Luke 10
MCGARLuke 10:1-24
(Probably in Judæa, October, A. D. 29.) L 1-24. [ other messengers in addition to the twelve apostles] [Luke has told us of the journey through Samaria to Jerusalem, and John has told us what occurred at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem. We learn from John also that Jesus was at the Feast of Dedication . The first feast was in October and the latter in December. Jesus evidently spent the time between these feast in Judæa, making a tour of that province and sending the seventy before him, thus thoroughly evangelizing it as he had Galilee, by sending out the twelve.] [This last was probably a common direction in cases of haste . Eastern salutations were tedious and overburdened with ceremony. Those in haste were excused from them.] [they were not to give trouble and waste time by asking for better food] [472] [For comment, see , .] [473] [While the messengers of Christ were, no doubt, literally protected from the poisons of reptiles, etc. , serpents and scorpions are here to be taken an emblematic of the powers of evil.] [Your joy in visible and temporal success, and in the subjection to you of the powers of evil, is not to be compared to the joy that you have the prospect of heaven.] [For comment, see .] [For comment, see .] [474] [FFG 472-474]
Luke 10:25-37
(Probably Judæa.) L 25-37. [For the term lawyer see , , . Having made himself conspicuous by standing up, the lawyer had to give the best answer he knew or sully his own reputation for knowledge. He therefore gives the two great laws which comprise all other laws.] [The lawyer had asked his question simply as a test. With him the law was simply matter for speculation and theory, and the word “do” was very startling. It showed the difference between his and the Master’s views of the law. He had hoped by a question to expose Jesus as one who set aside the law, but [475] Jesus had exposed the lawyer as one who merely theorized about the law, and himself as one who advocated the doing of the law.] [He could justify his conduct if permitted to define the word “neighbor.” He asked his question, therefore, in the expectation of securing such a definition of the word as would enable him to maintain his public standing and quiet his conscience.] [evidently a Jew, for otherwise the nationality would have been specified] [The road from Jerusalem to Jericho is eighteen miles long, and descends about 3,500 feet.
About two miles from Jerusalem it passes through the village of Bethany, and for the rest of the eighteen miles it passes through desolate mountain ravines without any habitation save the inn, the ruins of which are still seen about half way to Jericho. This district from that time till the present has been noted for robberies, and Jerome tells that the road was called the “bloody way.”] [a very natural thing for a priest to do, for there was a very large priestly settlement at Jericho] [He did this although the law commanded mercy and help to a neighbor– , .] [A temple minister.
The tribe of Levi had been set apart by God for his service] [In the priest and Levite the lawyer saw the picture of his own life, for he saw in them those who knew the law, but did not practice it. There may have been many excuses for this neglect of the wounded man: danger, hate, dread of defilement, expense, but Jesus does not consider any of them worth mentioning.] [the hereditary enemy of the Jew– ] [476] [the ordinary remedies for wounds– ] [the shilling or denarius was worth about seventeen cents, but it represented the price of a day’s labor] [the inn-keeper] [The compassion of the Samaritan bore full fruitage. However heterodox he was, he was after all a worshiper of Jehovah and more orthodox at heart than either the priest or the Levite. Though it was not customary for an inn-keeper to furnish food either for man or beast, he could do so if he chose out of his own stores. The scant cash left by the Samaritan indicates a poverty which made his charity the more praiseworthy. His eye and heart and hand and foot and purse were all subservient to the law of God.] [Instead of answering didactically, “Everybody is your neighbor,” Jesus had incarnated the law of neighborliness in the good Samaritan, and had made it so beautiful that the lawyer could not but commend it even when found in a representative of this apostate race.
He showed, too, that the law was not for causistry but for practice.] [The lawyer avoided the name Samaritan so distasteful to his lips. Jesus gave countenance to no such racial prejudice, even though the Samaritans had rejected him but a few weeks before this– .] [All the laws and teachings of God are to be generously interpreted and are to be embodied in the life– .] [477] [FFG 475-477]
Luke 10:38-42
(Bethany, near Jerusalem.) L 38-42. [he was journeying through Judæa, attended by the twelve] [It was the village of Bethany , which was on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, less than two miles from Jerusalem] [Sitting at the feet was the ancient posture of pupils . Martha honored Christ as a but Mary honored him as a Teacher.] [she was evidently preparing an elaborate repast, and was experiencing the worry and distraction which usually accompanies such effort] [Martha so forms her appeal to Christ as to make it a covert insinuation that Mary would not listen to requests.] [By thus repeating the name, Jesus tempered the rebuke. See also , ] [ one duty or privilege is pre-eminent. Bread for the body may be important, but food for the soul is, after all, the one thing needful] [The expression “good part” is an allusion to the portion of honor sent to the principal guest at a banquet. Its use shows that Jesus had food in mind when he used the [478] expression “one thing is needful,” and that he was contrasting spiritual nourishment with physical. The description of the two sisters here tallies with that given at , , for there Martha serves and Mary expresses personal devotion.
Our Lord’s rebuke is not aimed at hospitality, nor at a life full of energy and business. It is intended to reprove that fussy fretfulness which attempts many unneeded things, and ends in worry and fault-finding. It does not set a life of religious contemplation above a life of true religious activity, for contemplation is here contrasted with activity put forth with a faulty spirit. The trend of the New Testament teaching shows that a man must be a as well as a of the Word.] [FFG 478-479]