Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 8.

Today’s passage begins with Luke telling us that Jesus travelled around with the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases.  He lists three women and then says “and many others”.  First, it is not clear to me if the “many others” was intended to indicate many other women, or many other men and women.  In any case, I am convinced that when Luke writes that “These women were helping to support them out of their own means,” he was saying that Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna were providing financial support for Jesus’ ministry.  Luke may have intended to say that many other women provided financial support to Jesus’ ministry, but he definitively says that these three women did.

Further on in this passage we come to the account of Jesus casting the demons named Legion out of the man from the region of the Gerasenes.  Now there is an interesting part of this story which I rarely hear anyone comment on, and I have not written about it in the many years I have been writing this blog.  After the herd of pigs rushed into the lake and drowned the pig herders rushed into town and told people what had happened.  This led the people of town to come out and see what happened.  Which brings us to the interesting part.  When the people saw the man who had been demon-possessed sitting and Jesus’ feet dressed and in his right mind, they were afraid.  They weren’t frightened by hearing about the demons coming out of the man and causing the pigs to kill themselves.  No, they were frightened by seeing the man dressed and in his right mind.  They were even more frightened after those who had witnessed the man be cured told them how that happened (as an aside, I find it interesting how Luke refers to the people out of whom demons had been driven as being cured).  The people from town weren’t frightened by the pigs stampeding into the lake, that was just a curiosity to be checked out.  They were so frightened by the fact that a demon-possessed man was cured that they asked Jesus to leave the area.

Finally, I want to look at just one piece of the story about Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead.  After raising her, Jesus told her parents to give her something to eat.  When I have heard this commented on, the commenter either says that this was because she needed food after her illness, or, that it was because her appetite had returned after Jesus healed her.    However, I was reminded of how Jesus made a point of eating in front of His disciples after He was raised from the dead.  I think Jesus told her parents to give her something to eat as a confirmation to them that she was alive.  Ghosts and spirits do not eat.  When the girl’s parents saw their daughter eat, they knew that she was indeed alive.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus