Luke 14:13. The maimed,— 'Αναπηρους, the disabled; the word takes in both the lame and the blind; and may also include those whom the infirmities of age have rendered helpless. See a fine parallel passage in Pliny's Epistles, lib. 9: epist. read more
12-14. call not thy friends—Jesus certainly did not mean us to dispense with the duties of ordinary fellowship, but, remitting these to their proper place, inculcates what is better [BENGEL]. lest . . . a recompense be given thee—a fear the world is not afflicted with [BENGEL]. The meaning, however, is that no exercise of principle is involved in it, as selfishness itself will suffice to prompt to it (Matthew 5:46; Matthew 5:47). read more
13. call the poor—"Such God Himself calls" (Luke 14:21) [BENGEL]. read more
4. Participants in the kingdom 14:1-24This section contains the record of several incidents that happened when Jesus was the dinner guest of a leading Pharisee. Jesus had just announced that He would leave Jerusalem desolate (Luke 13:35). The present section justifies Jesus’ condemnation by showing that the root of Israel’s problems lay with her leaders, specifically the Pharisees. It also gives the rationale for Jesus excluding many Jews from the kingdom and admitting Gentiles (Luke 13:28-30). read more
The lesson about inviting guests 14:12-14Jesus addressed the former parable to His fellow guests, but He directed this teaching particularly to His host. This lesson, like the former parable, could have applied only to social relationships. However, Jesus’ teaching was never simply ethical. It always had a spiritual dimension (cf. Luke 6:32-36). Jesus was teaching on both levels. If the Pharisees did not perceive or rejected the lesson about Jesus’ ministry, they could at least profit from the... read more
The Dropsical Man. The Great Supper. Divers Sayings and Parables1-6. The sabbath question again. The man with the dropsy healed (peculiar to Lk).1. To eat bread] So far from being abstemious on the sabbath, the Jews carried the pleasures of the table to excess. ’The Hebrews honour the sabbath chiefly by inviting each other to drinking and intoxication’ (Plutarch). ’Rabbah Abba bought flesh of thirteen butchers that he might be sure to taste the best, and paid them at the very gate, that he... read more
(12) A dinner or a supper.—The two words were used respectively for the morning and the evening meal—the former, like the Continental déjeûner, being taken commonly a little before noon, the latter, about sunset.Thy friends, nor thy brethren.—The words were clearly chosen as including the classes of guests who were then present. Our Lord saw in that Sabbath feast nothing but an ostentatious hospitality, calculating on a return in kind. It might not be wrong in itself, but it could take no... read more
(13) When thou makest a feast.—Literally, as in Luke 5:29, a reception. In practice, it need hardly be said, the form of obedience to the precept must, of necessity, vary with the varying phases of social life, and with the lessons of experience. Relief given privately, thoughtfully, discriminatively, may be better both for the giver, as less ostentatious, and for the receivers, as tending to the formation of a higher character, than the open feast of the Eastern form of benevolence. The... read more
The Men Without a Sabbath Luke 14:3-6 The Lord delivered His primary challenge to the Jews through the Sabbath Day. It was, as it were, His gauge of battle, His test case. For His own personal significance turned on His relation to this Sabbath Day question. Not that in this He challenged the validity of the older Covenant. On the contrary, He always claimed the authority of the older Covenant on His own side. He appealed for His own justification to the principles established in the Law of... read more
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Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible - Luke 14:12
Luke 14:12. When thou makest a dinner, &c.— "By no means confine thy hospitality to thy rich relations, acquaintance and neighbours, or to them chiefly, lest the whole of thy reward be an invitation from them to a like entertainment;" for that the text here, as in some other instances, impliesthe addition of the particle only, appears from this, that our Lord cannot be supposed to exclude entirely from the entertainments of the rich, all those who are not objects of charity; or to forbid... read more