Luke 9:50 - Exposition

And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us . The older authorities, manuscripts, and the more venerable versions here read for the last clause, "He that is not against you is for you." Exegetically as well as critically this amended reading is to be preferred. The offence of the stranger, if it were an offence, was not against Jesus, whose Name had evidently been used reverently and with faith, but against the disciples, whose rights and privileges were presumably infringed upon. The Master's reply contained a broad and far-reaching truth. No earthly society, however holy, would be able exclusively to claim the Divine powers inseparably connected with a true and faithful use of his Name. This is the grand and massive answer which stretches over a history of eighteen centuries, and which will possibly extend over many yet to come; the answer which gives an ample reason why noble Christian work is done whether emanating from Churches bearing the name of Protestant, or Roman, or Greek.

The So-Called Journeyings Towards Jerusalem.

The great characteristic feature in St. Luke's Gospel, distinguishing it especially from the other two synoptical Gospels of SS . Matthew and Mark, are the events in the public ministry of Jesus dwelt on in the next ten chapters of this Gospel. Many incidents in the succeeding chapters are recorded by this evangelist alone. Two questions suggest themselves.

1. To what period of the Lord's public work does this large and important section of our Gospel refer?

1. Commentators frequently, and with some accuracy, speak of this great section of St. Luke's work as "the journeyings towards Jerusalem." Three times does this writer especially tell us that this was the object and end of the journeys he was describing; in Luke 9:51 , "He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem ;" in Luke 13:22 , "He went through the cities and villages … journeying toward Jerusalem ;" in Luke 17:11 , "And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem. "

These journeyings to Jerusalem were evidently just before the end. They were the close of the public life. They immediately preceded the last Passover Feast, which all the four evangelists tell us the Lord kept at Jerusalem, and in the course of which he was crucified. They fill up, then, the last six or seven months of his earth-life—that period, roughly speaking, from the Feast of Tabernacles (alluded to in John 7:1-53 .), which falls in October, until the Passover Feast in the following spring. These last months were occupied by the Master in a slow progress from Capernaum, through those parts of Galilee hitherto generally unvisited by him, gradually making his way toward the capital, which we know he reached in time for the Passover Feast, during which he was crucified.

In the course of this period it seems, however, likely that, in St. Luke's account of Mary and Martha ( Luke 10:38-42 ), we have an allusion to a short visit to Jerusalem of the Lord, undertaken in the course of these journeyings, at the Dedication Feast ( John 10:22 ).

Thus, in the earlier chapters, we have already discussed the high probability of the Virgin-mother herself having furnished the information; so here there is little doubt that SS . Paul and Luke, in their researches during the composition of the Third Gospel, met with men and women who had formed part of that larger company which had been with Jesus, we know, during those last months of his ministry among us. Nor is it, surely, an unreasonable thought for us to see, in connection with this important portion of our Gospel, the hand of the Holy Spirit, who, unseen, guided the pen of the four evangelists, especially throwing Luke and his master, Paul, into the society of men who had watched the great Teacher closely during that period of his work, when the other two synoptists, SS . Matthew and Peter (Mark), were frequently absent.

From the language employed in this portion of the Gospel, there seems a high probability that many of the notes or documents supplied to SS . Luke and Paul were written or dictated in Aramaic (Hebrew).