified on the other hand with the recklessness which characterizes many sensational discussions of this grave matter by tyros, unlearned, and immature expositors. Very deep love have I for the men, but far less respect for their argument. I submit, just now, only a few out of many grave reasons for rejecting this interpretation.
(1) Such restriction of meaning is too narrow and mechanical. The Bible could not be to us a book of principles, if the exact circumstances must be duplicated in order to obtain a law. From the study of every historical incident in the Bible we deduce principles of action.
(2) The Scriptures clearly grade miracles wrought by the Spirit below other works of the Spirit. This is evident from many passages and connections. Writing the names of the saved in the book of life was greater than casting out devils (Luk 10:20 ). Fourth only in the gifts of the Spirit does miracle-working power rank (1Co 12:28 ). Far inferior are any of these gifts to the abiding graces of the Spirit (1Co 13:1-13 ; 1Co 14:1-33 ). How, then, in reason and common sense, can it be a more heinous blasphemy to attribute an inferior work of the Spirit to the devil than a superior work? Will any man seriously maintain that this is so, because a miracle is more demonstrable its proof more vivid and cognizable by the natural senses? This would be to affirm the contrary of scriptural teaching on many points. We may know more things about spirit than we can know about matter. This knowledge is more vivid and impressive than the other. Spiritual demonstration to the inner man is always a profounder demonstration than any whatever to the outer man.
(3) Such a restriction of meaning to the days of Christ in the flesh is out of harmony with Old Testament teaching on the same subject.
(4) It fails to harmonize with many other passages in later New Testament time, which will not admit of a different classification without contradicting the text itself, since thereby more than one kind of unpardonable sins would be established.
(5) The utter failure of this exposition to convince the judgment of plain people everywhere, and its greater failure to relieve troubled consciences everywhere, is a strong presumptive argument against its soundness.
Because, therefore, I believe that the sin against the Holy Spirit may now be committed because I believe that some men in nearly every Christian community have committed it because I believe that the liability is imminent and the penalty, when incurred, utterly without remedy, and because I feel pressed in spirit to warn the imperiled of so great condemnation, therefore I preach on the subject preach earnestly preach in tears preach with melted heart.
QUESTIONS
1. How did Jesus vindicate his authority apart from his claims and teaching?
2. What are the details in the incident of healing the centurions servant, how do you reconcile the accounts of Matthew and Luke, and what the lessons of this incident?
3. Describe the incident of the raising of the widow’s son at Nain and its lesson.
4. What inquiry from John the Baptist brought forth by this fame of Jesus and what was Jesus’ reply?
5. What is the meaning of “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence?
6. What reproof of the Pharisees by our Lord called forth by this?
7. What cities here upbraided by our Lord and what principle enunciated in this connection?
8. What principle of revelation announced here also?
9. What great invitation here announced by our Lord and what is its great teaching?
10. Relate the story of the anointing of the feet of Jesus by the wicked woman.
11. What two things seem to be implied by the story?
12. What Oriental customs constitute the setting of this story and what is the explanation of each?
13. What are the lessons and contrasts of this incident?
14. Give an account of the first Ladies’ Aid Society.
15. What scriptures of both Testaments bearing on the sin against the Holy Spirit?
16. What can you say of the impression made by these scriptures?
17. What efforts of sympathetic expositors to soften the import of these scriptures?
18. What two solemn convictions yet remain?
19. What were the antecedent facts which occasioned the statements of our Lord in Section 48 of the Harmony?
20. What is the meaning of “unpardonable”?
21. What is the meaning of “neither in this world, nor in the world to come”?
22. What is the meaning of “blasphemy”?
23. Show that either Jesus or the Pharisees were guilty of blasphemy on this occasion.
24. How is the character of a code of laws determined? Illustrate.
25. What three things must be proved in the case of capital offenses against our laws?
26. How does the higher benevolence of the divine law appear?
27. What correlated proposition must be duly considered in order to understand the sin against the Holy Spirit?
28. What two things also follow from this?
29. What three things must the plan of salvation secure for every sinner who shall be saved, and what the proof?
30. What are the limitations which determine the rationale of the sin against the Holy Spirit? Explain.
31. What are the claims of some expositors with respect to this sin and what the reasons for rejecting them?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
1 And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him,
Ver. 1. He went through every city ] To teach us unweariableness in God’s work. He went about doing good: so should we, waiting all opportunities.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1 3. ] JESUS MAKES A CIRCUIT TEACHING AND HEALING, WITH HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES, AND MINISTERING WOMEN. Peculiar to Luke . A general notice of our Lord’s travelling and teaching in Galilee, and of the women, introduced again in ch. Luk 23:55 ; Luk 24:10 , who ministered to Him.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 8:1-3 . Ministering women ; peculiar to Lk., and one of the interesting fruits of his industrious search for additional memorabilia of Jesus, giving us a glimpse into the way in which Jesus and His disciples were supported.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Luk 8:1 . , “afterwards,” A. V [79] , not necessarily “soon afterwards,” R. V [80] (= , Luk 7:11 ). The temporal connection with the preceding narrative is loose, but the connection of thought and sentiment is close. Lk. would show how penitent, suffering, sorrowful women who had received benefit in body or soul from Jesus went into peace and blessedness. They followed Him and served Him with their substance, and so illustrated the law: much benefit, much love. : of this itinerant preaching ministry Lk. knows, or at least gives, no particulars. The one thing he knows or states is that on such tours Jesus had the benefit of female devotion. Probably such service began very early, and was not limited to one tour of late date.
[79] Authorised Version.
[80] Revised Version.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Luke Chapter 8
Luk 8:1-3
The last chapter broke out into the widest sphere, and brought in Divine power over human sickness and death – yea, more, Divine grace in presence of nothing but sin. Nevertheless moral ways are produced according to God’s own nature. Grace does not merely forgive. Those who are forgiven are born anew, and manifest their new life in suitable ways, and this in due season by the power of the Holy Ghost.
In this chapter we find how grace goes forth in service. “It came to pass afterward, that he went through [the country], city by city, and village by village.” How indiscriminate is His “preaching and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God”!tid=53#bkm192- Anywhere and everywhere grace can go as to its sphere, but it distinguishes according to God’s will; because He must be sovereign. He pardons whom He will, and whom He will He hardens. The twelve were with Him; and not they only, but “certain women who had been healed of wicked spirits and Infirmities, Mary, who was called Magdalene,tid=53#bkm193- from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered to him* of their substance.” Thus we find grace produces fruits now, in this present life. I think it plain and certain that Mary Magdalene is not the person described in the last chapter as the woman who was a sinner. Tradition fluctuates, some supposing that the forgiven woman was Mary Magdalene, others Mary the sister of Lazarus; but to my own mind the internal evidence is conclusive that she was neither the one nor the other. In fact, there is evident moral beauty in the absence of her name. Considering that she had been a notoriously sinful woman in the city, why name her? The story was not to inform anyone who she was, but what the name of Jesus had been to her. It is His name, not hers, that is the great matter. And hence all the effect produced in her by the Spirit of God is according to this. She does not go before His face, but behind Him. She is at His feet, weeping, washing His feet with tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head. The Spirit of God, therefore, casts a veil over her person. However much she might be the object of grace, there is no indulgence of human curiosity. It was a part of the very plan of the Spirit that her name should not be mentioned. Mary, sister of Lazarus, stands before us in Scripture (whatever legends feign) a character evidently and altogether different, and remarkable, I should judge, for moral purity, as well as for that insight into God’s mind which was brought about by the grace that gave it to her.
*”To him”: so Wellhausen, with AL, etc., 1, 33, Memph. Arm., Aeth. Edd. (So Harnack) adopt “to them,” after BDE and later uncials, 69, Amiat. Syrrpesch cu sin.
So also Mary Magdalene, although a desperate case, manifested evil of a wholly different nature. It was not corruption, but Satan’s power. She was possessed; as we are told here, “from whom seven demons had gone out.” This was her scriptural description, and uniformly so wherever she is brought before us. Never is moral looseness attributed to her.
But besides Mary Magdalene, one of those who ministered to the Lord of their substance was Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward.tid=53#bkm194- Thus God called where one might least expect it: and she who was connected with the Court of the false king rejoiced to be permitted to follow the despised but true King, Jesus of Nazareth.
But others were not wanting – “Susanna and Many others,” but of whom we know nothing, save that which grace gave them, in honouring Jesus to find their everlasting honour. They were attracted by the Lord Jesus, and ministered to Him as they could.
Luke 8: 4-15.tid=53#bkm195-
Mat 13:1-23 ; Mar 4:1-20 .
“And a great crowd coming together, and those who were coming to Him out of each city, he spoke by parable.”tid=53#bkm196- He was not come to be a king, though the King. He was come to sow, not to gather in and reap. This He will do by and by at the end of the He was come to produce what cannot be found in man – to give a new life that should bear fruit for God. “The sower went out to sow his seed.” It is the activity of grace. “And as he sowed, some fell along the way; and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it up. And other fell upon the rock; and having sprung up, it was dried up, because it had not moisture; and other fell in the midst of the thorns; and the thorns having sprung up with [it] choked it: and other fell into* the good ground, and having sprung up, bore fruit a hundredfold. As He said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”tid=53#bkm196a- It is remarkable that we have not here, as in Matthew, “Some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold.” We have only the complete result of grace: the modifying causes are not taken into account. There was good seed sown upon good ground, as He afterwards said, “That in the good ground, these are they who in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” The other cases are cases, not of good seed producing fruit imperfectly borne, but we have the moral hindrances to any fruit at all. Luke brings out the sad and painful fact that it is not Satan’s power only that hinders souls from being saved and receiving the Word of God. The world hinders, flesh too, as well as Satan. Those are the three enemies that are brought before us.
*”Into”: so Edd., following ABL. D Syrsin have “upon.”
The first is the open and evident power of Satan: “As he sowed, some fell along the way.” There was no pretence of receiving it; it was simply dealt with contemptuously – “it. was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it up.”
The next class is, “And other fell upon the rock.” There was an appearance here. It spring up, but it was dried up, “because it had not moisture.” These represent the persons who, “when they hear, receive the Word with joy, but having no root they believe only for a while, and in time of temptation fall away” – a very serious description; because there is apparent reception, but there is no root. They receive the Word with joy – not with repentance, but only joy. Now, there may be joy; but where there is no spiritual action in the conscience there is no root. This is exceedingly serious, especially in Christendom where people are apt to be taught the elements of Christian truth, and where they may be received on the faith of a parent – not of God’s Word, but of a father, or mother, or teacher, brother, sister or anybody, the prevalent religion of the country, the common creed of Christendom. All these things may operate, but it is mere nature. It is the seed sown upon a rock tid=53#bkm197- : there is no real root; for conscience is the real door. Without conscience the Word of God has no abiding effect. The Spirit of God does not make great scholars, but leads poor sinners to believe and be saved. It matters not who the person may be; scholar or not, he must come as a Sinner, and if as a sinner, with repentance towards God. Now, repentance in its own nature gives a chastened feeling, horror of self, judgment of the whole man, certainty that all one’s hope is in God, and the judgment of all that we are. This does not produce joy.tid=53#bkm198- Other things may gladden the heart, spite of and along with it. The mercy of God seen in Christ is most assuring; but “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of.” They are mistaken who suppose that repentance is sorrow; but, nevertheless, such is its effect, where according to God.
That which fell among thorns represents those who, “having heard, go away, and are choked under the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to perfection.” tid=53#bkm199- Luke views the matter in its full result, not in an individual, not the new nature hindered, but the new nature producing its full results. It is the Word not received from one cause or another; and where it is received, it is said to be those who, “in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” Along with the Word of God, there is the operation of the Spirit. It is these that produce this honest and good heart.tid=53#bkm200- Thus the heart is purified by faith, and that, working by the feeling and confession of our sinfulness. Luke, as always, brings out the moral roots, both of that which hinders and also of that which receives the Word. These “having heard the Word,tid=53#bkm201- keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” tid=53#bkm202-
There is another point I would just observe. Matthew speaks of understanding – that is the great point with him who speaks of the Word of the kingdom. Luke speaks of the Word of God (not so much of the Kingdom, though we know it was the kingdom of God). But it is the Word of God – “the seed is the Word of God,” that they who believe (not they who understand) should be saved. Matthew speaks of hearing and understanding, Luke of believing and being saved. This admirably suits the different objects of the Gospels. Matthew shows us already a people of God dealt with, put to the test by the Messiah proclaiming the kingdom of heaven; and those whose hearts were set on worldly objects did not understand the Messiah, nor care for the word of the Kingdom. But Luke shows us the Word of God dispersed; and although within the limits of Israel as a matter of fact for the time being, yet in its own nature going out to every city and village in the world. In principle already they are tending towards it, and about to be sent out actually in God’s due time. Accordingly, it is not merely the Kingdom, but the Word of God. It is for man as such; and hence as the great mass of men outside Israel were wholly ignorant of the Kingdom, it was a question of believing, not of understanding. It is not a word they had already, or knew things either, that they could not understand, but it is a question of believing what God was sending. it was a new testimony to those who had been wholly in the dark, and consequently it was a question to them of believing and being saved. Thus we find, even in the minutest particulars, Luke was inspired to hold to that great design which runs through his Gospel – deep moral principles, and at the same time the going forth of grace towards man from God. It is as it were the Gospel of God in the salvation of men – just what we find in the Epistle to the Romans; and Luke, we must remember, was pre-eminently the companion of the Apostle Paul.
Luk 8:16-18 .
Mar 4:21-25 .
Then there are some further moral principles added. “No one having lighted a lamp, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a couch: but setteth it on a lampstand, that they who enter may see the light.” To receive a new nature by the, operation of the Word of God is not enough. God raises up a testimony for Himself. Where a candle is lit, it is not meant to be covered: it is to shine, to give light, “that they who enter may see the light.” God loves that the light should be apparent. Is it not there to be seen? tid=53#bkm203- “For there is nothing hid which shall not become manifest.” Darkness shrinks from the light, and man is in the dark, and loves darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil. But God’s resolve is that all shall appear. “For there is nothing hid which shall not become manifest; nor secret which shall not be known and come to light.tid=53#bkm204- Take heed therefore” – not only what, but – “how ye hear.” The mingling of truth and error makes it of the greatest importance what we hear; and in Mark this is the warning: “Take heed what ye hear.”tid=53#bkm205- But Luke regards the heart of man; and it is not only of importance what I hear from another, but how. I hear it myself. My own state may expose me either to receive error or to reject truth. It is not always the fault of what I hear, but my own. “Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given.” Having is a proof of valuing. “And whosoever hath not, even that which he seemethtid=53#bkm205a- to have shall be taken from him.” Where any do not really possess, it is not for want of God sending, but because of the unbelief that either has not at all or only seems to have. Nothing but faith possesses: and if I possess a little really, God will vouchsafe me more. “He giveth more grace.” Jas 4:6 .
Luke 8: 19-21.tid=53#bkm206-
Mat 12:46-50 ; Mar 3:31-35 .
Jesus was going everywhere preaching and evangelising, followed by the twelve, and not without the worship of grateful hearts in the women who ministered of their substance. He came not a King as yet, but a Sower, and instead of governing in righteous power, was but creating a light of gracious testimony. He next disowns any association with Himself after the flesh, were it even His mother and His brethren. Whatever love to all, and even subjection to His mother, He owed, He most surely paid in full; but now it was a question of the Word of God, and nothing else would suffice. Thus even before His death and resurrection there was a complete moral break. Flesh does not understand the things of the Spirit. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (Joh 3:6 .)tid=53#bkm207- “It was told him [saying], Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, wishing to see thee. But he answering said to them, My mother and my brethren are those who hear the Word of God, and do [it].”*tid=53#bkm208- Natural links were proving themselves to be nothing now: all must be of God and grace; and this exactly falls in with the tone of our Evangelist.
*[“It”]: EX, etc., 69, Memph., express this; but Edd. omit, after ABDL.
Luk 8:22-25 .
Mat 8:18 , Mat 8:23-27 ; Mar 4:35-41 .
Then we find the circumstances of those to whom the Word of God and the testimony of Christ was committed. Jesus goes into a ship with His disciples, and tells them to go over unto the other side of the lake. “And as they sailed he fell asleep; and a sudden squall of wind came down on the lake; and they were being filled [with water].” Humanly speaking, they “were in jeopardy.” This was ordered of the Lord, and the enemy was allowed to put forth all his resources; but it was impossible that man should overthrow God, impossible that the Christ of God should perish. All the blessedness of the servants, if wise, would be seen to be concentrated in the Master, and all their security derived from Him. There was therefore no ground to faith why they should be alarmed. He fell asleep; He allowed things to take their course: but whatever might happen, the ship in which Jesus was could not be unsafe for those with Him. Jesus might be tempted of the devil, and might encounter all storms; but He came to destroy the works of the devil and to deliver; not to perish. It is true that, when the time came, He went down Himself into depths of sorrow, suffering, and Divine judgment – far, far greater than anything that the winds or waves could do; but He went down to the death of the Cross, bearing the burden of our sins before God, and enduring all God felt against them, in order that, rising again, He might righteously deliver us to God’s glory. The disciples, knowing nothing as they ought, through unbelieving anxiety for themselves (for this it is that blinds the eyes of God’s people), come to Him and awake Him with the cry, “Master, master, we perish!” They told the secret. Had their eyes been upon the Master, according to what He was before God, impossible they could have spoken of perishing. Could He perish? No doubt, separated from their Master, they might, nay, must perish; but to say “Master, master” to Jesus, and “we perish” was nothing but unbelief. At the same time they showed, as unbelief always does, their intense selfishness. Their care was for themselves, not for Him. “Then he, rising up,* rebuked the wind and the raging of the water,tid=53#bkm209- and they ceased, and there was a calm.” Any other would have first rebuked them. He rebuked the raging of the wind and water; and when there was a calm He asked them, “Where is your faith?” And, being afraid, they were astonished, saying to one another, “Who, then, is this! that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” It is evident that all depended upon the Master. The disciples were to be sent forth on a most perilous mission; but the strength was in Him, not in them; and they from the very beginning had to learn that even Jesus inquired, “Where is your faith?”
*”Rising up”: so AD and later uncials with cursives, and Syrsin; but Edd. adopt “awaking,” after BL, 33.
Luk 8:26-39 .
Mat 8:28-34 ; Mark 1-20.
Then we find another scene: not the enemy’s power shown in stirring up what we may call nature against Christ and His disciples, but the direct presence of demons filling a man. We have this desperate case set forth in one who had been thus possessed for a long time.* He had broken with all social order; he “put on no clothes, and did not abide in a house, but in the tombs.” A more dreadful picture of human degradation through the possession of demons could not be. “But seeing Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech thee, torment me not.” tid=53#bkm210- The demons had the consciousness of the presence of their Conqueror, the Conqueror of Satan. They dreaded to be bruised under His feet; for Christ had commanded the unclean spirit to go out from the man and then we have a further description of this power of Satan: “For very often it had seized him; and he had been bound, kept with chains and fetters; ‘ and breaking the bonds, he was driven by the demon into the deserts.” Jesus was led of the Spirit there, but the devil led this man in misery; whereas Christ went in Divine grace, and in order righteously to break the power of Satan.
*”Had demons a long time”: so A, later uncials and most cursives, Syrr, etc.; but Tisch. and W. H. (Revv.) adopt the order of BL, 33, etc., Memph. “For a long time he put on, etc.”
“He cried out”: so Edd., with BDL, etc., 33. – AE, etc., 1, 69, have “and crying out.”
That the awfulness of the case might be more fully brought out, Jesus asks him, “What is thy name? And he said, Legion: for many demons had entered into him. And they besought* him that he would not command them to go away into the bottomless pit.”tid=53#bkm211- They dreaded their hour. There was the instinctive sense in these demons that Jesus would commit them to the abyss. “And there was there a herd of many tid=53#bkm212- swine feeding on the mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into those; and he suffered them. And the demons, going out from the man, entered into the swine; and the herd rushed down the precipice into the lake, and were choked.” This at once roused those who had the charge of them. “But they that fed [them], seeing what had happened, fled, and told [it] to the city and to the country.” They come out, and find the man from whom the demons had gone out, “sitting, clothed and sensible, at the feet of Jesus.”tid=53#bkm213- “They were afraid.” Now the state of the people discloses itself. Had there been one particle of right feeling, they would have given thanks to God; they would have been in the presence of One Who, though to be bruised by him, was to break Satan’s power for ever. But though they saw “the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting, clothed and sensible, at the feet of Jesus, they were afraid,” though they knew how the demoniac had been healed; still, their own hearts were not won, but the very reverse appeared. “All the multitude of the surrounding country of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them.” Ah, foolish Gadarenes! who bewitched you? They all had, alas! a common interest; but the common interest of men was to get rid of Jesus. That was their one desire. After the certainty of His gracious power, after the plain overthrow of Satan’s energy before their eyes, after the deliverance of their fellow, restored now, and sitting, clothed and sensible, all their thought was to beseech Jesus to depart from them, “for they were possessed with great fear.” What a proof of the delusion of men! Whatever might be their terrors in presence of the man possessed with a legion of demons, they had greater fear of Jesus, and their hope and object was to get rid of Him as fast as possible. He brought in all that was holy, true, loving. He fed, He healed, He delivered; but man had no heart for God, and consequently sought only how to get rid of Him Who brought in the power of God. Any other person was more welcome. What is man! Such is the world.
*”They besought ()”: so Edd., after BCD, etc., 1, 33, 69, Memph. Arm. – A, etc., have (Stephens and Beza), as if “he besought,” which is treated as a correction from Mar 5:10 . The classical conjunction of neut. plur. with sing. verb, the Hellenistic Greek of the N.T. does not always follow.
Before “told” some minuscules have “departing,” which Edd. reject after ABCDL, 1, 33, 69, Syrr, etc. (from Matthew).
“Gadarenes” (Cf. Luk 5:26 ): so Blass, after corr, AD, etc., Syrr cu sin. – “Gergesenes” is the reading (followed by Tisch.) of pm, Ccorr, L, etc., 1, 33, Memph.; “Gerasenes” (W. H., Weiss) of BCpm, D, Old Lat.
Not so with him that was healed. He besought Jesus that he might be with Him, and thus stood in moral contrast with the whole multitude which besought Him to depart from them. He had been in far more awful circumstances than they. But such is the power of God’s grace. It creates and forms what we should be. If any one, according to natural antecedents, might have been expected to keep far away from Jesus, it was this demoniac, so completely had he been led captive of Satan at his will. But he was delivered, and so perfectly from the first hour, that his one desire was to be with Jesus. This was the first-fruit of the Spirit’s action in a man whom grace had delivered – the untutored instinct of the new man to enjoy the presence of Jesus. The simplest soul that is born of God has this wish.
“But he sent him away, saying, Return to thine house, and relate how great things God hath done for thee.” He will have his desire later; meanwhile “Return to thine house.” This is of price with the Lord, to show God’s wonderful works, not merely to strangers, but to one’s own house. Such as they would know best the shame, and sorrow, and degradation to which he had been reduced. Therefore Jesus says, “Return to thine house, and show how great things God hath done for thee.” The man in faith bows and understands; whatever might be his heart’s desire, he is now to do the good, holy, and acceptable will of the Lord. “He went away through the whole city,tid=53#bkm214- publishing how great things Jesus had done for him.” Mark, it is of Jesus he speaks. Jesus would have him to tell what God had done; and God would have him to tell what Jesus had done. This could not have been had Jesus not been the Son of God Himself. Though the lowliest servant of God, He was none the less also God. The man was right. He was not contravening the will of God, nor breaking the command of Jesus. Its spirit was the more kept, even if in the letter it might sound somewhat differently. God is honoured best when Jesus is most shown forth.
Luk 8:40-56 .
Mat 9:18-26 ; Mar 5:21-43 .
Two other scenes (interwoven, it is true) close the chapter. The Lord is appealed to by Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. “He, falling at the feet of Jesus, besought him to come to his house.” This was the way in which a Jew expected to be healed – by the coming of Messiah to his place. “Because he had an only daughter about twelve years old, and she was dying.” tid=53#bkm215- Such was the condition of the daughter of Zion now. Israel was proving that there was no life in them; but Christ is entreated, and He goes for the purpose of healing Israel.
While He is on the way, a woman crosses His path, having a most urgent need – “a flux of bloodtid=53#bkm216- twelve years, who having spent all her living* on physicians, could not be cured by anyone. It was therefore a hopeless case, humanly speaking. Nevertheless she comes behind Him in the desperate sense that now was her opportunity, and “touched the hem tid=53#bkm217- of His garment. And immediately her flux of blood stopped.” The Lord was, of course, conscious of that which was done. If faith feels the grace and power of Jesus in any measure, and applies ever so feebly, hesitatingly, and tearfully, Jesus knows it well, and yearns over that soul. His heart was towards her, and He would have her know it. She touched Him from behind. Jesus would bring her into His presence, face to face, and would have her to know that His hearty consent went with the blessing which she had seemed to steal but really acquired by the touch of faith. Hence He says, “Who has touched me?” It was in vain that Peter or the others sought to explain it away, when all denied. It was in vain to say that the multitude thronged, and therefore why ask who touched Him. The Lord stood to it: somebody had touched Him. It was not a crowd’s pressure: it was not an accident. It was distinctly one who had touched Him. There was the real recourse of faith, however weak. “Jesus said, Someone hath touched me, for I have known that power hath gone out from me.” The multitude thronging could extract no virtue: not thus did Jesus heal. No such external pressure is of avail to bring blessing out of Him. But the soul that finds itself near to Jesus, and touches, however timorously, never fails to gather blessing from Him. “And the woman, seeing that she was not hid [this was not the state in which the Lord would leave her, nor any who are blessed], came trembling, and, falling down before him, declared [unto him] before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was immediately healed.” The glory of God was thus secured, and a bright testimony to Him was rendered; but her heart needed also to be thoroughly restored. She must learn what love God has, and how completely Jesus would give her communion with Himself in the blessing conferred. Thus is the Giver known, and the gift enhanced infinitely. It was not something stolen, but freely imparted. Therefore says He, “Be of good courage, daughter.” He uses the term of affection expressly to banish all terror and uneasiness. “Be of good courage, daughter; thy faith hath healed thee; go in peace. “What a joy it would be to her ever afterwards to know that she had not only got the mercy her body needed from God, but that the Saviour, the Lord God who healed her diseases, the ever blessed Physician, had spoken to her, given her His own warrant, comforted her when her heart was utterly afraid, used terms even of such endearment towards her, owned her faith, feeble as it was, and finally sent her away with a message of peace.
*”Having spent all her living on physicians”: so Tisch., from ACDL and later uncials, cursives. – W. H., Weiss and Blass omit, after BD, Syrsin, Arm. (reminiscence of Mar 5:25 ).
“And sayest thou, Who has touched me?”: so ACD and later uncials, cursives, Old Lat. and Syrr. Edd. omit, after BL, Sahid. Memph. Arm. (from Mark).
After “declared.” Cpm, E, and some later uncials have “to him,” which Edd. omit, after ABCcorr, DL, 1, 33, 69, Syrrpesch cu sin, Old Lat. Memph.
[“Be of good courage”]: so AC, etc., most cursives (33, 69), Syrrpesch hcl, Goth. Aeth. Arm. Edd. omit, after BDL, 1, Syrrcu sin, most Old Lat. Sah. Memph. (from Matthew).
“While he was yet speaking, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher. But Jesus hearing it, answered him, saying,* Fear not: only believe, and she shall be made well.”
*”Saying”: so ACD, etc., Syrsin, Memph. Goth. Arm. – Edd. omit, after BL, etc., 1, 33, Syrcu.
Such turns out to be the real condition of Israel, not sick only, but dead. But Jesus carried within Himself the secret of resurrection. He is equal to all emergencies, and knew infinitely better than they both the maiden’s need and His own mighty power. He did not come down to do what others might have done. An angel may trouble the pool of Bethesda for a man not too infirm to step in immediately. The Son quickens whom He will. And the Jews, long rebellious in unbelief, long seeking to destroy His name Who by such a claim makes Himself equal with God, will yet own the despised Messiah as their Lord and their God, and the dry bones shall live; and all Israel, at length saved, shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit! Isa 27:6 . Of this the sick and now dead maiden is the pledge; and He, Who then bids her father fear not but believe, will redeem the pledge He gave of old.
“And when he came to the house, he suffered no one to go in,* but Peter, and John, and James, tid=53#bkm218- and the father of the child and the mother. And all were weeping and lamenting her. But he said, Do not weep; for she hath not died, but sleepeth.tid=53#bkm219- And they derided him, knowing that she had died. But he, having turned them all out, and taking hold of her hand, cried, saying, Child, arise. And her spirit returned, and immediately she rose up; and he commanded [something] to eat to be given to her. And her parents were amazed, but he enjoined them to tell no one what had happened.” The spirit of scorn then and there was but a little sample of what is to be; but such can have no portion in the blessing permanently. For while many of Israel that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, with some it will be to shame and everlasting contempt, as surely as with others to everlasting life. Dan 12:2 . For they are not all Israel that are of Israel. But the word of gracious power shall go forth from Him in Whose eyes the virgin daughter of Zion was not dead, but sleeping; and she shall arise. And He Who at length wakes her up from her death sleep, shall care for her and strengthen her for the great work to which Zion will then be called. It was, however, but a passing act of power then; the time was not yet come for more; and Jesus charged them to tell none what was done. If He were not received Himself, if His word were refused, it was vain to publish His power; unbelief would only turn it to worse evil.
*”Came to”: so most texts (Edd.); D has “entered into.” – After “to go in,” Edd. add “with him,” as in BCpmD, etc., 33, 69, Memph. Aeth. which ACcorrR, Syrcu, Goth. Arm. omit.
“John and James”: so Edd., after BCDER, etc., 1, 69, Old Lat. – AL, etc., 33, Amiat., Syrrpesch cur sin, Memph. have “James and John.”
“For”: so Edd., following BCDFL, etc., 1, 33,69, Syrr. Memph. – AER, etc., and Amiat. omit.
“Having turned them all out, and”: so A and most later uncials, etc., 33, 69, Syrrpesch hcl. – Edd. omit, following ABDLX, and cursives, with Syrrcu sin, most Old Lat. Aeth. (regarded as from Mark).
NOTES ON THE EIGHTH CHAPTER.
192 Luk 8:1 . – “Throughout every city . . . village.” Christ left, accordingly, His abode at Capernaum (Mat 11:1 ) and began an itinerant ministry. “The good news was not to be confined to places where there were synagogues” (Stuart, p. 92).
To “preach” (, to herald) “implies solemnity of announcement” (Darby-Smith). Cf. Luk 9:2 and Act 28:31 . When Luke speaks of the simple Gospel of Grace, he specially uses : Luk 4:18 , Luk 7:22 , Luk 9:6 , Luk 20:1 . For “glad tidings of the kingdom of God,” cf. Mat 4:23 , etc.
In considering the relation of the “Kingdom” to the “Gospel,” it is needful to grasp the bearing of a passage like Luk 12:50 upon such as Luk 24:27 . As “Minister of the Circumcision” (Rom 15:8 ), our Lord limited Himself to the Jewish people. Even in the Fourth Gospel we find Him saying that ”salvation is of the Jews” (Joh 4:22 ). Cf. the Expositor’s remark on verse 11 here. The Apostle Paul began his ministry with “the Gospel of the Grace of God” (Act 20:24 ) in its world-wide significance and scope; and it is in the form which that Gospel took in his hands that Christians of the “uncircumcision” have to set it forth. But “the Gospel of Christ,” of which he says he was not ashamed (Rom 1:16 ), for him retained the double aspect of grace and works (Luk 3:8 ), and was not divested of the second characteristic when it acquired its wider scope. It is lamentable how no less a writer than Calvin found in “Kingdom” only a synonym for “Gospel renewing men into God’s image” (“Works,” p. 185, quoted by W. Kelly in his “Exposition of Acts,” vol. ii., p. 198).
On the relation of the KINGDOM to the CHURCH, as to which Professor Wellhausen and Bishop Gore really occupy the same unsatisfactory position, cf. note 21 on Mark. See, further, note on 18: 16 f.
193 Luk 8:2 . – “Mary Magdalene.” Origen distinguished her from the woman of chapter 7. See notes above on Luk 7:37 . Wesley’s comment shows that he followed Gregory “the Great.”
“Out of whom went,” etc. Bruce: “In the Gospels demoniacal posession is something quite distinct from immorality.” “Seven demons” may be a formula. It often occurs in the Babylonian magical texts, some of which are exhibited in the British Museum. Cf. the “seven spirits” of Luk 11:26 , and also the same expression in Rev 1:4 . Dr. Whyte has taken “Mary Magdalene” as subject of his discourse LXXXI. in “Bible Characters.”
194 Luk 8:3 . – This explains Mat 14:2 , where Herod is said to hear of Jesus.
“Ministered to Him their substance.” The innkeeper Gaius in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” says: “I read not that ever any man did give unto Christ so much as one groat; but the woman followed Him and ministered,” etc. For “Joanna,” again see Luk 24:10 . “Chuza”: American Revv., “Chuzas.”
195 Luk 8:4 ff. – Here Luke resumes the same thread as that of Mark’s narrative, dropped at 6: 19. Farrar treats the present passage as an illustration of the Synoptists’ non-use of each other’s narrative or of a common source.
See Spurgeon’s Sermons, 308, 1132, 1457, 2040; Maclaren, vol. i., pp. 230-241; also Irving’s six lectures on the passage (Sermons, ii., p. 243 ff.). Augustus Hare has preached from verse 11 (Sermons, vol. ii., p. 17).
196 PARABLES. – A “parable” (comparison) serves the purpose of religious, as a fable that of moral, instruction. It may be very terse, as in Luk 6:39 above. As to the design of our Lord’s parables, see Bruce, p. 16, comparing A. P,. Habershon, p. 3 ff.
On the interpretation, see Trench, chapter iii., also A. R. Habershon, p. 13 f. Jlicher questions the need of interpretation, regarding the Gospel parables as in general self-explanatory, and conceiving that every difficulty would disappear if the original connection were known. The Lord, he alleges, did not, as a rule, explain them. But see Mar 4:34 . The Marburg professor holds that it was the Evangelists who imported allegorical features into them. Trench’s work, of course, is not to his taste (p. 300). Stevens (p. 43) is influenced by Jlicher’s theory. Saneness of view is, happily, not in such a bad way in this country.
On the connection between the parables and the miracles (note 107 above) see A. R. Habershon, chapter xiv. The parables peculiar to Matthew are characteristically dogmatic and judicial; those solely special to LUKE, ethical and merciful.
Several writers offer a classification: Westcott’s would be found in his “Introduction to the Study of the Gospels” (p. 393 f.), a work accessible to most readers.
Godet: () Parables referring to the Kingdom of Heaven (God) under the old dispensation, as that of the Fig Tree (Luk 13:6-9 ); () to the new dispensation, as that of the Sower, here; () the Kingdom as realized in individual life, e.g., that of the Good Samaritan (Luk 10:29-35 ).
Bruce: () Parables of the Kingdom, e.g., the seven in Mat 13 , and in Luk 19:12-27 ; () of the Gospel (goodness), as the three in Luk 15 ; () those which are judicial and prophetic (righteousness), as the Barren Fig Tree of chapter 13.
Jlicher: () Strict, simple similitudes or comparisons, as in Luk 14:28-33 , the man intending to build a tower, and the king going to make war against another; () amplified comparisons (parables proper), as the visit, to a friend at midnight, Luk 11:5-8 ; () exemplary narratives, as that of the Good Samaritan, Luk 10:30 ff.
The number of parables is put by Trench as thirty; Bruce finds thirty-three; others, many more.
There is a suggestive paper on the Lucan parables by Swete in Expositor, Aug, 1903. These come under the following heads:-
(i.) Salvation: The Two Debtors (Luk 7:41 ff.); the Great Supper (14: 22 ff.) the Lost Coin (Luk 15:8 ff.); and the Lost Son (Luk 15:11 ff.). (ii.) Prayer: the Midnight Visitor (Luk 15:5 ff.); the Importunate Widow (Luk 18:1 ff.); and the Pharisee and Publican (Luk 18:9-14 ). (iii.) Service: the Barren Fig Tree (Luk 13:6 ff.); the Ploughing Slave (Luk 17:7 ff.); and the Pounds (Luk 19:12 ff.). (iv.) Social Relations; the Good Samaritan (Luk 10:30 ff.); the Rich Fool (Luk 12:16 ff.); the Dishonest Steward (Luk 16:1 ff.); and the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luk 16:19 ff.). All but one, it will be seen, belong to the section Luk 9:51-18:14 .
There are no parables in the apocryphal gospels, one sign of their inferiority, as the multiplication of their alleged miracles is another.
196a Luk 8:10 . – “The mysteries of the Kingdom.” Cf. Mat 13:11 ; and p. 284 of the Expositor’s “Lectures” on Matthew. Cf. also note on Luk 19:12 , Luk 19:15 .
196b “The seed is the Word.” Cf. Jas 1:18 ; 1Pe 1:23 .
197 Luk 8:13 – “Rock,” the “stony heart of flesh” in 11: 19, Eze 36:26 .
198 “With joy.” So Bunyan’s “Man in the Iron Cage,” See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 1132.
199 Luk 8:14 . – “Life,” . B. Weiss (“Manual Comm.”) aptly refers to Mar 12:44 , comparing 1Jn 2:16 . Bunyan selects Demas (2Ti 4:10 ), as a Biblical illustration of the Lord’s words here. See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 2040.
200 Luk 8:15 . – “Honest and good,” the Greek ideal, . The word is like the Heb. tou (Wellhausen, Prolegomena to “History of Israel,” p. 345), “good” as doing good; cf. Mat 7:17 , Mat 20:15 , Mat 25:21 ff. , “excellent,” finds illustration in Mary of Bethany, as in Joseph of Arimathaea (Bruce ad loc.).
Upon the understanding of this parable hangs that of all others. See Mar 4:13 .
201 “Keep.” Matthew has “understand”; Mark, “receive.”
202 “Patience” or “endurance.” Cf. Rom 2:7 , and for the whole verse, Joh 15:2 .
203 – Luk 8:16 . – See again at Luk 11:33 .
204 Luk 8:17 . – Cf. Mat 10:26 .
205 – Luk 8:18 . – “How ye hear.” Preaching upon 1Co 8:1 ff., F. W. Robertson has shown how much of what passes under the name of “definite religious construction” the Apostle Paul would have rated as secular knowledge. By, “knowledge,” he says, “the Apostle meant not merely knowledge without Christian doctrine, but knowledge without Love” (p. 146). So must it be where the Spirit of God is not enlisted in the work. No Parliamentary legislation can really secure us against such a state of things. Even the teacher’s believing in what he teaches does not suffice. Much of the current unbelief has either been generated or accentuated by “a form of godliness without the power.” “Many a person now zealous on this point of ‘education’ would be content if only the Bible, without note or comment, were taught. But St. Paul would not have been content; he would have calmly looked on and said, ‘This also is secular knowledge. This, too, is the knowledge which puffeth up.’ It is the spirit in which it is acquired which makes the difference between secular and Christian knowledge. It is not so much the thing known, as the way of knowing it” (p. 147). How eminently true this is of the facts of our Lord’s life. Cf. note 46 on Mark.
205a – Luk 8:18 . – “Seemeth.” For R.V., “thinketh” (), cf. 1Co 10:12 .
206 Luk 8:19 ff. – In Matthew and Mark this incident precedes the Parable of the Sower, already passed in Luke.
Comparing the passage in Mark just named with this, Carpenter comments on the earlier statement, as he interprets it, that Mary joined the Lord’s “brethren” in an endeavour to put Him under restraint as being out of His wits, upon which Matthew and Luke alike are silent: he calls the conjunction of knowledge of the supernatural birth on her part with this attitude as “incredible.” Some proof must first be offered that she was other than a passive instrument of the others whose ebullition is described. Cf. notes on Luk 1:34 and Luk 4:22
207 The names of our Lord’s brethren are given in Mat 13:55 and Mar 6:3 ; that of “James” first in each, to whom the Lord appeared after His resurrection (1Co 15:7 ): he was accounted a “pillar” of the Church at Jerusalem (Gal 2:9 ; cf. Luk 1:19 ); and is prominent in Act 15:13 ff. The first description of him as “bishop” of that Church is in the “Clementine Recognitions,” a theological romance of the second century.
“Jude” may have been the writer of the Epistle under that name.
Here arises the question, which has never ceased to be discussed, as to the parentage of these “brethren” of JESUS. There are three theories:-
(1) The Epiphanian – that they were sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage. So Origen, the late Bishops Westcott and Lightfoot and Dr. Salmon. It is the traditional, so-called “Catholic” view, by which the perpetual Virginity is maintained (as to which myth, see Sir E. Anderson, “The Bible or the Church,” p. 256).
(2) The Hieronymian – after Jerome – that they were cousins of the Lord, as sons of Mary’s sister. Few now support this view.
(3) The Helvidian – that they were our Lord’s “uterine” brethren, that is, were children of Mary and Joseph. So Meyer, Alford, Godet, Weiss, Farrar, Andrews, Mayor (Introduction to his edition of the Epistle of James, and Papers in Expositor for July, August, 1908), W. Kelly, etc.
The first view, ably as it was championed by Bishop Lightfoot, is excluded by the fact that then one of Joseph’s natural sons must have been his eldest son, and so by law his heir (Edersheim, “Life of Jesus, etc.,” vol. i. p. 364). In his Homily quoted by Lightfoot, Origen says that Scripture nowhere speaks of Mary having other children; but he must have forgotten the Messianic Psa 69:8 .
Those who follow Jerome think that “Judas of James” in Luk 6:16 means “J. brother of J.,” but Bishop Lightfoot was clear that it means “son.”
208 Luk 8:24 . – Cf. Jas 1:25 , and verse 18 above.
209 Luk 8:25 . – According to Matthew’s account, the Lord administered the rebuke before he stilled the storm.
210 Luk 8:28 . – “What have I to do with thee?” Cf. 2Ch 35:21 in the LXX. version, idduced by Maldonatus. Here follow the words: “I do not come to make war on thee.” And so here, “Why shouldest Thou vex me?” (Carr).
“Son of God.” (Cf. Mat 8:29 ; Mar 5:7 .) See Stalker, p. 98 f., who effectively disposes of German denial of anything higher than the established theocratic sense of the title.
“Had commanded”; or (as American Revv.) “was commanding” ().
211 Luk 8:31 . – See Trench, who shows consistency of this with Mark’s statement.
“The abyss see Rev 20:1-3 .
212 Luk 8:32 f. – “Many.” Mark says “two thousand.”
“Choked “: American Revv. “drowned.”
213 Luk 8:35 . – “At the feet of Jesus,” not so much as a scholar (Weiss, after Meyer), as in token of the Lord’s delivering power (Colin Campbell, p. 171, referring to verse 8).
214 Luk 8:39 . – Mark says “in Decapolis.” Cf. the Lord’s way of commissioning the leper, Mar 1:41 ; the young ruler, Mar 10:21 ; and the man in 9: 19. See also note 52 on Mark. There is a sermon of J. H. Newman on this incident, reproduced in Allenson’s reprint (No. IV.).
215 Luk 8:42 . – (Cf. verse 49). See note 53 on Mark.
216 Luk 8:43 . – Cf. Lev 15:19 . Some MSS. of the “Gospel of Nicodemus” give her name as “Bernice” in Greek, the “Veronica” of Latin.
217 Luk 8:44 . – “Tassel,” the fringe (zizith) of Num 15:38 , Num 22:12 ; Deu 22:12 ; See Schor, p. 85. Norris: “Faith, though disfigured by superstition, may still be blessed.” As to this incident, see Whyte, “Bible Characters,” No. LXXX.
218 Luk 8:51 . – “Peter, John and James.” The order is peculiar to Luke here, and at Luk 9:28 ; Act 1:13 . These three were thrice singled out on special occasions (here; Transfiguration; Gethsemane).
219 Luk 8:52 . – Norris aptly compares Luk 20:38 .
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 8:1-3
1Soon afterwards, He began going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, 2and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.
Luk 8:1
NASB”from one city and village to another”
NKJV”every city and village”
NRSV”cities and villages”
TEV, NJB”towns and villages”
Jesus was trying to reach everyone with the Good News. This extensive tour of Galilee was precipitated by the leaders’ rejection of Him in Judea.
“proclaiming and preaching” These two Greek terms (kruss and euangeliz) are synonymous. They (usually, but not always, cf. Luk 1:19) both reflect the public announcement of the gospel. Both of these are present participles.
“the kingdom of God” This refers to the reign of God in human hearts now that will one day be consummated in God’s reign over all the earth. This is the focal message of Jesus’ ministry (cf. Mat 6:10). See Special Topic at Luk 4:21.
“The twelve” See Special Topic at Luk 6:13.
Luk 8:2 “some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses” This is a periphrastic perfect passive. Jesus had healed or exorcized this group of women. These women apparently followed and contributed to the needs of Jesus and the Apostolic group (money for sure and probably cooking, washing clothes, etc.). They traveled with Jesus and the Twelve. See Special Topic: The Demonic at Luk 4:33
“Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out” This phrase indicates that this personis being introduced for the first time. Therefore, she is not the woman who anointed Jesus at Simon’s house.
This phrase says several things about her.
1. her given name Mary
2. where she was born/grew up Magdala (cf. Mat 15:39)
3. her condition from which Jesus freed her demon possession (the seven denotes a full and complete possession)
Luk 8:3 “Joanna” She is mentioned only here and in Luk 24:10. She was married to a servant of Herod Antipas (see Special Topic at Luk 3:1), which means she was a woman of means. How much or how often she traveled with Jesus and the Apostolic group is uncertain. She traveled through Galilee in Luke 8 and was present in Jerusalem during the Passion Week. She may have seen the crucifixion and helped prepare the spices for burial (cf. Luk 23:55-56). She then returned to the tomb (cf. Luk 24:10).
“Susanna” There is no other mention of this woman in the NT.
SPECIAL TOPIC: THE WOMEN WHO FOLLOWED JESUS
NASB”to their support”
NKJV”who provided for Him”
NRSV, NJB”who provided for them”
TEV”to help Jesus and his disciples”
The Greek manuscript evidence is divided between the singular (cf. MSS , A, L, and Mat 27:55; Mar 15:41) and the plural(cf. MSS B, D, and W). It is hard to decide which is original (UBS4 gives the plural a “B” rating, meaning “almost certain”), but as with most variants, it really does not make much difference. Several women followed Jesus and the Apostles and helped them.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
it came to pass. Note the Hebraism, here and in chs. Luk 5:1; Luk 6:1, &c. Verses 1-3 are peculiar to Luke.
afterward. No longer confining Himself to Capernaum.
went throughout = journeyed through.
every city and village = by city and village.
preaching = proclaiming. See App-121.
shewing the glad tidings. Greek. euangeliso = announcing, &c. App-121.
the kingdom of God. App-114.
were. Substitute went.
with = together with. Greek. sun. App-104. Not the same word as in verses: Luk 8:13, Luk 8:14, Luk 8:15, Luk 13:45.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1-3.] JESUS MAKES A CIRCUIT TEACHING AND HEALING, WITH HIS TWELVE DISCIPLES, AND MINISTERING WOMEN. Peculiar to Luke. A general notice of our Lords travelling and teaching in Galilee, and of the women, introduced again in ch. Luk 23:55; Luk 24:10, who ministered to Him.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Chapter 8
And it came to pass afterward, as he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and twelve were with him, and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene ( Luk 8:1-2 ),
She was from Magdala, and because there were many Mary’s, she was identified as Mary of Magdala, or Mary Magdalen. Jesus was called Jesus of Nazareth because there were many people by that name also. And so to identify who He was, they referred to Him as Jesus of Nazareth. Common Jewish name, Joshua in Hebrew, and it was a common name for the little boys. And so to identify Him, it was Jesus of Nazareth. Here it is Mary of Magdala, and so they called her Magdalene because that was the city from which she came.
And Jesus had cast seven devils out of her, and Joanna who was the wife of Chuza who was Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance ( Luk 8:2-3 ).
In other words, these women that were following with the company of disciples were taking care of their needs with their substance. They were the ones that were providing the food and taking care of those needs.
I am certain that in heaven these woman who sacrificed to minister to the physical needs of Jesus during His lifetime have a very special place up there. And I imagine that they are very special women. We don’t really hear much about them, not much is said concerning them. But they, no doubt, are very special women, and have a very prominent place there in the kingdom of heaven. And it will be interesting to meet them, and to get their side of the story. Because if they are anything like my wife, they can tell you so many more details of the color of their hair and eyes, and what they wore, than I can ever remember. And so the fact that we have men gospel writers, we’ve lost a lot of details that these women will, no doubt, be able to fill in for us, and it will be interesting talking to them indeed.
Now Jesus went about every city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.
Paul the apostle, as he was talking to the elders of Ephesus there on the beach of Miletus, and knowing that this is the last time that he will probably see them, he said, “You know how that I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but I have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house.” He is talking about his ministry there in Ephesus, and he said, “In my ministry to you, I showed you and I taught you.”
There is much that we can learn from a lecture. But there is much that cannot be learned from a lecture, but must be learned by observation. As a person’s life demonstrates what he preaches. Many times what a person preaches is totally negated because the life that he lives is not in harmony with the message that he preaches. Jesus both preached and showed. He demonstrated the message of the kingdom that He was preaching to these people. The message of the kingdom of God was the central message that Jesus had to declare to man.
Many people are confused about the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. And there are some people who have tried to make it difference, and make spiritual kind of meanings and mysteries, and, “Has God revealed to you,” brother bit. “The kingdom of heaven verses the kingdom of God.” But the terms are used synonymously. Matthew usually refers to the kingdom of heaven. And the other gospel writers to the kingdom of God. But you can cross reference the scriptures and find that they are used synonymously. The kingdom of heaven usually refers to the kingdom of God when it has come to the earth. But it is all under the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is that kingdom where God is King. So when Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is among you,” He was showing to them the kingdom.
He lived a life in complete submission to the Father. He showed them what it was like to live a life in submission to the Father. He said, “I do always those things that please the Father.” And He showed them what kind of a life it was when you lived in complete submission to the Father as King. And when you live in submission to God as the King of your life, you are living in the kingdom of God. It’s just that simple. And there is no sense in trying to make some deep spiritual mystery out of it. It’s an extremely simple thing. So simple that a child can understand it. And so simple that unless you become as a child, you can’t enter it. You’ve got to get rid of all this hocus, pocus, mysteries, spiritualizing of stuff, because Jesus said it isn’t that. It isn’t some kind of difficult mystery, only revealed to some initiates. It is something that a child can perceive and understand. And you’ve got to come as a little child to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Just as a little child says, “I love God, and I want to serve God.” Bowing before God, acknowledging God as the King of your life, you’ve become a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. That’s all it takes. Obedience to God, submission to God, and you’re a part of the kingdom of God.
Jesus preached to the people of the kingdom of God. It was something that was central in their minds. They were anticipating God’s establishing the kingdom of heaven on earth at that time. Especially the disciples–they felt that when the Messiah came, He was going to immediately establish the kingdom of God upon the earth. But that was not God’s plan. But you remember that this was so important to them, that even when Jesus is saying to them, “Now I am going to go away, but I am going to pray the Father, and He is going to send you another Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, that He may abide with you forever ( Joh 14:16 ). Now wait in Jerusalem until you receive this promise from the Father, which you’ve heard of Me. For John baptized you with water, but I am going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit in a few days.” And they said, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom? Is this when you’ll set up the kingdom of God?” Jesus said, “Look, it is not given to you to know the times and the seasons that are appointed unto the Father, but you’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”
They were anxious for the kingdom of God, and rightly so. Because they were living in miserable conditions as far as the world itself was concerned. We should also be anxious for the kingdom of God. And I tell you, there are times when I groan and cry for the kingdom of God. When I read the statistics of Orange County, the abused children for the month of September, and I read of all of these things that are happening to these little children, I tell you, my heart, it yearns for the kingdom of God. It cries for the kingdom of God to be established. How long, God, how long are You going to allow men to go on in his rebellion against Your kingdom? How long, God, will You forebear? And it is my prayer that the Lord come quickly and establish His kingdom. For I don’t think that mankind can go on much longer. I don’t think mankind will survive much longer. I think that it is imperative that God establish His kingdom soon. And as I look at the world today, my heart yearns for the kingdom of God. As I look at my little grandchildren, and I think of the world that they are growing up in, I tell you, my heart cries out to God. I don’t know what I would do, should some sex pervert touch one of my grandchildren. You probably would have to bail me out. I cry, “Oh God, come quickly. Things can’t go on much longer.”
But Jesus was preaching the good tidings, the glad tidings of the kingdom. And it is glad tidings. A glorious day is coming. A day when men will live with peace with one another. A day when God will reign. A day when we will see the earth as God created it and intended it to be for all times. Where the deserts are blossoming like a rose. And there are streams in the deserts. And rivers in dry places. The parched ground has become a pool. And the blind will see, the lame will walk, and leap as the deer and all. These were the things that Jesus was showing as He was healing the sick. As He was feeding the multitudes. He was showing the things that would transpire in the kingdom age. And He proclaimed how beautiful and glorious it is when a man lives in obedience to God and in submission to God.
And so He preached and He showed to the kingdom of God. When Jesus was born and the angels announced to the shepherds, He announced it with these words, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” ( Luk 2:10 ). The angel was proclaiming the kingdom of God. “The King is born, He has come. He is over in Bethlehem. He is lying in a manger, you’ll find Him there swaddled.” And suddenly there was with that angel a multitude of heavenly hosts praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” ( Luk 2:14 ). They were proclaiming the conditions of the kingdom. But the kingdom was to be brought by this child who the angel said, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, Christ the Lord” ( Luk 2:11 ). And to those who have found Jesus as their Lord, they have entered into the kingdom of God. And you can begin to enjoy even now a part of the benefits of the kingdom. As God fills your heart with His love, and with His peace.
Now there were many people that were gathered together, and they came to him out of every city, and he spoke to them by a parable: [And he said] A sower went out to sow his seeds: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. Some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and it sprang up, and it bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that has an ear to hear, let him hear ( Luk 8:4-8 ).
Jesus was always saying that. And in His messages to the seven churches He repeated it to each church. “He that has an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.”
How important that we have an ear to hear what God is seeking to say. I am constantly praying, “God, give me an ear to hear what You have to say.” And that is more than just hearing, it’s understanding what God’s message to man today would be. “God, what is Your message to me? What are You saying to me? What are You wanting to say to me? God, give me understanding, give me an ear to hear.” For I realize that unless the Spirit does teach me, I can’t learn. No matter how intelligent I might be, I cannot learn spiritual truth apart from the Spirit of God opening my heart to understand and to receive. For the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them, they are spiritually discerned. God, give me an ear to hear.
And so the disciples asked him, saying, What does this parable mean? And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others it is spoken in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God ( Luk 8:9-11 ).
So we realize that the Word of God falls on different types of soil, or there is a different reception in the hearts of people to the Word of God. And the Lord is sort of illustrating the four types of people upon whom the Word of God falls.
Now these are those that are by the way side, there are those that hear the word of God; and then the devil comes, and takes the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved ( Luk 8:12 ).
Immediately there is just nothing, there is no penetration. The Word comes, but immediately Satan snatches it away, and it is as though they had never heard.
They that are on the rock are they, which, when they hear the word, they receive it with joy ( Luk 8:13 );
They have a great emotional experience.
but these have no root, which for a while they believe, and in time of temptation they fall away. And that which fell among the thorns, is those, when they have heard, go forth, and they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and they bring no fruit to perfection [or completion] ( Luk 8:13-14 ).
There is no real fruit that comes from their life. They hear, they receive, but the fruitfulness is choked out by pleasures, riches, cares.
But that which fell on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and they bring forth fruit with patience ( Luk 8:15 ).
Now as you look at your own life and examine yourself, on what kind of soil has the Word of God fallen in your life? In which of the four categories would you place yourself: A, B, C, or D? And it might be good to take a moment with an honest look at your own heart. Am I bring forth fruit unto completion? If not, why not? Have I allowed cares, riches, desire for pleasure, to choke out my fruitfulness? On what kind of a soil has the Word of God fallen in your own heart? God help us. That we might bring forth fruit, with patience. Be not weary in well doing, in due season we will reap, if we faint not.
Jesus said,
No man, when he has lighted a candle, covers it with a vessel, or puts it under his bed; but he sets it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how you hear [be careful how you hear the word of God]: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever has not, from him shall be taken even that which he seems to have ( Luk 8:16-18 ).
The importance of using what God has given to me for His glory. And if I do, God will add more. The Lord said, “Thou hast been faithful in a few things, now I will make you ruler over many things.” That is always the process of God. Unless you are faithful in those little things that God has laid before you, He’ll never lead you any further. There are a lot of people who want to jump into something big, major work for God. That’s where they want to start. But they don’t want to, they don’t have time for teaching a Sunday school class. Or helping out in the nursery. “I want to do great things for God.” And God always promotes through the ranks. Those who begin, and are diligent in those small things, God gives more. If you are not faithful in the little things, then who is going to entrust you the things of the kingdom?
Then came to him his mother and his brothers, and they could not come in because of the crowd. And it was told him by certain ones which said, Your mother, and your brothers are standing outside, and they desire to see you. And he answered and said unto them, My mother and my brothers are these which hear the word of God, and do it ( Luk 8:19-21 ).
Now in the previous parable there was that emphasis upon doing also. But here again, Jesus is declaring that that relationship that we have with Him who hear and do His word, is that of a brother. Close relationship.
Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And so they launched forth. And as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and they awoke him, saying, Master, Master, we’re perishing. And so he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him ( Luk 8:22-25 ).
It is interesting that Jesus rebukes them for their lack of faith, when the ship was in jeopardy of sinking. Interesting, because from all appearances they were going to go under. “Where is your faith?” They weren’t listening when Jesus said in verse Luk 8:22 , “Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.”
Now, when you have the Word of Jesus that you are going to go over to the other side of the lake, there is no way you can go under. “He that has an ear to hear, let him hear.” But they weren’t listening carefully. And so when they were afraid that they were going to go under, He rebuked them because of their lack of faith, because He said, “Let’s go over.”
And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee ( Luk 8:26 ).
The city of Gadara has recently been discovered in the last two years. And at the present time they are excavating the sight of the city of Gadara. Actually, they were building a new road up into the Golan Heights, and as they were building this new road, they began to come across these ruins, and so they halted their building, and called in the archaeologist, and they discovered the sight of the aged city of Gadara. And so they moved the road a few hundred yards, and are now excavating the city of Gadara. Interestingly enough, a couple of miles from the sight of the city of Gadara is the only place around the Sea of Galilee where there is a steep incline leading into the sea. So the very area where Jesus landed in His boat can be ascertained there today, and it is near the ruins of the ancient city of Gadara. So in this very area Jesus came with His disciples.
And when they came to the land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils for a long time, and he wore no clothes, nor did he live in any house, but he lived in the tombs ( Luk 8:27 ).
The rock tombs out there.
And when he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice he said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had commanded, Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. For many times it caught him: and he was kept bound with chains and in fetters; but he broke the bands, and was driven by the devil into the wilderness.) And Jesus asked him, saying, What is your name? And he said, Legion: because many devils had entered into him. And they begged him that he would not command them to go out into the deep ( Luk 8:28-31 ).
The word translated deep is the Greek word abusso, which in other places in the New Testament is translated the bottomless pit.
There are four places mentioned in the scriptures as the places of abode for the wicked dead and for the disobedient angels and spirits. There is a place known as Tartaras, where certain angels are kept bound, awaiting the day of judgment. And they are bound in chains of Tartaras, awaiting that day of judgment. In the center of the earth, there is a place in the scriptures called Hades. In the Hebrew it is called Sheol. It is oftentimes translated grave, and many times translated hell. It is in the center of the earth. Prior to the death of Christ and resurrection, it was divided into two compartments, and in a few weeks when we get to the sixteenth chapter of Luke’s gospel, we will get a description by Jesus of what this place in the center of the earth is like, known as Hades.
We know that it is in the center of the earth, because when they asked Jesus for a sign, He said, “No sign will be given to this wicked and adulterous generation, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” ( Mat 12:39-40 ). And so when Jesus died, He descended into hell, into Hades, into this compartment in the center of the earth. And according to Peter, there He preached to those souls that were imprisoned. And according to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, when He ascended He led these captives from their captivity, fulfilling the prophesy of Isaiah, the sixty-first chapter, where He would “set at liberty those who were bound, and open the prison doors to those that were captive.” And so Jesus led the captives from their captivity at the time of His resurrection. And they with Him ascended into heaven. However, Hades was divided into two compartments, of which there could be no concourse back and forth. And we’ll get that in Luke’s sixteenth chapter. And we’ll just wait till we get there, and talk a little bit more at that time.
Now, somewhere upon the earth there is a shaft that goes from the surface of the earth down into Hades. This shaft in the scripture is called the abusso. It is translated the bottomless pit. And this shaft is the abode and incarceration of evil spirits. The antichrist will ascend out of the abusso, the shaft. When Satan is bound during the thousand-year reign of Christ, he will be cast into this same abusso, out of which the antichrist came. In the book of Revelation we read where an angel is given the key to the abusso during in the time of God’s Great Tribulation and judgment upon the earth, and he opens up the abusso, and when he does, these creatures that John graphically describes in the book of Revelation come out of the abusso and began to attack men upon the earth. These hordes of demons released, and attacking men during the Great Tribulation period. I mean, those who have made these fantasy movies haven’t seen anything yet. When you read of these creatures that will come out of the abusso, these demon apparitions, actually, and demons themselves who will come and attack men. And through the ultimate result, one third of the earth’s population will be destroyed. In the beginning they have power only to hurt men for six months. And then they begin to this other horse-like creatures have power to kill, and by them a third of the earth’s population will be wiped out.
Now, when Jesus comes again and He destroys the antichrist and the false prophet, they will be cast alive into Gehenna. Gehenna is described as in outer darkness.
Now how far out does space go? They say that they have discovered galaxies that are twelve billion light years away from the earth. When you get that far I don’t know how accurate your measurements can be, but give or take a view billion years. But if you continued out beyond the farthest galaxy and continued on into space until the light of our galaxy did not shine, it could be that Gehenna is out there. Or it could be that Gehenna is a black hole. Sucking everything into it, the gravitation is so heavy, that not even light can escape. But it is called in the scripture, outer darkness. This is where the antichrist, the beast, and the false prophet will be cast when Jesus returns to the earth. A thousand years later, Satan will be released out of the abusso, this pit. Now, Satan and the demons will be put in the pit during the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ in the kingdom age, but then they will be released.
Now notice, they are begging Jesus that He would not command them at this time to go to the abusso. They know that the time is coming when they will be consigned to the abusso. They’re begging further liberties now. Which, interestingly enough to me, Jesus gave to them. He did not at that time command them. “Torment us not, don’t send us to the abusso.” And Jesus at that time did not send them to the abusso. However, they will have their time, when Satan is bound. Now, they will be released, and will create in the heart of wicked men a rebellion against God, and against the reign of Jesus Christ, and then they will be cast into Gehenna, where the beast and the false prophet are, and then the great white throne judgment of God when all men, small and great stand before God. And whosoever name was not found written in the Book of Life will also find his place in Gehenna.
Blessed is he who takes part in the first resurrection, because he’s got it made, over him the second death will have no power. But this is the second death. It is God’s final consignment of the wicked. They hate the light, they will not come to the light, and so God honors their desire for darkness, and casts them into outer darkness.
Way down in the depth of Oregon Caves they turned out the lights, and we experienced what the guide said was total darkness. And I mean, that was dark. We waved our hands in front of our faces to see if we could pick up any kind of a movement–you couldn’t. In fact, there is something that just sort of began to press in on you. I was glad when they turned the lights on. Because total darkness can freak you out in a hurry. Especially if you are a little kid and have a vivid imagination. They will be cast into outer darkness. And Jesus said of Gehenna, “Where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and the worm dieth not.” And in the book of Revelation speaking of it, it said, “And the smoke of their torment ascended from the ages throughout the ages.”
So four places, by the grace of God, we don’t have to go to any of them. Because now he that lives and believes in Jesus Christ shall never die, we will be changed. We know that when this earthly tent is dissolved, we have a building of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So we who are still living in these tents, our earthly bodies groan earnestly desiring to move out. Not to be unimbodied spirits, but we might move into that new building of God, not made with hands. For we know that as long as we are living in these tents, we are absent from the Lord, but we would choose rather to be absent from these tents, than to be present with the Lord.
Some day you may read Chuck Smith died, don’t believe it, poor reporting. Chuck Smith moved out of an old worn out tent into a beautiful new mansion. A building of God not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For Jesus said, “He who lives and believes in Me shall never die” ( Joh 11:26 ).
But here they are begging not to be sent to the abusso.
So there was a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain ( Luk 8:32 ):
Now that’s illegal. These men were trafficking in illegal trade. It’s like growing cocaine or poppies. And so these demons, legion,
besought him that he would allow them to enter them. And so he allowed them. And then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the lake, and they were choked ( Luk 8:32-33 ).
Now my son would say this is the first account of deviled ham. I wouldn’t say that, but…
Now when those who were feeding the swine saw what was done, they fled into the city, and they told the people what had happened. And so the people came out to see what was done; and they came to Jesus, and they found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, and he was sitting at the feet of Jesus, he was clothed, and in his right mind ( Luk 8:34-35 ):
Healed, no longer naked and screaming and crying, and having to be bound with chains. But he is sitting there clothed, and in his right mind.
and they were afraid. And they also which saw it told them by what means the man who was possessed of devils was healed. And then the whole multitude of the country of the Gadarenes round about begged him to depart from them; for they were taken with great fear: and he went up into the ship, and returned back again ( Luk 8:35-37 ).
Isn’t that tragic? The people were more interested in those swine than they were in this man’s deliverance. The loss of their swine was of greater concern to them than a man’s health. They begged Jesus to depart.
But the man, out of whom the devils were departed, begged him that he might be with him: but Jesus sent him away, saying, Return to your own house, and just show how great things God has done to you. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city the great things that Jesus had done for him. Now it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned [that is, back over the other side of the lake, Capernaum], the people gladly received him: for they were all waiting for him ( Luk 8:38-40 ).
What a contrast, on the one side they were saying, “Would you please get out of here?” And on the other side the crowd is waiting.
And, behold, there came a man name Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue; and he fell down at Jesus’ feet, and he besought him that he would come into his house: For he had only one daughter, about twelve years old, and she was dying. But as he went the people were thronging him. And a woman having an issue of blood for twelve years, which had spent all of her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of His garment: and immediately her issue of blood was stopped. And Jesus said, Who touched me? And everyone denied, and Peter and those that were with Him said, Master, the multitude is thronging and pressing against you, and you say, Who touched me? Jesus said, Somebody has touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me ( Luk 8:41-46 ).
It is interesting to me that in a multitude of people who are thronging and pressing against Jesus, there is one in the crowd who touches Him. Her touch was different from the pressing and thronging. It is interesting to me that how that the Lord can minister to people individually, even in a throng, even in a multitude. And here we are tonight a multitude of people gathered together, many pressing, many thronging. How many are touching, really receiving the touch of Jesus in your life, by faith reaching out and really touching the Lord?
Here we have two cases, contrasting cases. Twelve years earlier, before the event that we read, this woman came down with a debilitating malady. She began to hemorrhage, and it would not stop. She had gone to many doctors, they treated her until her money had run out. But her condition did not improve, it was only worse. In that society, for a woman to be bleeding meant that she was unclean from a ceremonial sense and could not enter the synagogue or the place of worship. A woman afflicted with a malady for twelve years. The loss of the relationship with her husband, according to the law he could not touch her while she was hemorrhaging. She could not worship God in the synagogue while this condition persisted. And no doubt anemic and weakened as the result. For twelve years she lived in darkness, hopelessness, and was getting worse.
On the other hand, twelve years earlier in the house of Jairus, a little girl was born, and as little girls, no doubt, brought great joy, and happiness, and light, and laughter, and beauty into the home. And for twelve years they enjoyed watching this little girl as she grew up, as her personality began to develop, and all of the cute wonderful things that she had done. In one household twelve years of darkness and despair, in the other, twelve years of laughter and beauty. And so they are approaching Jesus from different angles. In both cases, the light was going out. This woman was getting worse. She didn’t have any more money. She had only one hope. Get to Jesus, touch Him.
To this dad, the light was going out. His little girl who had brought such life, and joy, and happiness into the home, was at home, and she was dying. And he had only one hope: get to Jesus. And as Jesus was going to his house, and it was urgent, the girl was dying. As He stopped, I imagine that Jairus was a little irritated that He had stopped over a triviality over, “Who touched me?” For as He was going, the crowds were going with Him and pressing Him and pushing Him, thronging against Him. And I can imagine Jairus saying, “Lord, let’s get unto my house; my daughter is dying. You don’t understand the urgency. Why stop over a triviality of someone touching you in this crowd?” But Jesus is persisting. And even the disciples are beginning to object, they said, “Lord, with people pressing and thronging You, what do You mean, ‘Who touched Me?'” Jesus said, “Someone has touched Me; I felt the virtue go out of from Me.” And this woman stepped forth, and she knelt before Him trembling, and said, “I did it.” And she told her story. Twelve years ago, twelve years that must have flashed on Jairus. “Twelve years ago I was stricken with a malady that ostracized me from the community, from my family, but I am healed. The moment I touched, I knew I was healed. I am healed; it stopped. I felt it, I know it.” And Jesus continued on to Jairus’ house, after saying to her:
Be of good comfort, daughter: thy faith has made thee whole; go in peace ( Luk 8:48 ).
Now as He was speaking, and Jesus no doubt knew this,
As he was speaking to the lady, one of the servants came running up, and he said, Don’t bother the Master any more, [it’s too late,] your daughter died. But Jesus turned to him, and he said, Fear not: only believe, and she shall be made whole. So when he came to the house, he did not allow any men to go in, except Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the girl. And all of those that were weeping, and wailing because of her: but he said, Don’t weep; she is not dead, she is only sleeping. And they turned from their weeping, and laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And so he put them all out, and he took her by the hand, and called saying, Maid, arise ( Luk 8:49-54 ).
The word in the Greek is my little child. Twelve years old, beautiful little girl, no doubt. Who has never seen a twelve-year-old girl who wasn’t beautiful? And He said, “My little child,” very endearing term in the Greek, “arise.”
And her spirit came again ( Luk 8:55 ),
You see, this indicates that at death our spirit departs from our body. Our spirit moves out of our body, and moves into that new body that God has. The real me is spirit, the real me isn’t this body. The body is only a tent in which I am dwelling for a while. It was designed by God to exist in the conditions of this planet earth. It was designed by God and purposed by God to be the medium by which I might express me. But the body isn’t me. Only the medium by which I express myself. The real me is spirit. One day my spirit will move out of this body.
Now her spirit returned to her body. It had moved out. She was dead. The spirit had moved out of the body. But her spirit returned, came again in to her body.
and she arose immediately: and he commanded that they give her something to eat. And her parents were astonished: but he charged them [or commanded them] that they should not tell any man what was done ( Luk 8:55-56 ).
Interesting little insights into the ministry of Jesus. The miracles that He performed, given to us by Luke, who being a doctor, was quite interested in these various healings that Jesus brought to the people. And interestingly enough, he uses terms that are medical terms in the Greek language, and can be found in much of the classical Greek in the very same types of diagnosis in records and classic Greek that Luke is describing here of those being healed by Jesus.
Next week chapters 9 and 10, as the Lord wills.
May the Lord be with you and may the Lord bless you. May the Lord fill you with His love and give you His grace, His power to live and to be that God would have you to do and to be. For He would have you to live in His kingdom, the child of the kingdom, the joy and the peace and the love and joy that mark His kingdom. For the kingdom of God is not meat or drink, but righteousness, peace and joy.
For extra credit get a concordance and follow up the kingdom of God and what the requirements are of that kingdom. You’ll find it a very fascinating study as much is written concerning the kingdom of G “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Luk 8:1-3. And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna the wife of Chuza Herods steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.
The previous chapter tells how the woman in Simons house manifested her love to the Saviour. She showed her love in one way, and in a very special way; but there were others, who had similar affection for him, who showed it in other ways. What is right for one person to do might not be a wise or right thing for everybody to do. Christ did not want his feet washed with tears every minute in the day, nor to have them anointed with even precious ointment very often. There are some Christians who ought to do, and I trust will do, some extraordinary thing for Christ, something which shall need no apology from them, because they are extraordinary persons, who used to be extraordinary sinners; and it would not be right for them to run in the ruts made by others, but they ought to strike out a distinct pathway for themselves. Happy is the church that has any such members; happier still if it has many such. But there are others, who love Christ just as truly, yet who must be content to show their love to him in some other, and apparently more common, but, perhaps, in the long run, more useful way. These gracious women ministered to Christ of their substance. He was only a poor itinerant preacher who needed daily sustenance. Some people say that every preacher ought to earn his own bread by trade or profession, and preach freely, yet the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of preachers, did not do this. Oh, but Paul did! Yes, Paul attained to a very high honour; but we may be perfectly satisfied, as the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, to attain to as high a degree of honour as our Master did; and, inasmuch as he never did any carpentering after he began to preach, but gave his whole soul and being up to the work of preaching, he was fed and cared for by the kindness of these godly women who were glad to minister unto him of their substance. The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. So, as ministers of Christ, we need not be ashamed to minister spiritual things to the people, and to receive of their carnal things in return. These women, though they did not wash Christs feet with their tears, nor anoint them with precious ointment, did well, for they ministered unto him of their substance. Let us all do for him all that we can.
This exposition consisted of readings from Mar 15:1-41, and Luk 8:1-3.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Luk 8:1. , The Lord Himself was passing throughout every city and village [lit. city by city and village by village]) How great was the loving condescension of the Son of God! [There is no need that we should be anxious to form a calculation of the number of His journeyings. The several evangelists record them on different occasions: in fact, all the daily life of Jesus was spent in conferring benefits on all by word and deed.-Harm., p. 315.]
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Luk 8:1-3
15. THE MINISTERING WOMEN
Luk 8:1-3
And it came to pass soon afterwards,-Luke is the only writer that gives an account of these events. From the account of the forgiven woman (Lu0ke 7:45-50), Luke naturally goes on to narrate the ministering of other women to Jesus during the preaching tour that was made about this time. Soon after the events recorded in chapter 7 Jesus “went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God.” “Soon afterwards” means “in the order” or “succession”; the same word is used in Luk 1:3, and is rendered “in order,” and means “in close succession.” This is probably the second tour that Jesus made through Galilee. He went “about through cities and villages” on this circuit. He took city by city and village by village on this tour. Luke in this brief paragraph covers the entire circuit. The first circuit may be referred to in Luk 4:42-44, and more definitely in Mat 4:23-25 and Mar 1:35-39, before the formal selection of the twelve. This second circuit is mentioned only by Luke and was made after the twelve apostles were chosen. A third circuit in Galilee seems to be referred to in Mat 11:1 and Mar 6:6, though it is not certain that there were three distinct circuits in Galilee. The purpose of Jesus in traveling through the cities and villages was to preach and bring the good tidings of the kingdom of God to the attention of the people.
2 and certain women who had been healed-These women are referred to again in Luk 23:55; Luk 24:10; and the names of some are given in Mat 27:56 and Mar 15:40. They seem to have been attached to the company of Jesus and his disciples; they were very grateful for the remarkable cures that they had received. The first mentioned is “Mary that was called Magdalene”; she is the one out of whom Jesus had cast seven demons. This fact is stated also in Mar 16:9. The presence of seven demons in one person indicates special malignity. (Mar 5:9.) See Matthew (Mat 12:45) for the parable of the demon who came back with seven other demons worse than the first. It is not known where Magdala was, from whence Mary gets part of her name. There is no valid reason for identifying her with the sinful woman in chapter 7. She was terribly afflicted with demons and Jesus cured her. She was truly grateful to him and showed her gratitude by ministering to him.
3 and Joanna the wife of Chuzas Herod’s steward,-Joanna is mentioned here as the wife of Chuzas who was steward of Herod; some think that he was a nobleman (Joh 4:46-53) who believed on Jesus and all of his house. It is notable that Jesus had a disciple from the household of Herod Antipas who had such curiosity to see and hear him; again there was later Manaen, “the foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch,” who was a disciple . (Act 13:1.) Joanna is mentioned again with Mary Magdalene in Luk 24:10. These women with “many others” ministered unto Jesus and his company. The very fact that Jesus now had twelve men going with him called for help from others, and these women of means responded to the demand. They ministered with “their substance.” They ministered with the things which belonged to them; their gratitude and zeal were such that they were willing to do everything that they could to help Jesus and his company. They were benevolent, full of good deeds, and gentle ministrations. Through the gratitude for blessings received these women contributed freely to the necessities of Jesus. They appear again in the scenes at and after his crucifixion; they provided costly spices for his body after his death; they may be classed with the godly women who “adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly raiment; but (which becometh women professing godliness) through good works.” (1Ti 2:9-10.)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Luke here refers to our Lord’s journeyings, and reveals the interesting and beautiful fact of how women of wealth provided for him on the material level, ministering to Him of their substance.
At this point Luke records the parable of the sower, which forever divides into four sections those who hear the proclamation of the Word: first, those in whom His truth can produce no results, wayside hearers; second, those whose power of hearing is superficial, rock hearers; third, those in whom other forces impede and check the development of truth, thorny hearers; fourth, those who are responsive.
Following the parable we have the account of a memorable voyage over the sea and back. First came the time of quiet for Himself; He slept. The storm did not wake Him. The disciples woke. He calmed the wind, hushed the sea, and rebuked the disciples.
Reaching the country of the Gadarenes He restored to true life a demon-possessed man, and at the same time destroyed an unholy and forbidden traffic. A deputation of the inhabitants besought Him to depart from their coasts, and He went. He never forces Himself on unwilling hearts.
Our Lord’s quick sensitiveness to need which ventures in faith is seen in His consciousness of the touch of a trembling woman as He traveled to the house of Jairus. Again His keen appreciation of the hour of greatest trial is revealed in His words to Jairus, “Fear not, only believe.” His supreme authority was revealed as He put the scorners out of the chamber. His sweet, human sympathy is seen in the command to give the little one something to eat.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
8:1-3. The ministering Women. This section is evidence of the excellence of Lk.s sources. The information contained in it is exact and minute. The names and other details are utterly unlike fiction. An inventor would avoid such things as likely to be refuted: moreover, no motive for invention can be discerned. The passage tells us-what no other Evangelist makes known-how Jesus and His disciples lived when they were not being entertained by hospitable persons. The common purse (Joh 13:29; comp. 12:6) was kept supplied by the generosity of pious women. This form of piety was not rare. Women sometimes contributed largely towards the, support of Rabbis, whose rapacity in accepting what could ill be spared was rebuked by Christ 20:47 ; [Mat 23:14; ] Mar 12:40) with great severity.
1. . See detached note p. 45, and comp. 5:1, 5:12, 14: for see small print on 7:11. The anticipates , He Himself and me Twelve. But me before comes after and must not be coupled with the before In N.T. occurs only here and Act 17:1, but it is freq. in LXX (Gen 12:6, Gen 13:17, etc.); also in Polyb. Plut. etc. Comp. 9:6, 13:22.
. Ne quis Judus prteritum se queri posset (Grotius), Jesus preached city by city (Act 15:21) and village by village. The clause is amphibolous. It probably is meant to go with , but may be taken with . The incidental way in which the severity of Christs labours is mentioned is remarkable. Comp. 9:58, 13:22; Mat 9:35; Mar 4:31. For see on 2:10. We are not to understand that the Twelve preached in His presence, if at all. Note the (not ), and see on vv., 38, 51, and 1:56.
2. . See on 4:33. We cannot tell how many of these women had been freed from demons: perhaps only Mary Magdalen, the others having been cured . For the comp. 5:15, 7:21.
. See on 6:15. The adj. probably means of Magdala, a town which is not named in N.T.; for the true reading in Mat 15:39 is Magadan Magdata is only the Greek form of Migdol, or watch-tower, one of the many places of the name in Palestine (Tristram, Bible Places, p. 260); and it is probably represented by the squalid group of hovels which now bear the name of Mejdel, near the centre of the western shore of the lake. Magdala was probably near to Magedan, and being much better known through , at last it drove the latter name out of the common text. See Stanley, Sin. & Pal. p. 382. Mary being a common name, the addition of something distinctive was convenient; and poissibly a distinction from Mary of Bethany was specially designed by the Evangelists. Mary Magdalen is commonly placed first when she is mentioned with other women (Mat 27:56, Mat 27:61, Mat 27:28:1 ; Mar 15:40, Mar 15:47, Mar 15:16:1; Luk 24:10). Joh 19:25 is an exception. See on 1:36.
. This fact is mentioned in the disputed verses at the end of Mk. (16:9). It indicates a posession of extraordinary malignity ( Mar 5:9). We need not give any mystical interpretation to the number seven: comp. 11:26; Mat 12:45. There is nothing to show that demoniacs generally, or Mary in particular, had lived specially vicious lives: and the hut that no name is given to the in the preceding section, while Mary Magdalen is introduced here as an entirely new person, is against the traditional identification of the two. Moreover, such an affliction as virulent demoniacal possession would be almost incompatible with the miserable trade of prostitution. If Lk. had wished to intimate that the is Mary Magdalen, he could have done it much more clearly. Had he wished to conceal the fact, he would not have placed these two sections in juxtaposition. Had he wished to withhold the name of the , who may possibly be included among the , he would have done as he has done. The and Mary Magdalen and Mary of Bethany are three distinct persons.
3. . She is mentioned with Mary Magdalen again 24:10: all that we know about her is contained in these two passages. Godet conjectures that Chuza is the , who believed and his whole house (Joh 4:46-53). In that case her husband would be likely to let her go and minister to Christ The Herod meant is probably Antipas, and his would be the manager of his household and estates: comp. Mat 20:8. Blunt finds here a coincidence with Mat 14:2 ; Herod said to his servants, This is John the Baptist. If Herods stewards wife was Christs disciple, He would often bespoken of among the servants at the court; and Herod addresses them, because they were familiar with the subject. Comp. the case of Manaen (Act 13:1), Herods (Undesigned Coincidences, Pt. IV. xi. p. 263, 8th ed.). Of Susanna nothing else is known, nor of the other women, unless Mary, the mother of James and Joses, and Salome (Mar 15:40) may be assumed to be among them.
. Who Were of such a character as to minister to them; i.e. they were persons of substance. For see on 7:37, and for comp. Rom 15:25. The means Jesus and the Twelve, the reading (A L M X) being probably a correction from Mat 26:55 ; Mar 15:41. But has special point. It was precisely because Jesus now had twelve disciples who always accompanied Him, that there was need of much support from other disciples.
. It is this which distinguishes this passage from Mat 27:55 and Mar 15:41. There the might refer to mere attendance on Him. We learn from this that neither Jesus nor the Twelve wrought miracles for their own support.
Here, as in 12:15 and Act 4:32, has the dat. Everywhere else in Lk. (11:21, 12:33, 44, 14:33, 16:1, 19:8) and elsewhere in N.T. (five times) it has the gen. So also in LXX the gen. is the rule, the dat. the exception, if it is the true reading anywhere. Both and are favourite expressions with Lk. See on ver. 41.
4-18. The Parable of the Sower. Mat 13:1-23; Mar 4:1-20. We have already had several instances of teaching by means of parables (5:36-39, 6:39, 41-44, 47-49, 7:41, 42); but they we brief and incidental. Parables seem now to become more common in Christs teaching, and also more elaborate. This is intelligible, when we remember the characteristics of parables. They have the double property of revealing and concealing. They open the truth, and impress it upon the minds of those who are ready to receive it: but they do not instruct, though they may impress, the careless (ver. 10). As Bacon says of a parable, it tends to vail, and it tends to illustrate a truth. As the hostility to His teaching increased, Jesus would be likely to make more use of parables, which would benefit disciples without giving opportunity to His enemies. The parable of the Sower is in some ind icate ts chief among the parables, as Christ Himself seems to (Mar 4:13). It is one of the three which all three record, the others being the Mustard Seed and the Wicked Husbandmen: and it A one of which we have Christs own interpretation.
4. . . The constr. is uncertain, and we have choice of two ways, according as the is regarded as simply co-ordinating, or as epexegetic. 1. And when a great multitude was coming together, and they of every city were resorting to Him. 2. And when a great multitude was coming together, namely, of those who city by city were resorting to Him. According to 2, the multitude consisted wholly of those who were following from different towns (ver. 1). As no town is named, there was perhaps no crowd from the place itself. In any case the imperf. part. should be preserved in translation. It was the growing multitude which used Him to enter into a boat (Mat 13:2; Mar 4:1). See on 11:29. Except Tit 1:5, is peculiar to Lk.
The Latin Versions vary greatly: conveniente autem turba magna et corum qui ex civitatibus adveniebant dixit parabolam (a); conveniente autem turba multa et qui de singulis civitalibus exibant dixit p. (c); congregate autem populo multo et ad civitatem iter faciebant ad eum dixit parabolam talem ad eos (d); cum autem turba plurima conveniret et de civitatibus properarent ad cum dixit per similitudinem (Vulg.); cum autem turba plurima convenisset (, D) et de civitatibus advenirent multi dixit per similitudinem (Cod. Brix.).
. The expression occurs nowhere else. Mt. and Mk. write or , while Lk. has or . See on 4:23, 5:36, and 6:39; and on the parable itself see Gould on Mar 4:1ff.
5. . So in all three accounts: The sower went forth. The force of the article is he whose business it is to sow: he is the representative of a class who habitually have these experiences. Rhem. has the sower in all three places, Cran. in Mt. and Mk., Cov. in Mt. For the pres. part. with the article used as a substantive comp. 3:11, 5:31, 6:29, 30, 32, 9:11, 10:16, etc. There is solemnity in the repetition, . The comparison of teaching with sowing is frequent in all literature; but it is possible that Jesus here applies what was going on before their eyes. See me vivid description of a startling coincidence with the parable in Stanley, Sin. & Pal. p. 425.
. During his sowing, while he sowed: is subj., not obj., and refers to , not . See on 3:21. Note the graphic change of prepositions: (ver. 5), (ver. 6), ver. 7), (ver. 8). In this verse Lk: has three features which are wanting in Mt. and Mk.: , , and .
. Not along the way, but by the side of the way. It fell on the field, but so close to the road that it was trampled on.
Both Lk. and Mk. here have followed by : Comp. Mar 9:12. The absence of after is freq. in Acts, Pauline Epp., and Heb. See Bless, Gr. p. 261.
6. . The rock had a slight covering of soil; and hence is called (Mk.) and (Mt.), which does not mean stony ground, i.e. full of stones, but rocky ground, i.e. with rock appearing at intervals and with no depth of earth. The thinness of the soil would cause rapid germination and rapid withering; but Lk omits the rapid growth. With comp. Pro 26:9; Exo 10:5; and (for the constr.) Luk 2:4. For , moisture, Mt. and Mk. have . The word occurs Jer 17:8; Job 26:14; Jos. Ant. iii. 1, 3; but nowhere else in N.T.
7. . The result of the falling was that it was in the midst of the thorns: prep. of rest after a verb of motion: comp, 7:17. Lk is fond of (2:46, 10:3, 21, 22:27, 55, 24:36; Act 1:15, etc.). Elsewhere it is rare, except in Rev. Neither Mt. nor Mk. have it here.
. Here only in N.T. In LXX only Wisd. 13:13. In Plato and Aristotle it is transitive: cause to grow together. We are to understand that the good seed fell into ground where young thorns were growing; otherwise the growing together would hardly be possible. Indeed the of Mt. and Mk. almost implies that the thorns were not yet visible, when the good seed was sown in the midst of them. The means choked it off, so as to exterminate it: comp. the in . Wic. has strangliden it but that, though sufficient for suffocaverunt (Vulg.), does not express the . The verb occurs only here and ver. 33 in N.T., and in LXX only in Nah 2:12 and Tobit 3:8. Mat 13:7 is doubtful.
8. . Not merely upon, but into the soft. The double article in all three accounts presents the soil and its goodness as two separate ideas: the ground (that was intended for it), the good (ground). Mt. and Mk. have . This repetition of the article is specially frequent in Jn. Lk. omits the sixty- and thirtyfold. Isaac is said to have reaped a hundredfold (Gen 26:12). Hdt. (i. 193. 4) states that in the plain of Babylon returns of two hundred- and even three hundredfold, were obtained. Strabo (xiv. p. 1054) says much the same, but is perhaps only following Hdt. See Wetst. on Mat 13:8 for abundant evidence of very large returns.
. This formula occurs in all three. Comp. 14:35; Mat 11:15, Mat 13:43. In Rev. we have the sing., (2:7, 11, 17, 29, 3:6, 13, 22). The introductory , He cried aloud, indicates a raising of the voice, and gives a solemnity to this concluding charge. The imperf.perhaps means that the charge was repeated. Comp. Eze 3:27; Hom. Il. xv. 129.
9. What this parable might be in meaning. See small print on 1:29. Mt. says that the disciples asked why He spoke to the multitude in parables. Christ answers both questions. For see on 3:10.
10. . Those who are outside the circle of Christs disciples; as Mk. has it. This implies hat it is disciples generally, and not the Twelve only, who are being addressed. Mt. is here the fullest of the three, giving the passage from Isa 6:9, Isa 6:10 in full. Lk. is very brief.
. At first sight it might seem as if the of Lk. and Mk. was very different from the of Mt. But the principle that he who path shall receive more, while he who bath not shall be deprived of what he seemeth to have, explains both me and the . Jesus speaks in parables, because the multitude see without seeing and hear without hearing. But lie also speaks in parables in order that they may we without Seeing and hear without hearing. They have not a mind to welcome instruction, and therefore they are taught in a way which deprives them of instruction, although it is full of meaning to those who desire to understand and do understand. But what the unsympathetic hear without understandingthey remember, be cause of its impressive form; and whenever their minds become fitted for it, its meaning will become manifest to them.
WH. write , from the unused , while other editors prefer , from or the unused . Similarly WH. have (Mat 13:13), where omen give . ii. App. p. 167. Here some authorities have , as in LXX.
11. Having answered the question ; Jesus now answers ; To the disciples who have the one thing needful more is given. The similarity between the seed and the word lies specially in the vital power which it secretly contains. Comp. Behold I sow My law in you, and it shall bring fruit in you, and ye shall be glorified in it for ever. But our fathers, which received the law, kept it not, and observed not the statutes: and the fruit of the law did not perish, neither could it, for it was Thine; yet they that received it perished, because they kept not the thing that was sown in them (2 Esdr. 9:31-33).
. Mt. never (? 15:6) has this phrase; it occurs only once in Mk. (7:13) and once in Jn. (10:35). Lk. has it four times in the Gospel (5:1, 8:11, 21, 11:28) and twelve times in the Acts. Here Mk. has (4:15) and Mt. has nothing (13:18). So in ver. 21, where Lk. has . ., Mk. has . (3:35) and Mt. (12:50). Does it mean the word which comes from God or the word which tell of God? Probably the former. Comp. the O. T. formula The word of the Lord came to. The gen. is subjective. Lft. Epp. of S. Paul, p. 15.
12. . There is no need to understand , as is clear from Mar 4:15. Those by the wayside is just as intelligible as Those who received seed by the wayside.
. Much more vivid than And the birds are the devil. This is Christs own interpretation of the birds, and it is strong evidence for the existence of a personal devil. Why did not Jesus explain the birds as meaning impersonal temptations? He seems pointedly to insist upon a personal adversary. See on 10:18. Mt. has Mk. The concluding words are peculiar to Lk.: in order that they may no by believing be saved. Perhaps a sign of Pauline influence.
13. The constr. is ambiguous. In vv. 12, 14, 15 is expressed: and it is usually understood here: And those on the rock are they which, when they have heard, receive the word with joy; and these have no root. But it is not necessary to insert the . We may continue the protasis to and make mean also: And those on the rock, which, when they have heard, receive the word with joy,-these also (as well as those by the wayside) have no root Thus exactly corresponds to in vv. 14, 15. But the usual arrangement is better. The is a further explanation of . Neither Mt. nor Mk. has , of which Lk. is fond (2:28, 9:5, 48, 53, 10:8, 10, 16:4, 6, 7, 9, etc.). It implies the internal acceptance; whereas implies no more than the external reception.
. Mt. and Mk. have , which shows that the temptation of persecution and external suffering is specially meant: comp. Jam 1:2. In all times of moral and spiritual revival persons who are won easily at first, but apostatize under pressure, are likely to form a large portion : comp. Heb 3:12. The verb does not occur in Mt. Mk. or Jn. The repetition of is impressive. As opportunity commonly lasts only for a short time, may mean a short time.
14. . It is not probable that this is an acc. abs.: Now as regards that which fell among me thorns. The attraction of (for ) to is quite intelligible.
. It is usual to take this after ; and this is probably correct: yet Weiss would follow Luther and others and join it with , going on their way under the influence of cares, etc. But ver. 7 is against this : the cares, etc., are the thorns, and it is the thorns choke. This does not reduce to a gehaltloser Zusatz. The choking is not a sudden process, like the trampling and devouring; nor a rapid process, like the withering: it takes time. It is as they go on their way through life, and before they have reached the goal, that the choking of the good growth takes place. Therefore they never do reach the goal. The transfer of what is true of the growing seed to those in whose heart it is sown is not difficult; and is clearly passive, not middle and transitive. The thorns choke the seed (ver. 7); these hearers are choked by the cares, etc. (ver. 14). Here only in N.T. does occur. It is used of animals as well as of plants (4 Mac. 13:20; Psa 64:10, Sym.).
15. … It fell into the good ground (ver. 8), and it is in the right ground. Perhaps has its full meaning: who are of such a character as to, etc. The two epithets used of the ground, in ver. 8 and in ver. 15, are combined for : in a right and good heart. We must take with rather than with . Even if be interpreted to mean hearing gladly, welcoming, it is not the same as , which means hold fast (1Co 11:2). It is reasonable to suppose that means the same in all four cases (12, 13, 14, 15). But (Lk.), (Mar 4:20), and (Mat 13:23) may all be equivalents of the same Aramaic verb, meaning to take in: see footnote on 5:21. Comp. 1Co 15:2 ; 1Th 5:21.
. With endurance, perseverance, rather than patience, which would be : in patientia (Vulg.), in tolerantia (c), in sufferentia (d), per patientiam (b f ff2). See Lft. on Col 1:11 ; Trench, Syn. liii. This is the opposite of (ver. 13), and is not in Mt. or Mk. Thus Lk. gives the opposite of all three of the bad classes: , non ut in via ;, non Ut in spinis; non in petroso (Beng.). Neither here nor in ver. 8 does Lk. give the degrees of fruitfulness. Mt. and Mk. do so both in the parable and in the interpretation. The suggestion that Lk. has mistaken three numerals for a word which he translates seems to be a little too ingenious (Expositor, Nov. 1891, p. 381). That Jesus knew that all four of the classes noticed in the parable were to be found in the audience before Him, is probable enough; but we have no means of knowing it. We may safely identify the Eleven and the ministering women with the fourth class. Judas is an instance of the third. But all are warned that the mere receiving of the word is not decisive. Everything depends upon how it is received and how it is retained. Grotius quotes from the Magna Moralia: , , , .
16-18. Practical Inference. The connexion with what precedes need not be doubted. By answering the question of the, disciples (ver. 9) and explaining the parable to them, Jesus had kindled a light within them. They must not hide it, but must see that it spreads to others. Here we have the opposite of what was noticed in the Sermon on the Mount. Here Lk. has, gathered into one, sayings which Mt. has, scattered in three different places (5:15, 10:26, 13:12: comp. 13:12, 25:29). Mk. and Lk. are here very similar and consecutive. Comp. 11:33-36.
16. . Having lighted a lamp, rather than a candle. Trench, Syn. xlvi.; Becker, Charicles, iii. 86, Eng. tr. p. 130; Gallus, ii. 398, Eng. tr. p.308. For see on 15:8: it occurs again 11:33, but not in the parallels Mat 5:15; Mar 4:21. Instead of Mt. and Mk. have the more definite , which Lk. has 11:33. As is a lamp, is a lamp-stand, on which several might be placed or hung: for, whereas the was fixed, the was portable. Other forms of are and (Kennedy, Sources of .N.T. Grk. p. 40) Comp. the very similar passage 11:33. In both passages of , the Gentiles, are mentioned instead of , the Jews (Mat 5:15).
17. The poetic rhythm and parallelism should be noticed. Somewhat similar sayings are found in profane writers: (Menander); comp. Soph. Ajax, 646, and Wetst. on Mat 10:26. For see on 4:36; Mt has , Mk. . For , hidden away from the public eye, see Lft. on Col 2:3. It was a favourite word with the Gnostics to indicate their esoteric books, which might not be published. Comp. the very similar passage 12:2; and see S. Cox in the Expositor, 2nd series, i. pp. 186, 372, and Schanz, ad loc.
18. . Because the doctrine received must be handed on and made known to all, therefore it is all-important that it should be rightly heard, viz. with intelligence and good heart (ver. 15). Whoever gives welcome to the word and appropriates it, becomes worthy and capable of receiving more. But by not appropriating truth when we recognize it, we lose our hold of it, and have less power of recognizing it in the future. There is little doubt that means that which he thinketh he hath. Wic. has weneth; Tyn. and Cran. supposeth; Cov. and Rhem. thinketh. Seemeth comes from Bezas videtur. It is self-deception that is meant. Those who received the seed by the wayside were i this condition; they failed to appropriate it, and lost it. Comp. 19:26.
Mk. here inserts (4:24) the , …, which Lk. has already given in the sermon (6:38): and both Mt. and Mk. here add other parables, two of which Lk. gives later (13:18-21).
19-21. The Visit of His Mother and His Brethren. Christs true Relations. Mt. (12:46-50) and Mk. (3:31-35) place this incident before the parable of the Sower; but none of the three state which preceded in order of time. Comp. 11:27, 28, and see on 11:29. On the Brethren of the Lord see Lange, Leben Jesu, ii. 2, 13, Eng. tr. i. p. 329; Lft. Galatians, pp. 253-291, in his Dissertations on the Apostolic Age, pp. 3-45, Macmillan, 1892; J.B. Mayor, Epistle of S. James, pp. v-xxxvi, Macmillan, 1892.1 D. B.2 artt. Brother; James; Judas, the Lords Brother.
19. . For the verb, which is a favourite with Lk., see on 7:4. Here Mk. has and Mt. . In writing the sing. Lk. is thinking only of . Such constructions are common, and do not imply that the first in the series of nominatives was emphatic or specially prominent, except in the writers thoughts. Comp. Joh 18:15, Joh 18:20:3; Act 26:30; Phm 1:23.
The precise relationship to be understood from the expression will probably never he determined or cease to be discussed. There is nothing in Scripture to warn us from what is the antecedently natural view that they are the children of Joseph and Mary, unless I know not a man (1:34) is interpreted as implying a vow of perpetual virginity. The firstborn in 2:7 and the imperfect followed by till in Mat 1:25, seem to imply that Joseph and Mary had children; which is confirmed by contemporary belief (Mar 6:3; Mat 13:55) and by the constant attendance of the on the Mother of the Lord (Mat 12:46; Mar 3:32; Joh 2:12). The Epiphanian theory, which gives Joseph children older than Jesus by a former wife, deprives Him of His rights as the heir of Joseph and of the house of David. It seems to be of apocryphal origin (Gospel according to Peter, or Book of James); and, like Jeromes theory of cousinship, to have been invented in the interests of asceticism and of priori convictions, respecting the perpetual virginity of Mary. Tertullian, in dealing with this passage, seems to assume as a matter of course that the are the children of Mary, and that she and they were, here censured by Christ (Marcion. iv. 19; De Carne Christi, vii.). He knows nothing of the doctrine of a sinless Virgin. Renan conjectures that James, Joses, Simon, and Judas were the cousins of Jesus, but that the brethren who refused to believe in Him were His real brethren (V. de J. p. 23). This solution remains entirely his own, for it creates more difficulties than it solves. See Expositors Bible, James and Jude, ch. iii., Hodder, 1891.
. Elsewhere in bibl. Grk. 2 Mac. 8:14 only.
20. . A favourite word (vv. 34, 36, 47, 7:18, 22, 9:36, 13:1, etc.). Here [Mt.] has and Mk. has . The is certainly spurious; om. B D L D X Latt. Goth. etc.
21. . Note the absence of the article in all three accounts. This is the predicate, and , …, is the subject. And the meaning is not are My actual mother or brethren, which would be , but Mother to Me and brethren to Me, i.e. equal to such, equally dear, Mt. and Mk. have the singular here: or . We cannot infer from that His sisters were present: they had settled at Nazareth (Mat 13:56; Mar 6:3). The texts of Mar 3:32, which represent the multitude as telling Jesus that His sisters are with His Mother and brethren, are probably the result of this inference. A D and some Latin authorities insert and Thy sisters; B C G K L and most Versions omit the words. Christs reply is not a denial of the claims of family ties, nor does it necessarily imply any censure on His Mother and brethren. It asserts that there are far stronger and higher claims. Family ties at the best are temporal; spiritual ties are eternal. Moreover, the closest blood-relationship to the Messiah constitutes no claim to admission into the Kingdom of God. No one becomes a child of God in virtue of human parentage (Joh 1:13). Jesus does not say , not merely because Joseph was not present, but because in the spiritual sense that relationship to Christ is filled by God alone. See on ver. 11.
22-25. The Stilling of the Tempest on the Lake of Gennesaret. This is the first of a pair of miracles which appear in the same order in all three Gospels (Mat 8:23 ff.: ; Mar 4:35 ff.), the second being the healing of the demoniacs in the country of the Gadarenes. To these two Mk. and Lk. add the healing of the woman with the issue and the raising of the daughter of Jairus, which Mt. places somewhat later. The full series gives us a group of representative miracles exhibiting Christs power over the forces of nature and the powers of hell, over disease and over death.
22. . All these expressions are characteristic, and exhibit Aramaic influence. See note at the end of ch. i., and comp. 5:1, 12, 17, 6:12. There is nothing like them in Mar 4:35 or Mat 8:23, and is peculiar to Lk. (5:17, 20:1). Comp. (5:12) and (13:10). Mt. tells us that it was the sight of the multitudes around Him that moved Jesus to order a departure to the other side of the lake; and Mk. says that the disciples leaving the multitude, take Him with them, even as He was in the boat. This seems to imply that He was utterly tired, overcome by the demands which the multitude made upon Him. For see on 2:15. The nautical expression is freq. in Lk. and peculiar to him (Act 13:13, Act 13:16:11, Act 13:18:21, Act 13:20:3, Act 13:13, Act 13:21:2, Act 13:27:2, Act 13:4, Act 13:12, Act 13:21, Act 13:28:10, Act 13:11). Syr-Sin. omits .
23. . Excepting Rev 18:17, is peculiar to Lk. (Act 21:3, Act 21:27:2, Act 21:6, Act 21:24). In Anth. Pal. 9. 517, means awaken from sleep. Here it means fall off to sleep, a use which seems to be somewhat late (Heliod. ix. 12). In class. Grk. we should rather have (Lob. Phryn. p. 224). This is the only passage in which we read of Jesus sleeping.
. There came down a violent squall of wind, from the heights which surround the lake. These are furrowed with ravines like funnels, down which winds rush with great velocity. See Thomson, Land & Book, p. 375; Keim, iv. p. 179, who quotes Rusegger, Reisen, iii. p. 136. For comp. Job 21:18, 38:1; Wisd. 5:14, 23; Ecclus. 48:9; Hom. Il. xii. 375, xvii. 57. Mt. gives the effect of it as . For the accent comp. , , …, and see Chandler, 668.
. The verb occurs only here, 9:51, and Act 2:1. Note the imperf. in contrast to . The squall came down with a single rush; the filling of the boat continued and was not completed. What was true of the boat is stated of the own In class. Grk. the act. is used of manning ships thoroughly (Thuc. vi. 50, 2).
24. , . See on 5:5. The doubling of the name is here peculiar to Lk. Comp. 10:41, 22:31; Act 9:4, Act 22:7, Act 24:14. Mt. has , Mk. . Auguskins has some good remarks as to the differences between the exclamations attributed to the disciples in the three narratives. There is no need to inquire which of these exclamations was really uttered. For whether they uttered some one of these three, or other words which no one of the Evangelists has recorded, yet conveying the same sense, what does it matter? (De Cons. Evang. ii. 24, 25).
. This does not prove that Lk. regarded the storm as a personal agent: both the wind and its effect are rebuked, a word which represents the disciples view of the action. See on 4:39. A ( wash against) is larger than a (Jam 1:6 ; Jon 1:4, Jon 1:12 ; Wisd. 14:5; 1 Mac. 6:11; 4 Mac. 7:5, 15:31).
. Mt. and Mk. add : the word is common elsewhere, but in N.T. occurs only in this narrative. The sudden calm in the sea showed the reality of the miracle. Wind may cease suddenly, but the water which it has agitated continues to work for a long time afterwards. In Mk., as here, the stilling of the tempest precedes the rebuke: Mt. transposes the order of the two incidents. In both the rebuke is sharper than in Lk., who ever spares the Twelve (Schanz). See on 6:13 and 22:45.
25. ; They might have been sure that the Messiah would not perish, and that their prayer for help would be answered. It is not their praying for succour that is blamed, but their want of faith in the result of their prayer: they feared that their prayer would be vain. Comp. His parents anguish, and see on 2:48.
; Mt. has . There is nothing incredible in the question. Their ideas of the Christ and His powers were very imperfect; and this was probably the first time that they had seen Him controlling the forces of nature. Their experience as fishermen told them how impossible it was in the natural course that such a storm should be followed immediately by a great calm. The fear which accompanies this question or exclamation is not that which the storm produced, but that which was caused by a sudden recognition of the presence of supernatural power of a kind that was new to them. Comp. 5:26, 7:16. For the comp. 22:23; Act 12:18.
One conjectures that the framer of a legend would have made the disciples accept the miracle as a matter of course: comp. 5:8, 9. Keim opposes Strauss for rejecting me whole as a myth, although he himself by no means accepts the whole as historical. Unquestionably there rests upon this brief and pregnant narrative a rare ma sets, such as does not reappear in the other nature-miracles. With a few mastey strokes there is here sketched a most sublime picture from the life of Jesus, and a picture full of truth. Even His rising up against weather and sea is told by Mt. and Lk. quite simply, without any ostentation; and the tentative query of the disciples, after their deliverance was accomplished, Who is this? is the slightest possible, the only too modest and yet the true utterance of the impression which they must at that time have received (Jes. of Naz. iv. p. 180). See Gould on Mar 4:41.
26-39. The Healing of the Demoniac in the Country of the Gerasenes.
Gerasenes seems to be the true reading both here and Mar 5:1, while Gadarenes is best attested Mat 8:28; but in all three places the authorities vary between Gerasenes, Gadarenes, and Gergesenes. The evidence here is thus summmarized-
, A R G D L R etc., Syrr. (Cur-Pesh-Sin-Harcl txt) Goth.
, B C* (ver. 37, hiat ver. 26) D, Latt. Syr-Harcl. mg.
, L C X, minusc. sex, Syr-Hier. Boh. Arm. Aeth. See WH. ii. App. p. 2. If Luk 8:26 stood alone, one might adopt as possibly correct there; but the evidence in ver. 37 is conclusive against it.
These Gerasenes are probably not the people of the Gerasa which lay on the extreme eastern frontier of Pera, over thirty miles from the lake: even in a loose description to foreigners Lk. would no be likely to speak of the shore of the lake as in the country of these Gerasenes. Rather we may understand the town which Thomson rediscovered (Land & Book, ii. 34-38) under the name of Gersa or Kersa on the steep eastern bank. Gergesa is merely a conjecture of Origen, adopted upon topographical grounds and not upon textual evidence. It may be rejected in all three narratives. There is no real difficulty of topography, whichever reading be adopted. The expression . gives considerable latitude, and may include a great deal more than the immediate vicinity of the town. Nor is there any difficulty in the fact that Mt. knows of two demoniacs, whereas Lk. and Mk. mention only one. The real difficulties in the miracle, for those who believe in the fact of demoniacal possession, are connected with the swine. 1. Can beings which are purely spiritual enter and influence beings which are purely animal? 2. How can we justify the destruction of the swine, which time innocent creatures, and which belonged to persons who do not seem to have merited such a heavy loss?
On the first of these two questions our ignorance is so great that we do not even know whether there is a difficulty. Who can explain how mind acts upon matter, or matter upon mind? Yet the fact is as certain, as that mind acts upon mind or that matter acts upon matter. There is nothing in experience to forbid us from believing that evil spirits could act upon brute beasts; and science admits that it has no priori objection to offer to such an hypothesis. And if there is no scientific objection to demoniacal possession of brutes, fortiori there is none to that of men, seeing that men have both bodies and spirits to be influenced. The influence may have been analogous to that of mesmerism or hypnotism. The real difficulty is the moral one. As Huxley puts it, the wanton destruction of other peoples property is a misdemeanour of evil example. The answers are very various. 1. The whole story is a myth. 2. The healing of the demoniacs and the repulse of the Healer by the inhabitants are historical, but the incident of the swine is a later figment. 3. The demoniacs frightened the swine, and the transfer of demons from them to the swine was imagined. 4. The drowning of the swine was an accident, possibly simultaneous with the healing, and report mixed up the two incidents. 5. The demoniacs were mere maniacs, whom Jesus cured by humouring their fancies; and His giving leave to imaginary demons to enter into the swine, produced the story of the disaster to the herd.-All these explanations assume that the Gospel narratives are wholly or in part unhistorical. But there are other explanations.-6. Like earthquakes, shipwrecks, pestilences, and the like, the destruction of the swine is part of the mystery of evil, and insoluble. 7. As the Creator of the universe, the incarnate Word had the right to do what He pleased with His own. 8. A visible effect of the departure of the demons was necessary to convince the demoniacs and their neighbours of the completeness of the cure. Brutes and private property may be sacrificed, where the sanity and lives of persons are concerned. 9. The keepers of the swine were Jews, who were breaking the Jewish law, which was binding on them, and perhaps on the whole district. In the enforcement of a law which bound the conscience, our Lord had an authority such as does not belong to the private individual (W. E. Gladstone, Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1891, p. 357). Against this it is contended that the swineherds were probably pagans, and that the district was not under Jewish law (N. C. Dec. 1890, p. 967; March 1891 p. 455). Certainty is not attainable, but it is probable that one of the last two reasons is the true explanation. See Expositor, 3rd series, 1889, 9:303. Godets conclusion seems to be sound, that it is one of those cases in which the power to execute the sentence guarantees the right of the Jdg_1 Contrast the healing of a demoniac woman as recorded in the Gospel of the Infancy, 14.
26. . They landed at the country of the Gerasenes, which is in such a position as to be opposite Galilee. The verb is quite class. of coming to land from the high seas, but is found here only in N. T. of in LXX. See Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of S. Paul, p. 28, and reff. in Wetst. The statement tells us nothing as to the position of the country of the Gerasenes, for opposite would A to the whole of the east shore. Lk. alone mentions its being opposite Galilee; perhaps to justify its inclusion in the Galitean ministry. D.C.G. artt. Gadara, Greasiness.
Some texts have from Mt. or Mk., while others have , of which is a later form. Another form is . For the accent see Chandler, 867.
27. . The man belong to the city, but he came out of the tombs to meet Jesus: belongs to not to . For this force of in composition comp. , answer back; reckon per contra; turn back. For see on 7:12; and for see Burton., 48. Lk. alone mentions that the demoniac wore no clothes; but Mk. implies it by stating that he was clothed after he was cured. All three mention the tombs; and near the ruins of Khersa there are many tombs hewn in the rocks. Excepting Mar 5:3, Mar 5:5 and Rev 11:9, is peculiar to Lk. (23:53, 24:1; Act 2:29, Act 7:16); but he more often uses . With comp. 19:5, 24:29.
28. ; See on 4:34.
. This expression rather indicates that the man is not a Jew, and therefore is some evidence that the owners of the swine were not Jews. The Most High (Elyon) is a name for Jehovah which seems to be usual among heathen nations It is employed by Melchisedek, the Canaanite priest and king (Gen 14:20, Gen 14:22). Balaam uses it (Num 24:16). Micah puts it into the mouth of Balaam (6:6); Isaiah, into the mouth of the king of Babylon (14:14). It is used repeatedly in the Babylonian proclamations in Daniel (3:26, 4:24, 32, 5:18, 21, 7:18, 22, 25, 27). The girl with a spirit of divination at Philippi employs it (Act 16:17). It is found in Phoenician inscriptions also. See Chadwick, St. Mark, p. 144, and Wsctt. on Heb 7:1. For see on 1:42, and for see on 5:12: with of demoniac cries comp. 4:41; Act 8:7.
. Neither the verb nor its cognate substantive is ever used in N.T. of testing metals, or of obtaining evidence by torture, but simply of pain or torment. The demoniac identifies himself with the demon which controls him, and the torment which is feared is manifest from ver. 31.
29. . Authorities are very evenly divided between the imperf. and the aor. If be right, it almost means He had ordered. Burton., 29, 48. We should have expected , for both in ver. 27 and ver. 30 we have . But the interchange of personality between the man and the demons is so rapid, that it becomes natural to speak of the demons in the sing. Note that while Lk. has his characteristic (vv. 33, 38, 4:35, 41, 5:8, etc.), Mk. has the more usual .
. Many times, i.e. on many occasions, multis temporibus (Vulg.), it had seized him, or carried him away: comb. Act 27:15. Mk. has . Others explain within a long time. See Win. 31:9, p. 273. The verb is quite class., but in N.T. peculiar to Lk. (Act 6:12, Act 19:29, Act 26:15). Hobart counts it as medical (p. 244). In LXX, Pro 6:25; Pro_2 Mac. 3:27, 4:41,
. Both Lk. and Mk. use these two words to distinguish the handcuffs and fetters, manic et pedic, with which he was bound. See Lft. Phil. p. 8. The former is used of the chain by which the hand of a prisoner was fastened to the soldier who had charge of him. Like chains, are of metal, whereas might be ropes or withes. Both and are included in . The imperfects tell of what usually took place. During the calmer intervals precautions were taken to prevent the demons carrying him away with them; but these precautions always proved futile.
. In order to take the man away from humane influences. But the wilderness is regarded as the home of evil spirits. See on 11:24; and for the plural see on 1:80.
30. ; In order to recall the man to a sense of his own independent personality, Jesus asks him his name. It was a primary condition of his cure that he should realize that he is not identical with the evil powers which control his actions. Perhaps also Christ wished the disciples to know the magnitude of the evil, that the cure might increase their faith (ver. 25): and this purpose may have influenced Him in allowing the destruction of the swine. The peculiar word 1, which is preserved in Mar 5:9 also, is a mark of authenticity. As Sanday points out, it is more probable that this strange introduction of a Latin word should represent something which really took place, than that it should be pure invention (Contemp. Rev. Sept. 1892, p. 349). The words are the remark of the Evangelist: comp. 2:50, 3:15, 23:12.
31. . They kept beseeching Him. The plurality of those who ask is emphatically marked: with we might have expected , as in Mk. The plur. would have been less noticeable in Mk., because the masc. plur., , precedes.
That ( B C D F L S, Latt. Goth.) and not is right here, need not be doubted.
. In class. Grk. is always an adj, bottomless, boundless, and is mostly poetical. In LXX is used of the sea (Gen 1:2, Gen 1:7:11; Job 41:22, Job 41:23); without the art. (Job 28:14, 36:16; Ecclus. 13, 16:18); of the depths of the earth (Psa 71:20; Deu 8:7); but perhaps nowhere of Hades. In N.T. it means Hades (Rom 10:7), and esp. the penal part of it which is the abode of demons (Rev 9:1-11, Rev 9:11:7, Rev 9:17:8, Rev 9:20:1, Rev 9:3). The latter is the meaning here. The demons dread being sent to their place of punishment. See Crem. Lex. sub v. In Mk. the petition is that He will not send them out of the country; but the verb is sing. and the man is the petitioner. He still confuses himself with the demons, and desires to stay where he feels at home. This is their wish and his also. The persistent confusion of personality renders it necessary that the man should have some decisive evidence of the departure of the evil spirits from him. In this way his cure will be effected with least suffering, Prof. Marshall thinks that and may represent Aramaic expressions so nearly alike as readily to be confounded by copyist or translator (Expositor, Nov. 1891 p. 377). See footnote on 5:31
32. . This illustrates the fondness of Lk. for in this sense: Mt. has and Mk. . With characteristic love of detail Mk. gives the number as , which may be an exaggeration of the swineherds or of the owners, who wished to make the most of their loss. Had the number been an invention of the narrator, we should have had 4000 or 5000 to correspond with the legion. It is futile to ask whether each animal was possessed. If some of them were set in motion, the rest would follow mechanically. For the of Lk. and Mk. we have the direct in Mt., which need mean no more than depart, be gone. But the distinction between commanding and allowing what He might have forbidden is not very helpful. Whatever the motive of the demons may have been, Jesus uses it for a good end, and secures the easy and effectual cure of their victim.
33. . These words also are in all three. The word need not mean an abrupt precipice: a steep and rocky slope suffices. MacGregor, Stanley, Tristram, Wilson, and others believe that the spot which suits the description can be identified. The art. implies that it was well known. Comp. 2Ch 25:12. The use of for suffocation by drowning is classical (Dem. p. 883).
34. . Chiefly the destruction of the swine. In ver. 36 means the disciples and others near to Jesus, not the swineherds.
35-39. Note how the characteristics of Lk.s diction stand out in these verses. For .. (see on ver. 29) Mk. has , and (see on 7:38) has no equivalent in Mk. For (see on ver. 20) Mk. has while (see on 3:21), (see on 1:10), (see on 1:42, 7:16), (see on 4:38), and (see on 1:56) have no equivalents. For (see on 5:12) Mk. has ; for (see on ver. 29) Mk. has the less accurate for (see on 1:56) Mk. has ; and for (see on 1:56) Mk. has .
35. . Some of the bystanders may have given him clothing; but there would have been time to fetch it. The verb is found neither in LXX nor in profane writers, but only here and Mar 5:15. The implies an attitude of thankfulness rather than that he has become a disciple. It is the last of the four changes that have taken place in the man. He is instead of restless, instead of naked, instead of raging, and . instead of shunning human society. Baur would have it that he is meant to represent the conversion of the Gentiles. We are not sure that he was a Gentile; and this would have been made clear if he was intended as a representative. For with the acc. after a verb of not comp. Act 10:6; Mat 13:1, Mat 13:20:30; Mar 5:21, Mar 10:46.
36. . This is not a repetition of ver. 34, but a statement of additional information which was given to the townspeople after they arrived on the scene.
37. . The desire that He should depart was universal, and all three narratives mention it. The people feared that His miraculous power might lead to further losses: and this feeling was not confined to the inhabitants of the close at hand (ver. 34); it was shared by the whole district. Comp. 4:29, 9:53, and contrast 4:42; Joh 4:40. Although Keirn rejects the incident of the swine, yet he rightly contends that this request that Jesus should leave the place gives the impression of a sober historical fact. There is nothing like it elsewhere in the history of Jesus; and neither it nor the locality is likely to have been invented. Why should a myth take Jesus across to Gerasa? Some historical connexion with the locality is much more probable. Here, as in vv. 30, 36, Syr-Sin. abbreviates.
38. . The marks the contrast between Him and the rest. Mk. says that the request was made as Jesus was stepping into the boat. Mt. omits the whole incident. The man fears the unfriendly populace, and clings to his preserver.
39. . In Galilee and Juda, where Jesus and His disciples preached, He commonly told those who were healed to be silent about their cures. In this half-heathen Pera there were no other missionaries, and the man was not fitted for permanent work with Christ elsewhere. Moreover, here there was no danger of the miracle being used for political purposes. Lastly, it might be beneficial to a healed demoniac to have free converse with all after his gloomy isolation. The is last with emphasis. Jesus shows the man that he must attribute his deliverance to God. Both Lk. and Mk. preserve the highly natural touch that, in spite of this command, the man proclaimed what Jesus had done for him. Note also that is much in excess of and of . See on 9:10.
. With , not with : Win. 69. d.a, p. 499. Mk. has . Nowhere else in N.T. does occur: Lk. commonly writes (4:14, 23:5 ; Act 9:31, Act 9:42, Act 9:10:37). He nowhere mentions Decapolis.
40-56. The Healing of the Woman with the Issue and the Raising of the Daughter of Jairus. Mat 9:18-26; Mar 5:21-43. The name of Bernice (Veronica) for this woman first appears in the Acts of Pilate, Gospel of Nicodemus, Pt. 1Ch_7. Respecting the statues, which Eusebius saw at Csarea, and which he believed to represent Christ and this woman, see H. E. vii. 18, 1-3. Sozomen says that Julian removed the statue of Christ and substituted one of himself, which was broken by a thunderbolt (5:21). Philostorgius says the same (7:3). Malalas gives the petition in which the woman asked Herod Antipas to be allowed to erect the memorial (Chrongr. x. 306-8). That the statues existed, and that Christians thus misinterpreted their meaning, need not doubted Pseudo-Ambrosius would have it that the woman was Martha the sister of Lazarus.
40-48, In these verses also the marks of Lk.s style are very conspicuous (see, above on vv. 35-39). In ver. 40). we have c.infin. (see on 3:21) (see on 1:56) (see on ver. 40), . c. particip. (see on 1:10), (see on 9:43), and (see on 3:15). In ver. 41, (see on 1:20), (1:36) (see on ver. 41), (see on 7:38). In ver. 42, (see on 1:17) and c. infin. In ver. 44, (see on 5:25). In ver. 45, (6:30, 7:35) and (5). In ver. 46, (see on 4:35). In ver. 47, (see on ver. 20), (see on 1:15), , , and . Not one of these expressions is found in the parallel passages in Mt. and Mk. See on 9:28-36.
40. . Peculiar to Lk. (9:11; Act 2:41, Act 2:18:27, Act 2:17, Act 2:24:3, Act 2:28:30, and possibly 15:4). The meaning is they received Him with pleasure, welcomed Him (Euthym. Theophyl. Schanz). See on 4:42 and on 11:29. In class. Grk. the verb means accept as a teacher, as an authority, or admit arguments as valid: so in Xen. Plat. Arist. etc.
41. . The same name as Jair (Num 32:41; Jdg 10:3). It is strange that the name (= he will give light) should be used as an argument against the historical character of the narrative. It is not very appropriate to the circumstances.
. Very freq. in Lk., esp. in Acts: not in Mt. Mk. or Jn. The use of this verb as almost equivalent to is the beginning of the modern usage. But the classical meaning of a present state connected with a previous state still continues in N. T. (9:48, 11:13, 16:14, 23, 23:50). See Sp. Comm. on 1Co 7:26. Here also Christ does not refuse the homage (4:8), as Peter (Act 10:26) and the Anget (Rev 19:10) do.
42. . As in the cases of the widows son and the lunatic boy (7:12, 9:38), this fact may have influenced Christ. On all three occasions Lk. alone mentions the fact.
. A critical time in a girls life. Not only Lk., who frequently notes such things (2:36, 37, 42, 3:23, 13:11), but Mk. also gives the age. All three mention that the woman with the issue had been suffering for twelve years. For Mk. has and Mt. . The reason for the difference between Mt. and the others is plain. Lk. and Mk. give the arrivals, both of the father, who says, She is dying, and of the messenger, who says, She is dead. Mt. condenses the two into one.
. Mk. has , which is less strong: see on ver. 14. In both cases the expresses the pressing together all round Him. The crowd which had been waiting for Him (ver. 40) now clings to Him in the hope of witnessing a miracle.
43. . Being in a condition of hemorrhage. The constr. is quite simple and intelligible; comp. , , . The form is from the unused , from which come the late forms and , and is often a v l. Win. 29:3. b, p. 230.
. Having, in addition to all her sufferings, spent all her resources on physicians, or for for pbysiclans, or in physicians. This use of for means of living is freq. in N.T. (15:12, 30, 21:4; Mar 12:44; 1Jn 3:17) and in class. Grk. In class. Grk. is a higher word than , the former being that which is fecaber to man, the latter that which he shares with brutes and vegetables. In N.T. retains its meaning, being either the period of human life, as 1Ti 2:2; 2Ti 2:4, or means of life, as here. But is raised above , and means that vital principle which through Christ man shares with God. Hence is comparatively rare in N.T., which is not much concerned with the duration of temporal life or the means of prolonging it; whereas occurs more than a hundred times. See Trench, Syn. xxvii.; Crem. Lex. p. 272 ; Lft. on Ign. ad Rom. vii. 3.
WH. follow B D, Arm. in omitting . Treg. at RV., indicate doubt in marg. Syr-Sin. omits.
. This use of for be able is freq. in Lk. See on 6:48. It is natural that the physician does not add, as Mk. does, that she had suffered much at the hands of the physicians, and was worse rather than better for their treatment. The remedies which they tried in such cases were sometimes very severe, and sometimes loathsome and absurd. See Lightfoot, p. 614; Tristram, Eastern Customs in Bible Lands, pp. 22, 23.
44. . She came from behind that He might not see her. Her malady made her levitically unclean, and she did not wish to own this publicly. Her faith is tinged with superstition. She believes that Christs garments heal magically, independently of His will. In other cases those who touched Him in faith seem to have done so openly. Comp. 6:19; Mat 14:36; Mar 3:10, Mar 6:56.
For a has de retro: comp, Baruch 6:5, visa itaque turba de retro (Vulg.). Hence the French derriere.
. The tassel rather than the fringe or hem of His garment. The square overgarment or Tallith had tassels of three white threads with one of hyacinth at each of the four corners. Edersh. L. & T. 1. p. 624 (but see D. B.2 art. Hem of Garment). Of the four corners two hung in front, and two behind. It was easy to touch the latter without the wearer feeling the touch. D.C.G. art. Border.
. It stood still, ceased to flow. Mk. has . This is the only passage in the N.T. in which is used in this sense. It is the usual word in the medical writers to denote the stoppage of bodily discharges, and especially such as are mentioned here (Hobart, p. 15). Both , for which Mk. has , and , for which Mk. has , are also claimed as medical (pp. 16, 96).
45. There is no reason for supposing that the miracle wrought without the will of Jesus. He knew that someone had been healed by touching His garment; and we may believe that He read the womans heart as she approached Him in the belief that He could heal her. Lk. evidently dates the cure from her touching His garment; Mt. seems to place it in Christs words to her; Mk. in both places.
; This does not seem to be one of those cases in which Christ asked for information. He knew that He had been touched with a purpose, and He probably knew who had done it. Mk.s rather implies that He knew where to look. For the womans sake she must be induced to avow her act. Note the masc., which makes the question all the more general: Mk. has . The verb implies more than touching, laying hold of. For other cases in which Jesus asked questions of which He knew the answer comp. 24:17; Mar 9:33. See some good remarks in the S. P. C. K. Comm. on Luk 8:46.
. This explains, and to some extent excuses, Peters characteristic interference. Lk. alone tells us that Peter took the lead in this. See on 9:20, and comp. Mar 1:36. Note the , and see on 9:43 and 11:4. For see on 5:5.
. Hold Thee in, keep Thee a prisoner; 19:43, 22:63; comp. 4:38. Here only in N. T. does occur: Lat. affligere (Vulg.), comprimere (f), contribulare (d); om. a b ff.2
46. . For the constr. see Burton., 458, and comp. Heb 13:23; and for see on 4:36.
47. . The in ver. 45, if taken literally, implies that she had previously denied her action. The , however, seems to show that she had gone a little way from Him after being healed. But she may also have been afraid that she had done wrong in touching His garment. Either or both would explain the . She is afraid that the boon may be with drawn. For the attraction see small print on 3:19, and Burton., 350: is also characteristic.
48. . All three record these words. It was me grasp of her faith, not of her hand, that wrought the cure. Thus her low view of the manner of Christs healing is corrected.
49. . A member of his household arrives and tells Jairus that it is now too late. The delay caused by the incident with the woman must have been agonizing to him. But this trial is necessary for the development of his faith, as well as for that of the woman, and Jesus curtails no item in His work. The is placed first with emphasis. For see on 7:6. See also Blass on Act 10:44.
50. , . Change of tense. Cease to fear; only make an act of faith In Mar 5:36 we have , only continue to believe. In either case the meaning is, In the presence of this new difficulty let faith prevail, and will be well. For see on 1:13
51. Did not allow anyone to enter with Him into the room. He and the disciples had already entered the house, and the parents had been there from the first. Here, as in ver, 38, Lk. has where Mk. has : see on 1:56.
. The chosen three ( as Clem. Alex. calls them) are probably admitted for me sake of me Twelve, whose faith would be strengthened by the miracle. These three sufficed as witnesses. Moreover, they were in character most fitted to profit by the miracle. Here, as in 9:28 and Act 1:13, John is placed before James. Elsewhere the other order, which is almost certainly the order of age, prevails (5:10, 6:14, 9:54), and always in Mt.(4:21, 10:2, 17:1) and Mk. (1:19, 29, 3:17, 5:37, 9:2, 10:35, 41, 13:3, 14:33).
Irenus had a text which omitted . Quintus autem ingressus Dominus ad mortuam puellam suscitavit eam, nullum enim, inquit, permisit intrare nisi Petrum et jacobum et patrem et matrem puell (2:24, 4). No existing text makes this omission; but many authorities transpose James and John in order to have the usual order ( A L S X L, Boh. Aeth. Arm. Goth.). But the evidence of B C D A F G K, a b c d e f ff2 1 q r Cod. Am. Cod. Brix. etc. is decisive. There is similar confusion in 9:28 and Act 1:13.
52. . The mourners (2Ch 35:25; Jer 9:17) were not in the room with the corpse: Mt. and Mk. tell us that Christ turned them out of the house. The is again peculiar to Lk.s account: comp.vv. 40, 45, 47. The acc. after is class. (Eur. Tro. 623; Aristoph. Lys. 396): they beat their breasts for her, bewailed her. Comp. 23:27; Gen 23:2; 1Sa 25:1.
. This declaration is in all three narratives. Neander, Olshausen, Keim, and others understand it literally; and possibly Origen is to be understood as taking the same view. A miracle of power is thus turned into a miracle of knowledge. But the in ver. 53 is conclusive as to the Evangelists meaning: not supposing, but knowing that she was dead. The is rather to be understood in the same sense as (Joh 11:11). But the cases are not parallel, for there Jesus prevents all possibility of misunderstanding by adding . Yet the fact that Jesus has power to awaken explains in both cases why He speaks of sleep. We may, however, be content, with Hase, to admit that certainty is unattainable as to whether the maiden was dead or in a trance.
54. . All three mention that He laid hold of her, although to touch a dead body was to incur ceremonial uncleanness. In like manner He touched the leper: see on 5:13. This laying hold of her hand and the raised voice () are consonant with waking one out of sleep, and the two may be regarded as the means of the miracle. Comp. and contrast throughout Act 9:36-42.
, . Arise, get up, not awake. Mt. omits the command; Mk. gives the exact words, Talitha cumi. For the nom. with the art. as voc. see on 10:21, 18:11, 13. For comp. ver. 8, 16:24.
55. . There can be no doubt that the Evangelist uses the phrase of the spirit returning to a dead body, which is the accurate use of the phrase. Only the beloved physician makes this statement. In LXX it is twice used of a living mans strength reviving; of the fainting Samson (Jdg 15:19), and of the starving Egyptian (1Sa 30:12). Note that Lk. has his favourite , where Mk. has his favourite ; and comp. ver. 44, 5:25, 18:43, 22:60.
. This care of Jesus in commanding food after the childs long exhaustion would be of special interest to Lk. In their joy and excitement the parents might have forgotten it. The charge is somewhat parallel to (7:15) of the widows son at Nain. In each case He intimates that nature is to resume its usual course: the old ties and the old responsibilities are to begin again.
56. . The command has been rejected as an unintelligible addition to the narrative. No such command was given at Nain or at Bethany. The object of it cannot have been to keep the miracle a secret. Many were outside expecting the funeral, and they would have to be told why no funeral was to take place. It can hardly have been Christs intention in this way to prevent the multitude from making a bad use of the miracle. This command to the parents would not have attained such an object It was given more probably for the parents sake, to keep them from letting the effect of this great blessing evaporate in vainglorious gossip. To thank God for it at home would be far more profitable than talking about it abroad.
Found in Luke alone.
A A. Cod. Alexandrinus, sc. v. Once in the Patriarchal Library at Alexandria; sent by Cyril Lucar as a present to Charles 1. in 1628, and now in the British Museum. Complete.
L L. Cod. Regius Parisiensis, sc. viii. National Library at Paris. Contains the whole Gospel.
M M. Cod. Campianus, sc. ix. In the National Library at Paris. Contains the whole Gospel.
X X. Cod. Monacensis, sc. ix. In the University Library at Munich. Contains 1:1-37, 2:19-3:38, 4:21-10:37, 11:1-18:43, 20:46-24:53.
Vulg. Vulgate.
Rhem. Rheims (or Douay).
Cov. Coverdale.
Jos. Josephus.
Wic. Wiclif.
Wetst. Wetstein.
WH. Westcott and Hort.
Trench, Trench, New Testament Synonyms.
Beng. Bengel.
Tyn. Tyndale.
1 The work as a whole, and the dissertation on thin question in particular, deserve special commendation.
D. B. Smiths Dictionary of the Bible, 2nd edition.
om. omit.
Cod. Sinaiticus, sc. iv. Brought by Tischendorf from the Convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai; now at St. Petersburg. Contains the whole Gospel complete.
B B. Cod. Vaticanus, sc. 4. In the Vatican Library certainly since 15331 (Batiffol, La Vaticane de Paul 3, etc., p. 86).
D D. Cod. Bezae, sc. vi. Given by Beza to the University Library at Cambridge 1581. Greek and Latin. Contains the whole Gospel.
Latt. Latin.
Goth. Gothic.
C
C. Cod. Ephraemi Rescriptus, sc. 5. In the National Library at Paris. Contains the following portions of the Gospel: 1:2-2:5, 2:42-3:21, 4:25-6:4, 6:37-7:16, or 17, 8:28-12:3, 19:42-20:27, 21:21-22:19, 23:25-24:7, 24:46-53.
These four MSS. are parts of what were once complete Bibles, and are designated by the same letter throughout the LXX and N.T.
G G. Cod. Harleianus, sc. ix. In the British Museum. Contains considerable portions.
K K. Cod. Cyprius, sc. ix. In the National Library at Paris. Contains the whole Gospel.
Syr Syriac.
Sin. Sinaitic.
R R. Cod. Nitriensis Rescriptus, sc. 8. Brought from a convent in the Nitrian desert about 1847, and now in the British Museum. Contains 1:1-13, 1:69-2:4, 16-27, 4:38-5:5, 5:25-6:8, 18-36, 39, 6:49-7:22, 44, 46, 47, 8:5-15, 8:25-9:1, 12-43, 10:3-16, 11:5-27, 12:4-15, 40-52, 13:26-14:1, 14:12-15:1, 15:13-16:16, 17:21-18:10, 18:22-20:20, 20:33-47, 21:12-22:15, 42-56, 22:71-23:11, 38-51. By a second hand 15:19-21.
Harcl. Harclean.
Hier. Palestinian (Jerusalem).
Boh. Bohairic.
Arm. Armenian.
Aeth. Ethiopic.
1 See some valuable remarks by Sanday in the Contemp. Rev. Sept. 1892, p. 348. He inclines to the second explanation, but with reserve.
Burton. Burton, N.T. Moods and Tenses.
Wsctt. Westcott.
Win. Winer, Grammar of N.T. Greek (the page refers to Moultons edition).
1 That the man had ever seen a Roman legion, at once one and many, cruet and inexorable and strong, is perhaps not probable. But see Trench Miracles, p. 171, 8th ed. For other Latin words comp. 10:35, 11:33, 19:20.
F F. Cod. Boreeli, sc. ix. In the Public Library at Utrecht. Contains considerable portions of the Gospel.
S S. Cod. Vaticanus, sc. x. In the Vatican. The earliest dated MS. of the Greek Testament. Contains the whole Gospel.
Crem. Cremer, Lexicon of New Testament Greek.
Euthym. Euthymius Zigabenus.
Treg. Tregelles.
RV. Revised Version.
Edersh. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.
Clem. Alex. Clement of Alexandria.
Cod. Am. Codex Amiatimus.
Fuente: International Critical Commentary New Testament
Various Hearers of the Word of God
Luk 8:1-15
Hitherto our Lord had made Capernaum His center; now He started on a circuit through the province of Galilee, going through its cities and villages in a systematic and leisurely manner. It must have been a great opportunity for the instruction of the Twelve in His doctrine and methods.
The parable of the sower was suggested by the scenery before the speaker. There is an advance in the stages of reception and growth, indicating the several phases of experience. The success or failure of gospel preaching is determined by the character of the soil. In every crowd there are the hardened, like the trodden path; the impulsive, like the thin layer of earth upon the rock; those with a heart divided by riches or cares, like the thorn encumbered soil; and those who receive with joy and bear fruit with patience. The Lord veiled His meaning in parables. Increased light would only add to the condemnation of disobedient hearers.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
The Sower And The Seed — Luk 8:1-15
And it came to pass afterward, that He went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with Him. And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herods steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto Him of their substance. And when much people were gathered together, and were come to Him out of every city, He spake by a parable: A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when He had said these things, He cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And His disciples asked Him, saying, What might this parable be? And He said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Now the parable is this: The seed is the Word of God. Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the Word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience- Luk 8:1-15.
This parable of the Sower and the Seed should be both a warning and an encouragement to all who endeavor to labor in the gospel: a warning against the folly of taking at face value every profession of faith in Christ, but an encouragement when many who profess prove unreal, as we remember that even when the divine-human Preacher was the Sower of the gospel seed there were many who heard in vain and who never brought forth fruit unto perfection. It is our business to sow under all circumstances (Ecc 11:6), knowing that the seed is incorruptible (1Pe 1:23), and that, though many give but momentary thought to the message, it will accomplish the purpose of God (Isa 55:11), and that all who hear in faith will be saved (Joh 5:24).
The Word tests as well as saves. Where the heart is occupied with other things-such as the cares of this world or the deceitfulness of riches-there will be little appreciation of that message which speaks of another scene altogether and of riches that can never pass away. Where possible, the preacher is to break up the fallow ground and sow not among thorns (Jer 4:3). On the other hand, he is to be instant in season and out of season (2Ti 4:2) even though this involves some seed falling upon hard, unprepared hearts, only to be devoured by the birds of the air, fit pictures of Satan and his demon host, who are ever on the alert to hinder the progress of the gospel, because they know that if men believe the message they will be saved. It is well, too, for those who profess faith in Christ to test themselves and make sure that theirs is a faith that works by love and not mere empty credulity.
The first three verses of this portion of Scripture serve as an introduction to that which follows and give us the circumstances of Christs setting forth the truth of God in this parable form. We are told that the Lord Jesus went about preaching and showing the gospel. He was declaring the gospel by word of mouth; He was showing the gospel by manifestation of the marvelous things that were accomplished in those who believed. That is what God is doing today.
The word of the truth of the gospel is likened to a seed because it is a living thing. It is the means God uses to produce the new birth (Jam 1:18). The Holy Spirit causes it to fructify in the heart of the believer and so it produces fruit unto life eternal. This is not true of the proclamation of mere human theories or doctrinal systems. The preaching of the Christ has power. It is the dynamic of God unto salvation to all who believe (Rom 1:16).
Oh, what a wonderful testimony this brings before men and women. It is our privilege not only to preach the gospel but also to show forth the power of it in redeemed lives. Here is the testimony of some who had been healed of evil spirits. They had been actually under the power of demons who had controlled and spoken and acted through them. The Lord had set them free. Mary Magdalene is mentioned first, out of whom went seven devils. The word should be demons-out of whom went seven demons. There is only one devil. We do not know what kind of a woman she was. There is no reason to believe that she was an unchaste woman. A great many people have tried to identify her with the woman spoken of in Luke 7, but there is no proof of this. She had been a demon-controlled woman, and she found deliverance when Jesus set her free. Then we read of Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herods steward, who gladly turned her back upon her place in society to become a simple, humble follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Susanna and many others also became followers of Him, and ministered unto Him of their substance. Our Lord was a carpenter and doubtless helped to support His mother until the day when He went forth to carry out His Fathers ministry. From that time on He deigned to be sustained by the gifts of those who followed Him.
When the Pharisees came one day and asked, Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar? instead of drawing out a coin from His pocket, He had to ask for someone to show Him a penny. He entered into our poverty in order that He might sympathize with us. He and His disciples needed food and clothing. Where did the money come from? These dear devoted women ministered unto Him of their substance. Judas was trusted to handle the money for the group as they went about doing their work of ministry.
And when much people were gathered together, and were come to Him out of every city, He spake by a parable. It was down by the seaside as we are told in the 13th chapter of Matthew. A sower went out to sow his seed. Perhaps even as He talked they could see a sower on one of the hillsides. Jesus drew His illustrations from incidents of everyday life. That is why they live, and that is why they appeal still to human hearts today.
A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. That is a picture readily understood. A sower going out to sow, scattering precious seed as he goes up and down through the field. A great portion seems to be lost and does not bear fruit. And it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it. The people might even see the fowls following the sower. Some fell upon a rock, and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. There were many such folk on the Palestine hillsides. Some fell among thorns. And the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. One little seed produces one hundred seeds! What a wonderful miracle that is! Men talk of the impossibility of miracles, but all around us there are miracles. Everywhere in nature we see wonderful evidences of the power of God. And when He had said these things, He cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. It is so possible to hear something with the outward ear but never to get it in the heart. That is the way many people listen to sermons. They hear words, but no impression is made upon the heart and conscience. If the Word of God is proclaimed, we need to listen and take it in.
When they were alone, away from the crowd, the disciples put the question to Him as to what the parable meant. They did not understand just what it was that He was telling them. And His disciples asked Him, saying, What might this parable be? And He said, Unto you it is given to know-the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Now that seems perhaps a little bit strange. First He tells them that they shall know if they want to know. If you want to know the gospel, you may know it. If you will only come to Him in faith, He will give you understanding. He who comes to Christ with an honest heart shall know. The mysteries of the kingdom of God are sacred secrets which the Lord delights to reveal to honest souls.
This refers to Gods ways with men since His Son has been rejected. He is now making known secrets hitherto unrevealed; things kept secret from the foundation of the world. In Matthews Gospel the term kingdom of heaven is used, and there only. It is never mentioned by that name in any other part of the Bible. It is Heavens rule over the earth, to be manifested openly when our Lord returns, but now only recognized by those who are Spirit-taught. The present phase of the kingdom is the sphere of Christian profession-that which we call Christendom. In this sphere many are unreal; so these will be gathered out of His kingdom when our Lord returns (Mat 13:41). They will then be devoted to judgment.
Our Lord used parables in order to arouse the attention of men. They would want to know the meaning if they were really interested. But of the great majority He said. Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not understand. So the Lord Jesus used this parabolic teaching in order to make clear things that He wanted them to understand and to challenge them. But where there was no exercise of soul the parables would only serve to harden them.
To the disciples He explains all. The seed is the Word of God. Let us be clear about this. We are to give Gods Word, not our own thoughts and imaginations. The seed is the Word and those who are children of God should sow the seed. What about the different classes of hearers? Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. They undefined undefined undefined undefinedlisten casually, pay attention for a few months and then become occupied with other things. Then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. You remember Pauls words to the Philippian jailor, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. People say that it is too simple; that it is too easy a way. One cannot be saved just by believing the gospel. But even the devil knows that you can! Notice what it says, Those by the way side are they which hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the Word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. We are told that he that believeth on Him hath everlasting life. Do you object to this? Stop and think what has transpired that you might have everlasting life by believing. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. You see you cannot separate the last part from the first part of that verse. God has already given His only Son to settle the sin question. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. The Son of Man had to be lifted up on the cross in order that you might be saved. The devil knows this, and that is why he tries to take the Word away from you. That is why we who are servants of God are so eager to have you trust Christ at once because we know how the devil will bring in other things to try to get you not to believe. They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the Word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. It is not always a good sign when people seem to receive the Word with joy. A dear friend of mine told me of a young woman who was frivolous and careless all during a meeting one evening. When he returned the next night someone came up and said, You remember that girl who was in the service last evening; well, she has found peace at last. The preacher inquired, Did she ever find trouble? The servant of God must present to the people the truth of God so that they may see their need of repentance, then judging themselves in the sight of God, He gives peace when they believe the Word. But when people receive the Word only with joy, it is often like the soil in which seed is sown which is just barely covering the top of the rocks. It is generally an evidence of shallowness when people who have known no real exercise about their sins profess to receive the message of the gospel with gladness. Gods way is to wound that He may heal (Deu 32:39). Men need to see their need in order to appreciate the remedy. It is a great mistake to try to lead souls to make a profession of faith in Christ who have never known what it is to face their sins in the presence of God. This is the root-cause of much of the falling away after so-called revivals, where many, under emotional stress, or over-persuasion, have made a profession of faith, but with no conscience-exercise or repentance.
And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. They have heard and really been quite concerned, but they are so occupied with the cares and pleasures of this life that they bring no fruit to perfection. These are people who have been interested to some extent in the gospel message, but are far more interested in the things of this life such as pleasure-seeking, money-making, and similar things. Many of these objects may be innocent enough in themselves, but if you become so occupied with them that you forget your responsibility to God, you will be sorry all through eternity that you did not put the things of the Lord first.
But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it and bring forth fruit with patience. An honest and good heart! Does not the Bible say that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked? What then is meant by a good and honest heart? It means one who knows he is wrong but by the grace of God is going to get right, a person who says, I know I have been wrong and occupied with the wrong things, but I am going to face these things and acknowledge my sins and confess them to God. When a man takes that stand, then he is honest before God.
When a man condemns himself and says, I have sinned, then the rest is easy. At last he has reached the place where God can justify him.
The four classes of hearers are found wherever the gospel is preached. Some pay no attention and the devil plucks away the good seed. Some give apparent heed, but there is no realization of their guilty condition before God. They accept the gospel mentally, even gladly, but soon give evidence that there was no conscience-exercise. Others are seriously perturbed and appear to be earnest believers, but the things of this world are soon seen to be far more important in their eyes than spiritual realities. A fourth group face their true condition before God, confess their sinfulness and acknowledge their guilt. Trusting in Christ they enter into peace, a peace that abides, and the fruits of which are seen in the life.
The seed is the same in each instance. It is the attitude of the hearer that is different. Some are utterly careless, others effervescent and easily moved, but vacillating. Others again are in earnest to begin with, but allow other interests to crowd out spiritual things. Then there are those who are seeking to know God and are ready to receive His Word when it is presented to them. These bear fruit to perfection, and so glorify the Father. Fruit-bearing is the proof of spiritual life. If there be no fruit, profession is a mere sham, as the after-experience will soon make manifest.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Luk 8:11
Use the Bible.
I. God’s Word is a portion of the food He has given to man to live by. It is the spiritual sustenance He has provided to support the spiritual part of us, the soul. For the soul, as well as the body, requires its fitting food. Both must be supported and nourished, if we would have them thrive. Does not all nature cry, from every part of the creation, that everything earthly must be fed? Fire must be fed, water must be fed, even the earth itself, which feeds all things, must be fed, else it will crumble into dust, or harden into a rock. So it is with the soul. That, too, as well as the body, must be fed with food suited to its nature. This is so plain that the heathen themselves knew it. They were fully aware that the soul would never thrive, unless it was nourished with food suitable to it; and to find that food was the great desire of the best and wisest men among them. Now if they did this, they who only knew that their spirits required food, from feeling them crave for it, what will God say to us, if we are less anxious about the nourishment of our souls?
II. For the Bible is not a charm that, keeping it on our shelves or locking it up in a closet, can do us any good. Neither is it a story-book to read for amusement. It is sent to teach us our duty to God and man; to show us from what a height we are fallen by sin, and to what a far more glorious height we may soar, if we will put on the wings of faith and love. This is the use of the Bible, and this use we ought to make of it. If we use the Bible thus, Christ, who is the way of life, will open our eyes to see the way. He will send you the wings I spoke of, and they shall bear you up to heaven. For this must be borne in mind, that God alone giveth the increase. Unless He gives it, no increase shall we receive. Our joy will not be increased; so that the study of God’s Book will continue an irksome task. The only way of insuring that our labour shall not be fruitless is by prayer; the only way of drawing down a blessing on our study is to ask for it.
A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 278.
Luk 8:11-12
I. The seed is the Word of God. And thus we are taught (1) That it is not in the hearers themselves. It is no result of their reasoning; it is no creature of their imagination. It comes to them from without. (2) It possesses living, germinating power. The power is its own. It is not taken up into and made part of us, but it takes us up and makes us part of itself. (3) The seed itself does not exert its power spontaneously and independently. There must be the concurrence of three requisites: the deposition of the seed; its entrance into the soil; fitness of the soil for its germination and nurture. Where these do not concur, there is no effectual growth, no eventual bearing of fruit. Wonderful as are the powers of the seed, it is a dependent and conditional agent. Its action is first dependent on one who sows.
II. The seed, then, is scattered everywhere; and some falls by the wayside. A path or road passing through the field, by the side of this, not absolutely on the hard beaten track itself, but still where many footsteps pass and harden the soil, some of the seeds are deposited. Thus situated, the seed is liable to two dangers-“it was trodden down, and the birds of the air devoured it.” The class of hearers of God’s Word which is here intended is the class that understandeth not. God speaks by His minister, speaks by His revealed words, speaks in judgment, speaks in mercy; and for a moment His word lies on our hearts; for a moment we are in contact with the incorruptible regenerating seed; but our enemy knows it, he knows the import of that moment, he knows the life-giving power of that seed, and he contrives that a frivolous incident should catch the attention, or a worldly thought light down on the same surface, or a trifling companion cross our path; for these there is more desire than for the heavenly seed; they occupy the ground, and we toy with them till the seed is gone.
III. The heart is hardened: (1) By the tread of many footsteps. Much converse with the world, much converse with, the Word itself, habituation of every kind, deadens susceptibility. (2) The heart may be self-hardened by long-continued worldliness of spirit. (3) Another section of our wayside hearers are those who are intellectually preoccupied. (4) Over-fastidiousness has a hardening influence; the heart remains shut to the living seed of the Word because it comes not exactly in the way desired. Take heed how ye hear; for with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
H. Alford, Sermons at Cambridge, p. 1.
References: Luk 8:11.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 430. Luk 8:12.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1459.
Luk 8:13
I. As the Lord is evermore speaking to us, and we evermore hearing Him, so must the receiving the Word with joy be extended in its meaning to include all possible receptions of that which He says. And, thus extended, we may interpret the characteristic to mean, as applied to the class before us, that they are such as do not present to the suggestions of Christ’s spirit a hard, impenetrable heart; whose surface is not trodden down like the wayside, so that the seed lies on it exposed to the passing depredator, but soft and genial, so that it sinks in at once; whose soil is not the cold unkindly clay, which would keep back the seed, but warm and open, so that it swells and springs up without delay. It is good, doubtless, in a certain sense, to receive the Word with joy; it cannot be for a moment doubted, that among those who receive it with joy are some of the best and the noblest of us, some of the very flower and choice of our society.
II. “These,” it is added, “have no root.” The seed within them, so quick to germinate, found no depth of soil wherein to strike its roots. Above, all was genial and inviting growth; but beneath, all was hard and impenetrable. (1) Impressibility is liable to be joined with want of depth of character; it is no criterion of genuine religion, no guarantee for endurance; in other words, what are called religious impressions are very far from being religion, and must not be mistaken for it. (2) There is another perilous consideration for the susceptible. Men are not strongly impressed on one subject only. They hear the Word with joy; but it is not the only thing which they thus hear. The world, too, has a voice, the tempter has a voice; all these, it is to be feared, they hear with joy likewise-such, at least, is their tendency. They have no root; nothing with them strikes deep into the individual character. Their joy in the Word is evanescent, their impression fleeting. That love to Christ which sprung up in their hearts, that holy obedience which seemed to be the rule of their lives, having no root, never having come from firm conviction or thorough persuasion, shall pass away, and be as though they had never been.
H. Alford, Sermons at Cambridge, p. 25.
References: Luk 8:13.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 11; J. Vaughan, Sermons, 11th series, p. 45.
Luk 8:14
I. With the class of hearers mentioned in this verse all is favourable, and all goes well at first. Hearers of this kind present not to the Word of God the inattentive ear, nor the hardened heart; they rejoice not with easy and shallow susceptibility over that which they have heard. They are, at the sowing-time, such soil as the sower loves. They hear and weigh and understand. And having heard, they go forth into the world again, thoroughly determined to practise that which they have heard. But, alas! they are not men living in habits of diligent self-culture and discipline. The heart which ought to have long ere this cleared for God’s Word to grow in, to assimilate, to take up into itself, is filled with rank growths of worldliness, and possessed by the tangled roots of the weeds of passion; and as soon as they have gone forth, these spring up with the Word, and ultimately choke its progress.
II. “The cares of life”-“the deceitfulness of riches.” It has been commonly supposed that these two embrace the two conditions of life-the poor and the rich; those who have to care for every day’s supply of want, and those who are deceived and forget God, in consequence of its ample supply. But for this there seems no necessity. The two may co-exist in the heart of the same hearer, be he rich or poor. As riches increase cares increase; and, in the very poorest, the deceitfulness of worldly substance, and the love of amassing it, and the danger of trusting to it, may be active or imminent. And as every portion of the parable points to a whole department of Christian duty, to be earnestly taken in hand and attended to, so in this case it is self-discipline which is mainly pointed at-discipline of thought, discipline of affection, discipline of pursuit. Let this be our discipline against the deceitfulness of riches-to think more of Christ’s character and of that great work which He has done for us. Let our discipline for care be faith, and for worldliness, obedience; the one teaching us to trust Christ, the other to imitate Him.
H. Alford, Sermons at Cambridge, p. 47.
Luk 8:15
The hearers referred to in the text yield fruit, which none of the others did. In them, all pointed at failure; in these, all point at success. In them, even the bright colours of promise were dashed with sadness; in these, even the weakness of our common humanity is gilded with the coming glory. In them, every apparent success contained the elements of failure; in these, even partial failure is an earnest of final success.
I. Notice how the difficulties are overcome, and the hindrances removed, in an inverse order from that in which they were fatal. The deepest defect, the most deadly hindrance, was in the will; the will undecided, many-purposed, disloyal; the outworks taken, but the citadel still rebellious. Now mark the difference. First, the will is secured. The heart is honest and good; the direction of the will is plain and simple. The expression “an honest and good heart” conveys to us the idea of ingenuousness, nobleness of purpose, united with goodness, properly so called; such a person would be clear and simple in intent, and that intent a good one.
II. “Having heard the Word, they keep it; they hold it with a fulness of conscious and permanent possession; the feelers of the mind, so to speak, clasp round it, and its roots become twined inseparably among them; they take the Word to themselves in the very depth of affection and earnestness, as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” In a word, and that word one often heard, but little pondered on, and even less realised, they love God; their hearts are drawn after Him; a new and mighty power has taken possession of them, and is transforming them into the Divine likeness, and making them to bring forth fruit acceptable to God, and that in rich abundance.
III. As in the parable of the talents, so here, every man bears fruit according to his several ability. One plant becomes a great tree, and overshadows a wide space of the forest; another remains, equally healthy and prolific, but of smaller growth, and more limited shade. The seed is received as each man has ears to hear. But let us notice one point common to all three of the degrees of reproduction-the high standard at which all are fixed. Thirty, sixty, and a hundred. Must we not enquire whether the usual measure of our choicest Christian attainments reaches even the lowest of these? Where is the thirty-fold return even from our best soil?
H. Alford, Sermons at Cambridge, p. 71.
References: Luk 8:15.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 252; H. Alford, Sermons on Christian Doctrine, p. 150; J. Natt, Posthumous Sermons, p. 359; F. Temple, Rugby Sermons, 1st series, p. 180. Luk 8:16.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 353.
Luk 8:18
Notwithstanding the importance here attached to preaching, many who listen to sermons are really no better for it. Indeed, our Saviour more than intimates in the text that such may be the case, and hence His emphatic warning, “Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.” Several classes of persons, to be met with in every congregation, should attend to this caution.
I. In the first rank of these may be placed the indifferent hearer.
II. Another class who should give heed to the warnings of the text are represented by the critical hearer.
III. A third class of church-goers who derive little benefit from preaching may be described as captious hearers. Note three simple rules in regard to hearing sermons: (1) Endeavour always to listen to the preaching of the Gospel with a mind free from prejudice. (2) Sermons should be heard with a desire to profit by them. (3) Sermons should be heard with humble dependence on God’s Holy Spirit, to open the understanding and to touch the heart.
J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 334.
References: Luk 8:18.-Preacher’s Monthly, p. 213; Parker, Christian Commonwealth, vol. vi., p. 503; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. i., p. 87; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons Chiefly Practical, p. 157; J. Kelly, Christian World, Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 51. Luk 8:22-25.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 249. Luk 8:23.-Ibid., vol. ii., p. 253.
Luk 8:24
I. There is much in that expression that “Christ rebuked the wind and the waves.” You will miss a great part of the intention of the incident if you merely look upon it as a miracle of stilling a tempest. Why did Christ rebuke the elements? The word appears the language of one who either sees moral guilt, or who, in his affection, is indignant at something which is hurting those he loves. The elements, in themselves, cannot, of course, do a moral wrong. But is it possible that the prince of the power of the air had anything to do with that storm? Was there some latent fiendish malice in that sudden outbreak of nature upon Christ and His Church? And was Christ indeed ejecting an evil spirit when He did just what He always did, and said just what He always said, when He was dealing with those who were possessed with devils? “He rebuked them.” But, however this may be, there is another aspect in which we ought to see it. We know that to the Second Adam was given what the first Adam forfeited-perfect dominion over all creation. In this light the present hurricane was like a rebellion, and Christ treated it as such, that He might show His mastership. Hence that royal word, “He rebuked them,” and hence the instant submission.
II. The winds were the emblem of the external influences which affect and harass; the waves, of the inward heavings and distresses which those external influences produce upon the mind: the winds, the active, evil agencies of life; the waves, the consequence of the trials, when they fall upon you; because, as the wave answers to the wind, rising or falling with its swell or subsidence, so do our weak hearts beat or be still, and respond sensibly to the ills about us. Do not wish exemption from evil, neither from sorrow, nor yet from temptation. Immunity from grief is not half as great as God’s consolation under it. Exemption is not the true peace, but deliverance, victory; the peace which Christ makes out of the materials of our troubles; the silenced fear, the subdued restlessness, the sealed pardon, the interposing grace, the triumph of an omnipotent love.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 309.
Luk 8:25
The question before us has in it a wild sublimity. The waves had just found their resting-place; the wind was gone back into its treasure-house; and our Saviour stood upon the calm, and seemed to say, “The fierce enemies have been and gone, but where is your faith?”
I. Everybody has faith. To have a trust in something is so natural, that I could almost say it is indispensable to human nature. There are faculties and principles of the human heart which must cling. Every man, however independent he thinks himself, is constituted to have some feeling in him which goes forth-which is as the creeper that creeps over your door, or as the vine which is wedded to the air. Those feelings made to twine may trail in the dust; those affections made to mount may often trail down like withered, disappointed things; they may grasp that which will never bear, or drive to that which sends back poison and death where we had looked for sustenance. Is our faith in the First Great Source? or is it in second causes?
II. Trusting to second causes is sheer idolatry. It is the essential of God that He is final; what is final is made God. There is many an idolater in heathenism who never looks upon his wretched idol, but his thoughts are led to that invisible being that the idol represents. Those who look at second causes and do not look at the First Cause are greater idolaters than the heathen. Look at our marts of commerce, look at our great assemblies, look at our great entertainments, look at our churches, and say is it not so. Are not instruments being looked at as if they were all-effective causes? What remains for a jealous God but to scatter second causes which have been elevated into a supremacy which belongs only to Him? The winds that came down upon the Sea of Galilee were but as strings in the hands of God, causing the waves to become tempestuous; and you who go up and down trusting to that which is wise in man and beautiful in nature, beware! lest presently your bright prospect gets beclouded, and a more fearful storm than that which swept over the angry sea come into your heart, to teach you to have no confidence anywhere but in God, and to look up from the dangers of this disappointing world to Him who only sits at the helm of all, and cry to Him, “Master, Master, we perish!”
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 189.
References: Luk 8:25.-F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 253. Luk 8:28.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii., No. 778. Luk 8:34.-R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. i., p. 160.
Luk 8:35
I. Consider this Story of the Demoniac. A man who was wild and furious becomes calm and orderly. He sits at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. What has wrought this mighty change? Is it the announcement to him of some law which God has laid down for His creatures? Is it anything whatever which we comprehend under the ordinary notion of moral discipline? All these regulations were desirable, doubtless, for a man in the condition of the maniac. But common sense pronounced them ridiculous. It was obvious that they could take no effect; they must be wasted. Far more direct and simple methods were resorted to. He was chained. But that was as ineffectual a scheme of regulation as the other. The fetters were burst asunder, the chains were broken. It is just when all mere regulations, human and Divine, are found absolutely vain to restrain him from being the curse and plague of his fellowmen, that Christ is said to have met the man Himself, to have entered into colloquy with that which could hear no laws, could be restrained by no force, and to have emancipated and reformed that. And here is the result: Not a new excitement substituted for the old, not religious paroxysms taking the place of other paroxysms; but quietness and order: he is in his right mind.
II. It is not true of the Gospel of Christ, that if you take from it its original character, if you strip it of those claims which apostles and martyrs put forth on its behalf, it may challenge respect on a lower ground, it may claim a sort of useful and recognised position for itself among the other agents of civilisation. I know such an opinion prevails in many minds. They say that “‘Reft of a crown, it still may share the feast.” You will find it is not so. You will find that if we dare not proclaim Christ as the Deliverer of the spirit of man from its bondage, if we dare not say that He has come actually to reveal God’s righteousness to men, we had better cease to speak of Him at all. For it is such a one that men want; it is for such a one that in their inmost hearts, even when their language against the Son of Man is loudest, they are crying. It was so in former ages; so it is now. It was so among the most miserable and the most respectable; it is so still. If preachers of the Gospel do not answer the cry-if they only represent it as one of the regulative forces that are at work in society-it will be felt to be the feeblest of all these processes; the chain and the prison-house will be found stronger.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. v., p. 145.
References: Luk 8:35.-A. Ramsay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 321; T. R. Stevenson, Ibid., vol. xvi., p. 139: E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. i., p. 360; (Clerical Library) Expository Sermons on the New Testament, p. 80.
Luk 8:38
The Religious Use of Excited Feelings.
I. All the passionate emotion, or fine sensibility, which ever man displayed, will never by itself make us change our ways, and do our duty. Impassioned thoughts, sublime imaginings, have no strength in them. They can no more make a man obey consistently than they can move mountains. If any man truly repent, it must be in consequence-not of these, but of a settled conviction of his guilt, and a deliberate resolution to leave his sins and serve God. Conscience, and reason in subjection to conscience: these are those powerful instruments, under grace, which change a man. But you will observe, that though conscience and reason lead us to resolve on and to attempt a new life, they cannot at once make us love it. It is long practice and habit which make us love religion; and in the beginning, obedience, doubtless, is very grievous to habitual sinners. Here, then, is the use of those ardent, excited feelings which attend on the first exercise of conscience and reason, and to take away from the beginning of obedience its grievous-ness, to give us an impulse which may carry us over the first obstacles, and send us on our way rejoicing. Not as if all this excitement of mind were to last (which cannot be), but it will do its office in thus setting us off; and then will leave us to the more sober and higher comfort resulting from that real love for religion, which obedience itself will have by that time begun to form in us, and will gradually go on to perfect.
II. To those who feel any accidental remorse for their sins violently exerting itself in their hearts, I say: Do not loiter; go home to your friends, and repent in deeds of righteousness and love; hasten to commit yourselves to certain difficult acts of obedience. Follow on to know the Lord; and to secure His favour by acting upon these impulses; by them He pleads with you as well as by your conscience; they are the instruments of His Spirit, stirring you up to seek your true peace. Still, be quite sure that resolute consistent obedience, though unattended with high transport and warm emotion, is far more acceptable to Him than all those passionate longings to live in His sight, which look like religion to the uninstructed. At the very best, these latter are but the graceful beginnings of obedience, graceful and becoming in children, but in grown spiritual men indecorous as the sports of boyhood would seem in advanced years. Learn to live by faith-which is a calm, deliberate, rational principle, full of peace and comfort, and sees Christ, and rejoices in Him, though sent away from His Presence to labour in the world. You will have your reward. He will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. i., p. 112.
References: Luk 8:38.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 242. Luk 8:38, Luk 8:39.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 282. Luk 8:40.-Ibid., vol. vi., p. 226; Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Gospels and Acts, p. 96. Luk 8:42.-Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 217; T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 79. Luk 8:43-47.-Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 150.
Luk 8:45-46
Faith’s Touch.
Notice:-
I. What this woman did. “Jesus said, Who touched Me?” That more is meant here than the mere manual or external touch is evident, not only from the whole circumstances of the narrative, but from the explicit and emphatic testimony of our Lord Himself. He expressly distinguishes between her touch and that of the unthinking crowd around as a thing totally and essentially different; and then, in His closing words, He declares plainly what that thing was. “Daughter: thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” That is, it was not the mere bodily contact that constituted the saving touch, but that living faith of the heart, of which it was but the instinctive and touching expression. Hers was (1) secret faith, (2) trembling faith, (3) an imperfect faith, (4) a strong faith, (5) an earnest and resolute faith.
II. What the multitude did. Note the difference between the attitude of this woman and that of the multitude around her. Theirs was the mere contact of the body, hers of the heart and soul; theirs a mere external and unmeaning pressure; hers a living act of trust and love. The human eye, indeed, could detect no difference. To a mere spectator, all stood in the same relation to Him. Surely it were vain amid such a crowd, all of whom are pressing on Him, and thronging His path, to single out any one to whom more than another the charge may be applied. But no; while thousands throng the Saviour, one alone toucheth Him. Jesus answered, “Somebody hath touched Me.”
III. The test to distinguish between the one touch and the other. “Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me: for I perceive that virtue hath gone out of Me.” This, then, was the test; the sacred touch was proved by the outflowing of the healing virtue. There is no healing influence without faith-no true faith without healing influence. Therefore, the fact so well known to Him who is the one Source and Dispenser of grace, that such influence had gone forth from Him to this woman, was the decisive and infallible proof that she had touched Him in a way that none of the throng around her had. Thus alone can we surely know that we have truly believed in Jesus to the saving of our souls; when it has become manifest to all men and ourselves that a saving virtue has come from Him to us, and that through that mighty virtue old things are passed away, and all things are made new.
I. Burns, Select Remains, p. 46.
I. In the case of this woman, we perceive that two things went together-an inward act of faith, and recourse to something external; both the internal and the external bearing upon Christ. She touched the hem of His garment. Our Lord in all His miracles required a susceptibility on the part of the applicant for His mercy, and an outward action as regarded Himself. He required faith on the part of the person seeking His aid; and then He touched that person, or spake certain words to him, or anointed his eyes with clay, or bade him have recourse to some action insignificant in itself. The two acts were combined, the inward and the outward; one suffered not without the other, but both went together.
II. It is not superstition, then, for faithful men to use and rely upon the ordinances of the Christian religion; there is no superstition in having recourse to actions, between which and their results there exists no discernible connection, if only those actions be either enjoined or sanctioned by God. It would not be superstitious for a man, sick of the palsy, to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in expectation of a cure, if the Lord God had commanded him to do so, and had promised restoration to health as the reward of his obedience; but to do this, or any similar thing, without a promise, this would be superstitious. The superstitious property in an act consists not in having recourse to means, apparently inefficacious, but in having recourse to them without a sufficient warrant from reason or from revelation. It is through things external that many of the gifts and graces which we expect to realise in the Church are to pass from Christ, from whom alone the virtue emanates, to our souls. Love Christ and prove your love by keeping His commandments. But having done all, remember that, notwithstanding your love, the disease of sin is upon you, and touch the hem of His garment. Rely on Christ only for salvation, and prove that you do so, not by pleading your faith, as if faith were anything meritorious, but by permitting your faith to lead you to Christ, that you may touch the hem of His garment.
W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles, vol. i., p. 242.
We have here (1) a touch incited by past failure; (2) a touch effective through faith; (3) a touch publicly acknowledged.
E. Mellor, The Hem of Christ’s Garment, p. 1.
References: Luk 8:45.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 251; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 281. Luk 8:46.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 227. Luk 8:47.-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 45. Luk 8:48.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 283. Luk 8:49.-Expositor, 1st series, vol. iv., p. 31; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 184. Luk 8:52.-T. Gasquoine, Ibid., vol. viii., p. 58. Luk 9:1-6.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 253. Luk 9:1-11.-A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 99. Luk 9:1-48.-F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 150. Luk 9:10-17.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 291. Luk 9:11.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvii., No. 1624. Luk 9:12-17.-A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 120.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 8
1. The Ministering Company (Luk 8:1-3.)
2. The Parable of the Sower. (Luk 8:4-15.)
3. The Parable of the Lighted Candle. (Luk 8:16-18)
4. The Declaration of a New Relationship. (Luk 8:19-21.)
5. The Storm on the Lake. (Luk 8:22-25)
6. In the Country of the Gadarenes; the Maniac Healed. (Luk 8:26-36)
7. His Rejection by the Gadarenes. (Luk 8:37-40.)
8. The Woman With the Issue of Blood Healed. (Luk 8:41-48.)
9. The Daughter of Jairus Raised. (Luk 8:49-56.)
Luk 8:1-3
This also is reported exclusively by Luke. What wonderful preaching it must have been when He with the Apostles went about preaching! And the trophies of His power and grace were also with Him. Here we read that women ministered unto Him of their substance. What privilege was theirs to minister to Him!
Luk 8:4-18
The parables which follow are known to us from the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The parable of the Sower is here not in the dispensational setting in which it appears in Matthew (Chapter 13). The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven are reported later by Luke. The parable of the Sower is linked here with the preaching of the Word in Luk 8:1-3.
Luk 8:19-56
The events which follow are also found in the Synoptics. The Storm on the Lake shows His true humanity. He is asleep. But in the threatening danger, when the helpless vessel fills with water, He knows no fear. They have to wake Him. The wind and waves obey His Word. And blessed be His Name! He is still the same. Then there is the man in his fallen pitiful condition, under the complete dominion of Satan, both in body and in soul. And once more the Son of Man shows His absolute power over Satan. The sufferer is completely healed. What a transformation took place! The many devils by whom he had been possessed were compelled to leave him. Nor is this all. Cast forth from their abode in the mans heart, we see these malignant spirits beseeching our Lord that He would not torment them, or command them to go out into the deep, and so confessing His supremacy over them. Mighty as they were, they plainly felt themselves in the presence of One mightier than themselves. Full of malice as they were, they could not even hurt the swine of the Gadarenes until our Lord granted them permission.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Chapter 43
The Glad Tidings Of The Kingdom
And it came to pass afterward. After our Lord had healed the centurions servant at Capernaum, after he had had raised a widows son from the dead in Nain, after he had shown John the Baptists disciples who he was, after he had vindicated John in their presence and had sent them back to John and after he had, in the house of Simon the Pharisee, been honoured by the faith of a forgiven sinner and had honoured her, then we read that our Saviour went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.
Our Master
First, the Holy Spirit directs our attention to our Master, the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. Here our Saviour sets before us a tremendous example of diligence and faithfulness as Jehovahs righteous Servant.
Let us never forget that our Lords obedience to God as a man, his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, was not only a substitutionary obedience, but also an exemplary obedience. Not only did he redeem us with his blood, our Lord Jesus Christ showed us how we ought to live in this world as the servants and children of God (Joh 13:13-15; 1Pe 2:21-25).
Our Master was tireless in his labours, unwearied in doing good and constant in redeeming the time he had in this world. Mans unbelief did not stop him from preaching the glad tidings of the gospel. The slanders of his enemies, the reproaches heaped upon him, the scorn of the religious world and the laughter of his deriders did not in any way affect his labour. He always knew who he was, why he was here and what he was to do. He was always about his Fathers business. His earthly ministry lasted only three short years. Yet, in those three years our Lord Jesus Christ did more, preached more and ministered more to the needs of others than any man before or since has done in a lifetime.
Let us follow his example. Without question, we will miss the mark and will be constantly aware that we are missing the mark. But let us follow his example and walk in his steps. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked (1Jn 2:6). We ought to try to leave our little corner of the world better than we found it. We ought to make it the business of our lives to do good to men and for men. May God give me grace to lay aside my own desires, pleasures and passions, my pride, self-serving and greed, and enable me to live to do good to those whose lives I touch.
Time is short; but much can be done in the short time we have. Let us arrange our affairs wisely and we will be amazed how much can be done in a short time. Few have any idea how much can be accomplished in eight, or ten, or twelve hours, if they simply stay at it and avoid idleness and frivolity. Let us redeem the time for Christs sake.
Yes, time is short; but this is the only time we have to do the work God has given us to do in this world. Yes, we will serve him perfectly in the world to come; but in that world there will be no feet to wash. There will be none who are ignorant and need instruction, none who are hungry and need feeding, none who are sick and need visiting, none who are mourning and need comforting, none who are alone and need a friend, none in spiritual darkness who need enlightening, none who are fearful and need assurance, none who are in distress and need relief. Whatever work we do of this kind must be done on this side of the grave. Let us awake to a sense of our responsibility. Souls are perishing and time is flying. Let us resolve, by Gods grace, to do something for Gods glory before we die.
Luke tells us that our Lord Jesus went throughout every city and village preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. There are many, many good and noble works to be done for men. We must never seek to hypocritically excuse ourselves from serving the physical needs of those around us, pretending that we have a higher service to their souls. Rather, while doing what we can to relieve men and women of physical, mental and emotional anguish, let us never forget that we do have a far higher, far more important service to perform for their souls. Like our Master, our primary business in life, our primary function as a local church and our primary purpose of existence is to preach the gospel everywhere, showing this generation the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.
We have done men and women no good, but positive harm, if we teach them how to live, but do not show them the way of life! We do not serve men and women for good, if we comfort them without directing them to the consolation that is in Christ. We do not minister to our neighbours if we feed them, but do not teach them to eat of the Bread of Life and drink from the Fountain of the Water of Life.
We do not have to guess what Luke meant when he told us that our Master went everywhere preaching the glad tidings of the kingdom. The context tells us. In the parable of the sower (Luk 8:5-18), in the calming of the sea (Luk 8:19-25), in the salvation of the Gadarene (Luk 8:26-40), in the healing of the woman with the issue of blood (Luk 8:41-49), and in the raising of Jairus daughter (Luk 8:49-56), our Lord Jesus both displayed and proclaimed the glad tidings of the kingdom.
In the parable of the sower he shows us that faith is the gift of grace, that salvation comes by divine revelation, that the sinner must be given a new heart by grace to receive the word of grace. In the calming of the storm our Lord shows us that he is the Sovereign God, ruling all things absolutely. Not only is he the God who gives us grace and faith, he is the God who keeps us in grace and faith. In the healing of the Gadarene our Saviour marvellously displays the experience of salvation in the life of a man unfit for human society. In the healing of the woman with the issue of blood our Lord graciously shows us the desperation and confidence, as well as the power of God given faith. And in the raising of Jairus daughter the Son of God shows us the glad tidings of the new birth. It is the work of God wrought in, for, and upon a dead sinner! That is how Luke was inspired to describe our Master.
His Disciples
Next, Luke was inspired by the Spirit of God to tell us something about the Lords disciples. And the twelve were with him. These men made it their business to be with him. They left all and followed him. For three and a half years, they were with him. They followed him everywhere. They attended him constantly. They watched him, listened to him and walked with him. Why? They saw him to be everything they wanted or needed. They loved him. They wanted to see him work. They wanted to learn of him. Therefore, the twelve were with him. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb (Rev 14:4).
Certain Women
Next, Luke was inspired to tell us about some women who had experienced the power and grace of God by Christ Jesus. And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herods steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance.
Who were these women? They were women who had experienced the power, mercy and grace of God in Christ. The Lord had healed them of evil spirits and great infirmities. They were women, like the one mentioned at the end of chapter seven, full of gratitude and love for Christ.
Can you imagine what peculiar hardships and trials these women endured for the Master? In those days women stayed at home, kept their mouths shut, and were seen in public only with their husbands, and when their husbands said it was permissible. Women seen in the company of another man in public, let alone in private, were looked upon not with suspicion, but as being, beyond doubt, women without character. Grateful for the mercy and grace they had received and experienced, these women gladly suffered whatever was heaped upon them that they might follow their Saviour. Strengthened by the power of his grace, they clave to him to the very end.
It was not a womans kiss that betrayed him. It was not these women who forsook him in the Garden. It was not one of these women who denied him. These women stayed with the Saviour, weeping as he was led forth to be crucified. It was a few women, not men, who stood by the suffering Lamb of God unto the end. These women were the first at the tomb and the first to see the Lord of Glory on the resurrection morning.
Who were these women? Just three of them are named. The first one named is Mary Magdalene, out of whom the Lord Jesus had cast seven devils (Mar 16:9). The second is Joana the wife of Chuza, Herods steward.
When I read that description of Sister Joana, I have to ask, Why did Luke write that? This womans husband was no ordinary Joe. When Luke tells us that he was Herods steward, the word steward does not mean lackey. It means that this man Chuza was the man to whom Herod the Tetrarch entrusted the care of his entire house. Chuza was a wealthy, powerful, influential man. It is true, not many mighty, not many noble, not many wealthy are called, but some are. Not all of our Lords followers were poor fishermen. Perhaps, in Gods wise and good providence, it was for the salvation of Gods elect, our sister Joana, that John the Baptist was put into prison.
The third of these sisters in grace is a woman named Susanna. Susanna is mentioned nowhere else in the Book of God, and nowhere else in history, so far as I can tell. We know only one thing about this dear ladys earthly life. She walked with Christ! What a grand, noble, ennobling biography!
What did these women do? Look at the last line of Luk 8:3. They ministered unto him of their substance. How condescending, how gracious, how merciful our Saviour is! He who owns the cattle on a thousand hills did not need these women to minister unto him, but he allowed them to! He who multiplied the loaves and fishes did not need to have someone feed him, but he let them! In doing so, our Lord graciously allowed those who loved him to prove the sincerity of their love (2Co 8:7-9).
These three dear ladies of grace ministered to (served) the Lord Jesus with their substance. They did not ask others for assistance. They took that which was their own, and out of that they ministered to the Saviour they loved. The text might be read, They ministered unto them of their substance, suggesting that they used their means to provide for the company of the disciples. They counted it a service done to Christ to take of their substance and make provision for his disciples (Rom 16:1-2).
God, grant me the grace to follow my Masters example of tireless devotion and service to the souls of men and the glory of my God. May God the Holy Spirit grant that I may, like the Lords disciples, ever be found with him. I pray that God will graciously teach me to honour him with my substance, as these women did, and give me the will to do it for Christs sake (Pro 3:5-10).
Sinners Jesus will receive!
Sound this word of grace to all,
Who the heavenly pathway leave,
All who linger all who fall!
Come, and he will give you rest;
Trust him, for his Word is plain;
He will take the sinfulest;
Christ receiveth sinful men.
Now my heart condemns me not,
Pure before the law I stand;
He who cleansed me from all spot,
Satisfied its last demand.
Christ receiveth sinful men,
Even me with all my sin;
Purged from every spot and stain,
Heaven with him I enter in.
Erdmann Neumeister
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
that: Luk 4:43, Luk 4:44, Mat 4:23, Mat 9:35, Mat 11:1, Mar 1:39, Act 10:38
the glad: Luk 2:10, Luk 2:11, Luk 4:18, Isa 61:1-3, Mat 13:19, Act 13:32, Rom 10:15
and the: Luk 6:14-16, Mat 10:2-4, Mar 3:16-19
Reciprocal: Psa 10:8 – sitteth Mar 1:14 – preaching Mar 2:2 – and he Luk 9:11 – the kingdom Act 28:31 – Preaching
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE OPENING VERSES show the thorough and systematic way in which the Lord Jesus evangelized the cities and villages. He announced the kingdom of God, which involves Gods authority being established and mans salvation secured through judgment. It was too early as yet for the Gospel of 1Co 15:1-4 to be preached, though, now that we have that Gospel, we can still preach the kingdom of God in its present form. The twelve were with Him, and being trained under His eye. The other Gospels show us this, but only Luke tells us how certain women, who had experienced His delivering power, followed Him and ministered to Him of their goods. This comes in very fittingly after the story of the salvation of the sinful woman of the city.
In verses Luk 8:4-15, we have the parable of the sower and its interpretation. This reveals to us the agency which Divine grace uses to accomplish its benign results-the Word of God. The fruit of which the parable speaks is not something which is natural to man: it is only produced by the Word, as that Word is received into prepared hearts. In our natural condition our hearts are marked by insensibility, like the hardened wayside, or they are shallow without conviction, or preoccupied with cares or pleasures. The heart prepared like the good ground is one that has been awakened and exercised by the Holy Spirit of God. When the heart is thus made honest, the Word is retained and treasured, and ultimately fruit is produced.
Verse Luk 8:16 adds the fact that light as well as fruit is produced by the true reception of the Word. Every real conversion means the lighting of a fresh candle in this dark world. Now just as cares and riches and pleasures choke the word, so may some vessel, speaking of work and daily toil, or bed, speaking of ease, hide the candle which has been lit. Every candle lit by the reception of the Word is to be conspicuously displayed for the benefit of others. Let us all take this home to ourselves, for the fact is that if the light be really there it cannot be altogether hid, as verse Luk 8:17 indicates. If year after year nothing is manifested, only one conclusion can be drawn -there is nothing to he manifested.
All these considerations lead us to conclude how imperative it is that we hear the Word rightly. Hence, how we hear is of all importance. What we hear is of equal importance, and this is emphasized in Mar 4:24. If we do not hear aright we lose that which we seem to have possessed. This is stated in verse Luk 8:18, and it is illustrated above, in the case of the wayside, the stony ground and the thorny ground hearers.
Verses Luk 8:19-21 add a further striking fact: if the word be rightly received it brings the recipient into relationship with Christ Himself. The Lord plainly shows here that the relationship He was going to acknowledge was not based upon flesh and blood, but upon spiritual realities-upon the hearing and the doing of the Word. This thought is amplified in the epistles: Paul speaking of the hearing of faith, (Gal 3:2; Rom 10:8-17); James of the works of faith, for faith without works is dead (Jam 2:20). If we consult Matthew and Mark we shall probably conclude that this incident, as to the Lords mother and brethren, did not take place exactly at this point, but Luke here again observes an order which is moral rather than historical. The Word received in faith produces fruit for God, light for men, and introduces into true relationship with Christ himself. There is a moral sequence in these things.
Now we come, verses Luk 8:22-25, to the storm on the lake which was so miraculously calmed. Here again we believe we see a moral sequence. He had just pointed out that the relationship that He acknowledged had a spiritual basis, and the disciples were those who had entered into it. Now they have to discover that relationship with Him means opposition and trouble in the world. The water of the lake was lashed into rough waves by the power of the wind, just as Satan, who is the prince of the power of the air, lashes men and nations into furious opposition against Christ and all that are connected with Him. The disciples came into that particular storm because of their identification with Him.
It was for the moment a terrifying experience, but one which afterwards must have yielded them much encouragement. It served as an opportunity for Him to display His complete mastery of wind and sea, and of the power that lay behind them. At the moment the faith of the disciples was small. They were thinking of their own safety, and had as yet but little understanding of who He was. When later the Spirit was given, and they saw all things clearly, they must have marvelled at their own obtuseness, that they had so little grasped the majesty of His action. If only they had grasped it, their hearts would have been calmed, equally with the waters of the lake.
On the lake the Lord triumphed over the power of Satan working upon the elements of nature: arrived in the country of the Gadarenes He was confronted by the same power, but much more directly exercised over man by means of demons. Opposition must be expected, but the power of His word was supreme. This man presented a very extreme case of demon possession. It had existed long time; it endowed him with super-human strength, so that no ordinary restraints held him; it drove him into deserts and the place of death-the tombs. Moreover he was enslaved not by one demon but by many. For some reason he had become like a fortress, strongly held for Satan by a whole legion of demons; so when Jesus met him there was a trial of strength indeed.
The cry of the demon-possessed man, in which he acknowledged Jesus as Son of God most high, is strikingly in contrast with the exclamation of the disciples, What manner of man is this! The demons had no doubt as to who He was, and they knew that they had met their supreme Master, who could have banished them into the deep, or the abyss, with a single word. Instead He permitted them to enter into the swine. This meant deliverance for the man but disaster for the swine. Incidentally too, it must have meant degradation for the demons to change their residence from a man to a herd of pigs; and this new residence was lost to them in a few minutes as the pigs choked themselves in the lake. Satan would have drowned the great Master and His disciples in the lake but an hour or so before; actually it was the swine, of which he had taken possession by his agents, that were drowned.
Just as the wind and water had obeyed His word, so the demons had to obey. The man was completely delivered and his whole character changed. In the words, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind, we may see a beautiful picture of what grace accomplishes for men, who today have been held captive by Satans power. We may also see in this delivered man another feature which stands good for us today. We too are not permitted as yet to be with our Deliverer: we have to go back to our friends and show what has been wrought in us. The more complete the change wrought, as in the case of this man, the more effective is such testimony.
The testimony was lost however on the Gadarene people, who had lost their swine. Pigs they did appreciate and grace they did not appreciate, so they refused the Deliverer. Jesus accepted their refusal and returned to the other side of the lake to continue the display of His grace there.
The disciples had witnessed the triumph of their Lord over opposition both on the lake and in the Gadarene country, they were now to see further triumphs on the Capernaum side of the sea. The underworld of demons had owned His power as well as the elements of nature: now disease and death are to yield in His presence. It is worthy of note that the one who approached the Lord first was not the first to receive the blessing.
Jairus was a representative son of Israel; death was invading his house, and he appealed to the Lord, meeting with an immediate response. On the way Jesus was intercepted by this unnamed woman suffering from an incurable disease. Her touch of faith brought her instant healing. Though later in coming and irregular in her proceedings she was the first to experience the delivering grace of the Lord. We may trace here an analogy with the present ways of God. While still He is on the way to raise up to life and blessing the daughter of Israel others, and those mainly Gentiles, are giving the touch of faith and getting the blessing.
It was only a touch, and it was only the hem of His garment, yet the blessing was hers in full measure-thus illustrating the fact that the measure of our faith does not determine the measure of the blessing that grace bestows-for she was perfectly healed. We also see that a touch in itself brought nothing, for Peters word of remonstrance showed that many had for various reasons been brought into contact with Him. Only the touch of faith counted. In other words, faith was the all-essential thing, and that we may exercise today, though the touch of faith can now only be given spiritually and not physically.
By His questions Jesus brought the woman to the point of confession. In accord with the spirit of the Gospel the faith of her heart had to be followed by the confession of her lips, and that brought her an accession of blessing, for she got the words, Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. Apart from that word her mind might have been overshadowed by the dread of the recurrence of her plague. Her faith, expressed in the touch, brought the healing; but her confession brought forth the word of assurance that set her mind at ease. How many there may be today who lack the full assurance of salvation because they have lacked courage to confess fully His Name.
At that moment came the news of the death of the damsel, and this furnished a fresh opportunity for the importance of faith to be emphasized. To men death is the dispeller of every hope; yet the word of Jesus was, Fear not: believe only. To her parents and friends it was death, but it was only sleep to Him: yet the very unbelief of those who bewailed her enables us to see that she really was dead, as we speak. The mocking unbelievers were all put out and only a few who believed saw His work of power. At His word her spirit came again and she was restored to life.
The charge that they should tell no man what was done was entirely contrary to all human ideas. Men love notoriety, but not so the Lord. He wrought to make God known, and only faith understood His works, and was confirmed thereby.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
1
Shewing the glad tidings all comes from the Greek word EUACCE-LIZO which occurs many times in the New Testament, and the universal meaning is to tell any good news. The connection has to be noticed to learn what particular good news is meant in any given case, and in the present one it is the news that the kingdom of God is at hand. The twelve means the apostles (Mat 10:2-4; Mar 3:14-19).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
LET us mark, in these verses, our Lord Jesus Christ’s unwearied diligence in doing good. We read that “He went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” We know the reception that He met with in many places. We know that while some believed, many believed not. But man’s unbelief did not move our Lord, or hinder His working. He was always “about His Father’s business.” Short as His earthly ministry was in point of duration, it was long when we consider the work that it comprised.
Let the diligence of Christ be an example to all Christians. Let us follow in His steps, however far we may come short of His perfection. Like Him, let us labor to do good in our day and generation, and to leave the world a better world than we found it. It is not for nothing that the Scripture says expressly: “He that abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked.” (1Jn 2:6.)
Time is undoubtedly short. But much is to be done with time, if it is well economized and properly arranged. Few have an idea how much can be done in twelve hours, if men will stick to their business and avoid idleness and frivolity. Then let us, like our Lord, be diligent, and “redeem the time.”
Time is undoubtedly short. But it is the only season in which Christians can do any active work of mercy. In the world to come there will be no ignorant to instruct, no mourners to comfort, no spiritual darkness to enlighten, no distress to relieve, no sorrow to make less. Whatever work we do of this kind must be done on this side of the grave. Let us awake to a sense of our individual responsibility. Souls are perishing, and time is flying! Let us resolve, by God’s grace, to do something for God’s glory before we die. Once more let us remember our Lord’s example, and, like Him, be diligent and “redeem the time.”
Let us mark, secondly, in these verses, the power of the grace of God, and the constraining influence of the love of Christ. We read that among those who followed our Lord in his journeyings, were “certain women which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.”
We can well imagine that the difficulties these holy women had to face in becoming Christ’s disciples were neither few nor small. They had their full share of the contempt and scorn which was poured on all followers of Jesus by the Scribes and Pharisees. They had, besides, many a trial from the hard speeches and hard usage which any Jewish woman who thought for herself about religion would probably have to undergo. But none of these things moved them. Grateful for mercies received at our Lord’s hands, they were willing to endure much for His sake. Strengthened inwardly, by the renewing power of the Holy Ghost, they were enabled to cleave to Jesus and not give way.-And nobly they did cleave to Him to the very end! It was not a woman who sold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver. They were not women who forsook the Lord in the garden and fled. It was not a woman who denied Him three times in the high priest’s house.-But they were women who wailed and lamented when Jesus was led forth to be crucified. They were women who stood to the last by the cross. And they were women who were first to visit the grave “where the Lord lay.” Great indeed is the power of the grace of God!
Let the recollection of these women encourage all the daughters of Adam who read of them, to take up the cross and to follow Christ. Let no sense of weakness, or fear of falling away, keep them back from a decided profession of religion. The mother of a large family, with limited means, may tell us that she has no time for religion.-The wife of an ungodly husband may tell us that she dares not take up religion.-The young daughter of worldly parents may tell us that it is impossible for her to have any religion.-The maid-servant in the midst of unconverted companions, may tell us that in her place a person cannot follow religion.-But they are all wrong, quite wrong. With Christ nothing is impossible. Let them think again, and change their minds. Let them begin boldly in the strength of Christ, and trust Him for the consequences. The Lord Jesus never changes. He who enabled “many women” to serve Him faithfully while He was on earth, can enable women to serve Him, glorify Him, and be His disciples at the present day.
Let us mark lastly, in these verses, the peculiar privilege which our Lord grants to His faithful followers. We read that those who accompanied Him in His journeyings, “ministered to him of their substance.” Of course He needed not their help. “All the beasts of the forest were his, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.” (Psa 50:10.) That mighty Savior who could multiply a few loaves and fishes into food for thousands, could have called forth food from the earth for His own sustenance, if He had thought fit. But He did not do so, for two reasons.-One reason was, that He would show us that He was man like ourselves in all things, sin only excepted, and that He lived the life of faith in His Father’s providence. The other reason was, that by allowing His followers to minister to Him, He might prove their love, and test their regard for Himself. True love will count it a pleasure to give anything to the object loved. False love will often talk and profess much, but do and give nothing at all.
This matter of “ministering to Christ” opens up a most important train of thought, and one which we shall do well to consider. The Lord Jesus Christ is continually providing His Church at the present day. No doubt it would be easy for Him to convert the Chinese or Hindoos in a moment, and to call grace into being with a word, as He created light on the first day of this world’s existence.-But He does not do so. He is pleased to work by means. He condescends to use the agency of missionaries, and the foolishness of man’s preaching, in order to spread His Gospel. And by so doing, He is continually proving the faith and zeal of the churches. He lets Christians be fellow workers with Him, that He may prove who has a will to “minister” and who has none. He lets the spread of the Gospel be carried on by subscriptions, contributions, and religious Societies, that He may prove who are the covetous and unbelieving, and who are the truly “rich towards God.” In short, the visible Church of Christ may be divided into two great parties, those who “minister” to Christ, and those who do not.
May we all remember this great truth and prove our own selves! While we live we are all upon our trial. Our lives are continually showing whose we are and whom we serve, whether we love Christ or whether we love the world. Happy are they who know something of “ministering to Christ of their substance”! It is a thing which can still be done, though we do not see Him with our eyes. Those words which describe the proceedings of the Judgment day are very solemn, “I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat, I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink.” (Mat 25:42.)
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Notes-
v1.-[He went throughout.] The word so translated is only used in one other place in the New Testament: Act 17:1. It is there rendered “passed through.” The full idea is that of one going on a journey through a place or country.
v2.-[Mary called Magdalene.] The origin of this name is differently explained by commentators. Some think that she was so called from a Hebrew word signifying “a plaiter of hair.” Some think that she was so called from the town of “Magdala,” in Galilee. Talmudic authority favours the first explanation, but the second seems more probable. The question will be found fully discussed in Lightfoot’s Hor Hebraic on Mat 27:50.
There is no Scriptural authority for the common opinion that Mary Magdalene was ever a notorious sinner against the seventh commandment. That she had been a sufferer from an extraordinary possession of the devil is plain, from this verse, and Mar 16:9, the number “seven devils” being specified in each place with peculiar emphasis. But there is not a whit of satisfactory evidence that she was ever a harlot. Chemnitius considers Gregory the Great to have been the author of the common opinion about Mary Magdalene.
v3.-[Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward.] This person is only mentioned here in the New Testament, and we know nothing more of her. Her case reminds us of Obadiah in Ahab’s house, and “the saints in Nero’s household.” It also teaches us that not all our Lord’s followers were poor. Some rich, though not many, were called. It also throws light on Herod’s anxiety to see our Lord, when He was sent to him by Pilate. He had probably heard of Him through his steward’s family. It also suggests the pleasant idea, that John the Baptist’s imprisonment by Herod was a cause of conversion to some of Herod’s retainers. Who can tell but Joanna first heard of our Lord through John the Baptist?
[Chuza, Herod’s steward.] The word translated “steward” is only found here and in two other places: Mat 20:8, and Gal 4:2. In the latter text it is translated “tutors.” Whether Chuza was Herod’s treasurer or only the head of his household we cannot certainly pronounce. The word admits of either sense. At any rate he was a person holding a high and responsible office.
[Susanna.] This is the only place in which we find this woman mentioned. Of her past or subsequent history we know nothing.
[Many others.] Who these were we do not know. The names of most of them probably are in the book of life, and “the day will declare” them.
[Ministered to him of their substance.] Maldonatus in commenting on this expression quotes a passage from Jerome, which throws some light on it. He says, “It was a Jewish custom, and from the ancient habit of the nation it was thought a blameless custom, for women to supply to their instructors food and clothing from their substance.”
Hammond, in commenting on this place, thinks that Phbe, mentioned by Paul to the Romans, (Rom 16:1,) was a woman who had travelled with the apostles, and ministered to their wants.
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Luk 8:1. Went about through city and village. From town to town, from village to village, in unwearied activity.
Bringing the glad tidings. One word in the Greek, hence preaching does not govern glad tidings.
And the twelve with him, i.e., went about with him, since this is joined closely with the previous clause. Hence after they had been chosen, but before they had been sent out to preach.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe, here, the great work and business, which not only the apostles, but Christ himself was engaged in, and employed about, namely, preaching the gospel, those glad tidings of salvation to a lost world.
Where note, that Christ himself labored in this work of public preaching; he did not send forth his apostles as his curates to work and sweat in the vineyard, while he himself took his ease at home; but he accompanies them himself, yea, he goes before them himself in this great and excellent work: Jesus went preaching the glad tidings of the gospel, and the twelve were with him.
Learn thence, that preaching of the gospel is a great and necessary work, incumbent upon all the ministers of Christ, let their dignity and pre-eminence in the church be what it will. Surely none of the servants are above their Lord and Master! Did he labor in the word and doctrine?
Observe, 2. The places where Christ and his apostles preached, not only in the populous cities, but in the poor country villages: They went through every city and village preaching the gospel. Some will preach the gospel, provided they may preach at court, or in the capital cities of the nation; but the poor country villages are overlooked by them.
Our Saviour and his apostles were not of this mind: ’tis true, they were itinerary preachers, we are settled; but be the place never so mean and obscure, and the people never so rude and barbarous, we must not think it beneath the greatest of us to exercise our ministry there, if God calls us thither: Christ went through the villages, as well as cities, preaching.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Luk 8:1. And it came to pass afterward Probably the day after he had dined with Simon; or, as the expression, , may be understood to imply, in the order of his work; for he went through it regularly, and the end of one good work was with him the beginning of another; he went throughout every city and village Namely, in those parts, preaching and showing, &c. , proclaiming, and evangelizing, or publishing; the glad tidings of the kingdom of God The kingdom which he was now about to erect among mankind: or, the glad tidings of his reconcileableness to men, of the necessity of reformation, and of the acceptableness of repentance, even in the chief of sinners. And the twelve were with him As he thought it proper they should be for some time, that they might be further instructed for their important work, and that their having been thus publicly seen in his train might promote their reception, when they afterward came to any of these places by themselves.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
6. The Women who ministered to Jesus: Luk 8:1-3.
By the side of the high religious problems raised by the life of Jesus, there is a question, seldom considered, which nevertheless possesses some interest: How did Jesus find the means of subsistence during the two or three years that His ministry lasted? He had given up His earthly occupation. He deliberately refrained from using His miraculous power to supply His necessities. Further, He was not alone; He was constantly accompanied by twelve men, who had also abandoned their trade, and whose maintenance He had taken on Himself in calling them to follow Him. The wants of this itinerant society were met out of a common purse (Joh 13:29); the same source furnished their alms to the poor (Joh 12:6). But how was this purse itself filled? The problem is partly, but not completely, explained by hospitality. Had He not various needs, of clothing, etc.? The true answer to this question is furnished by this passage, which possesses, therefore, considerable interest. Jesus said: Seek first the kingdom of God, and other things shall be added unto you. He also said: There is none that leaves father, mother…, house, lands for the kingdom of God, who does not find a hundred times more. He derived these precepts from His daily experience. The grateful love of those whom He filled with His spiritual riches provided for His temporal necessities, as well as for those of His disciples. Some pious women spontaneously rendered Him the services of mother and sisters.
This passage would suffice to prove the excellence of Luke’s sources; their originality, for the other evangelists furnish no similar information; their exactness, for who would have invented such simple and positive details with the names and rank of these women? and their purity, for what can be further removed from false marvels and legendary fictions than this perfectly natural and prosaic account of the Lord’s means of subsistence during the course of His ministry?
Vers. 1-3. Luke indicates this time as a distinctly marked epoch in the ministry of the Lord. He ceases to make Capernaum, His , His own city (Mat 9:1), the centre of His activity; He adopts an altogether itinerant mode of life, and literally has no place where to lay His head. It is this change in His mode of living, carried out at this time, which induces Luke to place here this glimpse into the means of His material support. The aor. , it came to pass (Luk 8:1), indicates a definite time. The before , as the sign of the apodosis, betrays an Aramaean source. The imperf. , He went throughout, denotes a slow and continuous mode of travelling. The preposition expresses the particular care which He bestowed on every place, whether large (city) or small (village). Everywhere He gave Himself time to stay. To the general idea of a proclamation, expressed by the verb , to preach, the second verb, to evangelize, to announce the glad tidings of the kingdom, adds the idea of a proclamation of grace as the prevailing character of His teaching.
The Twelve accompanied Him. What a strange sight this little band presented, passing through the cities and country as a number of members of the heavenly kingdom, entirely given up to the work of spreading and celebrating salvation! Had the world ever seen anything like it?
Among the women who accompanied this band, filling the humble office of servants, Luke makes special mention first of Mary, surnamed Magdalene. This surname is probably derived from her being originally from Magdala, a town situated on the western shore of the sea of Galilee (Mat 15:39), the situation of which to the north of Tiberias is still indicated at the present day by a village named El-Megdil (the tower). The seven demons (Mar 16:9) denote, without doubt, the culminating point of her possession, resulting from a series of attacks, each of which had aggravated the evil (Luk 11:24-26). It is without the least foundation that tradition identifies Mary Magdalene with the penitent sinner of chap. 7. Possession, which is a disease (see Luk 4:33), has been wrongly confounded with a state of moral corruption. The surname, of Magdala, is intended to distinguish this Mary from all the others of this name, more particularly from her of Bethany.
Chuza was probably entrusted with some office in the household of Herod Antipas. Might he not be that , court lord, whose son Jesus had healed (John 4), and who had believed with all his house?
We know nothing of Susanna and the other women. reminds us that it was in the capacity of servants that they accompanied Him., to serve, here denotes pecuniary assistance, as Rom 15:25, and also the personal attentions which might be rendered by a mother or sisters (Luk 8:21). The reading of the T. R., , who served Him, may be a correction in accordance with Mat 27:55, Mar 15:41; but the reading , who served them, is the more probable one according to Luk 8:1 (the Twelve) and Luk 4:39.
What a Messiah for the eye of flesh, this being living on the charity of men! But what a Messiah for the spiritual eye, this Son of God living on the love of those to whom His own love is giving life! What an interchange of good offices between heaven and earth goes on around His person!
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
XLVII.
FURTHER JOURNEYING ABOUT GALILEE.
cLUKE VIII. 1-3.
c1 And it came to pass soon afterwards [i. e.,. soon after his visit to the Pharisee], that he went about through cities and villages [thus making a thorough circuit of the region of Galilee], preaching and bringing the good tidings of the kingdom of God [John had preached repentance as a preparation for the kingdom; but Jesus now appears to have preached the kingdom itself, which was indeed to bring good tidings– Rom 14:17], and with him the twelve [We here get a glimpse of the tireless activities of the ministry of Christ. Journeying from place to place, he was constantly preaching the gospel publicly to the people, and as ceaselessly instructing his disciples privately. The twelve [296] were now serving an apprenticeship in that work on which he would soon send them forth alone. From this time forth we can hardly look upon Capernaum as the home of Jesus. From now to the end of his ministry his life was a wandering journey, and he and his apostles sustained by the offerings of friends. The circuit of Galilee here mentioned is peculiar to Luke], 2 and certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary that was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out [What a change of service, from demoniac bondage to the freedom of Christ!], 3 and Joanna the wife of Chuzas Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered unto them of their substance. [As to the vile slanders with which commentators have stained the good name of Mary Magdalene, see Joh 19:25, Mar 15:47, Mar 16:1, Mar 16:9, Joh 20:11-18. Mary’s name indicates that she was a native of Magdala (Hebrew, Migdol, i. e., watch-tower). Of all the towns which dotted the shores of Galilee in Christ’s day, but this and Tiberias remain. It is on the west shore of the lake, at the southeast corner of the plain of Gennesaret, and is to-day a small collection of mud hovels. It still bears the name el-Mejdel, which is probably received from the adjoining watch-tower that guarded the entrance to the plain, the ruins of which are still to be seen. We should note that Mary Magdalene is not classed with restored profligates, but with those who were healed of infirmities. Joanna is mentioned again at Luk 24:10; of Susanna there is no other record, this being enough to immortalize her. Of Chuzas we know nothing more than what is stated here. There are two Greek words for steward, epitropos and oikonomos. The first may be translated administrator, superintendent or governor. It conveys the impression of an officer of high rank. The Jewish rabbis called Obadiah the epitropos of Ahab. This was the office held by Chuzas, and its translated treasurer in the Arabic version. The second word may be translated housekeeper, or domestic manager. It was an office usually held by some [297] trusted slave as a reward for his fidelity. Chuzas was no doubt a man of means and influence. As there was no order of nobility in Galilee, and as such an officer might be nevertheless styled a nobleman, this Chuzas was very likely the nobleman of Joh 4:46. If so, the second miracle at Cana explains the devotion of Joanna to Jesus. Herod’s capital was at Sephoris, on an elevated tableland not far from Capernaum. The ministration of these women shows the poverty of Christ and his apostles, and explains how they were able to give themselves so unremittingly to the work. Some of the apostles also may have had means enough to contribute somewhat to the support of the company, but in any event the support was meager enough, for Jesus was among the poorest of earth ( Luk 9:58, Mat 17:24, 2Co 8:9). His reaping of carnal things was as scanty as his sowing of spiritual things was abundant ( 1Co 9:11). We should note how Jesus began to remove the fetters of custom which bound women, and to bring about a condition of universal freedom ( Gal 3:28).]
[FFG 296-298]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Luke Chapter 8
In chapter 8 the Lord explains the import and the effect of His ministry; and especially, I doubt not, its effect among the Jews.
However great the unbelief, Jesus carries on His work to the end, and the fruits of His work appear. He goes to preach the good news of the kingdom. His disciples (the fruit, and the witnesses by grace, in their measure, in the same manner as Himself, of His mighty word) accompany Him; and other fruits of this same word, witnesses also by their own deliverance from the power of the enemy, and by the affection and devotedness flowing from thence by grace-a grace which acted also in them, according to the love and devotedness that attach to Jesus. Here women have a good place. [24] The work was strengthened and consolidated, and characterises itself by its effects.
The Lord explains its true nature. He did not take possession of the kingdom, He did not seek for fruit; He sowed the testimony of God in order to produce fruit. This, in a striking way, is the altogether new thing. The word was its seed. Moreover it was the disciples only-who had followed and attached themselves to His Person, by grace and by virtue of the manifestation of the power and grace of God in His Person-to whom it was given to understand the mysteries, the thoughts of God, revealed inChrist, of this kingdom which was not being openly established by power. Here the remnant is very clearly distinguished from the nation. To others it was in parables, that they might not understand. For that the Lord Himself must be received morally. Here this parable is not accompanied by others. Alone it marks out the position. The warning, which we considered in Mark, is added. Finally the light of God was not manifested in order to be hidden. Moreover everything should be made manifest. Therefore they must take heed how they heard, for, if they possessed that which they heard, they should receive more: otherwise even that should be taken from them.
The Lord puts a seal upon this testimony, namely, that the thing in question was the word, which drew to Him and to God those who were to enjoy the blessing; and that the word was the basis of all relationship with Himself, declaring, when they spoke to Him of His mother and brethren, by whom He was related to Israel after the flesh, that He acknowledged as such none others but those who heard and obeyed the word of God.
Besides the evident power manifested in His miracles the accounts that follow-to the end of chapter 8-present different aspects of the work of Christ, and of His reception, and of its consequences.
First the Lord-although, apparently, He takes no notice-is associated with His disciples in the difficulties and storms that surround them, because they have embarked in His service. We have seen that He gathered the disciples around Himself: they are devoted to His service. As far as mans power to avert it went, they were in imminent danger. The waves are ready to swallow them up. Jesus, in their eyes, cares nothing about it; but God has permitted this exercise of faith. They are there on account of Christ, and with Him. Christ is with them; and the power of Christ, for whose sake they are in the storm, is there to protect them. They are together with Him in the same vessel. If as to themselves they might perish, they are associated in the counsels of God with Jesus, and His presence is their safeguard. He permits the storm, but He is Himself in the vessel. When He shall awake and manifest Himself, all will be calm.
In the healing of the demoniac, in the country of the Gadarenes, we have a living picture of what was passing.
As to Israel, the remnant-however great the enemys power-is delivered. The world beseeches Jesus to depart, desiring their own ease, which is more disturbed by the presence and power of God than by a legion of devils. He goes away. The man who was healed-the remnant-would fain be with Him; but the Lord sends him back (into the world that He quitted Himself) to be a witness of the grace and power of which he had been the subject. The herd of swine, I doubt not, set before us the career of Israel towards their destruction, after the rejection of the Lord. The world accustoms itself to the power of Satan-painful as it may be to see it in certain cases-never to the power of God.
The next two histories present the effect of faith, and the real need with which the grace that meets it has to do. The faith of the remnant seeks Jesus to preserve the life of that which is ready to perish. The Lord answers it, and comes Himself to answer it. On the way (it is there He was, and, as to final deliverance, He is still there), in the midst of the crowd that surrounded Him, faith touches Him. The poor woman had a disease which no means at marls disposal could heal. But power is found in the Man, Christ, and comes forth from Him for the healing of man, wherever faith exists, while waiting for the final accomplishment of His mission on earth. She is healed, and confesses before Christ her condition and all that had happened to her: and thus, by means of the effect of faith, testimony is rendered to Christ. The remnant is manifested, faith distinguishes them from the multitude; their condition being the fruit of divine power in Christ.
This principle applies to the healing of every believer, and, consequently, to that of the Gentiles, as the apostle argues. Healing power is in the Person of Christ; faith-by grace and by the attraction of Christ-profits by it. It does not depend on the relationship of the Jew, although, as to his position, he was the first to profit by it. It is a question of what there is in the Person of Christ, and of faith in the individual. If there is faith in the individual, this power acts; he goes away in peace, healed by the power of God Himself. But, in fact, if we consider in full the condition of man, it was not sickness merely which was in question, but death. Christ, before the full manifestation of the state of man, met it, so to speak, on the way; but, as in the case of Lazarus, the manifestation was allowed; and to faith this manifestation took place in the death of Jesus. Thus, here, it is permitted that the daughter of Jairus should die before the arrival of Christ; but grace has come to raise from the dead, with the divine power that alone can accomplish it; and Jesus, in comforting the poor father, bids him not to fear, but only to believe, and his daughter should be made whole. It is faith in His Person, in the divine power in Him, in the grace that comes to exercise it, which obtains joy and deliverance. But Jesus does not seek the multitude here; the manifestation of this power is only for the consolation of those who feel their need of it, and for the faith of those who are really attached to Him. The multitude know, indeed, that the maiden is dead; they bewail her, and do not understand the power of God that can raise her up. Jesus gives back to her parents the child whose life He had restored. Thus will it be with the Jews at the end, in the midst of the unbelief of the many. Meantime by faith we anticipate this joy, convinced that it is our state by grace; we live: only that for us it is in connection with Christ in heaven, the firstfruits of a new creation.
With respect to His ministry, Jesus will have this hidden. He must be received according to the testimony which He bore to the conscience and to the heart. On the way this testimony was not entirely finished. We shall see His last efforts with the unbelieving heart of man in the succeeding chapters.
Footnotes for Luke Chapter 8
24: It is exceedingly interesting to see the distinct place of the disciples and the women. Nor, as said above, have the women a bad place. We find them again at the cross and the sepulchre when-at any rate save John-the disciples had fled, or, even if called by the women to the sepulchre, gone home! when they saw He was raised.
Fuente: John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament
WOMANS MINISTRY
Luk 8:1-3. And it came to pass consecutively, He was going through city and village, proclaiming and preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and the Twelve were along with Him, and certain women who had been healed from evil spirits and disease; Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom seven demons had gone, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod, and Susanna, and many others, who continued to minister unto Him from those things which appertain to them. In this catalogue of Christian workers who accompanied our Lord, assisting Him in His vast and stupendous ministry in the interest of both soul and body, also supplying Him and His apostles, doubtless, with temporalities, were Mary, called Magdalene, from her resident city Magdala, which stands on the northwestern coast of the Galilean Sea. It is now a dirty, barbaric village, occupied by nomadic Arabs. Many have taken up the conclusion that she was this fallen woman described in the preceding chapter. Of this we have no evidence whatever, and should not indulge in gratuitous fancy. This woman was in Capernaum, about ten miles from Magdala overland. Some able writers have pronounced Mary Magdalene a common harlot. This may have been true, but we have no evidence of it. Jesus cast seven demons out of her, but we do not know what kind; but we do know that she became one of His truest disciples and brightest saints, standing at the front of the faithful sisterhood, who lingered last at the cross, and were the first to look into the empty sepulcher, and the first to go and preach the risen Jesus, and doubtless is this day one of the brightest glorified saints. We see here that Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod Antipas, was also a constant minister of our Lord, keeping her king and his court well posted about the mighty works of Jesus, as ever and anon she returned home to the royal palace at Machaerus, where her husband was a member of the kings cabinet. Besides these two sisters, so prominent in the ministry of our Lord, were Susanna and many others, who ministered unto Him constantly and regularly. This is the second great tour our Savior takes, peregrinating the whole country from city to city, accompanied by the twelve apostles and these ministering sisters, constituting a grand evangelistic force, so they could go into a city and literally capture it with the agencies of gospel grace.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Luk 8:2. Mary, called Magdalene. Origen reckons three women who anointed the Saviour. The first, in the house of Simon the pharisee. Luk 7:37. The second, the woman who anointed him six days before the passover. Mar 14:8. The third, the sister of Lazarus, who anointed him in the house of Simon the leper, Mat 26:6-7. Chrysostom regards the two last as the same person.
Out of whom went seven devils. Some of the ancient fathers of the church understand this of the vices to which she had been addicted, as a demon of pride, of anger, lasciviousness, and desire; but in her regenerate state she became more eminent for virtue than she had been for vice, loving and honouring the Lord after his crucifixion, as in the days of his ministerial glory. She is considered as a woman of strong mind, good education, and liberal fortune. We are not bound to follow every opinion of venerable men. The elegant Luke says, seven demons: and why might not a demon give the number of seven, as well as another answer, legion? This woman had followed the Saviour with many others from Galilee. Mar 15:40. Grace in her heart was stronger than the power of demons. She had watched with the holy women at the crucifixion, and was honoured as the first to announce his resurrection. Mat 28:1.
Luk 8:4. He spake by a parable, as in Matthew 13. Variations of words occur in all the evangelists, because the Lord delivered the same doctrines in different parts of the land, and would vary his speech as occasions might require. Now, as Luke wrote his gospel from the dictates and gospels of the apostles, one would relate expressions as he heard them in one place, and another would relate them as he heard them in another place.
Luk 8:10. That seeing they might not see. The true sense of these words is found, Act 28:26.
Luk 8:16. No man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bed. Calmet gives us from oriental travel a fac-simile of a bed, a sort of easy chair in which the sick, the weary, and the slothful might repose. Under the seat there might be a cupboard for utensils, candlesticks, &c. The idea of such beds seems more natural than that of a bushel.
Luk 8:27. A certain man which had devils. Illustrated in Mar 5:22.
Luk 8:41. There came a man named Jairus. See on Mark 6.
Luk 8:43. A woman having an issue. See on Mat 9:21; Mat 9:28.
Luk 8:55. Her spirit came again, or returned into her body, which marks the distinction between matter and spirit, and the assured existence of a world of spirits. See John 11. with the Reflections.
REFLECTIONS.
The women that came up from Galilee are named here for their piety, and for their liberality to the funds of the Saviours little company. The gospel in its first rise was wholly supported by freewill offerings, until lands and endowments came to be the heritage of the church. But the principal lustre of those matrons is their piety, and the assistance which they must have spiritually rendered to the work of the Redeemer. St. Paul found much aid of this kind from women whom he greets as having helped him in the Lord. The labours and martyrdom of Thecla have been named in the beginning of this gospel. The minister is not wise who does not avail himself of those aids in furthering the work of the Lord.
Other reflections on the parable, and the three miracles recorded in this chapter, will be found in the notes.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Luk 8:1-3. The Women Friends of Jesus (Lk. only).Nothing shows the originality of Jesus more than His attitude towards women. Lk. especially dwells on this both in the Gospel and in Ac, where we see how much the early Church owed to the gentler sex. It is possible that some of these women who showed their gratitude to the Healer by supporting His mission, were only secure against a return of their maladies as they continued in His company.
Luk 8:2. Magdalene: i.e. of Magdala (p. 29, cf. Mat 15:39), then a flourishing town on the Lake of Galilee.
Luk 8:3. Joanna: Luk 24:10; cf. Introd.Chuza, Herods steward: the overseer of Antipass property, his estate manager.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
WOMEN PROVIDING FOR THE LORD JESUS
(vs.1-3)
The grace of the heart of the Lord Jesus must be made known through all the country, though not yet in its fullness, nor as resulting from the value of the sacrifice of Calvary. The Lord did not therefore preach “the gospel of the grace of God” as did Paul later (Act 20:24), but preached “the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.” The kingdom emphasizes authority rather than grace, yet grace was by no means lacking, as seen in Luk 4:17-22. In fact, one who honestly submits to the Lord’s authority will realize his total dependence upon His grace.
In this intensive evangelization throughout the land, the twelve were with Him, and also many women, three of whom are mentioned by name, all evidently having been healed of infirmities or demon possession. Mary of Magdala was one who loved much, for she had been delivered from the oppression of seven demons. This is not, as some have imagined, moral depravity, but spiritual captivity, both frightening and oppressive. Joanna is noted as the wife of Herod’s steward, a man of high rank and responsibility. These facts may awaken our interest, but whatever questions we may have as to the facts are not answered. But the faith of Joanna and of Mary Magdalene brought them to the grave of the Lord Jesus on the first day of the week (Luk 24:10). Susanna is mentioned only by name.
These women ministered of their substance to the Lord. For the Lord of glory, possessor of all creation, to make Himself dependent on the ministrations of women, in lowly humility, is really a blessed testimony to the grace of His heart, while at the same time they are given opportunity to express their appreciation of His grace in a way that will receive a full reward from God.
THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER
(vs.4-8)
When large numbers were gathered together, the Lord told the parable of the sower (vs.5-8). There is serious instruction in this parable to the effect that, however great may be the apparent interest among crowds of people, they do not all hear with the conviction of vital faith in the Son of God.
The sower sowed his seed in a broadcast manner so it was sowed in every direction. Some fell on the hard-trodden pathway and could not take root at all, but was soon eaten by birds. Some fell on the rock with little soil covering it. Springing up quickly, the plant withered away, for there was no depth of earth to hold moisture. That which fell among thorns was soon choked out, there being no room for two contrasting plants. Only that falling on good ground was fruitful, bearing one hundred fold. It is the ground that makes the difference, for the seed is the same: it is all good seed. Giving no explanation of the parable, the Lord cried out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” If there is honest interest in Him, people will desire to know the significance of His words.
At least the disciples were concerned, no matter who else was not. Answering their inquiry, the Lord indicated that believers alone will be able to understand the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Others will be given the evidence that there are such mysteries, but if they are not concerned to learn, the parables will leave them in the blindness of ignorance, yet having had a testimony that renders them responsible for their ignorance.
The explanation is beautifully simple (vs.11-15). The seed of the Word of God has in it the vital power of life. It is sown broadcast in the whole world (Mat 13:38). The Lord began this, His disciples went farther afield to proclaim the Word, and today radio is used to much more broadcast this precious seed. The wayside symbolizes some who hear the Word, but through hardness of heart are impervious to its influence. The birds (evil spirits under Satan’s authority) are quick to steal away the seed. No real impression has been made. The rock with shallow soil covering it pictures hearts spiritually hard underneath, though perhaps having pleasing or inquisitive personalities. Such are outwardly impressionable. They receive the Word at first with joy, thinking the gospel of the grace of God to be a wonderful thing, but the conscience is not seriously reached. There is no repentant facing of their sins. It is a shallow thing with no root, so when the testing of the heat of tribulation comes, there is no moisture of the Spirit of God to resist the heat. Such people give up their profession of faith just as easily as they had assumed it.
The thorns speak of the cares, riches and pleasures of this life which many people allow to dominate their very existence, so that, though they would like the Word too, and accept it in a general way, yet it does not mean as much to them as the material vanities that are only thorns that cause eventual trouble. There is no real room for both, and one who wants both will find that it is the Word that is choked out. In this case, though the seed of the Word is good, no mature fruit comes from it.
The good ground speaks of those who in genuine faith receive and keep the Word of God. This ground has been prepared by the plowshare of the Spirit of God working repentance in the heart. The seed falls into the ground, its roots are able to go deep, the cultivating keeps down the weeds and thorns, and the plant, strong and vigorous, brings forth abundant fruit. Luke speaks only of a “hundredfold” increase, emphasizing the great moral contrast in true faith to the shallowness of mere profession. Mat 13:1-58 and Mar 4:1-41 both speak of differences in the amount of fruit, showing that even true believers do not bear an identical amount. In Luke it is added that believers bring forth fruit with patience or endurance. Fruit takes time it gradually develops and matures. So the reality of faith is proven in the fruit that is eventually borne.
PARABLE OF THE LAMP
(vs.16-17)
While fruit is primarily for God, yet it connects with testimony before people. Therefore the Lord added the symbol of the lighted lamp (vs.18-18). The chief object of light is to bring things out in their true character. Who would deliberately hide a lighted lamp under a vessel or basket or under a bed? Will a believer choose to be ashamed of having others know he is a believer? If the Spirit of God has “lighted” him, it is for the purpose of giving light to others. Let him be willing then to have nothing secret, but that his conduct and words may bear witness to his faith. Hiding the light under a vessel infers our being too busy with things of this life to witness for Christ, or putting the light under a bed infers we are too lazy to let our light shine for the Lord.
Verse 18 refers back to the parable of the sower and those who hear the Word of God. How we hear is of the utmost importance. Hearing with honest faith is true hearing, for faith brings one’s life into the open, everything laid bare before God. What one receives by faith will cause further abundance, but if he has not, by genuine faith, received what he appears to have, he will lose it all. For he has never really appropriated it: he is a mere professor of Christianity who seemed to have something, but is like the wayside or rocky ground or thorn-infested ground.
NATURAL RELATIONSHIPS SET ASIDE
(vs.18-21)
The moral connection is continued in verses 1-21. We have seen that it is the seed of the Word of God received by faith that brings forth fruit for God. No matter how close may be a natural relationship, it has no place in the new life produced by the seed of the Word of God. This does not mean that we should ignore our natural relationships, for they have a place that requires our acting rightly toward relatives on the basis of the first creation, to which we are still attached as long as we are in this world. The Lord Jesus showed such natural affection and care for His mother when dying on the cross (Joh 19:26-27).
But spiritual relationships, by virtue of divine life in Christ and given to believers, are superior to those natural. The Lord’s mother and brothers desired to see Him. Mark tell us what their motives were. They wanted to restrain Him from preaching, for they thought He was out of His mind (Mar 3:21; Mar 3:31-35). Will the Lord Jesus agree to His relatives’ demands in such a case? No! His spiritual relationships are much more important that those natural. Thus, He told the people, “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the Word of God and do it” (v.21). For us too, if our natural relationships interfere with our obedience to the Word of God, we must refuse this interference. It is made clear for us that the Lord’s mother and His brothers had no more claim on Him than does any other believer.
HIS AUTHORITY OVER THE SEA
(vs.22-25)
A new section begins with verse 22, which continues to chapter 9:36. Here the fullness of grace in the Lord Jesus is seen in His great ability to meet the many troublesome features of a world away from God. This world is a place of disturbance (ch.8:22-25); a place of bondage to Satan’s power (vs.26-39); a place of disease and death (vs.40-56); a place of misery and want (ch.9:1-17) and worst of all, a place in which the Lord of glory is rejected (ch.9:18-38).
The Lord gave instructions to His disciples to take a boat over to the other side of the lake (v.22). Certainly therefore there was no possibility of their failing to reach the other side. Simple faith in Him would have subdued the fearful apprehensions of the disciples when a storm arose. But often we also are guilty of such unbelief in spite of having His written Word to show up our fears and doubts as being groundless.
The Lord calmly slept in the stern of the boat while the storm caused the disciples such anxious fear as to finally awaken Him with their panic-stricken words. At least they waited until the boat was filled with water — not literally filled completely, but enough to cause them, humanly speaking, to be in serious danger. There is a dispensational lesson in this, reminding us of the deep trouble of the remnant of Israel when in the throes of the Great Tribulation; yet the dispensational picture is not emphasized in Luke, but the moral principles of the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus for every demand of faith, and in spite of the weakness of faith.
Rising from sleep, the Lord simply spoke and the elements were brought into calm subjection. It is that voice alone we need, whatever may be the disturbance of our circumstances, whether the powerful wind, the unseen forces that rouse the waves, or whether the visible and alarming surges of trouble and distress. He asked them a pointed question, “Where is your faith?” For faith in Him would leave no doubt of His authority over the storm even when asleep. In spite of earlier proofs of His divine power, they wondered at the greatness of this Man who commands the winds and the waves.
THE HEALING OF “LEGION”
(vs.26-39)
If the elements must obey the Lord, what of the malignant power of Satan? This He met immediately on arriving at Gadara, in the person of a man who had been long possessed by demons — totally under satanic power. His condition was one of shame, wearing no clothes, and his environment that of the corruption of death, living among the graves (v.27). There was a strange mixture in the man’s condition. While crying out, “What have I to do with You” he was drawn, in spite of this, to fall before the Lord Jesus (v.28). The man still had a human spirit and soul in spite of the awful power of the evil spirit, and it was the superior power of divine grace in the Lord Jesus that drew him, while the evil spirit within him protested, knowing that Jesus is the Son of God. The very presence of the Son of God was torment to the evil spirit, as were the Lord’s words of command that he should come out of the man.
The power of the evil spirit was frightening. Chains and fetters were superhumanly broken by the man (v.29). The world may attempt to bind the power of Satan by such things as legislation, rehabilitation and moral reform, but these things fail, and Satan drives his victim into a moral wilderness. This case, however, was particularly pathetic. The man confessed his name as Legion, because he was possessed by many demons, enough to infest 2000 pigs!
It seems a strange fact that demons desire a body in which to dwell. Unfallen angels are likewise spirits, but they evidently have no such inclination. These demons had a fear of being sent into the abyss (v.31), that is, the bottomless pit (Rev 9:1-21; Rev 20:1-2), a place of confinement from which there is possible release when God allows it. When commanded to leave the man, they asked permission to enter into a herd of swine, which the Lord permitted (v.32). According to law Jews had no right to be keeping swine (Lev 11:7), and the Lord allowed the results as a pointed lesson to them. The demons had no proper control of the swine, and they, evidently terrified, rushed headlong by way of a steep cliff, into the lake and were drowned (v.33). Josephus speaks of Gadara as a Grecian city, that is, composed of Grecianized Jews, who therefore ignored Jewish orthodoxy, but the Lord nevertheless did not spare the swine.
The swine herders reported what had taken place, for Mar 5:13 tells us that the herd numbered about 2000. This elicited the interest of the whole country. They found the man who was previously demon-possessed sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind (v.35). But rather than rejoicing at the grace and power of God so clearly demonstrated, they were afraid. They feared more for their illicit livelihood than they feared the power of Satan. They preferred to have the man demon-possessed than to lose their swine! Such is the blindness of unbelief.
Though the matter was explained to them, the whole multitude of the country were united in entreating the Lord to leave them, for their fear was great. He did not force His presence on them: He acceded to their wishes and left again by boat. But an effective testimony remained. The recovered man was anxious to be in the company of the Lord, but the Lord rather sent him back to his accustomed environment, telling him to show others what great things God had done for him (v.39).
This was in contrast to some other cases, for some were told to tell no man (Mat 9:30; Mar 1:33-34). In those cases the Lord remained in the area where He was, and human advertising tended to hinder His work because of the excitement of those attracted merely for the sake of the miracles. In Gadara, however, this man bore striking witness to the whole city that the Man they had refused was the One who wielded the power of God over the cruelty of evil spirits (v.39). Again, some may be inclined to exaggerate the greatness of the change that has taken place in them. In this case the change was so great it could hardly be exaggerated. The man also had been well known previously because of the dreadfulness of his condition.
THE LORD’S POWER OVER DISEASE AND DEATH
(vs.40-56)
Returning to the west side of Lake Galilee, the Lord Jesus found the people waiting for Him. Now another problem arose. He had stilled the elements and had overcome satanic power, but Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, fell at His feet to entreat Him regarding the impending death of his daughter (vs.41-42). His only thought was that the Lord might prevent his daughter from dying, but we are to learn in this case a deeper lesson as to the Lord’s power over death. If the demon-possessed man speaks of Israel’s demon-infested state during the Tribulation, from which the power of the Lord Jesus will set them free, the daughter of Jairus illustrates Israel’s being reduced to a state of virtual death — dead in trespasses and sins — from which the Son of God will yet awaken them in resurrection power and grace (Rom 11:15). The daughter was 12 years old, reminding us of the twelve tribes and God governing in perfect wisdom.
An interruption occurred at this point that teaches us a serious lesson. If the blessed Lord of glory is to rightly meet the question of death, He must first meet the solemn question of sin, which is typified in the long-standing disease of the woman who came up behind Him (vs.43-44). The twelve years in both these cases indicates a complete governmental cycle through which Israel’s twelve tribes must pass before the lasting millennial blessing of God will be known to them. People naturally have more fear of death than they do of sin, though sin is really most to be feared, for it is against God, while death is God’s righteous sentence against sin.
The woman had spent all that she had on physicians with no good result. What a picture of people’s efforts to have their ills corrected by good works, humanitarian service and religions of every kind! But it is Christ they need. Their very life-blood is being drained away by the sin that will not yield to human treatment. By only touching the hem of the Lord’s garment, she was healed immediately (v.44). The simplest touch of faith taps the great resources of His power. While His power could heal her disease, yet we know that His own death and blood-shedding was required to take away sin, of which the woman’s disease was a picture. In view of the unquestionable certainty of His future sacrifice, He could even then save sinners who put their faith in Him.
However, the Lord did not allow her to leave without her hearing His word. In answer to His question, “Who touched Me?” Peter protested that many were touching Him. But crowds may surround the Lord without any real exercise of any kind, while one coming in faith receives eternal blessing. The Lord pressed the point, adding that virtue had gone out of Him. Of course He knew all that was going on in the woman’s heart, but she must make herself known voluntarily. She came trembling, falling down before Him and declaring the full truth of her former state and the reason for her touching Him, with its blessed result (v.47). Therefore, she received, not only the feeling of being healed, but the full, definite assurance from the lips of the Son of God that her faith had made her well. It is vitally important that every believer have the clear, authoritative Word of God as to the absolute certainty of his eternal salvation. Nothing but this can give certainty. With His Word, she may well indeed “go in peace.”
He had calmly taken time with the woman while the little girl was dying. While He was still speaking, the news came by a messenger from the ruler’s house that his daughter had died, and with the added words, “Do not trouble the Teacher” (v.49). Mere natural thought considered that it was too late. One can imagine the distressed anguish of Jairus in all of this, including his feeling that the Lord had not come quickly enough. How comforting then were the Lord’s immediate words, “Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well” (v.50). As in the case of the woman, so here, the solid assurance of the word of the Lord Jesus is wonderful.
At the house of Jairus He allowed only Peter, James and John and the father and mother of the girl to go in with Him to the little girl. There was no need for more than the witness of the three disciples: they stand for the nucleus of the faithful remnant when Israel will be brought to spiritual life after the Tribulation. The father and mother stand for the previous natural relationship — Israel connected with the fathers. There was great weeping and wailing in the house, for hope for the girl seemed lost entirely, as it seems to Israel today in reference to any revival of that virtually dead nation.
The Lord put the mourners out of the house. Sorrow and sighing must flee away at His presence. The simple ease with which He acted is again to be noted here, as commonly in Luke. Taking her by the hand, He told the girl to arise. Her spirit returned to her body by divine power and she immediately arose, not only restored to life, but in good health: her restoration was complete. Marvelous miracle of grace! He who has power over the elements, over Satan’s power and over sin’s ravages, also has power over the dreaded power of death.
He instructed the astonished parents to give her food (v.55), for she illustrates too the case of any individual who has been dead in sins and is brought to life by faith in the Lord Jesus. Spiritual food is an immediate necessity for every new-born soul. In contrast to the case of the man of Gadara (v.39), those here were told not to report the matter to others. The Lord wanted no mere awakening of the curiosity of the crowds (Mar 1:45).
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 1
Every city and village; still, however, remaining in the region of the Sea of Galilee.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
CHAPTER 8
Ver. 1.–And the twelve (apostles) were with Him, i.e. they accompanied Jesus as He went through the cities and villages preaching.
Ver. 2.-And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils. These women followed Christ (1.) out of gratitude, because He had healed their diseases, and cast out the devils which possessed them. (2.) For safety, lest if they were away from their physician, their former ills might again overtake them. (3.) From pious motives, that from His companionship and preaching they might advance in holiness.
Mary. In Hebrew, Mary signifies a “bitter sea” of repentance. Bede.
Called Magdalene. As we have before explained, from the castle or fort near Bethsaida and Capernaum. S. Augustine infers that she was a married woman (Hom. 33), and therefore calls her not a harlot but an adulteress. But according to S. Jerome, the author of the commentary on S. Mark calls her a widow, which is much the same thing; so also Jansenius, Luke and others. That she was an inhabitant of Juda, and like Lazarus and Martha lived at Bethany, is clear from S. John xii. 1. Adricomius, in his description of the Holy Land, tells us that the Magdalene’s home was situated on the shore of the sea of Galilee, and towards the north-east looks out on an extensive plain, and that it was called Magdala from the battlements and towers, wherewith it was fortified. Hence Jerome asserts that she was rightly called Magdalene, that is to say, “turreted” because of her zeal and love. Josephus makes mention of this castle, and tells us that Agrippa fruitlessly sent an expedition against it.
In the Hebrew then Magdalene signifies (1.) turreted, or tower-bearing, from the root migdol, a tower; for she was tall of stature, and of a yet loftier mind. “Thy neck is like the tower of David,” Son 4:4. (2.)Or “magnificent” (Origen), or “magnified,” according to Pagninus, because, says Origen, she followed Jesus, ministered unto Him, and beheld the mystery of His Passion. For the root gadal, means, “to be great and magnificent,” and the Magdalene was greatly exalted by Christ. (3.) Pagninus says that Magdalene means, “remarkable for the standard,” “bearing, or raising the standard,” from the root deghol, which, when the letters ghimel and daleth are transposed, signifies a standard. For the Magdalene raised the standard of penitence and love, and of the contemplative life. Like as we read, “His banner over me was love,” Son 2:4. (4). Or otherwise, as the same writer remarks, the name means, “brought up, nourished,” i.e. led by the teaching of Christ to a holy and a virtuous life. For the Hebrew gadal means the same thing as to nourish and bring up.
Out of whom went seven devils, i.e. seven capital sins, pride, avarice, gluttony, luxury, anger, envy, and careless living. Bede, Theophylact and S. Gregory. For in a literal sense we are to understand that she had been possessed by devils or evil spirits, as I have before said, and that they had gone out of her, or (S. Mar 16:9) been cast out. So teach S. Ambrose, Euthymius, Jansenius, and others.
We may conclude, therefore, that the Magdalene, because of her wickedness and sins, had been possessed by seven devils, and that with other demoniacs she had been made whole by Christ; that on her repentance she had obtained pardon and forgiveness, and, no longer under the power of Satan, but filled with the spirit of God, she devoted her whole after life to the service of Christ. John of Rochester and others.
Seven devils, either seven in actual number, or “seven” in the sense of many, or all; for, as I have often pointed out, “seven” is the sign of multitude or totality.
Ver. 3.-And Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward (manager or treasurer, according to the Arabic version) and Susanna and many others which ministered unto Him of their substance. For they were rich, and grateful to their deliverer, and therefore sought to further His preaching, and to spread the faith.
So SS. Plautilla, Priscilla, and many other rich and noble matrons ministered unto SS. Peter, Paul, Clement, and other Roman Pontiffs, and other orders of the clergy.
And Susanna, an illustrious woman who, healed by Christ, had become His disciple. Her name in the Hebrew signifies “a lily.” On, account of the sweet radiance of a heavenly life (Interlinear Gloss), and the golden fervour of her inward affection. Bede.
Ver. 15.–Which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it. The Council of Basle observes that for the right hearing of the word of God there is required,
1. A place fitted to receive it, i.e. an honest and good heart.
2. A proper disposition, to “keep” the word when heard; and
3. That best return, fruit brought forth with patience.
A heart is honest and good, says Lyranus, because of the faith which illumines it, and good (optimum) in a higher sense because of grace working in it; or, as others hold, it is “bonum” because disciplined and exercised in virtue, and “optimum” because of inward peace and consolation. Again, it is “bonum” because purified from sin, and “optimum” because conformed to the will of God (Albertus Magnus); or “bonum” in discerning the truth, and “optimum” in its desire of that which is right (Bonaventura); or, according to S. Augustine on Ps. vii., “bonum” on account of the love it bears its neighbour and itself, “optimum” on account of its exceeding love for God.
Hence we may take the Greek, , to mean the same as the Vulgate “bono et optimo,” for the copula , or “et,” signifies gradation and increase. They, therefore, who keep the word of God in an honest and good heart bring forth fruit in proportion: good fruit if the heart is good, better if the heart is better, and the best fruit if the heart is perfect, i.e. thirty fold, sixty fold, or one hundred fold. S. Matt. xiii. 8. And it does not follow of necessity, as Toletus holds, that these words apply to different persons, for the heart of a believer may grow in grace, until at last it is “optimum,” perfect in sight of God.
With patience, , i.e. in the endurance of labour, disappointment, and sorrow in the plowing, seeding, and harrowing of the soul, and in the long expectation of harvest.
Ver. 26.-And they arrived at (sailed over to) the country of the Gadarenes, which is over against Galilee.
Gadarenes. Gergesenes (S. Matt.), or as it is written in some MSS., Gerasenes. Some think that one and the same place is here signified, but Adricomius shows that Gadara, and Gerasa or Gergesa were two distinct cities, but that the surrounding country was named indifferently after either.
The Vulgate translates “the country of the Gerasenes,” because this was the best known name.
Ver. 27.-And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, and ware no clothes, neither abode in any house, but in the tombs.
“A man.” S. Matt. says there were two. But as this one was the fiercer, and possessed by a legion, S. Luke and S. Mark mention him alone.
But in the tombs. 1. The Jews, as I have before said, had their burial places without their cities. Their tombs were large and lofty chambers as it were, so as to afford burial to many, and to be easy of access to the friends and relatives of the departed. This is clear from what we read of the sepulture of Christ, of Abraham, Sarah, and others.
This demoniac then was driven by the devils which possessed him to dwell among the tombs. For these reasons:
1. In order to excite him to greater ferocity, and that he might be the cause of greater fear to the passers-by.
Probably he was like what the French fable to be a “loup-garou,” i.e. a man who after the manner of a wolf sallies forth by night and preys upon men and animals, while by day he hides himself in tombs and by hollows of the rocks. “So that no man might pass by that way” (S. Mat 8:28), because passers-by were attacked and wounded by him. The evil spirits were mostly wont to attack those of a melancholy disposition of mind, as the more easily driven into the madness of despair.
2. Because unclean spirits love to dwell in unclean places. Hence witches hold their sabbaths underneath the gallows.
3. Because the devils rejoice at the death of men, and triumph over the souls of them who are condemned to hell.
4. S. Chrysostom, Euthymius, and Theophylact add that he dwelt amongst the tombs, to persuade men that the souls of the dead are changed into devils, who abide in the sepulchres wherein their bodies are buried. Hence demoniacs from time to time have cried out, I am the soul of Peter, or of Paul, or of John.
Ver. 28.–When he saw Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before Him. S. Mark (chap. v. 6), adds, “And when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,” i.e. bent the knee before Him. Because he felt the power of Christ’s presence, and was therefore compelled to draw nigh and worship Him, for fear lest, if he acknowledged not the Lord, he might receive greater punishment; and again, Christ caused him to act thus in order that an opportunity might be afforded for his cure.
Son of God most high. It would seem that the devil, who in the temptation had not recognised Christ, now after so many miracles acknowledged Him to be the Messiah, the Son of God; yet, blinded by pride and hatred, he hesitated to believe that the Son of God had stooped to take upon Him our flesh, and thought it impossible that by His death upon the Cross the whole human race could be redeemed, because, as Aquinas remarks, in many ways God had hindered him from recognising, the truth. See S. Mar 4:12.
Torment me not. Do not cast me out and bind me for ever in bell. See S. Mat 8:31.
Ver. 29.-For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. From this and similar passages it is clear that the devils are permitted by God to dwell on earth and tempt mankind. Hence it is the custom of the Church to bury the bodies of the faithful in consecrated ground in order that they may rest therein free from the assaults of evil spirits, and may profit by the prayers of the living.
Ver. 30.-And Jesus asked him, i.e. one of the devils, saying, What is thy name? For Christ willed that the evil spirit should declare his name, that from it the number of the devils, and thence the mightiness of the power which expelled them, might be known.
And he said, Legion. A legion was composed of 6000 men, and S. Ambrose thinks that this was the exact number of the devils; others, following the Scripture, take the word generally as meaning “many,” “because many devils were entered into him.”
S. Gregory of Nyssa adds, “The devils, imitating the angelic host call themselves Legion; nay more, they would liken themselves to God Himself, who is called the Lord God of Sabaoth, i.e. the Lord of Hosts. For Satan is the counterfeit and mockery of God.”
Learn then how great must be the number and the malignity of the devils, that so many should possess one man. So we read in the life of S. Dominic, that very many devils were cast out of a man by his prayers and entreaties.
Therefore, since we are surrounded on all sides by so many spiritual foes, we must give ourselves continually to watching and prayer, in order to obtain the victory over them, as Antony, who was wont to say that all temptations could be overcome by the Cross of Christ, by calling on Him, and by praying in the spirit.
Wherefore if any one determines to serve God perfectly, 1et him be well assured that he has arrayed against him, not one legion of devils only, but many, even Satan himself, and all the dwellers in hell. Hence the Apostle (Eph 6:12), “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Following the example of Christ, S. Hilarion is said to have healed a demoniac possessed by Legion. It is said that after he prayed to the Lord that He would release the afflicted man from his misery, there were heard various voices proceeding from the mouth of the demoniac, and as it were the clamour of much people. And straightway the demoniac was healed, and presented himself not long after with his wife and children at the monastery, bearing gifts in gratitude for his cure.
Ver. 31.-And they besought Him that He would not command them to go out into the deep. For although the devils, whilst they go to and fro on earth, are consumed by the fires of hell, yet it is some gratification, to them that they are not shut up in prison, but are permitted to tempt men to sin, and make them sharers in their condemnation. For they hate God and envy men, because men are heirs of that kingdom from which they by pride fell. Emmanuel Sa very appropriately remarks, “God has appointed a punishment suited to each sin. Hell for the lusts of the flesh; gnashing of teeth for ribald laughter; thirst for self-indulgence and gluttony; the worm for an evilly disposed heart; darkness for ignorance and self deceit; the deep for pride, and therefore for the devil and his angels.”
Ver. 32.-And there was there an herd of many swine (about two thousand, S. Mar 5:2) feeding on the mountain (nigh unto the mountain, S. Mark, ibid.). But for what purpose were these swine, inasmuch as they were forbidden to the Jews by the law of Moses? Gadara, although a city of Juda or rather of Galilee, had, according to Josephus, been assigned by Csar for a dwelling-place to the Syrians and Gentiles; who were not prohibited from keeping swine. And again, the Jews might have been feeding the swine, not for their own eating, but for other purposes: to sell them to the Gentiles for the use of the Roman soldiery, or in order to provide lard for the greasing of their chariot wheels.
And they besought Him that He would suffer them to enter into them. The devils made this request:
1. In order that, inasmuch as they were unable to injure men directly, they might injure them indirectly through their property or possessions.
2. That, as actually came to pass, they might stir up the ill-will of the inhabitants against Christ.
3. Because unclean spirits delight in unclean things. Hence the devil is said to be worshipped by the witches in form of a he-goat. But from this entreaty S. Antony, according to S. Athanasius, infers the powerlessness of the devils. “For how,” he says, “can they who are feign to seek permission to enter into the herd of swine, have any real power over man, made in the image of God. Great, my brethren, are our means of defence against the hosts of Satan: an honest and pure life, and unfeigned faith towards God. Believe me, Satan fears the prayers and fasting, the meekness and self-denial, the humility and contempt of vainglory, the compassion and self-command, and above all the heart purified by the love of Christ, of those who are living godly lives. For the old serpent, the worst enemy of man, knows that he lies under the feet of the righteous according to the word of the Lord which saith, ‘Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.'” S. Luk 10:19.
And He suffered them. Christ granted the request of the devils: 1. To show that He had power over the evil spirits, and that they without His leave could do no evil to swine, much less to men. Hence, as we have seen, S. Antony says that they are not to be feared. 2. To demonstrate the number, strength and malevolence of the devils, and to make manifest by their expulsion the greatness of His power and glory. S. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Euthymius. 3. To refute the error of the Sadducces, who say that there is “neither angel nor spirit,” Acts xxiii. 8. Hilary. Rupert adds, That the Gadarenes were Jews, who kept swine contrary to the laws, and that the destruction of the herd was a punishment for their disobedience; but this interpretation I have shown to be wrong.
Mystically. Christ did this to show men, who, after the manner of swine wallow in fleshly lusts and pleasures, that they in like manner are rushing into the abyss of hell, and also to teach us that we must account the loss of our earthly possessions as of small account compared with the destruction of the soul. For He permitted the devils to enter into the herd of swine in order to free the demoniac from their power; and to show how impure were the minds of the Gadarenes, and therefore how fitted they were to be possessed by devils; and yet further to intimate that those who live after the manner of swine fall an easy prey to the power of Satan.
Ver. 33.-The herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake (the lake of Genesareth or sea of Galilee) and were choked. S. Jerome writes that the place where this happened was well known in his day. The Syriac gives this rendering, “The whole herd hurried up the mountain, and thence rushed into the sea.”
Ver. 34.–When they that fed them saw what was done they fled (lest they also should perish. Titus), and went and told it in the city and in the country. To the owners, in order that they might demand redress from Christ, who had given the swine up to the power of the devils, and not blame those who were in charge of the herd for their loss.
Ver. 35.-Then they (the inhabitants of the city and country round about) went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus. They first wished to ascertain the extent of their loss. Then they “came to Jesus,” to see the author of the mischief which had befallen them, and the man from whom the devils had been cast out. For their loss was so great that they were anxious to see whether there was any possibility of redress.
And found the man out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind. It is very probable that the man, as soon as the devils were cast out, fell on his knees at the feet of Christ to give Him thanks, and that when bidden to sit down, in reverent humility he placed himself at Jesus’ feet.
And they were afraid. Lest Christ should punish them because of their anger and murmurings against Him, and perhaps give them up to the power of the devils.
Ver. 37.-Then the whole multitude (the whole city, S. Matt.) of the country of the Gadarenes round about besought Him to depart from them. They did not make their request out of humility, because they considered themselves unworthy of the presence of Christ, as S. Jerome thinks, but out of distrust and fear, lest His continuing amongst them might cause them further loss. For they knew that Jesus was a Jew by nation, a holy man, and possessed of divine power, and that they were Gentiles of an alien race. They therefore feared lest He might inflict further punishment upon them because of their different religion and their past sins. They feared as did the widow of Sarepta, when she exclaimed, “What have I to do with thee, 0 thou man of God? Art thou come unto me to call my sin to remembrance, and to slay my son?”
1Ki 17:18.
Therefore not from any ill-will, but rather from a reverential awe, they besought Jesus to depart out of their coasts. For sinners, knowing that righteousness and sin cannot exist together, fear the presence of holy men, because of the zeal with which they seek the correction of sinners and the punishment of sin.
And He went up into the ship, and returned back again, from the country of the Gadarenes to Capernaum. S. Matt. ix. i. For He would not force Himself or His ministration on those who were unwilling to receive them.
Ver. 38.-Now the man out of whom the devils were departed besought him that He might be with Him. In gratitude for the mercy he had received, and in hope of further benefits.
But Jesus sent him away, saying,
Ver. 39.-Return to thy own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee, by means of Me, that therefore acknowledging Me to be the Messiah, and laying aside their bitter feeling because of the loss of their swine, they may believe and be saved.
And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city (in Decapolis, S. Mar 5:20) how great things Jesus had done unto him. This city was in the neighbourhood of Gadara, and near it were the tombs in which the demoniac used to dwell. It is very probable that, besides Jews, some of its inhabitants were Gentiles and unbelievers; to them, therefore, he would tell of his belief in Christ, in order to lead them to acknowledge the Son of God. S. Ambrose and S. Chrysostom.
Mystically. S. Gregory explains (Moral lib. vi. cap. xvii.), that Christ here would teach us to prefer the contemplative to the active life.” For when our thoughts are once awakened to divine truths, we are unwilling to be taken up again with earthly concerns, and refuse to be burdened with our neighbours’ wants and necessities. We seek the quiet of contemplation, and long for nothing but that which without labour refreshes the mind. But truth bids us return home, and show what great things have been done unto us in order that the mind may be first exercised in working, and then refreshed by contemplation.
Fuente: Cornelius Lapide Commentary
E. Jesus’ teaching in parables 8:1-21
The present section of Luke follows the same basic pattern as the former one. There is a block of teaching (Luk 8:1-21; cf. Luk 6:12-49) followed by another account of Jesus’ mighty works (Luk 8:22-56; cf. ch. 7).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
1. The companions and supporters of Jesus 8:1-3
Luke’s account stresses that concern for the multitudes motivated Jesus’ mission. Mark, on the other hand, presented opposition from the Jewish religious leaders as a reason for His activities. Matthew stressed Jesus’ desire to present Himself as the Messiah to the Jews. All these were factors that directed Jesus in His ministry.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
This verse is Luke’s summary of Jesus’ next preaching tour (cf. Luk 4:44). Like the first summary statement, this one also states Jesus’ ministry as consisting of itinerant preaching primarily. Luke noted the presence of the Twelve with Jesus to qualify them as reliable witnesses of His teaching, death, and resurrection.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
3
Chapter 15
THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
IN considering the words of Jesus, if we may not be able to measure their depth or to scale their height, we can with absolute certainty discover their drift, and see in what direction they move, and we shall find that their orbit is an ellipse. Moving around the two centers, sin and salvation, they describe what is not a geometric figure, but a glorious reality, “the kingdom of God.” It is not unlikely that the expression was one of the current phrases of the times, a golden casket, holding within it the dream of a restored Hebraism; for we find, without any collusion or rehearsal of parts, the Baptist making use of the identical words in his inaugural address, while it is certain the disciples themselves so misunderstood the thought of their Master as to refer His “kingdom” to that narrow realm of Hebrew sympathies and hopes. Nor did they see their error until, in the light of Pentecostal flames, their own dream disappeared and the new kingdom, opening out like a receding sky, embraced a world within its folds. That Jesus adopted the phrase, liable to misconstruction as it was, and that He used it so repeatedly, making it the center of so many parables and discourses, shows how completely the kingdom of God possessed both His mind and heart. Indeed, so accustomed were His thoughts and words to flow in this direction that even the Valley of Death, “lying darkly between” His two lives, could not alter their course, or turn His thoughts out of their familiar channel; and as we find the Christ back of the cross and tomb, amid the resurrection glories, we hear Him speaking still of “the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.”
It will be observed that Jesus uses the two expressions “the kingdom of God” and “the kingdom of heaven” interchangeably. But in what sense is it the “kingdom of heaven?” Does it mean that the celestial realm will so far extend its bounds as to embrace our outlying and low-lying world? Not exactly, for the conditions of the two realms are so diverse. The one is the perfected, the visible kingdom, where the throne is set, and the King Himself is manifest, its citizens, angels, heavenly intelligences, and saints now freed from the cumbering clay of mortality, and forever safe from the solicitations of evil. This New Jerusalem does not come down to earth, except in the vision of the seer, as it were in a shadow. And yet the two kingdoms are in close correspondence, after all; for what is the kingdom of God in heaven but His eternal rule over the spirits of the redeemed and of the unredeemed? What are the harmonies of heaven but the harmonies of surrendered wills, as, without any hesitation or discord, they strike in with the Divine Will in absolute precision? To this extent, then, at least, heaven may project itself upon earth; the spirits of men not yet made perfect may be in subjection to the Supreme Spirit; the separate wills of a redeemed humanity, striking in with the Divine Will, may swell the heavenly harmonies with their earthly music.
And so Jesus speaks of this kingdom as being “within you.” As if He said, “You are looking in the wrong direction. You expect the kingdom of God to be set up around you, with its visible symbols of flags and coins, on which is the image of some new Caesar. You are mistaken. The kingdom, like its King, is unseen; it seeks, not countries, but consciences; its realm is in the heart, in the great interior of the soul.” And is not this the reason why it is called, with such emphatic repetition, “the kingdom,” as if it were, if not the only, at any rate the highest kingdom of God on earth? We speak of a kingdom of Nature, and who will know its secrets as He who was both Natures child and Natures Lord? And how far-reaching a realm is that! From the motes that swim in the air to the most distant stars, which themselves are but the gateway to the unseen Beyond! What forces are here, forces of chemical affinities and repulsions, of gravitation and of life! What successions and transformations can Nature show! What infinite varieties of substance, form, and color! What a realm of harmony and peace, with no irruptions of discordant elements! Surely one would think, if God has a kingdom upon earth, this kingdom of Nature is it. But no; Jesus does not often refer to that, except as He makes Nature speak in His parables, or as He uses the sparrows, the grass, and the lilies as so many lenses through which our weak human vision may see God. The kingdom of God on earth is as much higher than the kingdom of Nature as spirit is above matter, as love is more and greater than power.
We said just now how completely the thought of “the kingdom” possessed the mind and heart of Jesus. We might go one step farther, and say how completely Jesus identified Himself with that kingdom. He puts Himself in its pivotal center, with all possible naturalness, and with an ease that assumption cannot feign He gathers up its royalties and draws them around His own Person. He speaks of it as “My kingdom”; and this, not alone in familiar discourse with His disciples, but when face to face with the representative of earths greatest power. Nor is the personal pronoun some chance word, used in a far-off, accommodated sense; it is the crucial word of the sentence, underscored and emphasized by a threefold repetition; it is the word He will not strike out, nor recall, even to save Himself from the Cross. He never speaks of the kingdom but even His enemies acknowledge the “authority” that rings in His tones, the authority of conscious power, as well as of perfect knowledge. When His ministry is drawing to a close He says to Peter, “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven”; which language may be understood as the official designation of the Apostle Peter to a position of pre-eminence in the Church, as its first leader. But whatever it may mean, it shows that the keys of the kingdom are His; He can bestow them on whom He will. The kingdom of heaven is not a realm in which authority and honors move upwards from below, the blossoming of “the peoples will”; it is an absolute monarchy, an autocracy, and Jesus Himself is here King supreme, His will swaying the lesser wills of men, and rearranging their positions, as the angel had foretold: “He shall reign over the house of David for ever, and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” Given Him of the Father it is, {Luk 22:29, Luk 1:32} but the kingdom is His, not either as a metaphor, but really, absolutely, inalienably; nor is there admittance within that kingdom but by Him who is the Way, as He is the Life. We enter into the kingdom, or the kingdom enters into us, as we find, and then crown the King, as we sanctify in our hearts Christ as 1Pe 3:15.
This brings us to the question of citizenship, the conditions and demands of the kingdom; and here we see how far this new dynasty is removed from the kingdoms of this world. They deal with mankind in groups; they look at birth, not character; and their bounds are well defined by rivers, mountains, seas, or by accurately surveyed lines. The kingdom of heaven, on the other hand, dispenses with all space-limits, all physical configurations, and regards mankind as one group, a unity, a lapsed but a redeemed world. But while opening its gates and offering its privileges to all alike, irrespective of class or circumstance, it is most eclective in its requirements, and most rigid in the application of its test, its one test of character. Indeed, the laws of the heavenly kingdom are a complete reversal of the lines of worldly policy. Take, for instance, the two estimates of wealth, and see how different the position it occupies in the two societies. The world makes wealth its summum bonum; or if not exactly in itself the highest good, in commercial values it is equivalent to the highest good, which is position. Gold is all-powerful, the goal of mans vain ambitions, the panacea of earthly ill. Men chase it in hot, feverish haste, trampling upon each other in the mad scramble, and worshipping it in a blind idolatry. But where is wealth in the new kingdom? The worlds first becomes the last. It has no purchasing-power here; its golden key cannot open the least of these heavenly gates. Jesus sets it back, far back, in His estimate of the good. He speaks of it as if it were an encumbrance, a dead weight, that must be lifted, and that handicaps the heavenly athlete. “How hardly,” said Jesus, when the rich ruler turned away “very sorrowful,” “shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God”; {Luk 18:24} and then, by way of illustration, He shows us the picture of the camel passing through the so-called “needles eye” of an Eastern door. He does not say that such a thing is impossible, for the camel could pass through the “needles eye,” but it must first kneel down and be stripped of all its baggage, before it can pass the narrow door, within the larger, but now closed gate. Wealth may have its uses, and noble uses too, within the kingdom-for it is somewhat remarkable how the faith of the two rich disciples shone out the brightest, when the faith of the rest suffered a temporary eclipse from the passing cross-but he who possesses it must be as if he possessed it not. He must not regard it as his own, but as talents given him in trust by his Lord, their image and superscription being that of the Invisible King.
Again, Jesus sets down vacillation, hesitancy, as a disqualification for citizenship in His kingdom. At the close of His Galilean ministry our Evangelist introduces us to a group of embryo disciples. The first of the three says, “Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest”. {Luk 9:57} Bold words they were, and doubtless well meant, but it was the language of a passing impulse, rather than of a settled conviction; it was the coruscation of a glowing, ardent temperament. He had not counted the cost. The large word “whithersoever” might, indeed, easily be spoken, but it held within it a Gethsemane and a Calvary, paths of sorrow, shame, and death he was not prepared to face. And so Jesus neither welcomed nor dismissed him, but opening out one part of his “whithersoever,” He gave it back to him in the words, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.” The second responds to the “Follow Me” of Christ with the request that he might be allowed first to go and bury his father. It was a most natural request, but participation in these funeral rites would entail a. ceremonial uncleanness of seven days, by which time Jesus would be far away. Besides, Jesus must teach him, and the ages after him, that His claims were paramount; that when He commands obedience must be instant and absolute, with no interventions, no postponement. Jesus replies to him in that enigmatical way of His, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead: but go thou and publish abroad the kingdom of God”; indicating that this supreme crisis of his life is virtually a passing from death to life, a “resurrection from earth to things above.” The last in this group of three volunteers his pledge, “I will follow Thee, Lord; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house”; {Luk 9:61} but to him Jesus replies, mournfully and sorrowfully, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God”. {Luk 9:62} Why does Jesus treat these two candidates so differently? They both say, “I will follow Thee,” the one in word, the other by implication; they both request a little time for what they regard a filial duty; why, then, be treated so differently, the one thrust forward to a still higher service, commissioned to preach the kingdom, and afterwards, if we may accept the tradition that he was Philip the Evangelist, passing up into the diaconate; the other, unwelcomed and uncommissioned, but disapproved as “not fit for the kingdom?” Why there should be this wide divergence between the two lives we cannot see, either from their manner or their words. It must have been a difference in the moral attitude of the two men, and which He who heard thoughts and read motives detected at once. In the case of the former there was the fixed, determined resolve, which the bier of the dead father might hold back a little, but which it could not break or bend. But Jesus saw in the other a double-minded soul, whose feet and heart moved in diverse, opposite ways, who gave, not his whole, but a very partial, self to his work; and this halting, wavering one He dismissed with the words of forecasted doom, “Not fit for the kingdom of God.”
It is a hard saying, with a seeming severity about it; but is it not a truth universal and eternal? Are any kingdoms, either of knowledge or power, won and held by the irresolute and wavering? Like the stricken men of Sodom, they weary themselves to find the door of the kingdom; or if they do see the Beautiful Gates of a better life, they sit with the lame man, outside, or they linger on the steps, hearing the music indeed, but hearing it from afar. It is a truth of both dispensations, written in all the books; the Reubens who are “unstable as water” can never excel; the elder born, in the accident of years, they may be, but the birthright passes by them, to be inherited and enjoyed by others.
But if the gates of the kingdom are irrevocably closed against the halfhearted, the self-indulgent, and the proud, there is a sesame to which they open gladly. “Blessed are ye poor,” so reads the first and great Beatitude: “for yours is the kingdom of God”; {Luk 6:20} and beginning with this present realization, Jesus goes on to speak of the strange contrasts and inversions the perfected kingdom will show, when the weepers will laugh, the hungry be full, and those who are despised and persecuted will rejoice in their exceeding great reward. But who are the “poor” to whom the gates of the kingdom are open so soon and so wide? At first sight it would appear as if we must give a literal interpretation to the word, reading it in a worldly, temporal sense; but this is not necessary. Jesus was now directly addressing His disciples, {Luk 6:20} though, doubtless, His words were intended to pass beyond them, to those ever-enlarging circles of humanity who in the after-years should press forward to hear Him. But evidently the disciples were in no weeping mood today; they would be elated and joyful over the recent miracles. Neither should we call them “poor,” in the worldly sense of that word, for most of them had been called from honorable positions in society, while some had even “hired servants” to wait upon them and assist them. Indeed, it was not the wont of Jesus to recognize the class distinctions Society was so fond of drawing and defining. He appraised men, not by their means, but by the manhood which was in them; and when He found a nobility of soul-whether in the higher or the lower walks of life it made no difference who stepped forward to recognize and to salute it. We must therefore give to these words of Jesus, as to so many others, the deeper meaning, making the “blessed” of this Beatitude, who are now welcomed to the opened gate of the kingdom, the “poor in spirit,” as, indeed, St. Matthew writes it.
What this spirit-poverty is, Jesus Himself explains, in a brief but wonderfully realistic parable. He draws for us the picture of two men at their Temple devotions. The one, a Pharisee, stands erect, with head uplifted, as if it were quite on a level with the heaven he was addressing, and with supercilious pride he counts his beads of rounded egotisms. He calls it a worship of God, when it is but a worship of self. He inflates the great “I,” and then plays upon it, making it strike sharp and loud, like the tom-tom of a heathen fetish. Such is the man who fancies that he is rich toward God, that he has need of nothing, not even of mercy, when all the time he is utterly blind and miserably poor. The other is a publican, and so presumably rich. But how different his posture! With heart broken and contrite, self with him is a nothing, a zero; nay, in his lowly estimate it had become a minus quantity, less than nothing, deserving only rebuke and chastisement. Disclaiming any good, either inherent or acquired, he puts the deep need and hunger of his soul into one broken cry, “God be merciful to me a sinner”. {Luk 18:13} Such are the two characters Jesus portrays as standing by the gate of the kingdom, the one proud in spirit, the other “poor in spirit”; the one throwing upon the heavens the shadow of his magnified self, the other shrinking up into the pauper, the nothing that he was. But Jesus tells us that he was “justified,” accepted, rather than the other. With nought he could call his own, save his deep need and his great sin, he finds an opened gate and a welcome within the kingdom; while the proud spirit is sent empty away, or carrying back only the tithed mint and anise, and all the vain oblations Heaven could not accept.
“Blessed” indeed are such “poor”; for He giveth grace unto the lowly, while the proud He knoweth afar off. The humble, the meek, these shall inherit the earth, aye, and the heavens too, and they shall know how true is the paradox, having nothing, yet possessing all things. The fruit of the tree of life hangs low, and he must stoop who would gather it. He who would enter Gods kingdom must first become “as a little child,” knowing nothing as yet, but longing to know even the mysteries of the kingdom, and having nothing but the plea of a great mercy and a great need. And are they not “blessed” who are citizens of the kingdom-with righteousness, peace, and joy all their own, a peace which is perfect and Divine, and a joy which no man taketh from them? Are they not blessed, thrice blessed, when the bright shadow of the Throne covers all their earthly life, making its dark places light, and weaving rainbows out of their very tears? He who through the strait gate of repentance passes within the kingdom finds it “the kingdom of heaven” indeed, his earthly years the beginnings of the heavenly life.
And now we touch a point Jesus ever loved to illustrate and emphasize, the manner of the kingdoms growth, as with ever-widening frontiers it sweeps outward in its conquest of a world. It was a beautiful dream of Hebrew prophecy that in the latter days the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of the Messiah, should overlap the bounds of human empires, and ultimately cover the whole earth. Looking through her kaleidoscope of ever-shifting but harmonious figures, Prophecy was never weary of telling of the Golden Age she saw in the far future, when the shadows would lift, and a new Dawn, breaking out of Jerusalem, would steal over the world. Even the Gentiles should be drawn to its light, and kings to the brightness of its rising; the seas should offer their abundance as a willing tribute, and the isles should wait for and welcome its laws. Taking up into itself the petty strifes and jealousies of men, the discords of earth should cease; humanity should again become a Unit, restored and regenerate fellow-citizens of the new kingdom, the kingdom which should have no end, no boundaries either of space or time.
Such was the dream of Prophecy, the kingdom Jesus sets Himself to found and realize upon earth. But how? Disclaiming any rivalry with Pilate, or with his imperial master, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” so lifting it altogether out of the mould in which earthly dynasties are cast. “This world” uses force; its kingdoms are won and held by metallic processes, tinctures of iron and steel. In the kingdom of God carnal weapons are out of place; its only forces are truth and love, and he who takes the sword to advance this cause wounds but himself, after the vain manner of Baals priests. “This world” counts heads or hands; the kingdom of God numbers its citizens by hearts alone. “This world” believes in pomp and show, in outward visibilities and symbols; the kingdom of God cometh not “with observation”; its voices are gentle as a zephyr, its footsteps noiseless as the coming of spring. If man had had the ordering of the kingdom he would have summoned to his aid all kinds of portents and surprises: he would have arranged processions of imposing events; but Jesus likens the coming of the kingdom to a grain of mustard cast into a garden, or to a handful of leaven hid in three sata of meal. The two parables, with minor distinctions, are one in their import, the leading thought common to both being the contrast between its ultimate growth and the smallness and obscurity of its beginnings. In both the recreative force is a hidden force, buried out of sight, in the soil or in the meal. In both the force works outward from its center, the invisible becoming visible, the inner life assuming an outer, external form. In both we see the touch of life upon death; for left to itself the soil never would be anything more than dead earth, as the meal would be nothing more than dust, the broken ashes of a life that was departed. In both there is extension by assimilation, the leaven throwing itself out among the particles of kindred meal, while the tree attracts to itself the kindred elements of the soil. In both there is the mediation of the human hand; but as if to show that the kingdom offers equal privilege to male and female, with like possibilities of service, the one parable shows us the hand of a man, the other the hand of a woman. In both there is a consummation, the one par perfect work, an able showing us the whole mass leavened, the other showing us the wide-spreading tree, with the birds nesting in its branches.
Such, in outline, is the rise and progress of the kingdom of God in the heart of the individual man, and in the world; for the human soul is the protoplasm, the germ-cell, out of which this world-wide kingdom is evolved. The mass is leavened only by the leavening of the separate units. And how comes the kingdom of God within the soul and life of man? Not with observation or supernatural portents, but silently as the flashing forth of light. Thought, desire, purpose, prayer-these are the wheels of the chariot in which the Lord comes to His temple, the King into His kingdom And when the kingdom of God is set up within you the outer life shapes itself to the new purpose and aim, the writ and will of the King running unhindered through every department, even to its outmost frontier, while thoughts, feelings, desires, and all the golden coinage of the hear bear, not, as before, the image of Self, but the image and superscription of the Invisible King-the “Not I, but Christ.”
And so the honor of the kingdom is in our keeping, as the growths of the kingdom are in our hands. The Divine Cloud adjusts its pace to our human steps, alas often far too slow! Shall the leaven stop with us, as we make religion a kind of sanctified selfishness, doing nothing but gauging the emotions and staging its little doxologies? Do we forget that the weak human hand carries the Ark of God, and pushes forward the boundaries of the kingdom? Do, we forget that hearts are only won by hearts? The kingdom of God on earth is the kingdom of surrendered wills and of consecrated lives. Shall we not, then, pray, “thy kingdom come,” and living “more nearly as we pray,” seek a redeemed humanity as subjects of our King? So will the Divine purpose become a realization, and the “morning” which now is always “somewhere in the world” will be everywhere, the promise and the dawn of a heavenly day, the eternal Sabbath!