Luke 6:38 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Give, and it shall be given unto you.’ Given by who? Given by God. This is Christ’s promise to his people. Our giving and the giving back to us are linked as if by cause and effect, but it is not really cause and effect except at a spiritual level. It happens through God’s kind government of his people, and the connection between our giving and our receiving a gift in return takes place in the heart of God. It comes through the fulfilment of his promise, and that is always by the loving intention of his heart. These are the words of one who know the workings of God’s government of the world, and the Lord divulges them to God’s children for their encouragement. He is party to all that the Father does in providence, and here is an insight into his invisible rule. This is not said to human beings in general, for only true believers can give in the disinterested way that is in mind here. Only they can give with pure motives.There follow four metaphors to describe the giving of God, all them are applicable to the market place, where traders sold their produce. ‘Good measure’ – how much better are the gifts of God than anything that men trade with. The earthly trader is out to make a profit, and he wants to maximise his profit, even if he has to swindle his customers. The dishonest trader in those days might carefully design his measuring instrument to be undersize, and so sell less for the money than the customer expected. Some of his schemes, if they are not exactly outright deceptions, are designed to make the buyer overestimate what he is buying: he sells a large packet with little goods inside, or he substitutes a less valuable product for the real thing. He has various schemes by which he can deceive the unwary. God does not give as false merchants do, using deceitful weights to measure out his gifts. He loves to give and so instead of giving half measures he delights to add to his gift. His pleasure is to communicate his love to us and to see us happy with his gift.The false trader holds back his gifts, and he deliberately bulks up his goods to make them seem more than they really are. How different is the giving of the Lord, for he delights to give what is genuine and what will not disappoint. He is more willing to give than we are to receive. ‘Pressed down’ – to remove, as it were, any empty spaces when selling by volume, and to ensure we receive the full quantity of goods. ‘Shaken together’ – the same image, allowing the goods to settle so that the container holds the maximum quantity, and there is no possibility of receiving less than it appears. ‘Running over’ – excess of material, so much so that it spills out of the container. All these are metaphors used to show that God’s gifts to us are bountiful, and bring no disappointment. He gives us no short supply, no half measure or pretended gift which somehow lacks. Such is the nature of all God’s giving. As we hold this in mind we rejoice that we are in the hands of one who wants to enrich us spiritually, and in every possible way in the world to come.‘Into your bosom’ – the words might well be translated ‘into your lap’. It is an image of a gift given by one who wants to assure us of their good intent to us and their desire to hold nothing back. They give generously and want us to enjoy the full benefit of their gift. ‘Shall men give’ – the gifts of God come back to us through his creatures very often; they are acting as his agents. We must not look on this as if it was not the gift of God. This a gift of providence, but it may come through men. They may know nothing about the part they play in the plan of God, but we see their role as one that has been assigned them by them Lord, and we give thanks to him. When we give to others, we are often the unwitting conveyers of God’s gifts.What is to be our motive in giving? That we will receive back again? No, the true giver has his eye on the benefit of his gift to the recipient, not on himself. He gives because there is a genuine need which he wishes to fulfil. Besides, what is given back to him is not necessarily given back in kind. The language is strongly metaphorical.Our generosity to others is linked by Christ to God’s generosity to us. We are to give full measure ourselves, rejoicing in the good that we can do to others. God places in our hands the means by which we can learn to be generous. It is a right spirit that he is training us to have, and wants to see develop in us. That is what is lasting. The gifts that we handle in this world are all perishing by nature, and do not count for much at all. But the spirit that he develops in us lasts forever. That is something we can take with us into the world to come.