{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"LUK","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Luke","commonName":"Luke","introduction":"THE writer of this Gospel is universally allowed to have been Lucas (an abbreviated form of Lucanus, as Silas of Silvanus), though he is not expressly named either in the Gospel or in the Acts. From Col 4:14 we learn that he was a \"physician\"; and by comparing that verse with Col 4:10-11 --in which the apostle enumerates all those of the circumcision who were then with him, but does not mention Luke, though he immediately afterwards sends a salutation from him--we gather that Luke was not a born Jew. Some have thought he was a freed-man (libertinus), as the Romans devolved the healing art on persons of this class and on their slaves, as an occupation beneath themselves. His intimate acquaintance with Jewish customs, and his facility in Hebraic Greek, seem to show that he was an early convert to the Jewish faith; and this is curiously confirmed by Act 21:27-29, where we find the Jews enraged at Paul's supposed introduction of Greeks into the temple, because they had seen \"Trophimus the Ephesian\" with him; and as we know that Luke was with Paul on that occasion, it would seem that they had taken him for a Jew, as they made no mention of him. On the other hand, his fluency in classical Greek confirms his Gentile origin. The time when he joined Paul's company is clearly indicated in the Acts by his changing (at Act 16:10) from the third person singular (\"he\") to the first person plural (\"we\"). From that time he hardly ever left the apostle till near the period of his martyrdom (Ti2 4:11). EUSEBIUS makes him a native of Antioch. If so, he would have every advantage for cultivating the literature of Greece and such medical knowledge as was then possessed. That he died a natural death is generally agreed among the ancients; GREGORY NAZIANZEN alone affirming that he died a martyr.\n\nThe time and place of the publication of his Gospel are alike uncertain. But we can approximate to it. It must at any rate have been issued before the Acts, for there the 'Gospel' is expressly referred to as the same author's \"former treatise\" (Act 1:1). Now the Book of the Acts was not published for two whole years after Paul's arrival as a prisoner at Rome, for it concludes with a reference to this period; but probably it was published soon after that, which would appear to have been early in the year 63. Before that time, then, we have reason to believe that the Gospel of Luke was in circulation, though the majority of critics make it later. If we date it somewhere between A.D. 50 and 60, we shall probably be near the truth; but nearer it we cannot with any certainty come. Conjectures as to the place of publication are too uncertain to be mentioned here.\n\nThat it was addressed, in the first instance, to Gentile readers, is beyond doubt. This is no more, as DAVIDSON remarks [Introduction to the New Testament, p. 186], than was to have been expected from the companion of an \"apostle of the Gentiles,\" who had witnessed marvellous changes in the condition of many heathens by the reception of the Gospel. But the explanations in his Gospel of things known to every Jew, and which could only be intended for Gentile readers, make this quite plain--see Luk 1:26; Luk 4:31; Luk 8:26; Luk 21:37; Luk 22:1; Luk 24:13. A number of other minute particulars, both of things inserted and of things omitted, confirm the conclusion that it was Gentiles whom this Evangelist had in the first instance in view.\n\nWe have already adverted to the classical style of Greek which this Evangelist writes--just what might have been expected from an educated Greek and travelled physician. But we have also observed that along with this he shows a wonderful flexibility of style, so much so, that when he comes to relate transactions wholly Jewish, where the speakers and actors and incidents are all Jewish, he writes in such Jewish Greek as one would do who had never been out of Palestine or mixed with any but Jews. In DA COSTA'S'S Four Witnesses will be found some traces of \"the beloved physician\" in this Gospel. But far more striking and important are the traces in it of his intimate connection with the apostle of the Gentiles. That one who was so long and so constantly in the society of that master mind has in such a work as this shown no traces of that connection, no stamp of that mind, is hardly to be believed. Writers of Introductions seem not to see it, and take no notice of it. But those who look into the interior of it will soon discover evidences enough in it of a Pauline cast of mind. Referring for a number of details to DA COSTA, we notice here only two examples: In Co1 11:23, Paul ascribes to an express revelation from Christ Himself the account of the Institution of the Lord's Supper which he there gives. Now, if we find this account differing in small yet striking particulars from the accounts given by Matthew and Mark, but agreeing to the letter with Luke's account, it can hardly admit of a doubt that the one had it from the other; and in that case, of course, it was Luke that had it from Paul. Now Matthew and Mark both say of the Cup, \"This is my blood of the New Testament\"; while Paul and Luke say, in identical terms, \"This cup is the New Testament in My blood\" (Co1 11:25; Luk 22:20). Further, Luke says, \"Likewise also the cup after supper, saying,\" &c.; while Paul says, \"After the same manner He took the cup when He had supped, saying,\" &c.; whereas neither Matthew nor Mark mention that this was after supper. But still more striking is another point of coincidence in this case. Matthew and Mark both say of the Bread merely this: \"Take, eat; this is My body\" (Mat 26:26; Mar 14:22); whereas Paul says, \"Take, eat, this is My body, which is broken for you\" (Co1 11:24), and Luke, \"This is My body, which is given for you\" (Luk 22:19). And while Paul adds the precious clause, \"This do in remembrance of Me,\" Luke does the same, in identical terms. How can one who reflects on this resist the conviction of a Pauline stamp in this Gospel? The other proof of this to which we ask the reader's attention is in the fact that Paul, in enumerating the parties by whom Christ was seen after His resurrection, begins, singularly enough, with Peter--\"And that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures and that He was seen of Cephas, then of the Twelve\" (Co1 15:4-5) --coupled with the remarkable fact, that Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who mentions that Christ appeared to Peter at all. When the disciples had returned from Emmaus to tell their brethren how the Lord had appeared to them in the way, and how He had made Himself known to them in the breaking of bread, they were met, as Luke relates, ere they had time to utter a word, with this wonderful piece of news, \"The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon\" (Luk 24:34).\n\nOther points connected with this Gospel will be adverted to in the Commentary. \n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 1\n\n","order":42,"numberOfChapters":24,"sha256":"204b6ad5a3007ae03d59f0a3f250dc1a4fed154e78ef885292075f6de0b65757","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":24,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/24.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":24},"totalNumberOfVerses":596},"chapter":{"number":12,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["hid--from knowledge. \"Tis no use concealing anything, for all will one day come out. Give free and fearless utterance then to all the truth.\" (Compare Co1 4:3, Co1 4:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["I say, &c.--You will say, That may cost us our life. Be it so; but, \"My friends, there their power ends.\" He calls them \"my friends\" here, not in any loose sense, but, as we think, from the feeling He then had that in this \"killing of the body\" He and they were going to be affectingly one with each other.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Fear Him . . . Fear Him--how striking the repetition here! Only the one fear would effectually expel the other. \n\nafter he hath killed, &c.--Learn here--(1) To play false with one's convictions to save one's life, may fail of its end after all, for God can inflict a violent death in some other and equally formidable way. (2) There is a hell, it seems, for the body as well as the soul; consequently, sufferings adapted to the one as well as the other. (3) Fear of hell is a divinely authorized and needed motive of action even to Christ's \"friends.\" (4) As Christ's meekness and gentleness were not compromised by such harsh notes as these, so those servants of Christ lack their Master's spirit who soften down all such language to please ears \"polite.\" (See on Mar 9:43-48).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["five . . . for two farthings--In Mat 10:29 it is \"two for one farthing\"; so if one took two farthings' worth, he got one in addition--of such small value were they. \n\nthan many sparrows--not \"than millions of sparrows\"; the charm and power of our Lord's teaching is very much in this simplicity.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["confess . . . deny--The point lies in doing it \"before men,\" because one has to do it \"despising the shame.\" But when done, the Lord holds Himself bound to repay it in kind by confessing such \"before the angels of God.\" For the rest, see on Luk 9:26.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Son of man . . . Holy Ghost--(See on Mat 12:31-32).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["COVETOUSNESS--WATCHFULNESS--SUPERIORITY TO EARTHLY TIES. (Luke 12:13-53)\n\nMaster, &c.--that is, \"Great Preacher of righteousness, help; there is need of Thee in this rapacious world; here am I the victim of injustice, and that from my own brother, who withholds from me my rightful share of the inheritance that has fallen to us.\" In this most inopportune intrusion upon the solemnities of our Lord's teaching, there is a mixture of the absurd and the irreverent, the one, however, occasioning the other. The man had not the least idea that his case was not of as urgent a nature, and as worthy the attention of our Lord, as anything else He could deal with.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Man, &c.--Contrast this style of address with \"my friends,\" (Luk 12:4). \n\nwho, &c.--a question literally repudiating the office which Moses assumed (Exo 2:14). The influence of religious teachers in the external relations of life has ever been immense, when only the INDIRECT effect of their teaching; but whenever they intermeddle DIRECTLY with secular and political matters, the spell of that influence is broken.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["unto them--the multitude around Him (Luk 12:1). \n\nof covetousness--The best copies have \"all,\" that is, \"every kind of covetousness\"; because as this was one of the more plausible forms of it, so He would strike at once at the root of the evil. \n\na man's life, &c.--a singularly weighty maxim, and not less so because its meaning and its truth are equally evident.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["a certain rich man, &c.--Why is this man called a \"fool?\" (Luk 12:20) (1) Because he deemed a life of secure and abundant earthly enjoyment the summit of human felicity. (2) Because, possessing the means of this, through prosperity in his calling, he flattered himself that he had a long lease of such enjoyment, and nothing to do but give himself up to it. Nothing else is laid to his charge.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["this night, &c.--This sudden cutting short of his career is designed to express not only the folly of building securely upon the future, but of throwing one's whole soul into what may at any moment be gone. \"Thy soul shall be required of thee\" is put in opposition to his own treatment of it, \"I will say to my soul, Soul,\" &c. \n\nwhose shall those things be, &c.--Compare Psa 39:6, \"He heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["So is he, &c.--Such is a picture of his folly here, and of its awful issue. \n\nand is not rich toward God--lives to amass and enjoy riches which terminate on self, but as to the riches of God's favor, which is life (Psa 30:5), of \"precious\" faith (Pe2 1:1; Jam 2:5), of good works (Ti1 6:18), of wisdom which is better than rubies (Pro 8:11) --lives and dies a beggar!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["(See on Mat 6:25-33).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["which of you, &c.--Corroding solicitude will not bring you the least of the things ye fret about, though it may double the evil of wanting them. And if not the least, why vex yourselves about things of more consequence?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["of doubtful, &c.--unsettled mind; put off your balance.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["little flock, &c.--How sublime and touching a contrast between this tender and pitying appellation, \"Little flock\" (in the original a double diminutive, which in German can be expressed, but not in English)--and the \"good pleasure\" of the Father to give them the Kingdom; the one recalling the insignificance and helplessness of that then literal handful of disciples, the other holding up to their view the eternal love that encircled them, the everlasting arms that were underneath them, and the high inheritance awaiting them!--\"the kingdom\"; grand word; then why not \"bread\" (Luk 12:31 [BENGEL]). Well might He say, \"Fear not!\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["Sell, &c.--This is but a more vivid expression of Mat 6:19-21 (see on Mat 6:19-21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["loins . . . girded--to fasten up the long outer garment, always done before travel and work (Kg2 4:29; Act 12:8). The meaning is, Be in readiness. \n\nlights, &c.--(See on Mat 25:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["return from the wedding--not come to it, as in the parable of the virgins. Both have their spiritual significance; but preparedness for Christ's coming is the prominent idea.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["gird himself, &c.--\"a promise the most august of all: Thus will the Bridegroom entertain his friends (nay, servants) on the solemn Nuptial Day\" [BENGEL].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["second . . . third watch--To find them ready to receive Him at any hour of day or night, when one might least of all expect Him, is peculiarly blessed. A servant may be truly faithful, even though taken so far unawares that he has not everything in such order and readiness for his master's return as he thinks is due to him, and both could and would have had if he had had notice of the time of his coming, and so may not be willing to open to him \"immediately,\" but fly to preparation, and let his master knock again ere he admit him, and even then not with full joy. A too common case this with Christians. But if the servant have himself and all under his charge in such a state that at any hour when his master knocks, he can open to him \"immediately,\" and hail his \"return\"--that is the most enviable, \"blessed\" servant of all.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["unto us or even to all?--us the Twelve, or all this vast audience?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":42,"content":["Who then, &c.--answering the question indirectly by another question, from which they were left to gather what it would be:--To you certainly in the first instance, representing the \"stewards\" of the \"household\" I am about to collect, but generally to all \"servants\" in My house. \n\nfaithful and wise--Fidelity is the first requisite in a servant, wisdom (discretion and judgment in the exercise of his functions), the next. \n\nsteward--house steward, whose it was to distribute to the servants their allotted portion of food. \n\nshall make--will deem fit to be made.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":44,"content":["make him ruler over all he hath--will advance him to the highest post, referring to the world to come. (See Mat 25:21, Mat 25:23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":45,"content":["begin to beat, &c.--In the confidence that his Lord's return will not be speedy, he throws off the role of servant and plays the master, maltreating those faithful servants who refuse to join him, seizing on and revelling in the fulness of his master's board; intending, when he has got his fill, to resume the mask of fidelity ere his master appear.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":46,"content":["cut him in sunder--a punishment not unknown in the East; compare Heb 11:37, \"sawn asunder\" (Sa1 15:33; Dan 2:5). \n\nthe unbelievers--the unfaithful, those unworthy of trust (Mat 24:51), \"the hypocrites,\" falsely calling themselves \"servants.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":48,"content":["knew not--that is knew but partially; for some knowledge is presupposed both in the name \"servant\" of Christ, and his being liable to punishment at all. \n\nmany . . . few stripes--degrees of future punishment proportioned to the knowledge sinned against. Even heathens are not without knowledge enough for future judgment; but the reference here is not to such. It is a solemn truth, and though general, like all other revelations of the future world, discloses a tangible and momentous principle in its awards.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":49,"content":["to send--cast. \n\nfire--\"the higher spiritual element of life which Jesus came to introduce into this earth (compare Mat 3:11), with reference to its mighty effects in quickening all that is akin to it and destroying all that is opposed. To cause this element of life to take up its abode on earth, and wholly to pervade human hearts with its warmth, was the lofty destiny of the Redeemer\" [OLSHAUSEN: so CALVIN, STIER, ALFORD, &c.]. \n\nwhat will I, &c.--an obscure expression, uttered under deep and half-smothered emotion. In its general import all are agreed; but the nearest to the precise meaning seems to be, \"And what should I have to desire if it were once already kindled?\" [BENGEL and BLOOMFIELD].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":50,"content":["But . . . a baptism, &c.--clearly, His own bloody baptism, first to take place. \n\nhow . . . straitened--not, \"how do I long for its accomplishment,\" as many understand it, thus making it but a repetition of Luk 12:49; but \"what a pressure of spirit is upon Me.\" \n\ntill it be accomplished--till it be over. Before a promiscuous audience, such obscure language was fit on a theme like this; but oh, what surges of mysterious emotion in the view of what was now so near at hand does it reveal!\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":51,"content":["peace . . . ? Nay, &c.--the reverse of peace, in the first instance. (See on Mat 10:34-36.) The connection of all this with the foregoing warnings about hypocrisy, covetousness, and watchfulness, is deeply solemn: \"My conflict hasten apace; Mine over, yours begins; and then, let the servants tread in their Master's steps, uttering their testimony entire and fearless, neither loving nor dreading the world, anticipating awful wrenches of the dearest ties in life, but looking forward, as I do, to the completion of their testimony, when, reaching the haven after the tempest, they shall enter into the joy of their Lord.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":54,"content":["NOT DISCERNING THE SIGNS OF THE TIME. (Luk 12:54-59)\n\nto the people--\"the multitude,\" a word of special warning to the thoughtless crowd, before dismissing them. (See on Mat 16:2-3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":56,"content":["how . . . not discern, &c.--unable to perceive what a critical period that was for the Jewish Church.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":57,"content":["why even of yourselves, &c.--They might say, To do this requires more knowledge of Scripture and providence than we possess; but He sends them to their own conscience, as enough to show them who He was, and win them to immediate discipleship.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":58,"content":["When thou goest, &c.--(See on Mat 5:25-26). The urgency of the case with them, and the necessity, for their own safety, of immediate decision, was the object of these striking words.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Luke Chapter 13\n\n"]}],"introduction":"WARNING AGAINST HYPOCRISY. (Luk 12:1-12)\n\nmeantime--in close connection, probably, with the foregoing scene. Our Lord had been speaking out more plainly than ever before, as matters were coming to a head between Him and His enemies, and this seems to have suggested to His own mind the warning here. He had just Himself illustriously exemplified His own precepts. \n\nhis disciples first of all--afterwards to \"the multitudes\" (Luk 12:54). \n\ncovered--from the view.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/12.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":12},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/13.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":13},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LUK/11.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LUK","chapter":11},"numberOfVerses":34}