Luke 11:27 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 11:27

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(Synoptics: Luke 11:27-28)That was a strange thing that a woman should call out those words, call out to Christ, ‘How happy is the mother who bore and nursed you.’ That is her response to hearing the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. She's not going to be named, and we don't know what became of her. We don't know whether she really understood and believed, or came to believe in Christ and to follow him. There's a vast crowd, and she calls out so very loudly from the middle of this multitude that she was heard, and her comments are recorded for posterity. In a sense she seems to have been a great supporter of Jesus Christ, but her comments assess Christ really in an entirely human way. She was amazed at the sway he had over the crowds. They were absolutely hushed for the most part. You could say he had them in his hand. When he spoke, they listened. He had an authority and a command of his subject, which the people weren't used to, even from the professional clergy and the scribes of those days. They just crowded and flocked. We speculate that she liked his delivery; she liked his intonation; she liked his expressions; she liked his sincerity. It came through. She was full of admiration for his illustrations, his parables, and in between them, his healings of countless people. She was completely carried away by observing him at the human level. ‘If I was your mother,’ she thought to herself, ‘how proud I would be, and how pleased that I had had some part in the upbringing of such a person, such a powerful speaker, destined for great things.Christ was one who spoke with clarity and authority, not as the scribes spoke. He did mighty works, miracles of healing, even raising the dead. Even if she was a rather confused woman, we can suppose that she would have seen him as the promised Messiah. Whether she was fully convinced of it or not is beside the point, but she would have heard his amazing words, and observed his miracles and his wonderful deportment. At the very least, she would have thought that here was a great prophet. The Jews of those days longed for another prophet. There had been centuries go by without God giving them a wonder-working prophet. She thought, as she saw him that the woman who was the mother of this man must surely be going to heaven. It was rather a superstitious response, really: ‘As far as God is concerned, as far as religion is concerned, anybody who has been anywhere near this man, and certainly the woman who was privileged to give birth to such a prophet, must be very distinguished in the sight of God.

Application

To believe in Bible terms is to be persuaded about a thing. The word translated ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ in the New Testament literally means to be persuaded, to be convinced, so convinced that we act upon it. You base your life upon something; you invest your future in something. Now we are all believers: alas, not in God, but everybody has a strong belief in something. We are all believers in all sorts of things we can't prove. If not in God, then in something else. Some people, for instance, believe very much in the essential goodness of human nature. In the world of education there are some who put out various theories of how you should educate youngsters, all based on the assumption that really everybody is basically good. There are even some key politicians who have this basic belief in the goodness of human nature, and that's why they can take certain policies they believe in, so seriously. They really think they'll work, because, apart from a certain minority of criminal class people, they think people who go off the track can be brought to behave in a reasonable manner, in a rational manner. You see it in international politics. You see how ready everybody is at the drop of a hat to make peace, lay down arms, abolish weapons, and to get the insecurity and the fear out of the way. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing, you see the haste with which people are ready to take up one another's promises, so there's an urge within us to trust if we can. Extreme socialism seems to believe this: that people are essentially cooperative, essentially well-motivated, essentially reliable. On the other side, extreme conservatism seems to believe in the infallibility of the marketplace, and the reasonableness of businessmen – of course they'll never go in for any extortion or anything of this kind. They seem to really believe that the market is like a god, it's some wonderful infallible force, and you can trust to it, and it will solve everything.

Then there are people, who believe in permissiveness. They really think people are all sufficiently adult to handle themselves. The big trouble in this world is Victorian values and Victorian taboos. As soon as you get rid of all this, adult people can be perfectly trusted to behave themselves. Morality is an outmoded thing which somebody invented years ago, and it shouldn't shackle us now. We should be free to enjoy ourselves. If they had a chance, they would turn the whole of society into chaos, into a quagmire of evil and rampant, evil behaviour.

Then many ordinary people are quite convinced that happiness is there to be found. I don't need God. Happiness: it's possible to find it. I don't say I've found it just yet, they say, but it's only round the corner. Just pull the right strings and press the right buttons and do the right things. People actually believe that, and they pursue that myth all their lives. Yes, it's possible to be happy in spasms, in phases, and also to put up with the disappointments and the heartache, but it isn't possible to find true, deep, lasting, fulfilling happiness in this life without God. But many think it is. There are people who believe that they can live as they like, and their sin will never be accounted for. So we are all believers. Consider the tragedy of the person who takes his own life. He's a believer in something. He believes that it's all futile. He believes there's no hope anywhere, and he believes that so strongly, that he is prepared to end it all.

So everyone's a believer. The important thing is, what are we believers in? Do you believe in this vain and passing world? Some spend all their youth and all their years in pursuit of happiness and possessions in this world, convinced that will bring them a reward. That is the most misplaced and foolish belief. This is a world which hardly ever keeps its promises, hardly ever fulfils those desires. Just think of the shortness of your life, and the many disappointments, and the record of sin you're going to build up. Think of the history of the world and all its pain and its inequality. No matter how much it struggles, it cannot solve its own problems, neither can it solve the problem of your life. This world is in rebellion against God, away from God. But you believe it's going to make your life and give you everything.

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Luke 11:27 Commentary and Bible Study