Luke 9:46-50 - Who is the greatest?

9:46-48

The disciples’ lack of understanding was not just a theological blind spot, but affected their whole approach to life and the attitudes of heart. For now they started arguing about who was the greatest. Jesus has just told them again that He must suffer and die. They have seen Jesus exercise great authority and power, yet they are arguing about which of them is the greatest, or rather would be the greatest. They still expected Jesus to bring the Kingdom in, but they had no idea what the Kingdom was all about. Our theological understanding, or lack of understanding, will always affect or reflect the way we live, the way we are. This is the reason why bad theology is so dangerous, and why good theology is so important.

Jesus did not tackle the issue head-on, but used an illustration to drive the truth home. A child was the least great, but we need to accept the apparently powerless unimportant. In doing so we truly receive Jesus, and so receive the One who sent Him. Those who are least in the world’s eyes are often the greatest in God’s eyes. We must not use worldly standards when judging or assessing, we need to use Jesus’ standards.

9:49,50

The disciples still felt a sense of privilege, so they raised the issue of someone else who was casting out demons in Jesus name. They tried to stop him because “he was not one of us”. This raises the interesting issue of who was doing this, and how had someone else got the idea of casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but we are not told anything about this. Instead Jesus tells them that anyone who is not against them is for them. We must not become too precious about our own denomination, group or ministry. If someone, or some organisation, is acting faithfully in the name of Jesus then they are on the same side. Also, we must never assume that we are the be all and end all of God’s plans! God plans are far wider than the part we have in them.

Luke 9:44,45 - Delivered over to human hands

9:44,45

Earlier Jesus had told them that He would suffer and die, then rise again. Now He tells them again. This happened while “everyone was marvelling at what Jesus had done”. The world’s interpretation of events is usually way off the mark, if we want to truly understand the world we need to listen to Jesus and His word (ie all of the Bible). Previously they had not grasped what Jesus was saying, and this time was no different. So why did Jesus tell them if they would not understand? Let me suggest two reasons. First, they would understand later, not just the meaning if the words, but the context as well. Ie not to be taken along by the world’s reaction to or interpretation of events. Secondly, they were responsible for their lack of understanding. They were blind because of their rebellion against God. Sceptics sometimes say that God has not made it obvious enough that He exists. I recently saw a meme that had an atheist asking for proof that God exists, apart from the whole universe. On the last day it will be seen that the problem was not any lack of evidence, but our hardness of heart.

However, the disciples were starting to get the idea that Jesus was someone special, and with special authority, and so were afraid to ask Him what He meant.

Luke 9:37-43 - Healing a demon possessed boy

9:37-40

On coming down the mountain they are faced with the grim realities of life. A man has a son who is gripped with convulsions. Luke tells us that they were a result of demon possession. We tend to think that it was a case of epilepsy, but we a not told that. We must not get the notion that everyone with epilepsy is demon possessed, for there is no Scriptural warrant for that. But we should also be aware that some illnesses are related, or caused directly, by demons. The man had asked the disciples to help, but they could do nothing.

9:41-43

Jesus is frustrated with the people, this includes the people in general and the disciples in particular. See that Jesus expects us to be able to do an awful lot more than we think we can do, and the reason for our slowness and failure is our unbelieving hearts. This is more than a failure to believe that God will heal in a particular instance, it is a deeper lack of belief in who God is, in HIs nature, and in who He created us to be. The unbelief runs deep.

The demon had one last go and threw the boy into a fit. Jesus simply rebuked the demon and cast it out. The boy was healed and all were amazed.

Luke 9:30-36 - This is my Son

9:30,31

Moses and Elijah now appear with Jesus. This is highly symbolic. Moses represents the Law and Elijah the prophets. The Old Testament was often referred to as the “Law and the Prophets”. So this is indicating that Jesus and His mission is fully in line with all that God had said and done before. As an aside, it also indicates that Moses and Elijah are alive. It is fundamental to the gospel that death is not the end.

Luke is the only one to mention that they spoke about Jesus’ departure, the end of the verse making clear that this is referring to His death. Later in Luke’s account of the Emmaus road meeting Jesus will say that all the Law and the prophets foretold of His suffering. Interestingly the Greek word for “departure” is exodus. On the cross an even greater freedom from slavery was won than happened in Egypt all those years ago.

9:32,33

Peter and his companions had been sleeping, or at least drifting off. They seem to have had a habit of doing this, Gethsemane being another infamous occurrence. The appearance of Jesus in brilliant light and then of Moses and Elijah sharply made them fully awake. In typical fashion, Peter opened his big mouth and suggested they put up some tents to try and help them capture and preserve the moment. Luke makes it clear that Peter didn’t really know what he was talking about.

9:34-36

Now God the Father was going to speak to them directly. They could not see God, just as Moses was not allowed to see God directly, but the cloud make it obvious that something significant was happening. The message from God was clear, Jesus is His Son, chosen by the Father, and we should listen to Him. The same message goes out to all people today. We need to recognise Jesus as the Son of God and to listen to Him. It is not for us to sit on judgement on His words, deciding whether we agree with them or not, or whether they are still applicable. We need to listen to them, accept the, trust them and obey them. That is the consistent teaching of the gospels, and of Jesus Himself (Matt 7:24; Luke 6:27; John 5:24).

After the voice had spoken the cloud disappeared, as did Moses and Elijah. A dramatic event had taken place, but it had not happened so that a shrine could be made in its remembrance, nor that they should try and repeat the moment. No, the event had happened and the words had been spoken so that they could live a life worthy of their calling. The same applies to us all.

Luke 9:28,29 - Up a mountain

9:28

It is highly significant that the transfiguration took place a short time after the latest revelations. Imagine how the disciples were feeling after all that Jesus has just said to them. The one they trusted in and looked to for salvation, the one they had made sacrifices in order to follow, has just told them He will be handed over and killed. Moreover, He has also told them that they too must be prepared to suffer, and maybe to suffer greatly if they wanted to follow Him. They must have been in a state of utter confusion. Yet they were still following Him. Maybe they were in a state of shock, not quite able to take it all in. So they kept on following. Jesus took Peter, James and John up a mountain to pray, and they were going to receive another revelation, this time a much more encouraging one.

9:29

Oh to have witnessed Jesus praying. I guess that prayer is something many of us find difficult, at least some of the time, wondering if we  are “doing it right” or getting anywhere. Here we see an amazing time of prayer that Jesus had, with both His appearance and His clothing changing and become a brilliant white. We need to remember two things. The first is that this is the only time that this happened, or at least the only time we are told about. Usually there was no such dramatic change. Secondly it did happen this time. Similarly there are two mistakes we can make in our expectations of the Christian life (OK, so there are a multitude of mistakes, but we are just going to look at two of them). One is to never expect anything dramatic to happen, the other is to always be expecting the dramatic. As I have said on several occasions , the Bible is wonderfully balanced. There is the suffering and the glory, there is the mundane and the dramatic.

Luke 9:25-27 - If anyone is ashamed of me and my words

9:25

The consequences are made more clear. We might think we gain something by not following Christ, maybe the opportunity to gain wealth or power or pleasure. But the cost will ultimately be our own life. In fact, even more than our own life, we will lose our very self. With all the talk these days of transgenderism there is a desire to find or choose our identity. The tragedy of all this is that in pursuing their own identity, as they see it, they will lose their self. But this applies in much less dramatic ways as well. Any decision to go our own way rather than Christ’s way, no matter how small, will always result in loss. We were created by Christ and for Christ. That is our identity, and it is only in fulfilling that role that we will truly find our identity.

9:26

This is a very serious business, and we need to pay heed to the serious words of Jesus. If we are ashamed of Him and His words, then He will be ashamed of us when He returns in glory. There is so much in this verse. One is that Jesus is the one with ultimate authority. He is not just a prophet, He is not just a good teacher nor a good man. He is the Son of God, He is the One with all power and authority. One day He will return with glory, and to judge the living and the dead. Note also that Jesus talks of being ashamed of Him or His words. “His words” also include the whole of the Old Testament, but even if we leave that aside, we need to take this verse most seriously. Currently our society wants us to be ashamed of God’s word, and many foolish Christians and foolish churches are going along with it. If we take this line then we will one day have a very heavy price to pay. We need to hold to God’s word, and it is the wisest thing we can do. It is also the most loving thing we can do, including for the sake of  those who hate the word of God. For it is only in repentance and coming humbly before God that anyone will find true fulfilment.

9:27

Now we come to one of those verses that causes us great problems. What does He mean when He says “some will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God”? Some say Jesus was talking about His return and was mistaken, we can safely reject such an interpretation. Those of a preterist view see almost all things fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem AD 66-70. I think we can also safely reject this view. Some of the apocalyptic stuff was fulfilled in AD 66-70, and appreciating this can help us to better understand Revelation and other passages, but to say everything was fulfilled ends up with us having to fit square pegs into round holes. It seems better to take “seeing the kingdom of God” in a much more general sense of having a proper appreciation of what the kingdom of God is about. The problem the religious leaders had, the problem the general populace had, and the problem the disciples had was a total lack of appreciation of what the kingdom was about, and what Jesus was about (one might say not much has changed in 2000 years!). That was true, but soon a time would come when some of them would start to truly appreciate who Jesus is and what He is about.

Luke 9:21-24 - Suffering servant and suffering servants

9:21,22

The disciples had little idea of the full implications of Jesus being the Messiah, so the people would have even less idea. This is probably why Jesus instructs them to keep quiet about the matter at this stage, for there is no way they could properly communicate something they did not even understand themselves. Jesus then reveals what His mission entailed, and that was suffering, most serious suffering. He would be rejected by all the religious leaders and killed. Not only would this happen, but it must happen. His death was not a mistake, not an unfortunate consequence, but central to the plan of salvation. Then on the third day He would be raised to life.

9:23

The consequences for Jesus of His mission were clearly very serious, to say the least! However, the same also applied to His disciples, and that includes us. The gospel is not about self-fulfilment, but about Christ-fulfilment. Jesus came to do the will of the Father, we come to Christ to do His will. That is what we are signing up for when we give our lives to Christ. We should remember what “taking up the cross” meant. The disciples may well have witnessed a man who was convicted to crucifixion by the Romans, and such a man would have to carry his own cross to the place of execution, the place where he was going to die a torturous death. Jesus is not mincing His words to the disciples about the cost of following Him, and most of the them would indeed die for the gospel. There is no cheap prosperity in the gospel.

9:24

The gospel is no glitzy offer, but a most serious matter. One might wonder if it was going to involve such a cost why would anyone ever want to choose to follow Jesus? Part of the reason is that the alternative is even worse, and the other reason is that the cross is not the end, but the mean to the end. The logical response might seem to be that if the cost is so high, then no sensible man would choose to follow Christ, but Jesus tells us if we try to save our own life then far from saving it we will lose it. Conversely, if we do lose our life for Christ’s sake, which is what happens, then we will find that we actually find it. We truly find life when we choose to follow Christ.

Death Defeated

A Sermon on the resurrection of Christ, its:

• Centrality
• Reality
• Futurality

Luke 9:18-20 - You are the Messiah

9:18-20

In 9:7-9 we read of there being various speculations as to who Jesus was, none of them accurate. Now Jesus asks His disciples what they think. We need to remember that when we look at Jesus and the gospels we look with hindsight, the disciples were in the midst of it, in the midst of the revelation being made. He did this on an occasion when He finally had managed to get time alone with them. First Jesus asked them what the crowds were saying about Him.  The disciples essentially repeat what was said in 9:7-9. The world will always have various opinions as to who Jesus is, these opinions will rarely be accurate. Yet it is important to know what the world thinks, then we are better able to communicate with them.

“But what about you?” The you is emphatic. It is our personal response to Jesus that counts. Jesus asked the disciples, but Peter spoke up on behalf of all of them. Peter declares that Jesus is the Messiah. The words were correct, but their understanding of what they meant was woefully inadequate.

The Old Testament Law is Barbaric - except it isn’t!

One of the criticisms often levelled at the Bible, in particular the Old Testament, is that it condones slavery and is generally rather barbaric. Such criticisms are, in fact, unfounded. There are two main errors. The first is to fail to take account of the context within which the Law was given, and the context of the surrounding cultures. Paul Copan is his book, Is God a Moral Monster, demonstrates that the Law is actually incredibly liberal when measured against the culture of the times.

Christopher Wright in his book Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament highlights several examples of this. In Deut 23:15,16 it says:

If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand them over to their master. Let them live among you wherever they like and in whatever town they choose. Do not oppress them.

Under all surrounding cultures a runaway slave would be returned to their master and treated most harshly.

Deut 21:10-14 has rules for dealing with women and girls taken captive in war. The norm at the time (and in many places it isn’t that much different today) they would be treated as sex slaves, objects to be used. The Law says that if a victorious soldier fancies the woman then he must take her as a wife. Even then, she must first be given time to mourn her loss (her parents presumably having been killed in the war). If he later decides he doesn’t want her any longer then he must not sell her as a slave, she must be free to go, and he has dishonoured her.

Now our first reaction might be that all this is terrible, we need to give full rights to women etc. But first of all compare it with the norm. Then see what is happening. She is given time to mourn, she is valued as a person. The man had to take her as a wife, ie he cannot just use her for pleasure, but he has responsibilities towards her. If he does get rid of her, he cannot sell her. And see that it says “he has dishonoured her”. The victorious soldier is seen as the moral transgressor.

The second error is to misunderstand the purpose of the Law (and in this article we are just looking at some aspects of the civic side of the Law, there is much more to it than that). This is something that apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans argues that the Law could not make anyone righteous. It could do nothing to change the sinful heart of man, but only expose our sinfulness and act as a restraint (there are many other aspects to the Law as well). To understand what I mean by this consider the question of divorce. Jesus was confronted with a question on divorce. Moses had given a law that said if a man divorces his wife he is to send her away with a certificate of divorce. Let’s consider two questions. What was God doing here? What did man do? Some people took this law as giving a man the right to divorce their wife if she displeased him, and they would use this as an excuse to divorce their wives if they fancied someone else. What was God doing? He was giving a law to limit the effects of man’s sinfulness, as Jesus said, “because your hearts are hard”. God was protecting the woman. Now someone might argue that God should have introduced a better law, but this would actually have changed nothing. God did not tell men to divorce their wives, but men took this law as a sanctioning their immoral behaviour. They do this because the root of sin is in our hearts, and no amount of laws will change our hearts. Likewise, the laws on slaves, treatment of foreigners, wars etc are limiting the damage that man’s sin can do.

Now when we look at the Law we should (i) realise just how liberal the Law was (in some ways far more liberal than some laws we have today!); and (ii) recognise the purpose of these parts of the Law, which were to limit the effects of sinfulness.

The Law itself could not change anyone, and God never intended it to do so. That is why He sent His Son to die on a cross for us, to be raised from the dead, and then to send the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. That way we can be given a heart of flesh, rather than a heart of stone.

Luke 9:14-17 - the big meal

9:14

The disciples assessment was based on their own resources, Jesus’ assessment was based on the resources of heaven. We, too, often make the same mistake. God calls us to work with Him, based on His power and authority, not our own power and authority. But note also the ordered way Jesus told them to go about things, splitting the people up into groups of fifty. Just because something is being done in Holy Spirit power does not mean it is a disorganised rammy.

9:15-17

The disciples did as they were told. We get no indication that they thought this was a wonderful idea, but nevertheless they did what Jesus told them to do and the crowd were duly fed. Note that the five loaves and two fish is consistent with John’s account (John 6:8). Everyone had enough and there were twelve baskets of leftovers gathered up. Luke gives no comment on the miracle, apart from its having taken place.

Luke 9:10-13 - You feed them!

9:10,11

This is one of the most famous miracles in Jesus’ life, and one which is recorded in all four gospels. Jesus wanted to withdraw with His disciples, presumably to instruct them. Possibly He wanted to “debrief” them after their mission trip, and to teach them something of who He was and what His mission was. This is something He did right after the feeding of the five thousand. However, the crowds discovered His whereabouts and followed Him. Instead of getting angry with them (as I would have done!) Jesus welcomed them, taught them, and healed people. Yet again we see teaching and healing going together.

9:12,13

It was getting late and the disciples had supposed to been going for a private time with Jesus, instead the crowds had found them and had been receiving all the attention of Jesus. The disciples “concern” for the people was probably at least in part a concern for themselves. Our selfish concerns can often be wrapped up in supposed concern for others.

Jesus, however, had a different solution. The disciples were to feed the people. This suggestion seemed ridiculous, they simply did not have the resources to do it. In fact the resources were way short of what was needed.

Luke 9:5-9 - Proclaiming the good news

Some would welcome them, some would not. If people did not welcome them they were simply to leave. “Shaking the dust off your feet” is a proverbial way of illustrating God’s judgement against them. If they do not want anything to do with God then He will have nothing to do with them. This is actually the terrifying judgement that many people will receive on the last day, only they do not realise what the full consequences of this are. Jesus put this into practice in His own ministry. Where people welcomed Him He spent time with them, if they did not want Him, as in the case of the region where the demoniac lived, He simply left. The church today is not very good at evangelism (and I include myself in that!) and while we should seek to do a good job we do have a tendency to think that if someone doesn’t accept the gospel then it is our fault. This can lead to us putting too much effort into being “seeker friendly” rather than accurately presenting the gospel. The Bible makes it clear that the church has a responsibility to be a witness to the world, but some will accept the gospel and some will not.

9:7-9

“Tetrarch” was the correct term to use of Herod Antipas. Herod had been responsible for killing John the Baptist. He knew that John was a man of God, and that when he criticised Herod for his marriage to his brother’s wife (Luke 3:19) Herod first had him imprisoned, and finally beheaded. Herod knew he had acted against God. There was general confusion about who Jesus was, some thinking He was John the Baptist raised from the dead. Others thought He was Elijah, Malachi says Elijah will come back in the last days, and still others that Jesus was some other prophet  come back to life. Herod was puzzled about Jesus and wanted to meet Him.

Luke 9:1-4 - Sent out

9:1,2

So far we have read of Jesus healing people and casting out demons, now we get a very important development. This power and authority is given to the twelve disciples. If we read the gospels we see that Jesus wanted people to have faith, and here we see Him giving power and authority to the twelve. So there are two important points. One is that normal men had the power to heal and cast out demons, and that the power and authority was given by Jesus. So what does this mean for us today? There are some who see this as being only for the New Testament times, and in particular as being  a sign of approval on the apostles. Some would also say that the demons have now all been defeated and casting out of demons is no longer relevant. However, this view seems to me to have no Biblical justification. Later on in Luke the seventy two are sent out and they experience demons obeying them, so the power was not limited to the twelve. In Acts we find that apostles carried on healing and casting out demons,  so we see that demons were still active. And a cursory look at life would seem to imply that demon activity is still ongoing. Moreover, the letters speak of the gift of healing.

Perhaps most importantly, the purpose of the healing and casting out of demons was the proclamation of the kingdom of God. That kingdom still needs to be proclaimed. However, it needs to be said that often we make a complete mess of this aspect of the church’s mission, either turning it into a show, or just having little idea of what we are doing. We need instruction from the Lord on this matter.

9:3,4

The disciples were to travel light. They were to be dependent upon the people they went to preach to. If someone welcomed them, then they were to stay in the house until their mission in that town was complete. Now these instructions are not a blanket command that we should never prepare for anything! Proverbs, Acts and the letters commend preparedness, but there is an attitude we should have. We can become so obsessed with planning that we do nothing, or that we end up no longer relying on the power of God.

Luke 8:49-55 - Brought back to life

8:49,50

Meanwhile Jairus must have been getting increasingly agitated, wondering if Jesus was ever going to come and heal his daughter. He may also have been feeling angry that Jesus was spending so much time on this woman. This may be a wrong reaction, but it is a very human one, and one that most of us would share have. Then news comes that seems to say the game is up and all is lost, he receives news that his daughter is dead.

Jesus counters this, telling Jairus not to be afraid but to believe. In dealing with us in times of our lives when anxiety seems to take a hold we will often find that the solution will only come when we stop being afraid. The first step is often to still our souls before the Lord.

8:51,52

Jesus kept most of the people out, only His closest disciples and the mother and father. Why did He do this? The “charismatic” answer is to get rid of those with a spirit of unbelief. There may be something to this, the wailers and the mourners certainly weren’t going to help matters! However, it could also be out of concern for the girl, and simple practicality.

Jesus commands the wailers and mourners to stop their wailing and mourning. Now why did He do this? Was it because the girl was not actually dead, but just in a deep sleep or coma, or was it because she was dead but He knew that He was going to bring her back to life? The latter is the more likely in view of the next verse. What is certain is that Jesus knew what was going on and He was going to bring life to the girl.

8:53-55

The crowd laughed, being convinced that she was dead. Now we need to remember that people of those days were far more accustomed to encountering death than we are, so notions that they were a bit ignorant and gullible are wide of the mark, and in terms of recognising death they were more knowledgeable than we are.

Jesus took the girl’s hand and spoke gently but directly to her, telling her to get up. “Her spirit returned”, indicating beyond doubt that Luke thought she was dead before Jesus healed her. She got up at once. It is the word of God that gives life, as it did right back in Genesis. Jesus then takes care of her practical needs, telling them to give her something to eat. Unlike the demoniac, Jesus tells the parents to keep quiet about the matter. Given that a good few people knew she had died, it is difficult to see how this could be done.

Luke 8:44-48 - Who touched me?

8:44

She came up behind Jesus, possibly too embarrassed about her condition to see him face to face, and touched His cloak. She was healed at once. Why did such a tentative approach to Jesus have such a dramatic effect? Because she had faith. This incident is a reminder that we cannot judge the faith of someone by outward actions alone. As James says, faith without actions is dead, so faith will produce an outward effect. However, I am sure we all know people who for a time have been very effusive in their “faith”, but then have fallen away. Conversely, there are people who do not make a show of things, and in some ways may seem to very timid, or to have many problems. Yet despite all the obstacles in their lives, they still approach Jesus. We should expect to see faith rewarded.

8:45,46

Jesus knew that something had happened, power had flowed from Him. Now this is interesting. When the woman touched Jesus’ cloak there was no personal interaction between them, yet the power of God still flowed into her to bring healing.

Peter thought Jesus’ question somewhat ridiculous as there were so many people around Him, but Jesus is interested in individuals as well as crowds. God is God of the whole universe, but He also knows each person in that universe.

8:47,48

The woman had hoped not to be noticed, but this was so unavoidable as Jesus was on the look out for her. So she came nervously to Jesus, falling at His feet. She told Him what had happened.

Jesus told her that her faith had healed her and that she should go in peace. Jesus addressed her as “daughter”, emphasising the fact that she was accepted after years of feeling rejected. So there was physical and emotional healing, the two often go together.

Luke 8:40-43 - Two needy people

8:40-42

NIV has “a crowd welcomed Him”, ESV (and the Greek) has “the crowd welcomed Him”. The significance is that the crowd is probably the crowd of v1-21.. Jesus had gone away and they were all waiting for Him to come back. Jairus was especially keen to see Jesus for his only daughter was very seriously ill. Jairus was a “ruler of the synagogue”, he was probably in charge of organising the services. He fell at Jesus feet, remember the healed demoniac was sat at Jesus feet. Jairus came to Jesus in humility. So we have a relatively important man in desperate need calling upon Jesus’ help. Jesus was surrounded by a crowd and they were all pressing in on Him.

8:43

At the same time a woman came to Jesus. She had been suffering from a discharge of blood for some twelve years. She had spent a lot of money, but no one had been able to heal her. There is also a noteworthy aspect related to the synagogue. The blood would render ceremonially unclean, so she would be excluded from many synagogue activities. So there is an interesting juxtaposition with Jairus. One is a respected and important member of the synagogue, the other is something of an outcast. It is perhaps significant that Mark adds that not only had the physicians been unable to heal her, she had actually got worse! Luke, himself a physician, does not mention this latter fact ...

Luke 8:34-39 - Please go

8:34,35

Not surprisingly these events caused some consternation. Those looking after the pigs went to the town to tell people what had happened. The people then came to see. There is no record of what they saw of the pigs, presumably an absence of pigs. They did come to Jesus and they saw the man sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind. This is what Jesus does for a person. He restores our dignity and soundness of mind, and we adopt an attitude of worship and obedience towards Jesus. This was such a dramatic change that the people were afraid.

8:36,37

Apparently there had been some who had seen all the events take place, and they told the others what had happened. The people then asked Jesus to leave. Why were they afraid? Maybe it was because they were afraid of losing money now the pig business had taken a severe downturn, or maybe it was just a fear of His power. Whatever the reason, we should note that it is not just the religious leaders who made the wrong response to Jesus, ordinary people are equally capable of making the wrong response. We see the same on the cross. One thief mocked Jesus, the other thief believed in Him. We sometimes have a tendency to eulogise the poor or to demonise the rich, both these reactions are wrong. All men and women are sinners, and all of us can be saved by the grace of God.

So Jesus left. In one sense these are very sad words, yet the people got what they asked for. People often ask “how can a God of love send people to hell”. On the day of judgement it will be more a matter of “why did we not respond when we had the chance”. May we learn our lesson today, before it is too late.

8:38,39

The now free man wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus sent him away. So those who, unless they responded later, were on the road to destruction got what they wanted. The man who now loved Jesus did not get what he asked for. God gives us the best for us, which is not always the same as what we want. On several other occasions in the gospels we read of Jesus telling people to keep quiet about what He has done for them. Here is one of the rare occasions where Jesus tells the man to tell others what He has done for him. Why the difference? Maybe it was because this was a Gentile region, so there was less chance of people misunderstanding the Messiah concept. Moreover, as Jesus was leaving the area He would not be around.

Evidence for the Resurrection - A brief primer

This is just a very brief primer on the evidence for the resurrection. There are many sources on the internet and books which go into things in much more detail, but it is important for us to know that while ultimately it is by faith that we know that Christ is risen, this belief is actually supported by the evidence. So here is a brief summary of the main points.

Positive Evidence

1. The gospels themselves and the New Testament letters. The New Testament was out together within a relatively short timeframe of the events of Easter. The evidence for the reliability of the New Testament documents is overwhelming when compared with other events of similar antiquity.
2. The church. How would the church have got started and grown without the resurrection?
3. Personal encounters with the risen Christ. If Christ was not risen, how is it millions of people, myself included, claim to know Christ?

Negative Evidence - Countering the arguments against the resurrection

None of the arguments against the resurrection stand up to scrutiny. Here are several examples.

1. The disciples made it up

If this was true then why didn't the authorities just point to the tomb where Jesus was buried?

If they had made it up would they have been prepared to die for a lie?

2. The disciples moved the body

Surely the body would have been found at some point? And again, why would they do it, and why would they be prepared to die for their faith?

3. They had hallucinations

There were multiple appearances to different people in different circumstances. This makes hallucinations a totally implausible explanation. And again there is the question, why didn’t the authorities point to the tomb?

4. Jesus never actually died on the cross.

Muslims believe something like this. Sometimes it is referred to as the “swoon theory” saying that Jesus merely swooned and was revived by the cool of the tomb. This is perhaps the most ridiculous suggestion. Jesus was severely beaten before the cross itself, He could not even carry His own cross.

The Romans were experts at two things, building roads and killing people.

Even if Jesus had not died, which is most implausible, what state would He have been in even if the “cool of the tomb” had revived Him? And how did the stone get moved?

5. The disciples were gullible and would believe anything

The gospel records clearly show that the disciples were not gullible, and had no expectation of Jesus being raised from the dead, even though Jesus told them He would be. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus had been told by the women and Peter that the tomb was empty, yet they still did not believe that Jesus was alive until He appeared to them.

The long and the short of it is that it is perfectly reasonable to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. It is a unique and an amazing event, but it is also one whose veracity is supported by the evidence.

In summary, my belief that Jesus rose from the dead has no problems with the evidence, whereas, those who deny the resurrection have enormous problems with the evidence.

We can confidently rejoice in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Luke 8:30-33 - Poor little pigs!

8:30

More detail is given about this exorcism than most others, maybe this was a more entrenched case of demon possession. Jesus asked the man his name, but it was the demon that replied. The demon is referred to as singular (see v29), but the demon replies that its name is Legion because many demons had entered the man. We see here the terrible things that can happen to a person, but we will also see that notwithstanding that, Jesus still set him free. No matter how desperate our circumstances, Jesus is our effective salvation. Perhaps that is why this incident is dwelt on. Many times the dealing with demons by Jesus is dealt with in a matter of fact manner, but if are the one who is suffering we can think of a thousand and one reasons why although someone else can be helped by Jesus, our situation is so bad, or we are so bad, that Jesus would not want anything to do with us, or is unable to help us. Jesus can rescue anyone from anything.

8:31-33

The Abyss is the place of confinement for evil spirits. This was almost certainly in Gentile territory, for Jews were not allowed to keep pigs. The demons begged to be allowed to go into the pigs. Now at this point animal rights folk will get very upset, well tough! A man is more important than many pigs. Jesus did not make them enter the pigs, but maybe it was because these “unclean” animals were being kept that Jesus let them enter the pigs. Anyway, we need to have a proper perspective on animals. We are to look after animals well, but there is no way at all that animals are anywhere near as valuable as people. Anyway, the demons went into the pigs, and the pigs went over the cliff and drowned. Poor little pigs!