The next day, after they had come down the mountain, a large crowd met Jesus. A man in the crowd called out to Him, “Teacher, I beg You to look at my son, my only child. An evil spirit keeps seizing him, making him scream. It throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It batters him and hardly ever leaves him alone. I begged Your disciples to cast out the spirit, but they couldn’t do it.” Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you and put up with you?”
Then He said to the man, “Bring your son here.”
As the boy came forward, the demon knocked him to the ground and threw him into a violent convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil spirit and healed the boy. Then He gave him back to his father. Awe gripped the people as they saw this majestic display of God’s power. While everyone was marvelling at everything He was doing, Jesus said to His disciples, “Listen to Me and remember what I say. The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of His enemies.”
But they didn’t know what He meant. Its significance was hidden from them, so they couldn’t understand it, and they were afraid to ask Him about it.
Luke 9:37-45
We have officially finished with the transfiguration story now. There are other elements to the story that I have not covered but I figure you can dig those out for yourself. Also I will continue to investigate the Transfiguration story into the future. I have told you before this is the first time I have applied myself to digging in Luke at the depth that I am at the moment. I will keep digging through Luke both once a year when I read it in my yearly cycle and also give it some time to make it a focus outside of Bible Gems. I hope I have sparked some interest for each of you too.
Now we are starting the next pericope. I am sure you know what to do by now so I am going to leave you to it to work out for yourself. In the next Gem we will start to pull this new segment apart and connect the pieces again. There are not many more synoptic passages left for us in Luke, even though we are not even half way in Luke yet. Luke 9:51 marks the beginning of a long section which is Luke only material. So at that point until 18:14 we will not be able to compare Luke with the other two synoptic writers. So it is best that we make the most of it now.
This is a good chance for you to look at the big picture yourself and learn to compare not only the text of each pericope but also the order and choice of pericopes around it. Now is your chance to do just that with this story of the healing and exorcism of the demons from this boy. Go do some preliminary study. I will see you here at the bottom of the mountain in the next Gem. Sorry people, now we are back in the real world again. Go to work.
You don’t drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.
Edwin Louis Cole
If your faith doesn’t include risk it’s just religion!
Rick Godwin
A news reporter asked 104 yr old woman what she liked about her age? She said, “there’s no peer pressure!” Go girl!”
Anon
You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
John Wooden
Never settle for average. It’s as close to the bottom as it is to the top!
Rick Godwin