Luke 9:7 “Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was done by Him; and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead,”    Herod didn’t know what to do with himself. He never liked to feel out of control. He needed to have the inside scoop…

 Luke 9:6 ” So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.”    The disciples went to where the people were. These ‘towns’ were the small regional villages made up of the domiciles of simple farmers and herdsmen. The disciples preached, sharing the truth with these folks. They also used the…

Luke 9:5 Jesus isn’t playing games. The gospel is serious business. The Jewish nation had been given a great privilege to have God Himself right there physically in their midst. Rejection of His representatives meant rejection of Him. This action that He proscribed for towns that shunned His disciples was a portent of future judgement.…

Luke 9:4 “Whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart.”    This is the kind of hospitality the disciples could expect from Jewish families who recognized them as messengers of God. It was considered rude and an affront to deny Jewish travelers this convenience. Thus, if the disciples were not given this basic…

Luke 9:3 “And He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece.”    The disciples would have understood the instructions Jesus gave here a bit more readily than we do. We would naturally see Him telling them to go somewhat…

 Luke 9:2 “He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”    The message to be preached at this time was to the Jewish nation. The sick were healed as an evidence of the authority of the disciples to preach this message. They were telling Israel that the long awaited…

 Luke 9:1 “Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases.” The twelve disciples are the nucleus of what becomes the church. Early on Jesus gave this pre-birth church the power and authority it needed to do what it does. In this case He…

 Luke 8:56  “And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.”    Imagine this from the perspective of the girl’s mother. She was apparently not with Jairus when he went to speak with Jesus. So, once her daughter perished she may well have thought there was no hope.…

Luke 8:55 Some folks will be curious. I understand, I’m one of them. Where did this girl’s spirit go while away from her body? And would she have remembered? And, why was she hungry? The simple answer is that we don’t know. But, based on what we do know, there are some good guesses. Her…

Luke 8:54 Simple. Powerful. Confident. Sometimes people get the idea that Jesus was hesitant. They think He was unsure of Himself. They think maybe He didn’t know for sure what He was capable of. Well, none of these notions come from Scripture. The picture here is plain. Jesus knows exactly Who He is and exactly…