He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases. He sent them out to preach God’s Kingdom and to heal the sick. He said to them, “Take nothing for your journey—no staffs, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money. Don’t have two coats each. Into whatever house you enter, stay there, and depart from there. As many as don’t receive you, when you depart from that city, shake off even the dust from your feet for a testimony against them.”
They departed and went throughout the villages, preaching the Good News and healing everywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 The twelve Apostles are sent forth at the only…
The twelve Apostles are sent forth at the only commandment of Christ, and furnished with the power of the holy Ghost: both that none of the Israelites might pretend ignorance, and also that they might be better prepared to their general ambassy.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6 1 Then he called his twelve disciples together, and…
1 Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.
Ver. 1. See Mat 10:1; Mar 3:13; Mar 6:7.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On v1 We have heard of the choosing of these twelve…
We have heard of the choosing of these twelve disciples, and their names, Luk 6:13-16; Mar 3:14-19. Our Saviour chose them to be with him, to learn of him, and to be instructed by him, and to be witnesses of what he said and did; after some time thus spent, he sends them forth to preach the gospel, and giveth them a power to confirm the doctrine which they preached, by several miraculous operations. Matthew takes no notice of their election, only of their mission. Both Mark and Luke take notice of both. Luk 9:3-6 give us an account of the instructions he gave them; we met with them all before, and a more full account of them,
See Poole on "Mat 10:1" and following verses to Mat 10:42. See Poole on "Mar 6:7" and following verses to Mar 6:11.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v1 We heard before, Luk 6:13 of our Saviour’s choosing…
We heard before, Luk 6:13 of our Saviour’s choosing his twelve apostles, and their several names; they were first chosen disciples to be with Christ, to learn of him, and be instructed by him, and to be witnesses of what he said and did. Now after some time thus spent in preparing and fitting them for public service, our Saviour sends them forth to preach the gospel, and gives them a power to confirm their doctrine by miracles.
Observe here, 1. The person that sends the apostles forth to preach the gospel: it is Christ himself.
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Learn thence, that none ought to take upon them the office of preaching, or any other ministerial function of the church, till thereunto called by Christ himself. The apostles were called by Christ, and immediately sent forth by himself. The ministers of the gospel are now called mediately, and receive authority from Christ by the hand of the governors of the church.
Observe, 2. The power given to the apostles by our Saviour to work miracles, for confirming that doctrine which they preached: He gave them power over unclean spirits, etc. Now this miraculous power given to the apostles was necessary, partly to procure reverence to their persons, being poor and unlearned men; but principally to gain credit and authority to their doctrine; for the doctrine of faith in the Messiah as now come, and exhibited in the flesh, being a strange and new doctrine to the Jews, the truth and certainty of it was to be extraordinarily ratified by miracles, which are the broad seal of heaven, to testify that such doctrine comes from God.
Observe,3. The charge here given by Christ to his apostles at the time of their sending forth; and this is three-fold.
First, touching their preparation for the journey: he forbids them to take much care, or to spend much time, in furnishing themselves with victuals, money, or clothes; because they were to finish their journey speedily, and to return again to Christ their Master. This command of our Saviour to his apostles not to encumber themselves, when going forth to preach the gospel, teaches his ministers their duty, to free themselves as much as possibly they can from worldy incumbrances, which may hinder them in their ministerial services. No man that warreth, entangleth himself with the affairs of this life. 2Ti 2:4
Secondly, touching their lodging in their journey: Christ advises them not to change it, during their stay in one place; but into whatsoever house they entered, they should there continue till they departed out of the place, that so they might avoid all show of lightness and inconstancy, and testify all gravity and stayedness in their behavior; this being a special mean to gain reverence to their persons, and authority to their doctrine.
Thirdly, Christ gives a special charge to his apostles concerning their carriage toward such as should refuse to give entertainment to them and their doctrine: they were to denounce the judgments of God against such contemners, by shaking off the dust off their feet for a testimony against them. This action was emblematical, signifying that Almighty God would in like manner shake them off, as the vilest dust; for wherever the word is preached, it is for a testimony, either a testimony for, or against, a people; for if the dust of a minister’s feet while alive, and the ashes of his grave when dead, do bear witness against the despisers of his gospel, their sermons much more.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 We have here, I. The method Christ took to…
We have here, I. The method Christ took to spread his gospel, to diffuse and enforce the light of it. He had himself travelled about, preaching and healing; but he could be only in one place at a time, and therefore now he sent his twelve disciples abroad, who by this time were pretty well instructed in the nature of the present dispensation, and able to instruct others and deliver to them what they had received from the Lord. Let them disperse themselves, some one way and some another, to preach the kingdom of God, as it was now about to be set up by the Messiah, to make people acquainted with the spiritual nature and tendency of it, and to persuade them to come into the interests and measures of it. For the confirming of their doctrine, because it was new and surprising, and very different from what they had been taught by the scribes and Pharisees, and because so much depended upon men's receiving, or not receiving it, he empowered them to work miracles (Luk 9:1, Luk 9:2): He gave them authority over all devils, to dispossess them, and cast them out, though ever so numerous, so subtle, so fierce, so obstinate. Christ designed a total rout and ruin to the kingdom of darkness, and therefore gave them power over all devils. He authorized and appointed them likewise to cure disease, and to heal the sick, which would make them welcome wherever they came, and not only convince people's judgments, but gain their affections. This was their commission. Now observe,
1. What Christ directed them to do, in prosecution of this commission at this time, when they were not to go far or be out long. (1.) They must not be solicitous to recommend themselves to people's esteem by their outward appearance. Now that they begin to set up for themselves, they must have no dress, nor study to make any other figure than what they made while they followed him: they must go as they were, and not change their clothes, or so much as put on a pair of new shoes. (2.) They must depend upon Providence, and the kindness of their friends, to furnish them with what was convenient for them. They must not take with them either bread or money, and yet believe they should not want. Christ would not have his disciples shy of receiving the kindnesses of their friends, but rather to expect them. Yet St. Paul saw cause not to go by this rule, when he laboured with his hands rather than be burdensome. (3.) They must not change their lodgings, as suspecting that those who entertained them were weary of them; they have no reason to be so, for the ark is a guest that always pays well for its entertainment: "Whatsoever house ye enter into there abide (Luk 9:4), that people may know where to find you, that your friends may know you are not backward to serve them, and your enemies may know you are not ashamed nor afraid to face them; there abide till you depart out of that city; stay with those you are used to." (4.) They must put on authority, and speak warning to those who refused them as well as comfort to those that received them, Luk 9:5. "If there be any place that will not entertain you, if the magistrates deny you admission and threaten to treat you as vagrants, leave them, do not force yourselves upon them, nor run yourselves into danger among them, but at the same time bind them over to the judgment of God for it; shake off the dust of your feet for a testimony against them." This will, as it were, be produced in evidence against them, that the messengers of the gospel had been among them, to make them a fair offer of grace and peace, for this dust they left behind there; so that when they perish at last in their infidelity this will lay and leave their blood upon their own heads. Shake off the dust of your feet, as much as to say you abandon their city, and will have no more to do with them.
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2. What they did, in prosecution of this commission (Luk 9:6): They departed from their Master's presence; yet, having still his spiritual presence with them, his eye and his arm going along with them, and, thus borne up in their work, they went through the towns, some or other of them, all the towns within the circuit appointed them, preaching the gospel, and healing every where. Their work was the same with their Master's, doing good both to souls and bodies.
II. We have here Herod's perplexity and vexation at this. The communicating of Christ's power to those who were sent forth in his name, and acted by authority from him, was an amazing and convincing proof of his being the Messiah, above any thing else; that he could not only work miracles himself, but empower others to work miracles too, this spread his fame more than any thing, and made the rays of this Sun of righteousness the stronger by the reflection of them even from the earth, from such mean illiterate men as the apostles were, who had nothing else to recommend them, or to raise any expectations from them, but that they had been with Jesus, Act 4:13. When the country sees such as these healing the sick in the name of Jesus it gives it an alarm. Now observe,
1. The various speculations it raised among the people, who, though they thought not rightly, yet could not but think honourably, of our Lord Jesus, and that he was an extraordinary person, one come from the other world; that either John Baptist, who was lately persecuted and slain for the cause of God, or one of the old prophets, that had been persecuted and slain long since in that cause, was risen again, to be recompensed for his sufferings by this honour put upon him; or that Elias, who was taken alive to heaven in a fiery chariot, had appeared as an express from heaven, Luk 9:7, Luk 9:8.
2. The great perplexity it created in the mind of Herod: When he had heard of all that was done by Christ, his guilty conscience flew in his face, and he was ready to conclude with them that John was risen from the dead. He thought he had got clear of John, and should never be troubled with him any more, but, it seems, he is mistaken; either John is come to life again or here is another in his spirit and power, for God will never leave himself without witness. "What shall I do now?" saith Herod. "John have I beheaded, but who is this? Is he carrying on John's work, or is he come to avenge John's death? John baptized, but he does not; John did no miracle, but he does, and therefore appears more formidable than John." Note, Those who oppose God will find themselves more and more embarrassed. However, he desired to see him, whether he resembled John or no; but he might soon have been put out of this pain if he would but have informed himself of that which thousands knew, that Jesus preached, and wrought miracles, a great while before John was beheaded, and therefore could not be John raised from the dead. He desired to see him; and why did he not go and see him? Probably, because he thought it below him either to go to him or to send for him; he had enough of John Baptist, and cared not for having to do with any more such reprovers of sin. He desired to see him, but we do not find that ever he did, till he saw him at his bar, and then he and his men of war set him at nought, Luk 23:11. Had he prosecuted his convictions now, and gone to see him, who knows but a happy change might have ben wrought in him? But, delaying it now, his heart was hardened, and when he did see him he was as much prejudiced against him as any other.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–6 And he sent them to preach the kingdom of…
And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God,.... The Gospel, which gives an account of the kingdom of the Messiah; of his kingly office and power; of his church, which is his kingdom, and of the government of it, by the ministration of the word, and the administration of ordinances; of the kingdom of grace in the hearts of Christ's subjects, and the nature of it; and of the kingdom of glory, and what is the saints' meetness for it, and right unto it:
and to heal the sick; of every disease of body, and thereby confirm their mission and commission from Christ, to preach the Gospel; and recommend it to men.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Matt. x, 1; Mark vi, 7.
Matt. x, 1; Mark vi, 7.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–4 Christ sends his apostles to preach and work miracles,…
CHAPTER IX.
Christ sends his apostles to preach and work miracles, 1-6.
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Herod, hearing of the fame of Jesus, is perplexed; some suppose
that John Baptist is risen from the dead; others, that Elijah
or one of the old prophets was come to life, 7-9.
The apostles return and relate the success of their mission. He
goes to a retired place, and the people follow him, 10, 11.
He feeds five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes,
12-17.
He asks his disciples what the public think of him, 18-21.
Foretells his passion, 22.
Shows the necessity of self-denial, and the importance of
salvation, 23-25.
Threatens those who deny him before men, 26.
The transfiguration, 27-36.
Cures a demoniac, 37-43.
Again foretells his passion, 44, 45.
The disciples contend who shall be greatest, 46-48.
Of the person who cast out devils in Christ's name, but did not
associate with the disciples, 49, 50.
Of the Samaritans who would not receive him, 51-56.
Of the man who wished to follow Jesus, 57, 58.
He calls another disciple who asks permission first to bury his
father, 59.
Our Lord's answer 60-62.
NOTES ON CHAP. IX.
Verse 1. Power and authority] δυναμιν και εξουσιαν. The words properly mean here, the power to work miracles; and that authority by which the whole demoniac system was to be subjected to them. The reader will please to observe:
1. That Luke mentions both demons and diseases; therefore he was either mistaken, or demons and diseases are not the same.
2. The treatment of these two was not the same:-the demons were to be cast out, the diseases to be healed. See Mt 10:1.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v1 Luk 9:1-6. Then he called his twelve disciples —…
Luk 9:1-6. Then he called his twelve disciples — See notes on Mat 10:1; and Mar 6:7-12. There abide and thence depart — That is, Stay in that house till ye leave the city. See note on Mat 10:11.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On v1 See the notes at Mat 10:1-14.
See the notes at Mat 10:1-14.
See the notes at Mat 10:1-14.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Over all devils; so that none should be able…
Over all devils; so that none should be able to resist them. For all were not equally easy to be expelled, as we shall see in this same chapter, in the person of a possessed child, whom the apostles could not heal, because they did not use prayer and fasting against it; and because their faith was not sufficiently strong and ardent. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Luke Chapter 9
Luke Chapter 9
In chapter 9 the Lord charges the disciples with the same mission in Israel as that which He Himself fulfilled. They preach the kingdom, heal the sick, and cast out devils. But this is added, that their work takes the character of a final mission. Not that the Lord had ceased to work, for He also sent forth the seventy; but final in this sense, that it became a definite testimony against the people if they rejected it. The twelve were to shake off the dust from their feet on leaving the cities that would reject them. This is intelligible at the point we have reached in the Gospel. It is repeated, with a yet greater force, in the case of the seventy. We shall speak of it in the chapter that relates to their being sent forth. Their mission comes after the manifestation of His glory to the three disciples. But the Lord as long as He was here continued His exercise of power in mercy, for it was what He personally was here, and sovereign goodness in Him was above all the evil He met with.
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To go on with our chapter. That which follows Luk 9:7 shews that the fame of His marvellous works had reached the ears of the king. Israel was without excuse. Whatever little conscience there was felt the effect of His power. The people also followed Him. Gone apart with the disciples, who had returned from their mission, He is soon surrounded by the multitude; again, their servant in grace, however great their unbelief, He preaches to them and heals all who needed it.
But He would give them a fresh and very especial proof of the divine power and presence that was among them. It had been said that in the time of Israel’s blessing from the Lord, when He should make the horn of David to flourish, He would satisfy the poor with bread. Jesus now does so. But there is more than this here. We have seen throughout this Gospel that He exercises this power, in His humanity, by the unmeasured energy of the Holy Ghost. Hence a marvellous blessing for us, granted according to the sovereign counsels of God, through the perfect wisdom of Jesus in selecting His instruments. He will have the disciples do it. Nevertheless the power that performs it is all His own. The disciples see nothing beyond that which their eyes can estimate. But, if He who feeds them is Jehovah, He ever takes His place Himself in the dependence of the nature He had assumed. He retires with His disciples, and there, afar from the world, He prays. And, as in the two remarkable cases [25] of the descent of the Holy Ghost and the selection of the Twelve, so here also His prayer is the occasion of the manifestation of His glory-glory which was due to Him, but which the Father gave Him as man, and in connection with the sufferings and the humiliation, which, in His love, He voluntarily underwent.
The attention of the people was excited, but they did not go beyond the speculations of the human mind with regard to the Saviour. The disciples’ faith recognised without hesitation the Christ in Jesus. But He was no longer to be proclaimed as such-the Son of man was to suffer. Counsels more important, a glory more excellent than that of the Messiah, were to be realised: but it should be through suffering-suffering that, as to human trials, His disciples were to share by following Him. But in losing their life for Him, they would gain it; for in following Jesus, the eternal life of the soul was the question and not merely the kingdom. Moreover He who was now rejected would return in His own glory, namely, as Son of man (the character He takes in this Gospel), in the glory of the Father, for He was the Son of God, and in that of the angels as Jehovah the Saviour, taking place above them, although (yea as) man: He was worthy of this, for He created them. The salvation of the soul, the glory of Jesus acknowledged according to His rights, everything warned them to confess Him while He was despised and disallowed. Now, to strengthen the faith of those whom He would make pillars, and through them the faith of all, He announces that some of them, before they tasted death (they should neither wait for death, in which the value of eternal life would be felt, nor for the return of Christ), should see the kingdom of God.
In consequence of this declaration, eight days later He took the three who afterwards were pillars, and went up into a mountain to pray. There He is transfigured. He appears in glory, and the disciples see it. But Moses and Elias share it with Him. The saints of the Old Testament have part with Him in the glory of the kingdom founded upon His death. They speak with Him of His decease. They had heretofore spoken of other things. They had seen the law set up, or had sought to bring the people back to it, for the introduction of blessing; but now that this new glory is the subject, all depends on the death of Christ, and on that alone. Everything else disappears. The heavenly glory of the kingdom and death are in immediate relationship. Peter sees only the introduction of Christ into a glory equal to theirs; connecting the latter in his mind with that which they both were to a Jew, and associating Jesus with it. It is then that the two disappear entirely, and Jesus remains alone. It was He alone whom they were to hear. The connection of Moses and Elias with Jesus in the glory, depended on the rejection of their testimony by the people to whom they had addressed it.
But this is not all. The church, properly so called, is not seen here. But the sign of the excellent glory, of the presence of God, shews itself-the cloud in which Jehovah dwelt in Israel. Jesus brings the disciples to it as witnesses. Moses and Elias disappear, and, Jesus having brought the disciples close to the glory, the God of Israel manifests Himself as the Father, and owns Jesus as the Son in whom He delighted. All is changed in the relationships of God with man. The Son of man, put to death on earth, is owned in the excellent glory to be the Son of the Father. The disciples know Him thus by the testimony of the Father, are associated with Him, and, as it were, introduced into connection with the glory in which the Father Himself thus acknowledged Jesus-in which the Father and the Son are found. Jehovah makes Himself known as Father by revealing the Son. And the disciples find themselves associated on earth with the abode of glory, from whence, at all times, Jehovah Himself had protected Israel. Jesus was there with them, and He was the Son of God. What a position! What a change for them! It is, in fact, the change from all that was most excellent in Judaism to connection with the heavenly glory, which was wrought at that moment, in order to make all things new. [26]
The personal profit of this passage is great, in that it reveals to us, in a very striking manner, the heavenly and glorious state. The saints are in the same glory as Jesus, they are with Him, they converse familiarly with Him, they converse on that which is nearest to His heart-on His sufferings and death. They speak with the sentiments that flow from circumstances which affect the heart. He was to die in the beloved Jerusalem, instead of their receiving the kingdom. They speak as understanding the counsels of God; for the thing had not yet taken place. Such are the relationships of the saints with Jesus in the kingdom. For, up to this point, it is the manifestation of the glory as the world will see it, with the addition of the intercourse between the glorified and Jesus. The three were standing on the mountain. But the three disciples go beyond thus. They are taught of the Father. His own affections for His Son are made known to them. Moses and Elias have borne testimony to Christ, and shall be glorified with Him; but Jesus now remains alone for the church. This is more than the kingdom, it is fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus (not understood, assuredly, at that time, but now is by the power of the Holy Ghost). It is wonderful, this entrance of the saints into the excellent glory, into the Shekinah, the abode of God; and these revelations on God’s part of His own affections for His Son. This is more than the glory. Jesus, however, is always the object that fills the scene for us. Observe also for our position down here, that the Lord speaks as intimately of His death to His disciples on the earth as to Moses and Elias. These are not more intimate with Him than are Peter, James, and John. Sweet and precious thought! And mark how thin a veil there is between us and what is heavenly. [27]
That which follows is the application of this revelation to the state of things below. The disciples are unable to profit by the power of Jesus, already manifested, to cast out the power of the enemy. And this justifies God in that which was revealed of His counsels on the mount, and leads to the setting aside of the Jewish system, in order to introduce their fulfilment. But this does not hinder the action of the grace of Christ in delivering men while He was yet with them, until man had finally rejected Him. But, without noticing the fruitless astonishment of the people, He insists with His disciples on His rejection and on His crucifixion; carrying this principle on to the renunciation of self, and the humility which would receive that which was least.
In the remainder of the chapter, from Luk 9:46, the Gospel gives us the different features of selfishness and of the flesh that are in contrast with the grace and devotedness manifested in Christ, and that tend to prevent the believer from walking in His steps. Luk 9:46-48; Luk 9:49-50;Luk 9:51-56, respectively, present examples [28] of this; and, from 57 to 62, the contrast between the illusive will of man and the efficacious call of grace; the discovery of the repugnance of the flesh, when there is a true call; and the absolute renunciation of all things, in order to obey it, are set before us by the Spirit of God. [29] The Lord (in reply to the spirit that sought the aggrandisement of their own company on earth, forgetful of the cross) expresses to the disciples that which He did not conceal from Himself, the truth of God, that all were in such wise against them that, if any one were not so, he was even thereby for them. So thoroughly did the presence of Christ test the heart. The other reason, given elsewhere, is not repeated here. The Spirit, in this connection, confines Himself to the point of view we are considering. Thus rejected, the Lord judges no one. He does not avenge Himself; He was come to save men’s lives. That a Samaritan should repulse the Messiah was, to the disciples, worthy of destruction. Christ came to save the lives of men. He submits to the insult, and goes elsewhere. There were some who wished to serve Him here below. He had no home to which He could take them. Meantime, for this very reason, the preaching of the kingdom was the only thing to His unwearying love; the dead (to God) might bury the dead. He who was called, who was alive, must be occupied with one thing, with the kingdom, to bear testimony to it; and that without looking back, the urgency of the matter lifting him above all other thoughts. He who had put his hand to the plough must not look back. The kingdom, in presence of the enmity-the ruin-of man, of all that opposed it, required the soul to be wholly absorbed in its interests by the power of God. The work of God, in the presence of Christ’s rejection, demanded entire consecration.
Footnotes for Luke Chapter 9
25: Observe also here, that it is not only in the case of acts of power, or in that of testimony to the glory of His Person in answer to His prayer, that these prayers are offered. His conversation with the disciples respecting the change in the dispensations of God (in which He speaks of His sufferings, and forbids them to make Him known as the Christ) is introduced by His prayer when He was in a desert place with them. That His people were to be given up for a time occupied His heart as much as the glory. Moreover, He pours out His heart to God, whatever may be the subject that occupies Him according to the ways of God.
26: It is the display of the kingdom, not of the church in heavenly places. I suppose the words “they entered” must refer to Moses and Elias. But the cloud overshadowed the disciples. Yet it carries us beyond that display. The word “overshadowed” is the same as that used by the LXX for the cloud coming and filling the tabernacle. We learn from Matthew it was a bright cloud. It was the Shekinah of glory which had been with Israel in the wilderness-I may say the Father’s house. His voice came from it. Into this they entered. It is this in Luke that makes the disciples afraid. God had talked with Moses out of it; but here they enter into it. Thus, besides the kingdom, there is the proper dwelling-place of the saints. This is found in Luke only. We have the kingdom, Moses and Elias in the same glory with the Son, and others in flesh on the earth, but the heavenly sojourn of the saints also.
27: Note too that if Jesus takes up the disciples to see the glory of the kingdom, and the entrance of the saints into the excellent glory where the Father was, He came down also and met the crowd of this world and the power of Satan where we have to walk.
28: These three passages point out, each in succession, a more subtle selfishness less easily detected by man: gross personal selfishness, corporate selfishness, and the selfishness that clothes itself with the appearance of zeal for the Lord, but which is not likeness to Him.
29: Observe that, when the will of man acts, he does not feel the difficulties, but he is not qualified for the work. When there is a true call, the hindrances are felt.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 4. The Son of Man proclaimed by the Twelve,…
4. The Son of Man proclaimed by the Twelve, feared by Herod, honored by the Company which He had fed
Luk_9:1-17
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(Parallels: Mat_10:5-15; Mat_14:1; Mat_14:13-21; Mar_6:7-16; Mar_6:31-46; Joh_6:1-14.)
a. The Sending Forth Of The Twelve Apostles (Luk_9:1-6)
1Then he called his twelve disciples [the twelve; om., disciples] together, and gave 2them power and authority over all devils [the demons], and to cure diseases. And he 3sent them to preach [proclaim] the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.1 And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip [wallet], neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats [tunics] apiece. 4And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. 5And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them. 6And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel, and healing every where.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Harmony.—The raising of Jairus’ daughter is immediately followed by two other miracles, which Matthew alone relates, Luk_9:27-34. Hereupon the Saviour appears to have undertaken a new journey through Galilee, and to have convinced Himself repeatedly of the exceeding spiritual necessity of the people. (Ibid. Luk_9:35-36.) He therefore exhorts His disciples to entreat the Lord of the harvest for laborers (Luk_9:37-38), and gives them finally opportunity with this praying to unite working, and themselves to lay their hand to the plough.
In the narrative of the sending out of the twelve apostles, also, the briefer account of Luke must be complemented by that of Matthew and Mark. It then appears that the Saviour sent them out two and two, and in their instructions, according to the statement of all the Synoptics, adduces the expulsion of the demons as a special and main part of their activity, clearly distinguished from the healing of ordinary illnesses. The discourse given on this occasion is communicated by Matthew far more in detail and more precisely than by the two others. Luke merely, Luk_9:3-6, communicates somewhat of the first part of it (Mat_10:5-15), while we find again some elements of the continuation in the tenth and twelfth chapters.
Luk_9:1. The Twelve.—Although weighty testimonies declare for the reading τοὺς δώδεκα μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ, it must not be overlooked that Luke usually uses οἱ δώδεκα as a standing formula, and that other manuscripts use the word ἀποστόλους, which appears to be an interpolation by a later hand, as well as the former, which is borrowed from a parallel passage in Mat_10:1. At the same time, Matthew here gives the names of the twelve apostles, which Luke had earlier communicated in another connection (Luk_6:12-16). Luke, on the other hand, is more particular in stating the substance of their instruction, and mentions also the κηρ. τὴν βασ. τοῦ θ., while the two others speak only of miraculous acts. As to the manner in which the δὐναμις καὶ ἐξουσία may have been imparted to them, comp. Lange on Mat_10:1.
Luk_9:3. Take nothing,—There is some difference among the Synoptics in reference to the instruction given to the Twelve as to their preparations for the journey. According to all three, they were to take no money in their purses, no change of coats, and no provision of food. According to Mark and Luke, the taking of bread with them is also not permitted, as to which Matthew is silent. But while according to Matthew and Mark, Luk_9:8, they might take a staff alone, we find according to Matthew and Mark, this also forbidden them (for the reading ῥάβδους is apparently not genuine). We believe that Mark, who here alone gives the narration in an oratio obliqua, expresses himself more freely than the two others. The spirit of the command is, however, according to all, the same. The Saviour speaks of that which they must procure for the journey. If they already had a staff they were permitted to take it with them (Mark), but if they possessed none, they were not to buy one (Matthew and Luke). Nothing were they to take with them, nothing were they to take to them in requital of their benefits. Their history instructs us how the apostles understood these commands: the last literally, as the curse of Peter upon Simon Magus shows, Act_8:20, the former in the spirit of wisdom, e.g. 2Co_11:12; 2Ti_4:13.
Luk_9:4. There abide.—Comp. Luk_10:7. Wander not from house to house.—Thence depart.—From thence continue your journey without having capriciously chosen another abode.
Luk_9:5. And whosoever will not receive you.—Comp. Mat_10:14. With Lachmann and Tischendorf, it seems that we must unquestionably read δέξωνται, since δέχωνται is borrowed from parallel passages. The shaking off of the dust, a symbolical action, as a testimony against them, as Theophylact says: εἰς ἔλεγχον αὐτῶν καὶ κατάκρισιν. From Act_13:51, we see how the apostles casu quo followed this command of the Saviour literally.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. In investigating the purpose of this missionary journey of the Twelve, too little notice perhaps has been taken of the word of the Saviour, Mat_9:38. With no warrant whatever has this journey been often considered as a kind of practising for the future work of the Twelve. The Saviour at least gives not a single hint that He will have it so understood. Nor was the practice of having probationary sermons by destined preachers of the gospel at His time as yet in use. As little did this mission serve to prepare for the personal arrival of Jesus in some towns and villages of Galilee. It is at least not to be proved that the apostles came into towns where He was wholly unknown; moreover, it would have little accorded with His wisdom to have let the gospel even during His life to be brought into places, and that by inexperienced men, where as yet they did not know Himself. No. The Twelve were not to go before, but here and there to return upon His track; not in order to sow but in order first to reap, does He bid them to go forth: not to begin what He will continue, but rather to continue what He Himself has already begun. Thus does all become clear. Thus does it appear why they had at each time to inquire who was worthy to receive them; in other words, who was favorably disposed in reference to the Saviour and the cause of His kingdom. Thus does their right to shake off the dust become manifest, which for the rejection of a first preaching was almost too stern, but for the spurning of a renewed essay, was fully justified. Thus first do we get a true light as to the prohibition of extensive preparations for journeying. For they were not going as strangers among enemies, but as friends unto a region where the Saviour Himself had already prepared a way for them. And thus does it at the same time become plain why He let them just now undertake this journey. Already had He denounced against the impenitent cities of Galilee the judgment threatened them, Mat_11:20-24, but now He will through His apostles make a last attempt to win the apostates to Himself. The more He beholds in the spirit the unfolding of the great drama of His life, the more does He proceed with the thundering tread of decision. Ever more threateningly do the parties begin to stand over against one another; in order that now the thoughts of hearts may become more manifest does He now send forth His apostles. They are to water the seed already sown by Him for the kingdom of heaven: to tend with care what promises fruit: and what shows itself as tares to make known to Him as such: in a word, to be workers for the harvest.
2. As respects the duration of this journey, it can be as little determined as the names of the towns and villages visited. But surely it endured longer than a day (against Wieseler, l. c. p. 291), as certainly some time is always required to go from town to town, to seek out the worthy, and abide there, &c. But if we consider that they, divided into six pairs, traversed only one part of Galilee, and were as yet in no way adapted to get on independently, it is not then probable that the Saviour was many days or weeks separated from the Twelve. Apparently He waited for them meanwhile at Capernaum, and when, after their return, the miracle of the Loaves took place, the second passover was no longer far distant, Joh_6:4. As we hold the view that the sermon at Nazareth only took place once, and that at the time indicated by Luke, Luk_4:16-30, it is therefore not necessary for us to intercalate immediately after this mission of the Twelve the narrative Mat_13:54-58; Mar_6:1-6.
3. Although the exercising of the apostles was not here the main matter, yet even on our view there is displayed in this mission, in a lovely light, as well the wisdom of the Saviour in the training of His witnesses, as also His love to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The healing activity for which power is bestowed upon them, is at the same time a striking symbol of that which evangelization and missionary labor must even now everywhere accomplish wherever it directs its steps. And the spirit which the Saviour, even according to the brief redaction of Luke, has here commended to His witnesses, unconcern about earthly matters, freedom from pretension, but also holy zeal where their word is obstinately disdained, must even now not be missing in any one who will bear His name with honor among baptized or unbaptized heathen.
4. “Love to a convenient life is a great hinderance to the work of God in an evangelist, for it is with the poor who cannot afford it him that he has most to do, Luk_7:22, and the rich are far more apt to draw him into such a life than he to draw them from it. The world must know that one does not seek it for its goods, and that he has no communion with it but for its salvation. If it will not hear of that, then we must go forth from it.” O. Von Gerlach.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The apostolic authority: 1. Its extent, 2. its grounds, 3. its purpose, 4. its limits.—The missionary of the gospel at the same time the physician of souls.—The evangelizing journey of the witnesses of the Lord, their equipment, aim, fruit.—Who first seeks the kingdom of God and its righteousness may trust that all other things shall be added to him.—Freely ye have received, freely give.—The testimony for the believing and against the unbelieving world.—How the faithful servant cares for the honor of the Lord, the Lord for the necessity of His faithful servant.—The gospel of the kingdom must everywhere be preached.—The preaching of the gospel an act of the obedience of faith.—The spirit of domestic missions.
Starke:—Cramer:—The sacred ministry still delivers man from the power of Satan.—To the ministry pertains a regular call, both internal and external.—Hedinger:—Whoever serves the gospel is to live therefrom, 1Co_9:14.—Canstein:—If the disciples of Christ, for the sake of convenience, were not to go from one house to another, much less should preachers, for greater accommodation, seek after better parishes.—The ministry not an otium, but a gravissimum negotium.
Footnotes:
[1]Luk_9:2.—Tischendorf, supported by Meyer, has simply ἰᾶσθαι, without a following accusative. The variations: τους ασθενουντας, τους ασθενεις, τους νοσουντας, παντας τους ασθενουντας, and omnes infirmitates (Brix.), are so numerous, that it is almost certain that they were introduced by different transcribers as natural complements of ἰᾶσθαι. Tregelles brackets the accusative. B. is the only uncial, however, which omits it.—C. C. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 § 57.—THE TWELVE SENT FORTH, Luk_9:1-5.
§ 57.—THE TWELVE SENT FORTH, Luk_9:1-5.
See notes on parallel sections, Mat_10:1; Mat_10:5-42; Mar_6:7-11.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6 Luk_9:1-6. The Mission of the Twelve.
Luk_9:1-6. The Mission of the Twelve.
1. Then he called his twelve disciples together] This was at the close of the missionary journeys alluded to in Mat_9:35; Mar_6:6. St Matthew gives a touching reason for the mission of the Twelve. It was because He pitied the multitude, who were like harassed and panting sheep without a shepherd, and like a harvest left unreaped for want of labourers (Mat_9:36-38). The Apostles thus became, as their name implied, emissaries (sheloochim), and this was an important step in their training.
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and gave them power and authority] Power (dunamis) is the capacity, and authority (exousia), the right to act. See Luk_10:19; Rev_13:7.
over all devils] Rather, over all the demons.
to cure diseases] The word is not iasthai, as in Luk_9:2, but therapeuein, ‘to tend;’ but there seems to be no essential difference intended, unless eases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick. And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony it points to the curious fact mentioned by St Mark that they anointed the sick with oil (Luk_6:13; comp. Jas_5:14).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6 (1-6) Then he called his twelve disciples.-See Notes on…
IX.
(1-6) Then he called his twelve disciples.-See Notes on Mat_10:5-15, and Mar_6:7-13.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Vers. 1-6. The Master sends out the twelve on…
Vers. 1-6. The Master sends out the twelve on a mission.
Then he called his twelve disciples together. The Galilee ministry was just over; outwardly it had been a triumphant success; vast crowds had been gathered together. The Master was generally welcomed with a positive enthusiasm; the people heard him gladly. Here and there were visible, as in the eases of the woman who touched him and the synagogue ruler who prayed him to heal his little daughter, just related (ch. 8.), conspicuous examples of a strange or mighty faith; but the success, the Master knew too well, was only on the surface. The crowds who to-day shouted "Hosanna!" and greeted his appearance among them with joy, on the morrow would fall away from him, and on the day following would reappear with the shout "Crucify him!" It was especially to warn his Church in coming ages of this sure result of all earnest devoted preaching and teaching, that he spoke that saddest of parables, "the sower" (Lu 8) But before he finally brought this Galilaean ministry to a close, he would gather in some few wavering souls, whose hearts he knew were trembling in the balance between the choice of life and good, and death and evil. To help these he sent out this last mission. The word rendered called together" indicates a solemn gathering. And gave them power, etc. This and the further detail of the next verse (2) roughly describe the work he intended them to do, and the means bestowed on them for its accomplishment. Very extraordinary powers were conferred on them powers evidently intended to terminate with the short mission on which he now despatched them.
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Vers. 1-22. (See afterwards in connection with ch. 10)
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-6. Lessons from the first commission.
We learn from this commission and these instructions
I THAT CHRIST HAS DIVINE RESOURCES FOR SPECIAL NECESSITIES. He gave to the twelve "power and authority over all devils," etc. If he had such resources at his command then, when he was stooping so low and laying aside so much of heavenly rank and authority, of what is he not possessed now now that he is enthroned, now that "all power is given unto him in heaven and on earth"? His Church may be very bitterly assailed; it may fall very low in consequence of the slackness and unfaithfulness of its own members; it has thus fallen more than once since he ascended: but in his hand are great reserves; his Divine resources are illimitable. He can equip and send forth men endowed with wonderful power, with marvellous faculty of persuasion or of organization; he can send forth those whose influence shall be felt even "where Satan"s seat is," in the depths of spiritual evil and moral wrong, and thus he can establish or re-establish his kingdom.
II THAT WE MAY COMMIT OURSELVES TO WORKS OF USEFULNESS though conscious of much insufficiency. We may be surprised that our Lord should send out the twelve to "preach the kingdom of God" (ver. 2) at a time when they had so very imperfect an idea as they then had of the character of that kingdom. Their views of it were very elementary; they had yet to learn concerning it facts and truths which seem to us of the first importance. But still he sent them; there was something, and something of substantial value, they could teach; and they were (all of them, at that time) genuinely attached to their Divine Master. If we wait until we know everything it would be well to know before we begin our ministry, we shall be postponing the time until our chance is gone. We should begin the work of holy usefulness early, even when there is very much to learn; we shall acquire knowledge, tact, wisdom, power, as we go on our way of service. The one requisite thing is that we shall be thoroughly sincere, and do all that we do out of a true and faithful heart.
III THAT CHRIST MAY CALL ON US TO CAST OURSELVES ENTIRELY ON HIS PROVIDING AND PROTECTING CARE. This he did with his apostles now (ver. 3). Usually it is our duty to take every precaution for our bodily necessities; not to expose ourselves to needless perils or to injurious privations. But there are times when it becomes our duty especially that of the Christian minister, or evangelist, or missionary to cast aside all prudential considerations, to run all risks, to commit himself absolutely to the care of the Divine Father.
IV THAT THERE IS A LIMIT WHICH EVEN HOLY PERSISTENCY MAY NOT PASS. (Ver. 5) It is well to work patiently on under discouragement. It is our sacred duty to do this; we are quite unfitted for the nobler spheres of service if we are not prepared to do so. We admire and applaud those who cannot tear themselves away from work which they have set their hearts on accomplishing. Let patient persistency have abundant scope for its exercise, but there is a point where it must stop; to exceed a certain measure is to be disregardful of those who would not reject the Word of life, on whom Christian service would not be spent in vain.
V THAT PRACTICAL KINDNESS TO BODILY WANTS goes well with earnest attention to spiritual necessities (ver. 6). C.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-17. The mission of the twelve.
After the group of miracles, we have our Lord next conferring the power of working miracles upon the twelve. This was miraculous power in its highest form. It is important to work well one"s self; but it is a still greater feat to get all about one"s self into working order too. Jesus was training his disciples to be workers like himself. Let us, then, consider
I THE CONDITIONS OF THE MISSION OF. THE TWELVE. (Vers. 16) And here we have to notice:
1. The power delegated was healing and exorcising power. That is to say, their miraculous power was to change the sick and the insane into able-bodied members of society. The aim of our Lord"s philanthropy and of theirs was to enable men to become useful workers. When men can help themselves, then are they in the happiest of all conditions. This is infinitely better than spoon-feeding and pauperizing people.
2. The disciples were not to use miracle to make themselves independent of the hospitality of the people. Christ never used miracle to make life easier for himself; nor did he allow his delegates to do so. it would seem to some a wiser arrangement to make them independent of random hospitalities. But it was better for all parties that hospitality should be looked for. Rabbis were hospitably entertained, and so should these disciples be. They were also to accept of hospitality as it came, and not to be choosers of the grand and pretentious houses which might be opened to them. There may be as much magnanimity in accepting hospitality as in extending it.
3. In case of rejection, they were simply to symbolize their separation by shaking off the dust of their feet against them. This was the symbol of hostility and war; but there was no further outward act to be undertaken. The war was spiritual, and the judgment of the rejectors must be left with God. Toleration was thus made consistent with faithfulness to their convictions; and was freed from all laxity.
4. Their career of preaching and of accompanying philanthropy was continued throughout the towns of Galilee. The gospel they brought to men was one of trust in the Saviour who had come and of devotion to him. It was a gospel of work inspired by that faith which operates through love. Hence it carried philanthropy with it, and this philanthropy was of the most useful and stimulating character.
II HEROD"S FEARS AND CURIOSITY. (Vers. 7-9) The mission of the twelve had proved sufficiently influential to attract the notice of Herod. It led him to consider his sin and danger in murdering the Baptist. The miracles of which he heard, however, were merciful, and not wrathful; and so, though he was perplexed about the Saviour, he was curious to see him. Most likely he thought he would get Jesus into his power, as he had got John. But John"s ideas about the kingdom and its coming were essentially different from those of Jesus. Hence Herod is left in isolation; his curiosity and desire to see Jesus are alike unsatisfied.
III THE RETIREMENT INTO WHICH JESUS TAKES THE DISCIPLES AFTER THEIR CAREER OF SUCCESS. (Ver. 10) The disciples, as we learn from the other Gospels, returned with joy, highly elated with their success. It was on this account doubtless that our Lord deemed retirement so needful for them. There is nothing, so wholesome for us when dangerously elated as solitude and prayer. In thin way the true character of success is appreciated, and all undue elation about it overcome.
IV THE INCONVENIENCES OF POPULARITY. (Ver. 14) The seasons of retirement so salutary for public men are apt to be invaded, and more work forced upon them than they would themselves desire. The disciples and Jesus had most likely secured some fellowship with God before the popular invasion; for our Lord anticipated both friends and foes, and wrought out his beautiful plan in spite of interruption. So when the people came crowding around him, he was able to receive them with unruffled spirit, and to give them the counsel and the healing they needed. It was the same policy which the disciples had pursued by his directions which he here pursues. Miracle is used to heal and render useful, but not to minister to self-indulgence or render life easier to men. He made the multitude hopeful through his preaching, and healthy through Iris miraculous power.
V THE FEEDING AND DISMISSAL OF THE PEOPLE. (Vers. 12-17) This miracle is narrated by all the evangelists. The sending of the multitude away is urged by the disciples. They have got the healing, and should expect no more. As for hospitality, the five thousand should have entertained Jesus and the disciples, rather than be entertained by them. But our Lord would go beyond his previous limitations, and become the Host instead of the Guest of men. For after all, he is really men"s Host, and we all sit at his board, though he condescends to be our Guest and to take of what we provide. Hence he shows by this miracle how all men really depend upon his bounty and are fed from his hand.- The multiplication of the five loaves and two fishes, that is, of cooked food, cannot be assigned to any natural law, and could only have been miraculous. It was not quantitatively so great a miracle as the feeding of the Israelites with the manna for forty years; yet it was a sufficient miracle to show that the Sustainer of the world was among them. Upon him they should depend, and, if they fed by faith on him, they would always be strengthened. It was at the same time sufficiently moderate in its size and duration to show that he was not going to keep lazy men in idleness by spreading a gratuitous feast for them every day. They are dismissed by him that very evening, that they might not be able to go through the selfish ceremony of making him a king. He did not want to be a king over idlers, over men who would like to eat without the trouble of working; and so he defeated their worldly plans. His lesson of frugality also was most significant. He wanted no waste in his kingdom. He would not prostitute miraculous power to minister either to idleness or to wastefulness. Very clear light is thus cast upon the economy of Jesus. He kept miracle in its place. It ministered to usefulness; it was not allowed to minister to idleness or waste. It would be well if all learned the wholesome lesson which Christ thus conveys. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5 Then He called His twelve disciples together
Luk_9:1-2
Then He called His twelve disciples together
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The apostolic authority
1.
Its extent.
2. Its grounds.
3. Its propose.
4. Its limits. (Van Oosterzee.)
Charge of our Saviour to the twelve
I. TO WHOM THEY WERE TO GO.
1. Not to the heathen. It was more favourable to the progress of Christianity, even among the Gentiles, that the Jews should be first instructed, because, as they already believed in the unity and attributes of God, and possessed the prophecies, they were much better fitted than any other nation, at the commencement of Christianity, to be the instructors of the world.
2. Nor to the Samaritans, although, in travelling from Judaea to Galilee, it was necessary to pass through their country. Our Saviour foresaw that when the Jews should adopt the Christian religion the new benevolent spirit which that religion would diffuse among them would banish all national animosities, and dispose them to contribute with delight to spread the knowledge of Christianity among the Samaritans, and henceforth to acknowledge them as brethren.
II. THE PREPARATION THEY WERE TO MAKE. It is, rather, the preparation they were not to make (Luk_9:3). What could be the reason of this singular prohibition? We answer, that it was evidently the intention of Jesus, in their first mission, to teach them to rely with confidence on the providence of God, who would show them that they were special objects of His care, would cause all their wants to be supplied, and thus to convince them that they were engaged in the business of heaven.
III. WHAT THEY WERE TO DO.
1. Proclaim
(1) the coming of the kingdom;
(2) the need of reformation.
2. While uttering this proclamation, they proved that they had received Divine authority to make it; for they were empowered, during this journey, to perform miracles by curing all sorts of diseases. At the same time, to distinguish them from those impostors who pretended to cure all distempers, the apostles were prohibited from receiving money in the form of rewards or presents: Freely ye have received, freely give; acting in this disinterested manner like servants of the God of benevolence, they were not to be confounded with selfish and designing men.
3. As they had been prohibited from carrying with them the usual accommodations for a journey, they were to depend on the hospitality of those whom they visited.
4. They were enjoined to behave with courtesy to every person they visited. They had come to communicate most important information, and it was necessary to secure the most favourable attention. Besides, civility is an essential part of that benevolence which we owe to our neighbours; and he that is destitute of it neglects to use the means of cultivating the kindly feelings in himself, and in those with whom he associates.
5. When repulsed, they were to shake off the dust from their feet--a significant action which was evidently intended to leave a salutary impression. (J. Thomson, D. D.)
A host of heralds
When we are told that Jesus Christ sent His disciples forth to preach the kingdom of God, the word Luke uses means to herald. All Christians are heralds when they speak of the coming of their King. And the characteristics of heralds, before any other persons, are just these: they cannot be inconspicuous, and they must not be timid. Hence, ancient sovereigns used to dress their heralds in unusual and showy garments, so as to attract attention wherever they went; and they furnished them with horns and trumpets, so as to enable them to make a noise which should compel people to hear them.
1. The chief reproach levelled at the Church by the wild race of wicked men around us is that we are not sincere in our professions of longing for the coming of Christs kingdom. They laugh at a host of heralds so tame and bashful. Why do Christian people never speak up honestly, and do their avowed errands like men?
2. Of course, the proper reply to all this violence is not found in any waste of furious declamation or any massing of forcible logic. Our remedy under such hateful attacks is found in undertaking at once the work which is urged. We shall never hear any more about our derelictions in duty if we are patiently doing duty.
3. Now, it ought to be remembered that this plan of promulgation of the gospel was the choice of an infinitely wise God. There can be no doubt that it would have been an easy thing for Him just to convert the world at a stroke by an irresistible impulse of the Holy Spirits influence; no doubt He could have turned mens hearts into obedient holiness by some suddenness of Divine disclosure ministered possibly through a song of hosts of angels. But He chose to take time for it, and he chose to put the ultimate accomplishing of such a work into the hands of Christian men and women.
4. It might be well to dwell a moment upon the great grace of God towards us in granting such a favour. Next to being rich and imperial ourselves, it certainly would be very fine to be the almoner of an emperor distributing his wealth to the poor. There was wonderful benediction to us in that God fashioned a form of practical evangelization, which would allow play for all kinds of characteristic human endowments. By putting these into rapid and repetitious service, all of those who love Him would share in the grand result.
5. Moreover, the wisdom of such an arrangement can never be questioned. Making men heralds to other men would economize force in exercise, for it would build up intelligence and grace as it exhausted it. Personal activity in doing good promotes growth in all Christian excellence. Love increases by just loving. Hope enlivens itself by just hoping. Zeal gets on fire, and keeps on fire, by just arousing the heat. Knowledge is augmented in all cases more by the effort of teaching others than by simply studying for ones self alone. To the man who rightly uses the five or ten talents extra talents are given from the Lords money.
6. Right here, therefore, let us find an explanation of that low state of hypochondriac feeling which oppresses some Christians. They need spiritual exercise. Wilberforce was asked, once when he was labouring hardest, if he had in these times no anxiety, as he used to have, concerning his souls interests; and he replied, I do not think about my soul; I have no time for solicitude concerning self; I have really forgotten all about my personal salvation, and so I have no distress.
7. It is possible, therefore, that sometimes it may become actually necessary for the Church itself to be taught by alarm. The heralds may have grown listless. A real sense of peril is of value. Oh, do that on our souls, prayed Richard Baxter once, which Thou wouldst have us do on the souls of others! Once when Napoleon was crossing the Alps, his army grew laggard, and held back. He ordered the music to play, as if on parade. This was enough for most veterans in the ranks; but he observed that the trumpeters were tame, and their feeble strains of ordinary encouragement were not sufficiently seductive to draw away the minds of the rank and file from the awful weariness of the ascent of the mountain. One regiment especially just toiled along in a spiritless and forlorn array; these he gathered together, and then he ordered the bands to play the home-songs of the peasant people in order that thoughts of sunny scenes behind them might kindle the mens enthusiasm. Even that failed among some of the sad platoons; and there were some conscripts who only wept beneath an inveterate gloom. Finally, that shrewd commander marshalled the worst of all into one battalion, and put them in the lead. Then suddenly he ordered the trumpets to sound the charge of battle. That was a solitary challenge that no soldier of a French army ever refused. No one could know how they came to be attacked by a foe in the icicles of the high Alps; but is mattered nothing. Wild indeed was the excitement which ran through that hitherto dispirited host, for they supposed the enemy was upon them, and the quick instinct of war instantly flashed along the lines. The very bands played with splendid clangour of brass and shrill screaming of reeds on the frosty air. What that call meant pealing among the ravines was victory! Most men need some sort of inspiration in religious life just to keep them up to duty. Woe to the heralds with trumpets in their hands if they lapse away into a feeble silence! (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Preaching the kingdom
We have here the commission of the twelve apostles.
I. THEIR AUTHORITY. This they received from the great Head of the Church.
II. THEIR QUALIFICATIONS.
1. Notice the two words used.
(1) Power; the ability to do a thing.
(2) Authority; the lawful right to do it.
2. Two realms referred to.
(1) The spiritual realm of darkness;
(2) the physical realm of human nature.
III. THEIR GREAT MISSION.
1. To give spiritual light and comfort.
2. To relieve those who were physically disabled and tortured.
(1) Christ is Physician for both soul and body.
(2) All His ministers should do what they can for the bodies as well as for the souls of men.
IV. THEIR MARCHING ORDERS. They were to be encumbered with nothing superfluous.
V. THEIR OBEDIENCE. Instructive to us--
(1) in its promptness;
(2) in its exactness;
(3) in its thoroughness. Lessons:
1. Every disciple should be a witnesser for Christ.
2. Though some of the particular things laid down here are not obligatory on us, the prominent features in their equipment are still needed.
(1) The power and authority;
(2) the willingness to give up everything superfluous;
(3) prompt, exact, and thorough obedience.
3. Every one whom Christ sends forth may confidently expect every needed equipment if he ask.
4. Surely the fields are now ripe for the harvest.
5. Let us not only pray that God will send labourers, but be willing to be labourers ourselves. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
Missionary work is Gods work
Who would not be a missionary? His noble enterprise is in exact accordance with the spirit of the age, and what is called the spirit of the age is simply the movement of multitudes of minds in the same direction. They move according to the eternal and all-embracing decrees of God. The spirit of the age is one of benevolence, and it manifests itself in numberless ways--ragged-schools, baths and washhouses, sanitary reform, &c. Hence missionaries do not live before their time. Their great idea of converting the world to Christ is no chimera; it is Divine. Christianity will triumph. It is equal to all it has to perform. It is not mere enthusiasm to imagine a handful of missionaries capable of converting the millions of India. How often they are cut off just after they have acquired the language! How often they retire with broken-down constitutions before effecting anything! How often they drop burning tears over their own feebleness amid the defections of those they believed to be converts! Yes! but the small band has the decree of God on its side. Who has not admired the band of Leonidas at the pass of Thermopylae? Three hundred against three million. Japhet, with the decree of God on his side, only three hundred strong, contending with Shem and his three millions. Consider what has been effected during the last fifty years. There is no vaunting of scouts now, no Indian gentlemen making themselves merry about the folly of thinking to convert the natives of India, magnifying the difficulties of caste, and setting our ministers into brown studies and speech-making in defence of missions. No mission has yet been an entire failure. The old world was a failure under Noahs preaching. Elijah thought it was all up with Israel. Isaiah said, Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? And Jeremiah wished his head were waters, his eyes a fountain of tears, to weep over one of Gods plans for diffusing knowledge among the heathen. If we could see a larger arc of the great providential cycle, we might sometimes rejoice when we weep. But God giveth not account of any one of His matters. We must just trust to His wisdom. Let us do our duty. He will work out a glorious consummation. Fifty years ago missions could not lift up their heads. But missions now are admitted by all to be one of the great facts of the age, and the sneers about Exeter Hall are seen by every one to embody a risus sardonious. The present posture of affairs is, that benevolence is popular. God is working out in the human heart His great idea, and all nations shall see His glory … Let us think highly of the weapons we have received for the accomplishment of our work. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty through God to the casting down of strongholds. They are--Faith in our Leader, and in the presence of His Holy Spirit; a full, free, unfettered gospel; the doctrine of the Cross of Christ--an old story, but containing the mightiest truths ever uttered--mighty for pulling down the strongholds of sin, and giving liberty to the captives. This work requires zeal for God and love for souls. It needs prayer from the senders and the sent, and firm reliance on Him who alone is the author of conversion. Souls cannot be converted or manufactured to order. Great deeds are wrought in unconsciousness, from constraining love to Christ; in humbly asking, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? in the simple feeling we have done that which it was our duty to do. The effect works, the greatness of which it will remain for posterity to discern. The greatest works of God in the kingdom of grace, like His majestic works in nature, are marked by stillness in the doing of them, and reveal themselves by their effects. They come up like the sun, and show themselves by their own light. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Luther simply followed the leadings of the Holy Spirit in the struggles of His own soul. He wrought out what the inward impulses of his own breast prompted him to work, and behold, before He was aware, he was in the midst of the Reformation. So, too, it was with the Plymouth pilgrims, with their sermons three times a day on board the Mayflower. Without thinking of founding an empire, they obeyed the sublime teachings of the Spirit, the prompt-ings of duty and the spiritual life. God working mightily in the human heart is the spring of all abiding spiritual power; and it is only as men follow out the sublime promptings of the inward spiritual life that they do great things for God. The movement of not one mind only, but the consentaneous movement of a multitude of minds in the same direction, constitutes what is called the spirit of the age. This spirit is neither the law of progress nor blind development, but Gods all-eternal, all-embracing purpose, the doctrine which recognizes the hand of God in all events, yet leaves all human action free. When God has prepared an age for a new thought, the thought is thrust into the age as an instrument into a chemical solution--the crystals cluster around it immediately. If God prepares not, the man has lived before his time. Huss and Wiclif were like voices crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for a brighter future; the time had not yet come. Who would not be a missionary? They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. Is God not preparing the world for missions which will embrace the whole of Adams family? The gallant steamships circumnavigate the globe. Emigration is going on at a rate to which the most renowned crusades of antiquity bear no proportion. Many men go to and fro, and knowledge is increased. No great emigration ever took place in the world without accomplishing one of Gods great designs. The tide of modern emigration flows towards the West. The wonderful amalgamation of races will result in something grand. We believe this, because the world is becoming better, and because God is working mightily in the human mind. We believe it, because God has been preparing the world for something glorious. And that something will be a fuller development of the missionary idea and work. There will yet be a glorious consummation of Christianity. The last fifty years have accomplished wonders. On the American continent, what a wonderful amalgamation of races we have witnessed, how wonderfully they have been fused into that one American people--type and earnest of s larger fusion which Christianity will yet accomplish, when, by its blessed power, all tribes and tongues and races shall become one holy family. The present popularity of beneficence promises well for the missionary cause in the future. Mens hearts are undergoing a process of enlargement. Their sympathies are taking a wider scope. The world is getting closer, smaller--quite a compact affair. The world for Christ will yet be realized.(David Livingstone, LL. D.)
Authority for missions
When a Roman magistrate was appointed to conduct a campaign he could not even assume the command of an army until he had been invested with the special powers comprehended in the imperium or right of military command. And to this day when governments are called upon to undertake extraordinary enterprises they are in the habit of endowing their officers with extraordinary powers. So Jesus, when sending His disciples to combat with the powers of evil, gave them special authority and miraculous power. (Sunday School Times.)
Insignificant beginnings
Not many years ago the Queen of Great Britain was proclaimed Empress of India. That event was announced throughout India with all the pomp of empire. Contrast with this earthly splendour the manner in which the new kingdom of Christ was proclaimed on earth. Twelve poor disciples preached it in an insignificant province of the Roman Empire. (Sunday School Times.)
A missionarys healing work
In the first verse of this lesson is a strong reminder of the most efficient style of missionaries to-day. Saying nothing about the power and authority over all devils, to cure diseases is no small part of the modem missionarys task. It is plain enough to most Christian people who keep up with the general run of accounts from the mission field, that medical training greatly adds to a missionarys influence. Indeed, it seems almost superfluous to say a word more on the subject. But when one thinks how much physicians are needed among a people where regularly trained physicians do not otherwise exist than through the efforts of the missionaries; how many diseases have been scourges which are quite within the power of medical science; to how many people a physician can gain the access denied to every one else; what opportunities a physician has for making many his grateful friends for life; it will not be wondered that medical training and a physicians work are wonderful aids in advancing the kingdom. It is no wonder either that Luke, the physician, was particular to notice this branch of the apostolic commission; or that it was actually given by our Lord. Even a quack, or a skilful physician who insists on extortionate fees, is a man of power; though such a one may do the missionary work great harm. He would be feared. Unless he both preaches the kingdom of God--preaches in the old sense, not sermonizes by the hour-glass-and heals the sick, he is worse than useless. (Sunday School Times.)
The call to Christian work
I. THE CALL TO CHRISTIAN WORK. These twelve apostles were men specially called by Christ, some from their fishing, one from the receipt of custom. We must not think that they were elected to the exceeding privilege of personal relations with Christ. It would be true to say that, through all the ages, God does not elect to privilege, He selects for duty.
II. THE FORM OF CHRISTIAN WORK.
1. Every one who is sent has a message to deliver. It is a message of sovereign grace. It is a message that has to be set in precise adaptation to mens needs. It is a message that makes practical demands on all to whom it is addressed.
2. Every one sent is expected to scatter temporal blessings as he goes about doing his higher spiritual work. Heal the sick only represents the work of the unusually endowed.
III. THE SPHERE OF CHRISTIAN WORK. These apostles were bidden go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Lost sheep! They can be found by us all close at hand.
IV. THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN WORK. Freely ye have received, freely give. True workers for Christ must be heedless of self; they must gain full hold and mastery of self. (The. Weekly Pulpit.)
A love of preaching
The late Rev. Rowland Hill remarks--Old as I am, I am just returned from a long missionary ramble; but I feel I am getting old. Oh that I may work well to the last! In all his journeys, even when he had reached a period beyond that usually allotted to man, he was disconcerted if he did not find a pulpit ready for him every evening. In one of his letters, fixing his days for preaching on his road to some place, he says, Ever since my Master has put me into office I have ever esteemed it my duty to remember His admonition, As ye go, preach. His general answer to invitations to houses on his route was, I shall be happy to come to you, if you can find me a place to preach in.
Simplicity in preaching
Arthur Helps tells a story of an illiterate soldier at the chapel of Lord Morpeths castle in Ireland. Whenever Archbishop Whately came to preach it was observed that this rough private was always in his place, mouth open, as if in sympathy with his ears. Some of the gentlemen playfully took him to task for it, supposing it was due to the usual vulgar admiration of a celebrity. But the man had a better reason, and was able to give it. He said, That isnt it at all. The Archbishop is easy to understand. There are no fine words in him. A fellow like me, now, can follow along and take every bit of it in.
The mission of the twelve
1. It was one which had for its especial object the welfare of men, both as to soul and body.
2. In His instructions to these first ministers of the gospel, the Master seemed especially to warn them against any needless regard to their own appearance, or any undue considerations for their own comfort or ease. Simplicity, frugality, and paramount regard to their work, were the principles which they were to illustrate, and these have always been considered becoming to true ministers of the gospel in the purest days of the Church. These first apostles were to cultivate warm fraternal fellowship with the people among whom they were to labour, mixing with them and their families in the ordinary intercourse of life, and kindly receiving that hospitality which was freely offered, though never demanded.
3. We are not to consider that these directions of our Lord establish any fixed rules in respect to the support or costume or social relations of His ministers. They were rather adapted to a special and peculiar service; they were conformable to the customs and usages of the times and the country.
4. The injunction to shake off the dust from their feet in leaving a place where they were not welcomed and their teaching was not received, does not inculcate anything like a spirit of denunciation and bitterness, but simply a protest against the unbelief which manifested itself in this manner, and was like the custom, well known to the Jews, of shaking their garments when they came from a heathen city into their own country. The scribes taught that the dust of heathenism defiled those on whom it rested. (E. P. Rogers, D. D.)
Practical suggestions
1. An apostle is a sent one, but not self-sent.
2. A true shepherd must not mistake the love of the fleece for the love for the flock.
3. The Church is to remember that her angels are still in the flesh, and require at least an average provision for the needs of the flesh. It is a poor way to advance the spirituality of a minister, to begrudge him his bread.
4. Spirituality is not a thing belonging necessarily to riches or to poverty. All the worldliness is not with the rich. All the spirituality is not with the poor.
5. All true and faithful ministers may justly claim to be in the best sense in an apostolic succession.
6. Ostentation and luxury are a reproach to the ministers of Christ.
7. The Christian missionary emulates his Master, who came as the sent One from heaven, to seek and to save that which was lost.
8. That is a true and practical Christianity which is not forgetful of the wants of the body while ministering to the necessities of the soul.
9. Every Christian is bound to be a missionary, even though he be not ordained as a preacher. The spirit of missions is the spirit of Christ, and when the whole Church is imbued with that the Lords prayer will be answered, Thy kingdom come. (E. P. Rogers, D. D.)
The kingdom of God
The whole circle of doctrines taught by Christ revolves about this central point--that He represented to men the kingdom of God. What is this kingdom of God which Jesus preached in His gospel? and how does the knowledge of this kingdom bring us under obligation to repent, and give us encouragement to believe? The answer to these questions must be sought in the meaning of this phrase, as it required to be understood by the Jews of Christs own time. To the men whom Christ addressed, the kingdom of God was no new idea; or rather it was no new phrase--but it can hardly be said to have represented any definite idea to a generation that had so far lost the meaning of their own law and history. If we study closely the religion of the Old Testament, we shall find that all its doctrines, laws, and institutions grow out of this fundamental thought, that God, who Himself is pure and spiritual, is the true and only Redeemer of all those who desire to be no more estranged from Him. This truth was formally embodied in the doctrine of a kingdom of God in this world, the nucleus of which was His redeemed people of Israel. The political constitution of Israel as a nation was but a frame for this spiritual kingdom. The true conception of the kingdom stands out m the predictions of Jeremiah concerning the days of the Messiah. When this prophet wrote, the political kingdom had run itself down into disgrace and bankruptcy, through the vices of the kings and the general wickedness of the people; but although the monarchy should be overthrown, and king and people be carried away captive, the kingdom of God in the true Israel--as represented by the prophet and by all believing souls--could not be destroyed. This view of the kingdom of God may be interpreted to us by our familiar conceptions of the national and historical spirit in a people, as distinguished from the form of government and the practical administration of affairs. If, for instance, one loses confidence in a ministry, he does not abandon constitutional government as a failure. It was the spiritual conception of a kingdom within Israel itself--that did not embrace all Israel, and yet was greater than Israel, because it did possess, and should hereafter more and more possess, souls outside the pale of the Jewish commonwealth--that Jeremiah seized so vividly at the very moment when the national monarchy was sinking into nothingness. With this spiritual conception of the kingdom--the presence of God as a Saviour realized to the soul--it is easy to understand how Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. Coming at a time when the Jews were vassals of the Roman power; when deprived of every symbol of their nationality save their temple and its worship, they were yearning for a deliverer; to the nominal people of God thus subjugated by military rule, yet clinging to the ancient promise of a Messiah who should restore the glory of the theocracy, He said, I bring to you the good news of the kingdom of God; in Me Jehovah once more comes to you as a Deliverer; the time predicted by Daniel is fulfilled; the new covenant promised by Jeremiah is brought to you in My gospel; repent of the sins that have humiliated and well-nigh destroyed you; renounce your vain hopes of deliverance and trust in Me as your Saviour; repent and believe the gospel, for the kingdom of God is at hand. (J. P. Thomson.)
The kingdom
1. Is within. One becomes a subject of it in his own consciousness.
2. Has laws for the regulation of the life, though purifying and ennobling the heart.
3. Has its privileges. Every subject is treated as a son.
4. Has its rewards, both present and prospective. (J. P. Thomson.)
The twofold mission: preaching and healing
It is in obedience to this mandate that our missionaries, before they go abroad, not only spend a number of years at some theological college where they may prepare themselves for the work of proclaiming the gospel, but generally spend a year or so in the hospitals, gaining some knowledge of medicine that they may alleviate the physical woes of the people among whom their lives are to be spent, and so, it may be, reach the soul through the body. At home the two functions are discharged by different persons, and yet it seems to me that minister and doctor should be in completest sympathy, and recognize each other as severally working towards the same end. Some doctors have I known, who while attending to the physical wants of their patients could find time not only to speak the kindly and reassuring words which come so well from the lips of men who belong to the healing profession, but also to say some word which might point the afflicted one to that great Healer and most beneficent Physician, who is the Redeemer of our whole nature. It is a proof of the close alliance which ought to subsist between preaching and healing, that hospitals are a direct fruit of Christianity. Neither the religion nor the philosophy of Greece and Rome tended to comfort the poor. The divinities were cruel; the Stoic affected to despise the sufferings of the indigent; the Epicurean took no thought of them. Throughout the vast regions of Mogol, India, and China, the use of hospitals is unknown to this day. In no country did Christianity find such institutions existing. The history of their rise and progress can be traced in few words. In the year 380 the first hospital in the West was founded by Fabiola, a devout Roman lady, without the walls of Rome. St. Jerome says, expressly, that this was the first of all. And he adds that it was a country-house, destined to receive the sick and infirm, who before used to lie stretched on the public ways. The pilgrims hospital at Rome, built by Pammachius, became also celebrated. In 330, the priest Zotichus, who had followed Constantine to Byzantium, established in that city, under his protection, a hospital for strangers and pilgrims. St. Basil, who founded the first hospitals of Asia, mentions a house for the reception of the sick and of travellers, near the city of Caesarea, which became afterwards the ornament of the country, and like a second city. St. Chrysostom built several hospitals at Constantinople. Coming down to modern days, it is significant that the three oldest London hospitals, St. Thomass, St. Bartholomews, and Bethlehem, were founded about the middle of the sixteenth century, immediately after the Reformation, and that the reign of George II., in which Wesley and Whitefield preached from end to end of the land, was the period at which a considerable accession was made to the number of English hospitals, and at which society became alive to the value of such institutions. (J. R. Bailey.)
There is certainly no other feature of the old civilization so repulsive as the indifference to suffering that it displayed. The constant association of human suffering with popular entertainments rendered the popular mind continually more callous. Very different was the aspect presented by the early Church. Charity was one of the earliest, as it was one of the noblest creations of Christianity; and independently of the incalculable mass of suffering it has assuaged, the influence it has exercised in softening and purifying the character, in restraining the passions, and enlarging the sympathies of mankind, has made it one of the most important elements of our civilization. (W. E. H. Lecky, M. A.)
Bodily healing a preparation for spiritual instruction
Although China has reached what some are pleased to call the highest degree of civilization of which a nation is capable without the gospel, it presents, I believe, more physical suffering, for want of medical knowledge, than any other nation on the face of the the earth. The multitudes of sick, and lame, and blind which crowd the streets of this and other cities, are ample evidence of her deplorable condition in this respect. In an institution like this, a good surgeon may almost every day of his life make the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, and the paralytic whole; besides bringing hundreds together under the most favourable circumstances, to have the gospel preached to them. I might be allowed to give one example of the influence which even one successful case exerts, not only upon an individual or a family, but upon a locality or neighbourhood. Last spring I operated on a mans eyes for artificial pupil. For several years previously he had only just been able to distinguish day from night, light from darkness. Three days after the operation he was able to read the ordinary character, and on the fifth day he left the hospital. He was a boatman, and lives about half-way to Nankin, on the Northern bank of Yang-tsze river. Two months afterwards he arrived again in Shanghai with his boat, and brought six blind people to the hospital, five men and one woman, from his own neighbourhood, and they not only wanted to have their sight restored, but made enquiries about the Christian religion, which they said their friend who brought them had told them about One man, continues the doctor in another report, a shopkeeper, who had been blind for three years, readily submitted to the operation for cataract. I need not say that he was much delighted when, on the twelfth day after it, he was able to read the New Testament character with facility. This man left the hospital in very high spirits, declaring that he would make known the gospel doctrine to all his friends and neighbours. (Dr. Henderson.)
Delight in preaching
What cross do you suppose I take up in preaching? Just the same kind of a cross a mountain rill takes up that gushes forth all summer long. Why does it gush forth? Because it is its duty? No; because it cannot help it. It is its nature; and it goes ringing down the dell to please itself, not to please the heavens, or the clouds, or anything else--though it may please them all. And it is because it is to me pleasanter than anything else that I preach. I might preach if it was not so pleasant; but I am entitled to no thanks because I preach. The whole professional life of a minister who has health, and a healthy theology, ought to be pleasant. (H. W. Beecher.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 17
Chapter 17
THE MIRACLE OF THE LOAVES. - Luk_9:1-17
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THE Galilean ministry was drawing to a close, for the "great Light" which had risen over the northern province must now move southward, to set behind a cross and a grave. Jesus, however, is reluctant-to leave these borders, amid whose hills the greater part of His life has been spent, and among whose composite population His greatest successes have been won, without one last effort. Calling together the Twelve, who hitherto have been Apostles in promise and in name rather than in fact, He lays His plans before them. Dividing the district into sections, so as to equalize their labors and prevent any overlapping, He sends them out in pairs; for in the Divine arithmetic two are more than twice one, more than the sum of the separate units by all the added force and strength of fellowship. They are to be the heralds of the new kingdom, to "preach the Kingdom of God," their insignia no outward, visible badge, but the investiture of authority over all demons, and powers over all diseases. Apostles of the Unseen, servants of the Invisible King, they must dismiss all worldly cares; they must not even make provision for their journey, weighting themselves with such impedimenta as wallets stored with bread or changes of raiment. They must go forth in an absolute trust in God, thus proving themselves citizens of the heavenly kingdom, whose gates they open to all who will repent and step up into them. They may take a staff, for that will help rather than hinder on the steep mountain paths: but since the Kings business requireth haste, they must not spend their time in the interminable salutations of the age, nor in going about from house to house; such changes could only distract, diverting to themselves the thought which should be centered upon their mission. Should any city not receive them, they must retire at once, shaking off, as they depart, the very dust from their feet, as a testimony against them.
Such were the directions, as Jesus dismissed the Twelve, sending them to reap the Galilean harvest, and at the same time to prepare them for the wider fields which after the Pentecost would open to them on every side. It is only by incidental allusions that we learn anything as to the success of the mission, bur when our Evangelist says "they went throughout the villages preaching the Gospel and healing everywhere," these frequent miracles of healing would imply that they found a sympathetic and receptive people. Nor were the impulses of the new movement confined to the lower reaches of society; for even the palace felt its vibrations, and St. Luke, who seems to have had private means of information within the Court, possibly through Chuza and Manaen, pauses to give us a kind of silhouette of the Tetrarch. Herod himself is perplexed. Like a vane, "that fox" swings round to the varying gusts of public opinion that come eddying within the palace from the excited world outside; and as some say that Jesus is Elias, and others "one of the old prophets," while others aver that He is John himself, risen from the dead, this last rumor falls upon the ears of Herod like alarming thunders, making him quiver like an aspen. "And he sought to see Jesus." The "conscience that makes cowards of us all" had unnerved him, and he longed by a personal acquaintance with Jesus to wave back out of his sight the apparition of the murdered prophet. Who Jesus might be did not much concern Herod. He might be Elias, or one of the old prophets, anything but John; and so when Herod did see Jesus afterwards, and saw that He was not the risen Baptist, but the Man of Galilee, his courage revived, and he gave Jesus into the hands of his cohorts, that they might mock Him with the faded purple.
What steps Herod took to secure an interview we do not know; but the verb indicates more than a wish on his part; it implies some plan or attempt to gratify the wish; and probably it was these advances of Herod, together with the Apostles need of rest after the strain and excitements of their mission, which prompted Jesus to seek a place of retirement outside the bounds of Antipas. On the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, and on the eastern bank of thee Jordan, as a second Bethsaida, or "House of Fish" as the name means, built by Philip, and to which, in honor of Caesars daughter, he gave the surname of "Julias." The city itself stood on the hills; some three or four miles back from the shore; while between the city and the lake swept a wide and silent plain, all untilled, as the New Testament "desert" means, but rich in pasturage, as the "much grass" of Joh_6:10 would show. This still shore offered, as it seemed, a safe refuge from the exacting and intrusive crowds of Capernaum, whose constant coming and going left them no leisure so much as to eat; and bidding them launch the familiar boat, Jesus and the twelve sail away to the other side. The excited crowds, however, which followed them to the waters edge, are not so easily to be shaken off; but guessing the direction of the boat, they seek to head her off by a quick detour round the shore. And some of them do; for when the boat grates on the northern shingle some of the swift-footed ones are already there; while stretching back for miles is a stream of humanity, of both sexes and of all ages, but all fired with one purpose. The desert has suddenly grown populous.
And how does Jesus bear this interruption to His plans? Does He chafe at this intrusion of the people upon His quiet hours? Does He resent their importunity, calling it impertinence, then driving them from Him with a whip of sharp words? Not so. Jesus was accustomed to interruptions; they formed almost the staple of His life. Nor did He repulse one solitary soul which sought sincerely His mercy, no matter how unseasonable the hour, as men would read the hours. So now Jesus "received" them, or "welcomed" them, as it is in the R.V It is a favorite word with St. Luke, found in his Gospel more frequently than in the other three Gospels together. Applied to persons, it means nearly always to receive as guests, to welcome to hospitality and home. And such is its meaning here. Jesus takes the place of the host. True, it is a desert place, but it is a part of the All-Fathers world, a room of the Fathers house, carpeted with grass and ablaze with flowers; and Jesus, by His welcome, transforms the desert into a guest-chamber, where in a new way He keeps the Passover with His disciples, at the same time entertaining His thousands of self-bidden guests, giving to them truth, speaking of the kingdom of God, and giving health, healing "those that had need of healing."
It was toward evening, "when the day began to wear away," that Jesus gave to a bright and busy day its crowning benediction. The thought had already ripened into purpose, in His mind, to spread a table for them in the wilderness; for how could He, the compassionate One, send them to their homes famishing and faint? These poor, shepherdless sheep have put themselves into His care. Their simple, unproviding confidence has made Him in a sense responsible, and can He disappoint that confidence? It is true they have been thoughtless and improvident. They have let the enthusiasm of the hour carry them away, without making any provision of the necessary food; but even this does not check the flow of the Divine compassion, for Jesus proceeds to fill up their lack of thought by His Divine thoughtfulness, and their scarcity with His Divine affluence.
According to St. John, it was Jesus who took the initiative, as He put the test-question to Philip, "Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?" Philip does not reply to the "whence"; that may stand aside awhile, as in mathematical language he speaks to the previous question, which is their ability to buy. "Two hundred pennyworth of bread," he said, "is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little." He does not say how much would be required to satisfy the hunger of the multitude; his reckoning is not for a feast, but for a taste, to every one "a little." Nor does he calculate the full cost of even this, but says simply, "Two hundred pennyworth would not be sufficient." Evidently, in Philips mind the two hundred pence is the known quantity of the equation, and he works out his calculation from that, as he proves the impossibility of buying bread for this vast company anywhere. We may therefore conclude that the two hundred pence represented the value of the common purse, the purchasing power of the Apostolic community; and this was a sum altogether inadequate to meet the cost of providing bread for the multitude. The only alternative, as far as the disciples see, is to dismiss them, and let them requisition for themselves; and in a peremptory manner they ask Jesus to "send the multitude away," reminding Him of what certainly they had no need to remind Him, that they were here "in a desert place."
The disciples had spoken in their subjunctive, non possumus, way; it is now time for Jesus to speak, which He does, not in interrogatives longer, but in His imperative, commanding tone: "Give ye them to eat," a word which throws the disciples back upon themselves in astonishment and utter helplessness. What can they do? The whole available supply, as Andrew reports it, is but five barley loaves and two small fishes, which a lad has brought, possibly for their own refreshment. Five flat loaves of barley, which was the food of the poorest of the poor, and "two small fishes," as St. John calls them, throwing a bit of local coloring into the narrative by his diminutive word-these are the foundation repast, which Jesus asks to be brought to Himself, that from Himself it may go, broken and enlarged, to the multitude of guests. Meantime the crowd is just as large, and perhaps more excited and impatient than before; for they would not understand these "asides" between the disciples and the Master, nor could they read as yet His compassionate and benevolent thought. It would be a pushing, jostling crowd, as these thousands were massed on the hill-side. Some are gathered in little groups, discussing the Messiahship; others are clustered round some relative or friend, who today has been wonderfully healed; while others, of the forward sort, are selfishly elbowing their way to the front. The whole scene is a kaleidoscope of changing form and color, a perfect chaos of confusion. But Jesus speaks again: "Make them sit down in companies"; and those words, thrown across the seething mass, reduce it to order, crystallizing it, as it were, into measured and numbered lines. St. Mark, half-playfully, likens it to a garden, with its parterres of flowers and such indeed it was, but it was a garden of the higher cult, with its variegated beds of humanity, a hundred men broad, and fifty deep.
When order was secured and all were in their places, Jesus takes His place as the host at the head of the extemporized table, and though it is most frugal fare, He holds the barley loaves heavenward, and lifting up His eyes, He blesses God, probably in the words of the usual formula, "Blessed art Thou, Jehovah our God, King of the world, Who causeth to come forth bread from the earth." Then breaking the bread, He distributes it among the disciples, bidding them bear it to the people. It is not a matter of moment as to the exact point where the supernatural came in, whether it was in the breaking or the distributing. Somewhere a power which must have been Divine touched the bread, for the broken pieces strangely grew, enlarging rapidly as they were minished. It is just possible that we have a clue to the mystery in the tense of the verb, for the imperfect, which denotes continued action, would read, "He brake," or "He kept on breaking," from which we might almost infer that the miracle was coincident with the touch. But whether so or not, the power was equal to the occasion, and the supply over and above the largest need, completely satisfying the hunger of the five thousand men, besides the off-group of women and children, who, though left out of the enumeration, were within the circle of the miracle, the remembered and satisfied guests of the Master.
It now remains for us to gather up the meaning and the practical lessons of the miracle. And first, it reveals to us the Divine pity. When Jesus called Himself the Son of man it was a title full of deep meaning, and most appropriate. He was the true, the ideal Humanity, humanity as it would have been without the warps and discolorations that Sin has made, and within His heart were untold depths of sympathy, the "fellow-feeling that makes man wondrous kind." To the haughty and the proud He was stern, lowering upon them with a withering scorn; to the unreal, the false, the unclean He was severity itself, with lightnings in His looks and terrible thunders in His "woes"; but for troubled and tired souls He had nothing but tenderness and gentleness, and a compassion that was infinite. Even had He not called the weary and heavy-laden to Himself, they would have sought Him; they would have read the "come" in the sunlight of His face. Jesus felt for others a vicarious pain, a vicarious sorrow, His heart responding to it at once, as the delicately poised needle responds to the subtle sparks that flash in upon it from without. So here; He receives the multitude kindly, even though they are strangers, and though they have thwarted His purpose and broken in upon His rest, and as this stream of human life flows out to Him, His compassion flows out to them. He commiserates their forlorn condition, wandering like straying sheep upon the mountains; He gives Himself up to them, healing all that were sick, assuaging the pain or restoring the lost sense; while at the same time He ministers to a higher nature, telling them of the kingdom of God which had come nigh to them, and which was theirs if they would surrender themselves to it and obey. Nor was even this enough to satisfy the promptings of His deep pity, but all-forgetful of His own weariness, He lengthens out this day of mercy, staying to minister to their lower, physical wants, as He spreads for them a table in the wilderness. Verily He was, incarnate, as He is in His glory, "touched with the feeling of our infirmities."
Again, we see the Divine love of order and arrangement. Nothing was done until the crowding and confusion had ceased, and even the Divine beneficence waits until the turbulent mass has become quiet, settled down into serried lines, the five thousand making two perfect squares. "Order," it is said, "is Heavens first law"; but whether the first or the second, certain it is that Heaven gives us the perfection of order. It is only in the lawless wills of man that "time is broke, and no proportion kept." In the heavenly state nothing is out of place or out of time. All wills there play into each other with such absolute precision that life itself is a song, a "Gloria in Excelsis." And how this is seen in all the works of God! What rhythmic motions are in the marches of the stars and the processions of the seasons! To everything a place, to everything a time; such is the unwritten law of the realm of physics, where Law is supreme, and anarchy is unknown. So in our earthly lives, on their secular and on their spiritual side alike, order is time, order is strength, and he who is deficient in this grace should practice on it the more. Avoid Slovenliness; it is a distant relation of Sin itself. Arrange your duties, and do not let them crowd one upon the other. Set the greater duties, not abreast, but one behind the other, filling up the spaces with the smaller ones. Do not let things drift, or your life, built for carrying precious argosies, and accomplishing something, will break up into pieces, the flotsam and jetsam of a barren shore. In prayer be orderly. Arrange your desires. Let some come first, while others stand back in the second or the third row, waiting their turn. If your relations with your fellows have got a little disarranged, atwist, seek to readjust the disturbed relation. Oppose what is evil and mean with all your might; but if no principle is involved, even at the cost of a little feeling, seek to have things put square. To get things into a tangle requires no great skill; but he who would be a true artist, keeping the Divine pattern before him, and ever working towards it, if not up to it, may reduce the tangled skein to harmony, and like the Gobelin tapestry-makers, weave a life that is noble and beautiful, a life on which men will love to gaze.
Again, we see the Divine concern for little things, Abundance always tempts to extravagance and waste. And so here; the broken remnants of the repast might have been thrown away as of no account; but Jesus bade them, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost"; and we read "they filled with the broken bread which remained over and above to them that had eaten, twelve baskets full"-and, by the way, the word rendered "basket" here corresponds with the frugal fare, for, made of willow or of wicker, it was of the coarsest kind, used only by the poor. What became of the fragments, which outweighed the original supply, we do not read; but though they were only the crumbs of the Divine bounty, and though there was no present use for them, Jesus would not allow them to be wasted.
But the true meaning of the narrative lies deeper than this. It is a miracle of a new order, this multiplying of the loaves. In His other miracles Jesus has wrought on the line of Nature, accelerating her slower processes, and accomplishing in an instant, by His mere volition, what by natural causes must have been the work of time, but which in the specific cases would have been purely impossible, owing to the enfeeblement of nature by disease. Sight, hearing, even life itself, come to man through channels purely natural but Nature never yet has made bread. She grows the corn, but there her part ends, while Science must do the rest, first reducing the corn to flour, then kneading it into dough, and by the burning fires of the oven transmuting the dough to bread. Why does Jesus here depart from His usual order, creating what neither nature nor science can produce alone, but which requires their concurrent forces? Let us see. To Jesus these visible, tangible things were but the dead keys His hand touched, as He called forth some deeper, farther-off music, some spiritual truth that by any other method men would be slow to learn. Of what, then, is this bread of the desert the emblem? St. John tells us that when the miracle occurred "the Passover was nigh at hand," and this time-mark helps to explain the overcrowding into the desert, for probably many of the five thousand were men who were now on their way to Jerusalem, and who had stayed at Capernaum and the neighboring cities for the night. This supposition, too, is considerably strengthened by the words of the disciples, as they suggest that they should go and "lodge" in the neighboring cities and villages, which word implies that they were not residents of that locality, but passing strangers. And as Jesus cannot now go up to Jerusalem to the feast, He gathers the shepherdless thousands about Him, and keeps a sort of Passover in the open guest-chamber of the mountainside. That such was the thought of the Master, making it an anterior sacrament, is evident from the address Jesus gave the following day at Capernaum, in which He passes, by a natural transition, from the broken bread with which He satisfied their physical hunger to Himself as the Bread come down from heaven, the "living Bread" as He called it, which was His flesh. There is thus an Eucharistic meaning in the miracle of the loaves, and this northern hill signals in its subtle correspondence on to Jerusalem, to another hill, where His body was bruised and broken "for our iniquities," and His blood was poured out, a precious oblation for sin. And as that blood was typified by the wine of the first miracle at Cana, so now Jesus completes the prophetic sacrament by the miraculous creation of bread from the five seminal loaves, bread which He Himself has consecrated to the holier use, as the visible emblem of that Body which was given for us, men, women, and children alike, even for a redeemed humanity. Cana and the desert-place thus draw near together, while both look across to Calvary; and as the Church keeps now her Eucharistic feast, taking from the one the consecrated bread, and from the other the consecrated wine, she shows forth the Lords death "till He come."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On v1 1–6. He called the twelve. This Commission of the…
1–6. He called the twelve. This Commission of the Apostles is given in Matt. 10:1–42 and Mark 6:7–13. Matthew's account is the fullest, on which see notes.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 Luk_9:1. His twelve disciples.—A better reading is, “the twelve”…
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk_9:1. His twelve disciples.—A better reading is, “the twelve” (R.V.): the reading in the text is probably taken from the parallel passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel. Power and authority.—I.e. ability and right: the one applies to the endowment with special gifts, the other to the right of using them on fitting occasions.
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Luk_9:3. Neither staves.—Rather, “neither staff” (R.V.). In the parallel passage in St. Mark the permission is given to take a staff. A comparison of the passages removes the apparent discrepancy. The apostles were to make no special preparation for the journey: if each had a staff for walking, let him take it, but not provide one specially. Scrip.—Leather wallet.
Luk_9:4. Whatsoever house, etc.—Not to seek for comfortable quarters, or to change about unnecessarily.
Luk_9:5. Shake off the very dust.—As a sign that all intercourse was at an end, and that the messengers of Christ left those who rejected Him to bear the full responsibility of their sinful conduct (cf. Act_13:51; Act_18:6). Against them.—A stronger expression than in the parallel passage in St. Mark, where we read, “for a testimony unto them” (Luk_6:11, R.V.).
Luk_9:6. Preaching the gospel.—Lit. “evangelising”: it is a different word from that in Luk_9:2, also translated “preach”—which means “to proclaim as heralds “the kingdom of God. The instructions to the apostles are given at greater length in Matthew 10.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Luk_9:1-6
The Servants sent forth.—The very summary account of the trial mission of the twelve here given presents only the salient points of the charge to them, and in its condensation makes these the more emphatic.
I. The gift of power.—Miracle-working in various forms is specified. We may call that Christ’s greatest miracle. That he could by His mere will endow a dozen men with such power is more, if degree come into view at all, than that He Himself should exercise it. But there is a lesson in the fact for all ages—even those in which miracles have ceased. Christ gives before He commands, and sends no man into the field without filling his basket with seed-corn. His gifts assimilate the receiver to Himself; and only in the measure in which His servants possess the power which is like His own, and drawn from Him, can they prepare His coming, or prepare hearts for it.
II. Equipment.—The special commands here given were repealed by Jesus when He gave His last commands. In their letter they apply only to that one journey, but in their spirit they are of universal and permanent obligation. The twelve were to travel light. Food, luggage, and money, the three requisites of a traveller, were to be “conspicuous by their absence.” That was repealed afterwards, and instructions given of an opposite character, because, after His ascension, the Church was to live more and more by ordinary means; but in this journey they were to learn to trust Him without means, that afterwards they might trust Him in the means. He showed them the purpose of these restrictions in the act of abrogating them. “When I sent you forth without purse … lacked ye anything?” But the spirit remains unabrogated, and the minimum of outward provision is likeliest to call out the maximum of faith. We are in more danger from having too much baggage than from too little. And the one indispensable requirement is that, whatever the quantity, it should hinder neither our march nor our trust in Him who alone is wealth and food.
III. The disposition of the messengers.—It is not to be self-indulgent. They are not to change quarters for the sake of greater comfort. They have not gone out to make a pleasure tour, but to preach, and so are to stay where they are welcomed and to make the best of it. Delicate regard for kindly hospitality, if offered by ever so poor a house, and scrupulous abstinence from whatever might suggest interested motives, must mark the true servant. That rule is not out of date. If ever a herald of Christ falls under suspicion of caring more about life’s comforts than about his work, good-bye to his usefulness. If ever he does so care, whether he be suspected of it or no, spiritual power will ebb from him.
IV. The messenger’s demeanour to the rejecters of their message.—Shaking the dust off the sandal is an emblem of solemn renunciation of participation, and perhaps of repudiating of responsibility. It meant certainly, “We have no more to do with you,” and possibly, “Your blood be on your own heads.” This journey of the twelve was meant to be of short duration, and to cover much ground, and therefore no time was to be spent unnecessarily. Their message was brief, and as well told quickly as slowly. The whole conditions of work now are different. Sometimes, perhaps, a Christian is warranted in solemnly declaring to those who receive not his message that he will have no more to say to them. That may do more than all his other words. But such cases are rare; and the rule that it is safest to follow is rather that of love, which despairs of none, and, though often repelled, returns with pleading, and, if it have told often in vain, tells now with tears, the story of the love that never abandons the most obstinate.
Such were the prominent points of this first Christian mission. They who carry Christ’s banner in the world must be possessed of power (His gift), must be lightly weighted, must care less for comfort than for service, must solemnly warn of the consequences of rejecting the message, and they will not fail to cast out devils and to heal many that are sick.—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk_9:1-6
Luk_9:1-6. The Commission of the Twelve.
I. What Christ bestowed on them.—
1. Power—ability to do their work.
2. Authority—the right to do it.
II. The instructions He imparted to them.—
1. They were to live very simply.
2. They were to be prepared for failures.—W. Taylor.
Luk_9:1-5.—The nature and the importance of this mission.
I. Christ the source of power and authority: able to deliver sinners from Satan’s bondage, and to sustain His servants.
II. The duty of the ministers of Christ to attend to the necessities, temporal and spiritual, of men, and to be indifferent to their own ease and comfort.
III. Men are inexcusable when they reject and despise God’s message, and every circumstance will turn to a testimony against them.
The Miracles and the Doctrine.—Miracles of mercy proved the doctrine to be of God; the doctrine calling men to repentance proved that the miracles were wrought by the power of God.
Luk_9:1. “Power and authority.”—Ability to act and the right to exercise it. The evil spirits will owe obedience because of the authority with which the apostles are clothed, and will pay it because of the power they possess.
Power in Proportion to Faith.—Power is given by God, but becomes ours only by faith, and is in proportion to our faith. In Luk_9:40 we read of this power proving ineffectual from lack of faith.
Luk_9:2. A Temporary Commission.—They are now sent to proclaim through Judaea that the time of the promised restoration and salvation is at hand: at a future period Christ will appoint them to spread the gospel through the whole world. Here He employs them as assistants only, to secure attention to Him where His voice could not reach: afterwards He will commit into their hands the office of teaching which He had discharged.
“To preach the kingdom.”—We may suppose that the apostles would give some narrative of the life of Christ, reproduce some of His teaching, lay stress upon the importance of the message He had charged them with, and summon all to repentance and faith. The preaching was largely in anticipation of great blessings to be wrought by Jesus: after Pentecost their preaching was, ‘we announce the redemption which has been fulfilled, in order that ye too may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ’ (1Jn_1:1-3).
“He sent them.”—Christ sent the apostles just as the sun sends out its beams, the rose the sweetness of its scent, the fire its sparks; and just as the sun appears in its beams, as the rose is felt in its scent, and the fire in its sparks, so is Christ recognised and apprehended in the virtues and powers of the apostles.—Chrysostom.
Luk_9:3. The Spirit of the Instructions.—The general spirit of the instructions merely is, Go forth in the simplest, humblest manner, with no hindrances to your movements, and in perfect faith; and this, as history shows, has always been the method of the most successful missions. At the same time we must remember that the wants of the twelve were very small, and were secured by the open hospitality of the East.—Farrar.
An Ample Equipment.—This prohibition of all provision is, if narrowly examined, itself a glorious equipment; for He who thus forbids thereby permits and commands them to expect in faith what they need, and to be fully assured beforehand of that which they afterwards (chap. Luk_22:35) were constrained to confess—that they should lack nothing.—Stier.
Luk_9:4. Two Evils to be avoided.—
1. The apostles were to be careful not to seem to be unduly interested in matters concerning their own convenience and comfort during their stay.
2. They were not to excite jealousy by preferring one family to another, when all should be equally the objects of their solicitude. Great harm is done to the cause of Christ when His ministers come under reasonable suspicion of acting from selfish and interested motives, and when they fail to manifest the courtesy and tact which are necessary for successful work among different classes of people. Most, if not all, of the disputes that spring up in Christian congregations are due to neglect of the one or the other of these rules.
Luk_9:5. “Will not receive you.”—The despisers are guilty of two offences:—
I. Ingratitude in refusing the inestimable treasure of the gospel.
II. Rebellion in rejecting the message sent from their King. No crime is more offensive to God than contempt of His word.
“Shake off the dust.”—A solemn act which might have two meanings:
(1) we take nothing of yours with us—we free ourselves from all contact and communion with you; or
(2) we free ourselves from all participation in your condemnation—will have nothing in common with those who have rejected God’s message. It was a custom of the Pharisees, when they entered Judœa from a Gentile land, to do this act, as renouncing all communion with Gentiles. Cf. the symbolical action of Pilate (Mat_27:24).—Alford.
Warnings to the Impenitent still needed.—The spirit of the injunction runs through all the ages, and has come down to our day. And hence a very heavy responsibility rests on that minister of the gospel who gives no intimation of any kind to the impenitent with whom he associates, that they are impure in the sight of God, and in danger of eternal separation from the good.—Morison.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 6 Mat 9:37-38. “Then He says to His disciples, The…
HE SENDS OUT THE TWELVE
Mat 9:37-38. “Then He says to His disciples, The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest, in order that He may send out the laborers into His harvest.” Our Lord, seeing the awful state of the Jewish Church, destitute of competent spiritual guides, going miserably into eternal ruin, and consequently calls on all of His disciples to unite in a prayer to God to send out more laborers into the harvest. This prayer ascends up to Heaven, and receives a speedy answer, so that, instead of a single evangelistic force, He determines to multiply seven-fold, sending out the twelve apostles, two by two, to scour the whole country of Galilee and Judea, moving with all possible expedition, and preaching the gospel in every city and village. O how inconceivably urgent a similar policy this day! N.B. The time has not yet arrived to unfurl the gospel banner to the Gentile world. Hence, all of this evangelistic movement was confined to the Jews; i.e., in the Churches, preaching in the synagogues, as well as to the multitudes in the open air.
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Mat 10:1-42; Mar 6:7-13; & Luk 9:1-6. Matthew: “And calling His twelve disciples, He gave them power over unclean spirits, so as to cast them out, and heal every disease and every malady. Luke says, “He sent them forth to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” The kingdom of God, or kingdom of heaven, is the Divine government, which prevails among the angels and redeemed spirits throughout all celestial worlds; hell having none of it, and earth a mixture — some, citizens of God’s kingdom; others, the denizens of Satan’s pandemonium.
Matthew “Jesus sent forth these twelve, commanding them, saying, Go not into way of the heathens nor enter ye into a city of the Samaritans; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” As the Jews were the organized Church of God, and the custodian’s of the Divine Oracles, God’s plan was first to give them the gospel, so they might turn evangelists, and carry it to the ends of the earth. For a similar reason, we should now begin with the Churches, and get all of them saved who will receive the living Word, and then go to the world. You see our Savior repeatedly mentions “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Do you not know that this included the rank and the of the ministry and membership? There were a few honorable exceptions, like Simeon, Anna, Zacharias, Elizabeth, and the apostles. The Divine economy originally contemplated the Jewish Church en masse receiving Christ, and enjoying the immortal honor of heralding Him to the world. This they missed, both preachers and people, except the elect few. In a similar manner, it is the glorious privilege of the whole Church to receive Christ at His second coming; but amid the sad apostasy of the latter days (2 Thessalonians 2), we see that only the elect few will enjoy this transcendent glory. “Going, preach, saying, That the kingdom of the heavens draweth nigh.” This was significantly true, because they were the heralds of the kingdom, enjoying citizenship in the same, and commending it to all others. “Heal the sick, raise the dead.” We have a number of instances, in the ministries of Paul and Peter, of healing the sick; and at Joppa, Peter actually raised Dorcas from the dead. Her tomb was pointed out to me when I was there a few days ago. “Cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Paul at Philippi ejected the fortune-telling demon from a damsel. The genuine, regular work of the Holy Ghost in the gospel dispensation, saving and sanctifying souls, is constantly accompanied by demoniacal ejectment and bodily healing. “Possess neither gold nor silver, nor copper in your girdles;” i.e., do not wait and prodigalize God’s precious time and opportunity in order to get money of any kind, as God can feed and clothe you as well out in the evangelistic field as at home. Have faith in Him to feed you like the birds and clothe you like the lilies. “Nor valise, nor two coats, nor sandals, nor staff; for the laborer is worthy of his food.” Hence, you see, we are to wait for nothing, but go as we are, taking what we have, and trusting God for everything.
“Into whatsoever city or village you enter, inquire who in it is worthy; and abide there until you may depart.” This is not an interdiction of house-to- house preaching; but their time was short, and the work too great to admit of it. Hence they are commanded to find some place with God’s elect, and thence radiate out everywhere, preaching the Word, till they traverse the field. “And going into a house, salute it. And if the house may be worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it may be unworthy, let your peace return unto you.” Salvation is optionary, and never goes begging. God is infinitely rich, and can get along without any of us. “Whosoever may not receive you, nor hear your words, going out from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Truly, I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” When we go to a people and offer them the gospel, we have done our part, and will be rewarded in eternity as if they had received it. When they reject our message, they relieve us, and assume the responsibility of their own damnation. Sodom and Gomorrah were Gentile cities, in the beautiful, rich, and productive Vale of Sidim, which were destroyed for their wickedness, the very site they occupied being now covered by the Dead Sea. These heathen cities never had the opportunities of the Jews and the Christians. Consequently the latter, who reject the gospel, will sustain a more grievous responsibility in the judgment-day, and sink to a more terrible doom in the world of woe, than the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, with all their dark vices.
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” The serpent is the symbol of Satan, who has a wonderful intelligence, shrewdness, and cunning; while the dove is the symbol of the Holy Ghost, full of innocent, sweet, regenerating, and sanctifying love, and ready to pour it out into every penitent, believing heart. “Harmless” is akeraioi, from akeranumi, from a, “not,” keranumi, “to mix.” Hence the word means unmixed, the strongest statement of entire sanctification. Sinners are full of unmixed evil; holy, sanctified saints are full of unmixed good; while unsanctified Christians have a mixed experience, the pure love of God in a heart which is not free from depravity, but needs the second work of grace to eliminate it all away, leaving nothing but the pure love of God to fill the sanctified heart. We see from this commandment that, while we are to be innocent, holy, and faithful, trusting God for everything necessary to soul and body, we are still to carry with us the good, common sense with which we are born, and to utilize all the intelligence God gives us, “watching” lest we enter into temptation. Ministerial failures are constantly being made, simply because people do not use their common sense. “Beware of men; for they will deliver you up unto the Sanhedrins, and scourge you in their synagogues.” You see how they arrested, beat, and imprisoned Paul and Silas. “And you shall be led before governors and kings, for My name’s sake, for a testimony to them and the Gentiles.” Whereas the former clause specifies Jewish punishments and persecutions, this gives those they will encounter among the Gentiles; e.g., Paul, at Paphos, on the Isle of Cyprus, testified, when arraigned before Sergius Paulus, and won him; but when, in a similar manner, at the tribunal of Felix, another Roman proconsul, at Caesarea, he testified; but Felix rejected.
“But when they may deliver you up, do not he solicitous, how or what you may speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you shall say; for it is not you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father who is speaking in you.” Wonderful has been the testimony and preaching of the martyrs, in all ages, when brought face to face with the burning fagot or the blood-thirsty lion. This Scripture has been most wonderfully verified, the heathen historian’s of the first three centuries certifying that the testimony of the dying martyrs often won their own murderers, so that they embrace the Christian religion, likewise sealing their faith with their blood. “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and father the child; and the children will rise up against the parents, and put them to death.” It has been estimated that two hundred millions of martyrs, during the Pagan and Papal ages, have died for Jesus. You can readily see how families would all be divided during those times of peril and bloodshed, the persecutors requiring them to testify against each other, and even participate in their martyrdom, as the only way of escape from a similar fate. “You shall be hated by all men for My name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” Those apostles, to whom He gave this commission and appended these stringent liabilities, all proved true to the end, except poor Judas. Matthew suffering martyrdom in Ethiopia; Mark, in Egypt; Luke, in Greece; James the Elder, the first of all, beheaded by Herod in Jerusalem; and James the Less, at a later date, hurled from a pinnacle of the temple; Matthias, the successor of Judas, suffered martyrdom in Abyssinia; Thomas, in India; Jude, in Tartary; Andrew, in Armenia; Bartholomew, in Phrygia; Philip, at Heliopous, in Syria; Paul and Peter, at Rome; and John, miraculously delivered from martyrdom in the caldron of boiling oil at Rome, and, as we believe, finally translated into heaven without seeing death.
“And when they may persecute you in this city, fly into another.” Thus you see, the people of God who bear this message of love and grace are not to use carnal weapons in self-defense, but run away, trusting the Lord for another open door. “For truly, I say unto you, That you may not complete the cities of Israel, till the Son of man may come.” You must remember, the immediate commission of these apostles, under which they are now going out, is restricted to the Jews, that restriction being removed when our Lord ascended, and the Holy Ghost fell on them, qualifying them for the conquest of the world. They are only gone out about three months in these duets, traversing the territory of Israel, till they return to the Lord, and accompanied Him the ensuing year of His ministry. N.B. The Mount of Transfiguration was really a prelude of the Lord’s second and glorious coming. This they actually witnessed in a few months from that date, thus verifying this mysterious declaration, as they had not yet gone over all the cities of Israel till the Son of man did actually come in adumbration on the Mount of Transfiguration, thus preliminarily revealing to them His second and glorious coming.
“The disciple is not above his teacher nor the servant above his lord.” Where we have “Master” so frequently in E.V., the word didaskalos, the noun, from didasko, to teach, hence it literally means a teacher. Jesus is the world’s Great Teacher, without whom the black darkness of the pandemonium would envelop it. “It is sufficient for the disciple that he may be as his teacher, and the servant as his lord. If they called the landlord Beelzebub, how much more the inmates of his house?” Our Savior here reveals to all who would be His witnesses, and herald His truth to a dying world, that we must be ready for any fate and disappointed at nothing.
“My rest is in heaven, My home is not here; Then why should I murmur at trials severe?
Come trouble, come sorrow; The worst that can come, Will shorten my journey, and hasten me home.”
Our Teacher and Lord, our great Exemplar, was homeless, destitute, and the world combined against Him, not even permitting Him to live on the earth which He had created. If we can riot accept the situation, and walk in His footprints, we can not be His disciples.
“Therefore be not afraid of them. For nothing has been hidden which shall not be revealed, and secret which shall not be known.” This follows as a logical sequence from the preceding affirmation in reference to the grave, criminal, and even diabolical affirmations which have invariably been adduced against the people of God. The Roman historians, Seutonius, Pliny, and Sallust, have all chronicled the gravest sins and darkest crimes against the Christians during the Martyr Ages of the heathen empire, thus apologizing for the bloody persecutionary edicts issued against them by the emperors. Of course, these historians only recorded hearsay, not claiming ocular testimony in the case. They said of Jesus, constantly, “He hath a demon,” “He is gone mad,” and “He is beside Himself.” They finally killed Him in the most disgraceful method, even hanging Him up between two criminals, notorious for robbery and murder. Similar accusations have been arrayed against the martyrs of all ages, thus signally verifying these prophecies of our Savior. Millions of people have been put to death, under gravest accusations, who, in the judgment-day, will shine like angels, while their accusers and persecutors, who stood at the head of the Church, will be calling for rocks and mountains to fall on them, and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne. While, of course, the primary application of our Lord’s affirmation as to the revealment of all secrets is the ultimate and eternal vindication of His saints, it certainly follows that we should, in this life, become perfectly lucid and transparent to all illuminated eyes, so they can actually look through us, and read the hieroglyphics the Spirit has written on the tablets of our hearts, thus sweeping away the oath-bound secrecy of lodgery in all its forms and phases. “What I say to you in the darkness, speak ye in the light; and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim ye upon the house-tops.” This is a confirmation of the preceding, showing up the thorough transparency of God’s true saints. When filled with the Holy Ghost, secrecy evanesces.
“Be not afraid of those who kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” The sainted mother, by her godly teaching, baptized with loving tears and fired with the prayer of heavenly inspiration, should put the hell-scare on her infant so thorough that the tomfoolery and superficialism of the popular religion, which brings a polar iceberg into the Church to melt in hell-fire, can never be able to obliterate; but an early conversion will only add expedition to the race-horse speed with which you are running from an open hell and an unchained devil, and sanctification give you eaglewings to expedite the velocity of your precipitate flight from the awful, deep-toned thunders of that quenchless damnation which awaits all who, by the intrigues of men and devils, shall fall below the Bible standard of “holiness to the Lord.” (Heb 12:14.) “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father; indeed, all the hairs of your head are numbered.” The infinite minutiae of the Divine cognizance, absolutely passing by nothing, but taking in everything indiscriminately, are here mentioned as a constant and potent inspiration to us all, peremptorily to settle matters for judgment and eternity by actually getting rid of the devil and everything belonging to him, in the glorious experience of entire sanctification and the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as nothing short of this can actually settle that awful problem, whose solution is the “destruction of soul and body in hell.” “Therefore be not afraid; for you are of more value than many sparrows.” “Perfect love casts out fear.” Consequently the poorest and weakest saint, if true to God, can shout perennial victory from the mouth of hell to the gate of glory.
“Therefore, every one who shall confess Me before the people, I will confess him in the presence of My Father who is in heaven; but whosoever may deny Me in the presence of the people, I will also deny him in the presence of My Father who is in the heavens.” O what a potent inspiration to Christian testimony, semper et bique, “always and everywhere!” The awful delinquency in this duty and depreciation of this glorious privilege, thus turning the Churches into graveyards instead of battle-fields, is the “Ichabod” superscribed on the walls of modern Churchism. In the face of these glorious promises on the one side, and terrific denunciations on the other, voiceless pews are an incontestable proclamation of dead Churches. “Do not consider that I came to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.” The Bible abounds in riddles and enigmas, inexplicable to the carnal mind. Jesus is called the Prince of Peace, and at the same time described as a mounted military General, leading His embattled host into deadly conflict, deluging the world with blood, and heaping it with mountains of the slain. Both of these characteristics are literally true. The peace which He gives only follows a bloody war with sin and the devil, fought under the black flag, which means victory or death. The sword in this passage is the formidable weapon wielded by the Holy Ghost in the extermination of sin and the decapitation of Adam the First
“For I came to divide a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and the enemies of a man shall be the inmates of his own house.” All this is the normal effect accompanying a true work of salvation; Satan’s grip on the people being so tight that he is certain to hold enough to represent him in every family, unless literal miracles of grace flood the home with heavenly conquest and stampede the devils down to hell. Bogus, popular religion makes no disturbance in families and communities, from the simple fact that the devil is not fool enough to waste his ammunition on dead game, as there are plenty of live people to shoot at. Whenever the holiness movement gets so it does not arouse the devil in dead Churches and stir up hell in debauched communities, you may go and write “Ichabod” on its banner, and prepare its winding sheet as quickly as possible, to bury it speedily, before the stench of a putrifying carcass disseminates pestilential malaria far and wide. “He that loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; he that loveth son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whosoever does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.” Here we see illustrated the absolute sine qua non confronting every aspirant to discipleship and heaven; i.e., the utter subordination of consanguinity, affinity, home, friends, and earthly possessions to the great Captain of our salvation. This is the fatal maelstrom into which many a bark has foundered.
“The one having found his soul, shall loose it; the one having lost his soul for My sake, shall find it.” The E.V. here has “life,” instead of soul. The word used by our Savior is not zoe, “life,” but psyche, the regular word for soul. In every instance in the New Testament, where the E.V. has “soul,” the Greek is psyche. Hence I give it just as Jesus said it. While King James’s translators were scholarly theologians, they were not eminent for spirituality, but much on par with the English clergy. I do not think they saw down into the profound depths of our Savior’s meaning in this passage. There never was but one creation of the human race. We were all created in Adam seminally. Hence, in the fall, we all fell with Adam, forfeiting the Divine and receiving the Satanic or carnal mind. James speaks of the “double-soul man.” (Jas 1:4; Jas 4:8.) The sinner has but one mind, and that is bad. The wholly sanctified has but one mind, and that is good; while the unsanctified Christian is James’s double-minded man, having the carnal mind in subjugated state, and the mind of Christ, received in regeneration, ruling in his heart and life, but must have the carnal mind sanctified away before he can go to heaven. Psyche, “soul,” is the word used by James. The reason why so few get saved is because they are not willing to travel the death route to heaven. Millions, intimidated by the grim monster, lifting up the battle-ax to decapitate Adam the First, turn away, and travel some other road, which does not require so much self- denial. We are born into the world with an evil soul, which must die, or hell is our doom. Hence this awful test: Unless you are brave enough to die, and take chances for life beyond the black river, your heavenly hope is Satan’s ignis tatuus,
“whose delusive ray Glows but to betray.”
“He that receiveth you receiveth Me; he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.” Christ bridges the chasm between God and man. Hence the wonderful feasibility of the redemptive scheme. He sends out His saved people to save others. The lost millions of earth have nothing to do but receive us, with our messages of truth and holiness, and in so doing they receive Christ; i.e., the loving, sympathizing Brother, Jesus. But He is not only man, but God. Therefore when the condescending, tender-hearted Nazarene takes you by the hand, behold! the hand of the Omnipotent grips you, lifting you from the lowest hell to the highest heaven. “He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive a prophet’s reward; he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man’s reward.” O what a thrilling incentive to wide-open door and generous hospitality, ever ready, with joyful enthusiasm, to receive the saints and prophets, whom Jesus sends forth into this dark world to rescue the perishing and save the lost! The reward of God’s prophets and righteous people — what is it? None other than a crown of life and a home in heaven. The departure of hospitality from the Church is the death-knell now ringing from ocean to ocean, pealing out the mournful funeral of the great Protestant denominations.
“Whosoever may only give one of these little ones a cup of cold water to drink in the name of the disciple, truly, I say unto you, Can not lose his reward.” We must remember that God sets great store on little things, appreciating the giver rather than the gift. How these promises should inspire us all to lend a helping hand in the expedition of every gospel pilgrim on his way, publishing salvation to the ends of the earth! “And it came to pass when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, He departed thence to teach and to preach in all the cities.” The preceding discourse, delivered by our Savior to His twelve apostles, when He sent them out, two by two, to traverse all Israel with the uttermost expedition, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, should receive the especial and diligent study of all who read these pages. O that He may so pour on you the Holy Ghost, meanwhile, that you may hear His interior voice calling you into the evangelistic field! I assure you, this is the grand incentive inspiring the humble writer of the Commentaries, praying incessantly that all the readers may catch the heavenly flame, respond to the loving call, and enter the gospel-field unhesitatingly.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important principle:…
Luk 9:13
This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important principle: that men are often, and properly, put under obligation to do that for which they have, in themselves, no present ability.
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I. To begin at the very lowest point of the subject: it is the nature of human strength and bodily fortitude to have an elastic measure, and to be so let forth or extended as to meet the exigencies that arise. Within certain limits, for man is limited in everything, the body gets the strength it wants in the exercise for which it is wanted. God may fitly call a given man to a course of life that requires much robustness and a high power of physical endurance, on the ground that when he is fully embarked on his calling the robustness will come, or will be developed in it and by means of it, though previously it seemed not to exist.
II. Intellectual force, too, has the same elastic quality, and measures itself in the same way, by the exigencies we are called to meet. Task it, and for that very reason, it grows efficient. Plunge it into darkness, and it makes a sphere of light. It discovers its own force by the exertion of force, measures its capacity by the difficulties it has endured, its appetite for labour by the labour it has endured. All great commanders, statesmen, lawgivers, scholars, preachers, have found the powers unfolded in their calling, and by it, which were necessary for it.
III. The same also is true, quite as remarkably, of what we sometimes call moral power. By this we mean the power of a life and a character, the power of good and great purposes, that power which comes at length to reside in a man distinguished in some course of estimable or great conduct. No other power of man compares with this, and there is no individual who may not be measurably invested with it. Integrity, purity, goodness, success of any kind, in the humblest persons or in the lowest walks of duty, begin to invest them finally with a character, and create a certain sense of momentum in them. Other men expect them to get on because they are getting on, and bring them a repute that sets them forward, give them a salute that means—success. This kind of power is neither a natural gift nor, properly, an acquisition; but it comes in upon one and settles on him like a crown of glory, while discharging with fidelity his duties to God and man. And here again, also, it is to be noted that the power in question, this moral power, is often suddenly enlarged by the very occasions that call for it. Not seldom is it a fact that the very difficulty and grandeur of a design, which some heroic soul has undertaken to execute, exalts him at once to such a pre-eminence of moral power that mankind are exalted with him, and inspired with energy and confidence by the contemplation of his magnificent spirit. How often, indeed, is a man able to carry a project simply because he has made it so grand a project. He strikes, inspires, calls to his aid, by virtue of his great idea, his faith, his sublime confidence in truth or justice or duty. All the simplest, most loving, and most genuine Christians of our own time are such as rest their souls, day by day, on the confidence and promise of accruing power, and make themselves responsible—not for what they have in some inherent ability, but for what they can have in their times of stress and peril, and in the continual raising of their own personal quantity and power. They throw themselves on works wholly above their ability, and get accruing power in their works for others still greater and higher. And so they grow in courage, confidence, personal volume, efficiency of every kind, and instead of slinking into their graves out of impotent lives, they lie down in the honours of heroes.
H. Bushnell, The New Life, p. 239.
References: Luk 9:18-22.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 164. Luk 9:20-24.—Christian World Pulpit, vol. v., p. 102. Luk 9:21. —J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 193; Homilist, vol. vi., p. 104.
Luk 9:23
It is not more certain that without holiness no man can serve God than that without self-denial no man can be holy. And so it must be, from the nature of mankind and the nature of Christ’s service; for what is man’s nature but sinful flesh, and what his service but a sharp corrective? No two powers can be more antagonistic than man’s nature and Christ’s service, and the struggle issues, as either power prevails, in apostasy or in self-denial.
I. In the first place, without crossing and denying of self there can be no purifying of the moral habits. Without a true compunction and a tender conscience, purity of heart, and the energy of a devout mind set free from the thraldom of evil, no man can have fellowship with Christ, and no man can have these without self-denial.
II. And so, again, even with those who have for a while followed Christ’s call, how often do we see the fairest promise of a high and elevated life marred for want of constancy. They had no endurance, for they had no self-denial. A self-sparing temper will make a man not only an utter contradiction to his Lord, but even to himself.
III. Without self-denial there can be no real cleaving of the moral nature to the will of God. I say that, to distinguish between the passive and seeming attachment of most baptized men, and the conscious energetic grasp of will by which Christ’s true disciples cleave to their Master’s service.
IV. We have need to ask ourselves: (1) In what do we deny ourselves? It would be very hard for most men to find out what one thing, in all the manifold actings of their daily life, they either do or leave undone simply for Christ’s sake. (2) And if we cannot find anything in which we deny ourselves already, we must needs resolve on something in which we may deny ourselves henceforward. In things lawful and innocent, and, it may be, gainful and honourable and in keeping with our lot in life; and such things as the world, by its own measure, esteems to be necessary things; we may really try ourselves: we may find matter for self-denial, and that in many ways.
H. E. Manning, Sermons, vol. i., p. 89.
Wherein consists the self-denial of which the text speaks? We must bound it by the prescribed path of each man’s Christian duties and trials, but within that path, what is it, that we may know and practise it?
I. First of all, it must find its field and exercise in the thoughts. There let us plant it and thence trace its work on the words and actions. Whosoever will be Christ’s disciple, must deny himself in his thoughts. It is a temptation to all men, to think highly of themselves; a temptation so subtle that, even with the utmost care to prohibit and cut off its occasion, it most usually finds its seal somewhere in a man’s character. What we should aim at is, that quiet reasonable abnegation of self-will and self-regard, which lays us, for all our more solemn interests and eternal prospects, passive in the hands of our Heavenly Father—as His children, cared for by Him, as much bound to believe and trust Him as to obey and serve Him; that truest humility which is content to take Him at His word and appropriate His promises; that genuine self-denial, which links our will in His, and pours life and energy and a warm loving heart, with all its fulness of conviction and affection, into the unreserved and unconditional furtherance of His work in the world and His glory in ourselves.
II. Self-denial is a wide subject indeed; one deserving every Christian’s earnest and active endeavour therein to follow the example of his Saviour. The Christian’s light is to strive—not that men may follow him, but that he may lead them out to meet the Bridegroom; and the voice of Him for whom we wait may be heard in the simplest remark of a child, as well as in the deepest conclusion of a philosopher.
III. Self-denial in thought and word would ill deserve the name, if they did not lead on to self-denial in deed. If any man will come after Christ, in his outward life and acts, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii., p. 32.
The Saviour hardly ever said words whose bearing is more direct upon the practical work of our daily living; and though it is a bold thing to make the assertion, we do not hesitate to assert that no words ever uttered by Christ were ever so misunderstood and misinterpreted by very many men, in many places and in many ages. Christ’s teaching was, that the earnest believer must be ready to give up anything, though it should be a right hand or eye, that tended to obstruct him in his Christian course; and that he must be ready to fulfil every Christian duty, however painful, and to bear every burden laid upon him by the hand of God, though it should press upon him heavily and sorely, as the weighty cross upon the poor criminal who bore it to the place of doom.
I. The doctrine of self-sacrifice has proved sufficient to produce many instances of the purest heroism that this world has ever witnessed. Many a time it has gained victories, silently won, in struggling hearts, to which earthly battle-fields are nothing. The self-denial required by Jesus does not lie in seeking needless suffering for ourselves, but in bearing humbly and submissively what should come in the discharge of Christian duty. Let a man, says Jesus, deny himself, and take up his cross—the cross God is pleased to send him and no other. Let him bear the sorrow allotted to him in love and wisdom by the Almighty, let him not tempt the Lord by trying to take the reins of providence into his own puny hands. If we take the trials God sends us, and strive faithfully against the temptations from within and without that God permits to assail us, we shall find that we need not go out of the way to create trials for ourselves. The world, the flesh, and the great adversary are hourly seeking to mislead us, and if any man will come after Christ, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily.
A. K. H. B., Graver Thoughts of a Country Parson, p. 268.
References: Luk 9:23.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 10; J. H. Thom, Laws of Life, p. 251; Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 311; W. Landels, Ibid., vol. viii., p. 8; G. S. Barrett, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 381; W. P. Roberts, Ibid., vol. xxxi., p. 235; R. Tuck, Ibid., vol. xxvi., p. 102; E. H. Higgins, Ibid., p. 316. Luk 9:24-27.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 173. Luk 9:25.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 314.
Luk 9:26
False Shame.
Consider:—
I. What is there in Christ and His words of which men are ashamed? (1) Their reason is perplexed by the mystery of His Person; (2) their pride is humbled by the nature of His work.
II. How men may show that they are ashamed of Christ. (1) The shame of some is seen in their shrinking from the profession of His Name; (2) we can show our shame of Christ by silence and by compliance.
E. Mellor, In the Footsteps of Heroes, p. 50.
If we consider our Lord’s saying on the subject of the last judgment, we shall find that there are three main failures, so to call them, for which Christians will be condemned at the day of account.
I. The first is disobedience—conscious, wilful disobedience to the Gospel law.
II. The second is that of false and outward profession.
III. The third is the failure to profess the truth of which they are secretly convinced.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 1,151; see also Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 369.
Reference: Luk 9:26.—S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words, p. 31.
Luk 9:28-31
I. The Transfiguration throws light on the meaning of Christ’s Passion. It shows that glory was His natural state, according to His own thought: "Now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was."
II. Evidently, one object of this scene was to confirm the faith of the disciples in the Divine Nature of a suffering Redeemer.
III. This scene bears close relation to the Resurrection. On the former occasion Christ distinctly foretells His death, in the evening retires, and at night is transfigured. Again, at the Transfiguration He had two witnesses from the world of spirits, besides His three disciples; and in His Passion an angel from the unseen world is present, and the same three disciples; while, again, at the tomb, out of the same three Apostles two are found, as well as two witnesses from the unseen world.
C. W. Furse, Sermons at Richmond, p. 177.
References: Luk 9:28, Luk 9:29.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vi., p. 24; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, p. 185. Luk 9:28-32.—H. N. Grimley, Tremadoc Sermons, p. 10. Luk 9:28-36.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 476; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 239; S. D. Thomas, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 54; G. Macdonald, Miracles of Our Lord, p. 272.
Luk 9:29-30
The Re-appearance of the Departed.
I. The Church, perfected and triumphant; the Church, expectant still, in their quiet resting-places; and the Church travailing, conflicting here, in the battlefield of this lower world—were all one upon that holy mount. And they all gathered round the same Christ—the Friend of all, the Saviour of all, the Lord of all. He was the Spring from which all came. He was the End to which all tended. They all combined to make His kingdom.
II. If we pass from the persons to their appearance, we are immediately baffled by the unearthliness of the scene to which we are admitted. Only three things occur to notice. (1) The Transfiguration left everything the same. It was Christ’s own form; it was Christ’s own face; the very garments appear to have been the same; only all—the figure, the countenance, the dress—became lovely and lustrous. And so with the two sainted ones from the other worlds—they were recognisable in a moment; and all we read of their appearance is, that they "appeared in a glory," which probably means that they were like their Lord—exceeding white and brilliant. (2) What was the character of the heavenly appearance? Twofold—partly physical, partly spiritual. Some from within, some from without. Who can doubt that that sun-like brightness was the beaming of the moral effulgence of the Divine nature, the holiness, the wisdom, the love, the power of God, all radiating there, and making that flood of glory so intense, that flesh and blood could not look upon it. (3) It is interesting to inquire, What was the subject which occupied the thoughts of that heavenly assembly, when they met in that sweet society? St. Luke only answers the question. They talked of Christ’s exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem. Notice the place which the sufferings, and Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus—making His exodus—held in the minds of the saints. It was their only topic. No wonder! it is the central truth of the whole system—that truth of truths, without which nothing else in the world is true indeed.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 4th series, p. 218.
References: Luk 9:29.—H. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 115; E. D. Solomon, Ibid., vol. xxviii., p. 133. Luk 9:29-31.—Church of England Pulpit, vol. x., p. 505; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 113. Luk 9:29-37.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 388. Luk 9:30, Luk 9:31.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 193; Homilist, new series, vol. i., p. 251; W. M. Taylor, Elijah the Prophet, p. 222. Luk 9:32.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 236. Luk 9:34.—J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 1; Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 359; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 273. Luk 9:34, Luk 9:35.—W. T. Bull, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 523. Luk 9:35.—A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 256. Luk 9:36.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 80. Luk 9:37-42.—Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 19. Luk 9:37-45.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. in., p. 344. Luk 9:38-42.—G. Macdonald, The Miracles of Our Lord, p. 173. Luk 9:42.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., No. 100; vol. xxix., No. 1746. Luk 9:45.—R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 232. Luk 9:49, Luk 9:50.—Phillips Brooks, Ibid., vol. xxxi., p. 277. Luk 9:49-62.—F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 160. Luk 9:53-62.—G. Dawson, The Authentic Gospel, p. 131. Luk 9:54-56.—Homilist, new series, vol. vi., p. 416.
Luk 9:55-56
The Spirit of Christ and of Elijah.
No one can have failed to notice the marked difference between the stern spirit of Elijah and the gentle spirit of Christ. Of all the prophets of the Old Dispensation Elijah is the grandest and least civilised. Rénan tells us that in the pictures of the Greek Church Elijah is usually represented as surrounded by the decapitated heads of the Church’s enemies. And Prescott tells us that in the sixteenth century the brutal inquisitors of Spain tried to justify their fiendish deeds by appealing to Elijah’s act in calling down fire from heaven, and saying, "Lo, fire is the natural punishment of heretics." They did not understand—or else they would not—that that act of Elijah’s was for ever condemned by One who was at once Elijah’s Master and Elijah’s God.
I. Elijah and the old heroes, doubtless, had not learnt to distinguish between the sinners and the sin. Doubtless they had not learnt to love the sinner, while they hated the sin. It was reserved for after-times to teach men that. It required a higher teaching than had yet been granted to mankind. It required the teaching of the Son of God Himself. The spirit of Elijah was a spirit of justice, a spirit of righteous retribution, a spirit of terrible vengeance: the spirit of Christ was a spirit of tenderness, a spirit of compassion, a spirit of love.
II. But because the religion of Christ is a religion of love, because it bids us be kind, patient, longsuffering, forgiving, do not fancy that therefore it is a religion of sentimentalism, fit only for weak women and effeminate men. It is nothing of the kind. It is a religion of mercy, but it is a religion of justice. It is a religion of charity and of intolerance of sin. It is a religion of love, but of hatred of oppression. If any man can see injustice and wrong done to those who cannot help themselves—and see it done, too, with callousness and indifference—then that man may be very wise and prudent in the eyes of a hollow society, but he has lost the spirit of justice, which is the spirit of Christ.
J. Vaughan, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xviii., p. 147.
References: Luk 9:56.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 132; H. Jones, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 101; W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 318. Luk 9:57.—Ibid., vol. v., p. 458. Luk 9:57, Luk 9:58.—H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 244. Luk 9:57-62.—H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol xvi., p. 404.
Luk 9:59-60
Our Lord’s words in the text seem at first sight harsh and severe. They are regarded by many as breathing the very spirit of those religious movements and institutions which dissolve the nearest and most sacred ties of natural kinship and affection for the interests of the Church and for the promotion of the individual religious life.
I. But what is it that our Lord said, and under what circumstances did He say it? It is probable that the young man heard of his father’s death while he was with Christ, for, if he had been in his father’s house when he died the Jewish law would have pronounced him ceremonially unclean, and kept him from intercourse with others for some time. He heard of his father’s death while he was with Christ, and he wanted to return to the funeral. The father was dead, and beyond the reach of his affection. The son could really do nothing for him. If he had been a good son he had already done everything for his father that it was in his power to do; if he had been a bad son it was too late now to make up for past neglect. There are scores of cases in which a clear imperative duty would require a man to be absent even from his father’s funeral. If the Duke of Wellington, on the morning of the battle of Waterloo, had heard that his father was dead, and had left the army to come home to bury him, I do not know what military law would have inflicted on him, but he would have committed a great crime. There are duties which refuse to suffer a man even to go and bury his father. To such a duty this man had been called. He appears to have been selected as one of the seventy; for our Lord told him that he was to preach the kingdom of God. He might have had his purpose weakened as well as have been kept away from a great and solemn work, the opportunity for which would not occur again. His father could not suffer by his absence, and our Lord lays His hand upon him, and commands him to discharge, even in the hour of his grief, this great service. "Let the dead bury their dead."
II. Is there not something hard in the way in which our Lord remits the burial to those who had no spiritual life? Does not this look like the contempt with which many persons, claiming to be spiritual, speak of those who have no religious faith? But, certainly, that was not Christ’s habit, and it was to minister to the spiritually dead that this man was called. Our Lord never spoke with contemptuous indifference of those who were dead in trespasses and sins; and it was the very eagerness of our Lord that they might rise from that spiritual death to a new and better life, that led Him to call this man away from what he was going about, and to send him to preach the Gospel. This whole narrative suggests that critical moments in a man’s life bring critical duties.
R. W. Dale, Penny Pulpit, new series, No. 744.
References: Luk 9:59.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 554. Luk 9:59, Luk 9:60.—H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 255; W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, p. 42. Luk 9:59-62.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xii., p. 204. Luk 9:60.—T. Cuyler, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 65. Luk 9:61.—H. Wonnacott, Ibid., vol. xvii., p. 84; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 403. Luk 9:61, Luk 9:62.—W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, p. 56; H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 266. Luk 9:62.—A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 164; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 61. Luke 9—Expositor, 1st series, p. 148; Parker, Christian Commonwealth, vol. vi., p. 515. Luk 10:1.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ix., p. 98. Luk 10:1-7.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 160. Luk 10:1-38.—F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 160. Luk 10:2.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 32; W. Baird, The Hallowing of Our Common Life, p. 39. Luk 10:3-7.—W. Wilson, Christ setting His Face to go to Jerusalem, p. 85. Luk 10:3-9.—J. Clifford, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 264. Luk 10:5, Luk 10:6.—Phillips Brooks, Ibid., vol. xxxi., p. 322.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Feeding the Five Thousand. Peter's Confession. The Transfiguration
Feeding the Five Thousand. Peter's Confession. The Transfiguration
1-6. Mission of the Twelve (Mat_10:1, Mat_10:5-15; Mar_6:7-13). See on Mt.
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7-9. Herod thinks that John is risen again (Mat_14:1; Mar_6:14). See on Mt.
10-17. Feeding of the five thousand (Mat_14:13; Mar_6:30; Joh_6:1). See on Mt and Jn.
18-27. Confession of Peter (Mat_16:13; Mar_8:27). See on Mt. St. Luke's account is the most imperfect. Why he omits to mention the locality (Cæsarea Philippi), and Christ's rebuke to Peter, which were certainly in his source, does not appear. He alone mentions that Christ was 'praying alone '(Luk_9:18).
28-36. The Transfiguration (Mat_17:1; Mar_9:2). See on Mt.
31. Lk alone mentions the subject of the conversation, Christ's death.
37-43. The epileptic healed (Mat_17:14; Mar_9:14) See on Mt and Mk.
43b-45. He predicts His Passion (Mat_17:22; Mar_9:30). See on Mt. It is not clear why St. Luke omits the prophecy of the resurrection, which certainly was in the source used by the synoptists. See Mt and Mk.
46-48. Who should be greatest (Mat_18:1; Mar_9:33). See on Mt.
49, 50. The man casting out devils in Christ's name. See on Mar_9:38-41.
Luk_9:51 to Luk_19:28. The Peræan Ministry. Here begins a long and important section consisting of ten chapters (Luk_9:51 to Luk_19:28) peculiar to the third Gospel, and called generally the 'Peræan section.' (For 'Peræa' see on Mat_19:1.) From the narratives of Mt and Mk, who devote but a chapter to it (Matthew 19 Mark 10), it would be supposed that the final journey of Jesus to Jerusalem occupied not more than a week or two, but in St. Luke it is so crowded with incidents, that several months must be assigned to it. It need not, however, be supposed that all the incidents and discourses which. St. Luke places in this period really belong to it. Marks of time are infrequent and vague, and lead to the conclusion that many of the incidents came into the evangelist's hands with no indications of date, and were, therefore, grouped together in this appendix to the Galilean ministry. All the Gospels agree in bringing our Lord to Peræa shortly before the Passion.
Some think that St. Luke describes not one, but three journeys to Jerusalem: (1) Luk_9:51 = Joh_7:1 to Joh_10:39; (Feast of Tabernacles and of Dedication; (2) Luk_13:22 = John 11 (raising of Lazarus); (3) Luk_17:11 = Joh_11:55; (journey from Ephraim to Jerusalem). But it is better to hold that St. Luke describes only one journey, which partook largely of the nature of an extended missionary tour.
51-56. James and John desire to call down fire upon a Samaritan village (peculiar to Lk). Though James and John did not gain their title 'Boanerges' (Mar_3:17) from this incident, yet it undoubtedly illustrates the character of the 'Sons of Thunder' on its weaker side. Their desire for vengeance was a fault, but a generous one. They resented, not a personal slight, but an insult to the Master whom they had now come to regard as greater than Moses or Elijah or any OT. saint. They were right to be angry, but they were wrong in their anger to forget mercy, and to desire to destroy rather than to save sinners.
51. When the time was come (RV 'when the days were well nigh come') that he should be received up] lit. 'for His Ascension,' St. Luke thus indicating that His painful death would have a glorious issue. Set his face] see Isa_50:7. St. Mark states that Jesus went before, and the disciples followed in amazement and apprehension (Mar_10:32).
52. Samaritans] see on Joh_4:4, Joh_4:8-9, Joh_4:20. To make ready] viz. a lodging and a meal.
53. As though he would go to Jerusalem] The Samaritans expected a Messiah, but the fact that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to worship, rather than to their own holy mountain Gerizim, was a sufficient proof to them that Jesus was not he. The Jews often passed through Samaria, but they seldom availed themselves of Samaritan hospitality, though according to the rabbis 'their land was clean, their waters were clean, their dwellings were clean, and their roads were clean.'
54. Even as Elias (Elijah) did] 2Ki_1:10. Omitted by RV.
55. Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of] (omitted by important ancient authorities, see RV), i.e. either, (1) ye know not that the spirit of the new covenant is one of forbearance and forgiveness; or, (2) ye know not that the spirit which you exhibit comes from Satan not from God.
56. For the Son.. save them] These beautiful words are wanting in many ancient authorities, but are in any case an authentic utterance of Jesus, appropriately inserted here.
57-62. Jesus is joined by new disciples. See on Mat_8:19-22.
61, 62. Peculiar to Lk.
61. Bid them farewell] Our Lord probably does not forbid the man to take leave of his relations, but only indicates in a striking and figurative way that those who aspire to be followers of Him, especially in the work of the ministry, must disentangle themselves from family ties, and give themselves wholeheartedly to the work.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On v1 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXI. Third Circuit…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXI. Third Circuit of Galilee].
LXI. THIRD CIRCUIT OF GALILEE. THE TWELVE INSTRUCTED AND SENT FORTH. aMATT. IX. 35-38; X. 1, 5-42; XI. 1; bMARK VI. 6-13; cLUKE IX. 1-6.
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b6 And he aJesus bwent about aall the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner sickness and all manner of sickness. [In the first circuit of Galilee some of the twelve accompanied Jesus as disciples (see Mar_16:15). As Jesus himself was sent only to the Jews, so during his days on earth he sent his disciples only to them.] 7 As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. [It was set up about a year later, on the day of Pentecost, under the direction of the Holy Spirit-- Act_2:1-4.] 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons: freely ye received, freely give. [Here is the true rule of giving. Paul repeats it at 1Co_16:2. If we would obey this rule, we would make this a happy world.] c3 And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, a9 Get you no gold, nor silver, cnor money; anor brass in your purses; cneither staff, nor wallet, afor your journey, cnor bread, neither have two coats. anor shoes, nor staff: for the workman is worthy of his food. [The prohibition is against securing these things before starting, and at their own expense. It is not that they would have no need for the articles mentioned, but that "the laborer is worthy of his food," and they were to depend on the people for whose benefit they labored, to furnish what they might need. This passage is alluded to by Paul ( 1Co_9:14). To rightly understand this prohibition we must remember that the apostles were to make but a brief tour of a few weeks, and that it was among their own countrymen, among a people habitually given to hospitality; moreover, that the apostles were imbued with powers which would win for them the respect of the religious and the gratitude of the well-to-do. The special and temporary commission was, therefore, never intended as a rule under which we are to act in preaching the gospel in other ages and in other lands.] b10 And he said unto them a11 And into whatsoever city or village ye shall enter, search out who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go forth. [The customs of the East gave rise to this rule. The ceremonies and forms with which a guest was received were tedious and time-consuming vanities, while the mission of the apostles required haste.] 12 And as ye enter [364] come into an house, salute it. 13 And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you. [The form of salutation on entering a house was, "Peace to this house." The apostles are told to salute each house, and are assured that the peace prayed for shall return to them if the house is not worthy; that is, they shall receive, in this case, the blessing pronounced on the house.] bWheresoever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye depart thence. c4 And into whatsoever house ye enter, there abide, and thence depart. b11 And whatsoever place shall not receive you, and they hear you not [Jesus here warns them that their experiences would not always be pleasant], a14 And whosoever cas many as ashall creceive you not, anor hear your words, bas ye go forth thence, aout of that house or that city [The word "house" indicates a partial and the word "city" a complete rejection], { cwhen you depart from that city, bshake off the dust that is under your feet aof your feet. cfrom your feet bfor a testimony unto them. cagainst them. [The dust of heathen lands as compared with the land of Israel was regarded as polluted and unholy ( Amo_2:7, Eze_27:30). The Jew, therefore, considered himself defiled by such dust. For the apostles, therefore, to shake off the dust of any city of Israel from their clothes or feet was to place that city on a level with the cities of the heathen, and to renounce all further intercourse with it.] a15 Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city. [For comment on similar remarks, see 2Sa_12:20, Mat_6:16, Mat_6:17). When an apostle stood over a sick man to heal him by a touch or a word, he was about to send him out of his sick chamber, and just before the word was spoken, the oil was applied. It was, therefore, no more than a token or symbol that the man was restored to his liberty, and was from that moment to be confined to his chamber no longer. Comp. Jam_5:14. This practice bears about the same relation to the Romish practice of extreme unction as the Lord's Supper does to the mass, or as a true baptism does to the sprinkling of an infant.]
[FFG 362-369]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v3 Take nothing
Take nothing
Cf. (See Scofield "Mat 10:9"). Also, Luk 10:4; Luk 22:35; 3Jn 1:5-8; 1Co 9:7; 1Co 9:14.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. Christ Sends Forth the Twelve Apostles. (Luk 9:1-6)
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9:1-50
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1. Christ Sends Forth the Twelve Apostles. (Luk 9:1-6)
2. Herod Perplexed. (Luk 9:7-9)
3. The Return of the Apostles. (Luk 9:10)
4. The Feeding of the Five Thousand. (Luk 9:11-17)
5. Peter’s Confession of Christ. (Luk 9:18-21)
6. The Son of Man Announces His Death and Resurrection. (Luk 9:22)
7. Necessity of Self-Denial. (Luk 9:23-26)
8. The Transfiguration. (Luk 9:27-36)
9. The Demon Cast Out. (Luk 9:37-43)
10. The Second Prediction of His Rejection. (Luk 9:44-45)
11. Disciples Rebuked. (Luk 9:46-50.)
Luk 9:1-9
The sending out of the twelve is briefly given by Luke. The full account is in Matthew. All this shows the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Matthew writing concerning the King must needs give all the details of the sending out of the Kingdom messengers. In the foreground is put here the power and authority which the Lord gave to the Apostles over all demons and to cure all diseases. Did Judas also have this power? Assuredly, for he was an Apostle. The authority and power was conferred upon them and not for any faith, virtue or merit on the Apostle’s side. They went forth preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. They are the messengers of the compassionate friend of sinners. Herod here fears Him and desires to see Him, who was greater than John, whom he had beheaded. Herod saw Him later. He had desired to see Him for a long time. At last He stood before Him bound, the willing sacrifice to be led away to the cross. Herod never heard a single word from His lips. Then the wicked King mocked. (Chapter 23:8).
Luk 9:10-26
The compassion and tenderness of the Lord is blessedly revealed throughout these verses. The Apostles returned and He took them away for rest. The multitude followed Him “and He received them, and spake unto them of the Kingdom of God, and healed them that had need of healing.” The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is reported in all the Gospels including John. He graciously supplied their need. Peter’s confession is preceded by prayer. In Matthew we read the fuller confession, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” There also the Lord saith that it was revealed unto Peter by His Father. Luke alone tells us He prayed before. May we then not look upon the confession as an answer to the Lord’s prayer?
Luk 9:27-50
In the transfiguration scene we see Him again in prayer. “And as He prayed the fashion of His countenance was altered, and His raiment was white and glistening.” Luke tells us of the subject of the conversation between the Lord, Moses, and Elijah. They spoke of His decease, which He should accomplish in Jerusalem. He had announced for the first time His coming suffering and death (Luk 9:22) and that death demanded by the Law (Moses) and predicted by the prophets (Elijah), which must needs be and precede His, glory, is the great theme. Another statement is found in Luke, which is absent in Matthew and Mark. Moses and Elijah “appeared in glory”; not their own glory, but His glory. Luke also informs us that when they entered the overshadowing cloud, they feared. The Transfiguration is prophetic. Some day the Second Man, the last Adam, the head of the new creation, will appear in His Glory, and all His Saints will share that coming Glory.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 The Mission of the Twelve.
The Mission of the Twelve.
Rules for the apostles:
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v. 1. Then He called His twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.
v. 2. And He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
v. 3. And He said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece.
v. 4. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart.
v. 5. And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.
v. 6. And they departed and went through the towns, preaching the Gospel and healing everywhere.
Jesus had chosen the Twelve out of the larger company of the disciples that usually followed Him. These Twelve, commonly designated by that term, He called together for a formal meeting. He gave them power and right, or authority, unlimited authority, as His representatives. Although the message which Jesus brought was not new, the form and clearness in which He brought it was. The apostles therefore, going out in His name, must be clothed with unusual power. The demons were made subject to them, and the power to heal diseases was transmitted to them. Note that these two are mentioned separately, and that their treatment was not the same: The demons were to be cast out, the diseases were to be healed. Then, with all due formality, they were sent out, the substance, the essential part of their ministry being the preaching of the kingdom of God, supplemented by works of healing. The Gospel-message must always stand first in the kingdom of God and receive the prime attention; upon its proper proclamation all other activities of the Church depend. Some of the detailed instructions follow. The apostles were to take nothing for their journey; they were not to prepare themselves, and, above all, they were not to be burdened on the way. They were to show no characteristics of the itinerant begging preachers and prophets, having neither a staff nor a beggar’s collecting bag, neither bread nor silver money, nor even a change of tunics with them. They were to be dependent altogether upon the people whom they served for their sustenance. They should lose no time in selecting a place to stay, in hunting choice quarters. The house into which they should enter first and whose inmates would receive them, that should be their abode until they had finished their work in that city. But if some people would reject them and their message, they should express the judgment of Christ upon the people of such a city by an. appropriate gesture, by shaking off the very dust from their feet, signifying that they would have nothing to do with such opposition to the Word and work of Christ, but hereby bore witness before God against them. This, in brief, was the sum and substance of the instructions given to the apostles by Jesus. And, armed with this authority, they went forth through the towns of Galilee. In the most important place they put the preaching of the Gospel, the good news of salvation; and this proclamation of the Word was given the proper emphasis under the circumstances by the healings which were done everywhere.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Jesus reminds his disciples not to depend on money and their things, gives them power, and then sends them out to various places.
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power and authority
These two terms are used together to show that the twelve had both the ability and the right to heal people. Translate this phrase with a combination of words that include both of these ideas.
all the demons
Possible meanings are 1) "every demon" or 2) "every kind of demon."
diseases
sicknesses
sent them out
"sent them to various places" or "told them to go"
translationWords
the twelve
power
authority
demon
cure
send
preach
kingdom of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4, 5 9:1-6 Jesus now sent his twelve disciples to announce…
9:1-6 Jesus now sent his twelve disciples to announce the Kingdom of God and demonstrate its authority by casting out demons and healing the sick. Jesus was training them to carry on his work after he was gone.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.