Luke 8:10 – It sometimes seems a bit unfair that Jesus would hide his truths like this. A pattern emerges, though. He longs for us to dig deeper than the surface with what he taught. Isn’t that true of most of his teachings? There are many layers of meaning. If we stop at the surface, we miss much of what is profound. Not only that, but at times if we take them at face value, we miss the point entirely.
Luke 8:15 – “bear fruit with patience” it says in the ESV. That’s ironic, since in the ICOC we never had much patience for those who didn’t bear fruit.
Luke 8:19-21 – I need to see this purposeful, non-sentimental side of Jesus. I tend to be one who leans toward love, tolerance and benefit of the doubt, perhaps too much. Jesus was direct and black and white at times. There’s a time for tolerance and a time for decisiveness.
Luke 8:22-23 – Boy, I’d love to have the peace of mind and faith to be able to sleep on a boat in a storm and filling with water. I’m a worrier. When things go wrong, I assume the worst and dream up all kinds of scenarios that might happen. I need faith and a more level head.
Luke 8:26-39 – Real Live Preacher has an interesting dramatized version of this story.
Luke 8:42 – I have a 12 year old. She is so full of life. In many ways, her life is really just beginning. She’s becoming a young woman, finding her own voice apart from Mom and Dad. More so that she had in the past. She’s blossoming. I cannot imagine the pain I would endure to watch her die.
Luke 8:47-48 – Imagine thinking you were in trouble, only to be praised for your faith! What a relief.
Luke 8:50 – I imagine Jesus physically turning Jairus’s head toward him. Look here, ignore reality, focus on me and all will be well. Believe. I’m not giving up, don’t you give up either.
Luke 8:54 – What was told to the girl? What did she tell others as she grew? Did she speak of it? Did she become his disciple one day?
It’s amazing, if you think about it. Jesus must have healed hundreds, if not thousands of people during his ministry. But we read of not one becoming a disciple later. You would have thought that, if they had become disciples, they would have been mentioned. Makes me wonder.

Luke 7:3-4 – I never noticed this before: The centurion did not send for Jesus himself, he sent for the Jewish elders to get Jesus. And the elders did. The Pharasees and ‘leaders’ get a lot of press in the gospels, evidently because they were quite vocal and following Jesus. But here are the elders, mature respected men in the community, humbly approaching Jesus, with respect, for a favor. I wonder how many other times in the gospels the Jewish elders are mentioned?
Luke 7:8 – Here’s a man who knew his place and knew Jesus’ as well.
Luke 7:11-17 – I want to know the back story of this. What became of the woman and her son? What of the people who saw it? Did the return to their lives as if nothing miraculous had happened that day, or were they changed, and sought the man who had done the impossible?
Luke 7:18-19 – Here’s John, who announced his comming, baptised him, saw the spirit descend on him and now recieved reports of the dead risen, wondering if Jesus is really the one. It gives me hope that even John, who saw more evidence that all of us ever will, had his moments of doubt.
Luke 7:22 – Jesus does not give John a clear answer, only say to look again at the evidence before you. You know the answer.

Luke 6:2 – Can’t we be just like the Pharisees? I get a picture of them watching Jesus intently, looking for him to violate a law (see Luke 6:7 too). We can do the same, we have our own pet doctrines and when someone who professes to be a Christian violates them we pounce. Assume for a minute that you’re right about that doctrine and they are wrong – is this what you’d want them to do to you if it was reversed? Certainly if I’m in the wrong, I want to be corrected, but I don’t want to be judged. So why do we do that to others? Christian like to shake our heads at the Pharisees and wonder how they can be such knuckleheads, and then we go and act just like them.
Luke 6:9 – Jesus is always good for asking those questions that, if answered honestly, humble the answerer. Though it irritates me to no end at the time, I appreciate those who do the same to me. My wife is good for that. When I’m all worked up about something, she comes in with a question or statement that humbles me and puts things in their proper perspective.
Luke 6:12-16 – I would love to listen in on these kind of prayers. I wonder what it was like? Was Jesus reviewing the merits of the possible apostles with God? Pluses and minuses of each candidate. Did he know at this time that Judas would betray him? If so, can you imagine choosing him? I guess he did need someone to do it, but that seems a little cold to say that Jesus chose Judas because he knew that Judas would fill the role of betrayer. It could be that his knowledge of the betrayal only extended to the fact that it would happen, not of who would do it. Perhaps God hadn’t revealed that to the human Jesus yet. It seems to make sense that Jesus’ knowledge of the future wouldn’t be completed and might be revealed as needed. After all, can you imaging a 5 or 6 year old Jesus knowing the pain and torture he would one day endure? I guess I hope, in this case, that Jesus was a little more human and a little less God.
And I wonder, what did he tell them it meant to be an apostle?
Luke 6:17-19 – I love this contrast between Jesus consulting with the Father on appointing apostles and the Jesus with the people, focus on meeting their needs. Two faces of the same mission – the task oriented business of establishing the kingdom on Earth and the practical matter of living it out in meeting needs.
Luke 6:20-26 – I see in this version of the beatitudes a contrast between the Earthly focused and the kingdom focused. He’s not saying that we should pursue poverty, hunger, weeping and persecution rather that we should pursue the kingdom and endure those things if that’s what needs to be. Along with that, if our stomachs and wallets are always filled, life is always fun and we’re popular, we should be wary. There’s a pattern seen in those seeking the kingdom and if we don’t see a measure of it in ourselves, woe to us.
That ought to give all of American Christianity pause, I think.
Luke 6:27-26 – Two of the most challenging paragraphs in all of scripture. We like having stuff, our own stuff, and Jesus here says give it up. Not only give it up to those who need or deserve it, but give it up to anyone who asks for it. Our minds cannot be concerned with stuff. Stuff steals our hearts and demands our attention. Attention that could be focused on God or on others.
It’s so challenging because the culture around us screams at us to get more stuff and to maintain and protect that stuff. Not only do we need a new car, we need an alarm to protect it. Jesus calls us to leave our stuff open for whoever needs it. It’s so challenging because if we do, someone will take advantage and will abuse us. Was Jesus naive? No, he knew the hearts of evil men. Rather, he challenged us to have the heart of God, in spite of the evil around us. Lord help us.
Luke 6:38 – What measure am I using? We all want God’s blessings, yet right here he tells us that how we give and bless will limit how he can give to us and bless us. We want to get, how much are we giving?
Luke 6:46 – “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” A very good question, and a humbling one. The bar is so high, unachievable actually. Yet Jesus makes no apologies for setting a high standard. Rather, he simply goes to the cross and makes up the difference. It’s hard to fathom and accept ’cause I’m prideful. I don’t want to admit that I need help, I want to believe that I can sit down and reason my way through all this and figure it out. Which is stupid because there’s enough in this chapter alone to tie me in knots for the rest of my life.

Luke 5:1 – “[T]he crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God”. Wait, ‘the word of God’? Jesus certainly didn’t have a Bible, could he have had a scroll of scripture? We think ‘Bible’ when we hear the phrase ‘word of God’, here it couldn’t have meant that, or at least it was highly unlikely.
‘The word of God’ is not what we’ve made it to be. We equate it with the book we call ‘The Bible’, it is not. It is simply the words of God. Jesus was teaching them what God says and wants, therefore giving them God’s words. The Bible contains the words of God, but it isn’t the words of God. God has more to say to us than the Bible can hold.
Luke 5:5 – Jesus had barely begun his ministry and hadn’t yet called his first disciples, yet Peter already calls him master. Even more, he treats him as master, obeying his request when his professional judgement tells him it’s foolish (but until he tells Jesus he thinks his plan is crazy).
Luke 5:13 – “And immediately the leprosy left him.” We can imagine what that might have looked like, but what do you think it felt like? In my job, I design parts and products with the benefit of a computer. I can put the entire assembly of parts together and show you, very realistically, what it will look like. But when a client needs to know how strong a spring should be, or how soft a grip will feel in the hand, there’s no way a computer can show you that (yet). The same is true here, I can imagine the leprosy just disappearing or fading away, but what did it feel like to be healed by Jesus?
Luke 5:17 – Can you imagine being one of the teachers? He draws them from all around. On one hand, you might be excited to see who this is and what he’s about. Could he be from God? On the other hand, no one comes and gathers around you like this. The power of the Lord isn’t present with you to d the things he does, and you are supposed to be the spiritual leader of Israel. If he’s someone from God, then I’ll look the fool for not recognizing it sooner and I’ll have to change my thinking and my teaching. It would be very easy to be skeptical and offended.
It makes me think that I need to be careful myself when someone brings something unexpected or different. Does he have an agenda or is it possibly from God? Paul tells us to test the spirits for sure, but to test them you need to be open that they are really from God. It’s too easy to reject anything that doesn’t fit within out preconceived notions, perhaps things we’ve believed for years.
Luke 5:19 – What kind of boldness does it take to rip apart the roof of another man’s house?
Luke 5:20-25 – I’ve always Eben puzzled here by the connection Jesus makes between forgiveness of the man’s sins and healing is body. Come to think of it, maybe there is no connection after all. He doesn’t get up and walk until after Jesus tells him to, not when Jesus forgives his sins. I guess the answer is in v24, after the forgiveness and before the healing, Jesus says “that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”. The point Jesus wanted them to get was that he had the authority to forgive sins. The feelings were to establish that fact.

Luke 3:1 – Hey, some guy named Lysanias was tetrarch of a Texas town with a COC college. Never caught that before. 😀
Luke 3:3-6 – John comes saying prepare the way for the Lord. How does he call the people to get the way ready for Jesus to come? Repent and get their sins forgiven. Jesus is coming, return to him now (repent) and wash your sins away (baptised) to make way for his arrival.
Luke 3:7-9 – John lays it out here. Don’t come here just to do the religious thing, the popular and accepted thing. If you are coming to be baptized, bear fruit in keeping with the repentance you are proclaiming. Jesus later would do the same thing, challenging those following to consider the life they are chosen in him before they commit to it. Where is this call today? We hear many cries for salvation, but few warnings like this accompany it.
Luke 3:15-16 – What sort of presence did John command to draw a crown that was wondering if he was the Christ? And he drew a crowd by calling them vipers and proclaiming the one who is coming with a winnowing fork to clean house. Not a message of wealth and prosperity, yet they flocked to him. He challenged their hearts and spoke the truth they knew they needed and had been desperate for.
Luke 4:1-2 – I know this has bee mentioned by countless people before, but the spirit led Jesus straight to the devil to be tempted. Does the spirit do that to us too? If so, why? Jesus came out of this and entered his ministry. Could he have started without it, I would thing so but the spirit decided this would be the best plan. What did that time with Satan give him? I would think confidence for one, but that was only after he overcame the temptation. I guess, just as God promises that we will not face more than we can bear, the spirit knew that of course Jesus was up to this. I bet he also came away stronger and ready to take on God’s mission for him. I know that when I emerge from a time of challenge, I am ready to take on whatever God is ready to throw at me.
Luke 4:14 – He left lead by the spirit and returned in the power of the spirit.
Luke 4:24-28 – Reading this I can’t help but think that Jesus seems to set them up. They are initially impressed (v.22) and speak well of him, but he chastises them before they react negatively. I wonder what I’m missing in the telling, it seems there must be something.