Bible Study series: Luke 7:11-17. This shows that Jesus is the Messiah, true, but it also demonstrates that he loves people who hurt.
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In the next link to the original chapter, I comment more and offer the Greek text. At the bottom you will find a “Summary and Conclusion” section geared toward discipleship. Check it out!
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Luke 7:11-17
11 And it happened soon afterwards that he went into a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd accompanied him. 12 As he got near the gate of the town, look! The only son, deceased, of his mother was being carried out, and she was a widow! A large crowd from the town was with her! 13 When the Lord saw her, he was moved with compassion for her and said to her, “Don’t weep!” 14 He approached and touched the open plank, and the ones carrying it stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, ‘Get up!’” 15 And the dead person sat up and began to talk, and he gave him to his mother. 16 Fear gripped everyone, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us,” and “God has visited his people.” 17 This report about him spread around all of Judea and the entire region. (Luke 7:11-17)
Comments:
Green (p. 290) points out the differences between the parallel narrative in 1 Kings 17 and this pericope in Luke. Jesus has compassion not evidenced in 1 Kings 17. Elijah pleads with God and then uses up a lot of energy for the restoration. Jesus speaks directly to the corpse. The young man is brought back to life. Luke refers to Jesus as Lord (v. 13). Jesus’s Lordship fulfills the role performed by the Lord God (1 Kgs 17:21-22). Jesus is more than a prophet. He is the Lord.
11:
Nain: was a little town and is probably located at the modern town called Nain, with about two hundred residents: located in Galilee three miles (4.8kms) west of Endor, twenty miles (32km) southwest of Capernaum, and six miles (9.6km) southeast of Nazareth (Bock, p. 649).
Soon after the healing of the centurion’s servant, something remarkable is about to happen. Luke sets up the scene. It is in the town of Nain (you can google where that is), and his disciples and a large crowd are with him.
“disciples”: BDAG is considered by many to be the authoritative Greek lexicon of the NT, and it says of the noun (1) “one who engages in learning through instruction from another, pupil, apprentice”; (2) “one who is rather constantly associated with someone who has a pedagogical reputation or a particular set of views, disciple, adherent.”
12:
“look!” it is an update of “Behold!” I like it when Luke steps out from behind his fourth wall and commands the reader. “Look!” It is Luke’s way of calling attention to an important scene. Something significant is about to happen, whether good or bad, in this case good. It is the storyteller’s art to draw attention to the people and action that follows. “As you, my audience, sit and listen to me read this Gospel, listen up! Look! A funeral procession interrupts the flow of Jesus’s progress to his next stop!”
“only son”: Luke likes to mention this fact, because it adds drama and it was true (see 8:42; 9:48). The listener to his story would feel the suspense rising. “Can Jesus raise the dead? He has to, because she’s the ruler’s only daughter! What will happen next?” The only son of his mother indicates that she lost her only child. She could have had daughters, however, but her son would have been about the only means of financial support, as he learned a trade or how to farm. This fact, not lost on the people of Nain and Luke’s readers, would have been obvious, once they learned of this family.
Luke described the scene even more. Men were carrying an open plank out of the town in conformity to Jewish law that says those who touch a dead body are unclean (Num 5:2; 9:6-11; 19:10-22), so they were to take the body away from the people, to a cemetery.
“open plank”: it is how things were done back then. It seems the body was not wrapped up, but it was anointed with oil (the boy got up instantly without being unwrapped). So the widow was poor.
“deceased”: Jewish custom of the time did not have a burial until the authorities knew the person really was dead. That seems strange to us, but they did not have fancy equipment back then, like beeping monitors. The boy was dead.
13:
“Lord”: This is Luke’s first mention of the title, outside of characters in the Gospel saying the term. Luke himself calls him Lord. “Luke … also uses it in narrative to refer to Jesus: 7:13, 19; 10:1, 39, 41; 11:39; 12:42; 13:15; 16:8; 17:5, 6; 18:6; 19:8a; 22:61a, b; 24:3, 34; cf. 19:31, 34 par. Mk. 11:3; Lk. 20:42b, 44 par. Mk. 12:36f.” (Marshall, comment on v. 13).
When Jesus saw her, he was “moved with compassion”: “It describes the compassion Jesus had for those he saw in difficulty” (Mounce, New Expository Dictionary, p. 128). BDAG defines the verb simply: “have pity, feel sympathy.”
Let’s explore the concept more closely.
Do I Really Know God? He Is Compassionate and Merciful
14:
Due to the dead body, the carriers of the open plank would be unclean for seven days, but must wash themselves on the third day. Even touching a grave would make someone unclean (Num. 19:16). When Jesus touched the open plank, he would be unclean, but what happened when the human is no longer dead? No doubt people ignored such a quibble and were gripped by fear (v. 16). In any case, he was not worried about clean and unclean laws when a widow woman was weeping over her only child (or more specifically her only son). He was about to perform a resuscitation miracle.
“Don’t weep” could be translated as “don’t cry.”
I liked how the bearers of the open plank stood (still), as the verb could be translated, with “still” being implied. Jesus touched it possibly to get them to stop. They did not shield the body, for they sensed something significant was about to happen, something miraculous. Remember that Jesus was well known as a healer. And something significant and miraculous did happen.
Jesus issued a command. He did not pray a flowery prayer: “O thou God of the universe, I beg and plead with thee, if it be thy will, to raise up this child. But if it be not thy will, then keep him dead.” No. He said, “Get up!” It could be translated old school, “Arise!” Or “I tell you, “Be raised up!” But I like the abrupt command. “Get up!” It sounds more authoritative and commanding.
15:
What else could the kid do than sit up? Jesus commanded even death to loosen its grip on the young man and commanded life to go back into the dead body. It is an amazing scene for us Renewalists who believe that the dead are raised even today. Reports like this circulate around the web and in people’s lives. I wonder what the kid said. “Where am I? What am I doing on this open plank?”
Then Jesus gave him to his mother. No doubt Jesus held his hand and presented him alive. The open plank may have still been carried by the bearers, up in the air. Jesus may have helped him down and walked him over to his mother. Mother and son must have held on to each other tightly.
Other accounts of resuscitations are recorded in the OT. In contrast to Jesus, who moved with more authority, Elijah stretched himself over a boy and raised him from the dead (1 Kings 17:21), and Elisha touched a child with his staff and then later lay over him (2 Kings 4:31, 34-35). Jesus issued a command.
Then through the Spirit of Jesus, Peter raised Tabitha-Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9:36-43). Peter also commanded the girl to get up, and she did, using the same verb for sitting up (v. 40). Result in Acts: many believed on the Lord, which is the right direction for their faith, not Peter. Jesus got all the glory.
This boy’s resuscitation is not the same as Jesus’s resurrection, for Jesus’s body was transformed and glorified. The boy’s body simply recovered from the dead and when he was older he died, like everyone else of her generation. So we should call it a resuscitation from the dead.
11. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Was Resurrected from the Dead
12. Do I Really Know Jesus? What Was His Resurrected Body Like?
13. Do I Really Know Jesus? His Resurrection Changes Everything
16-17:
This is the right reaction.
“gripped”: it means “to take, take hold of, grasp … seize … receive” (among other things).
“Fear”: It did the gripping of their minds, hearts, spirits, souls. In Luke 5:26 amazement gripped them. It can also mean “awe.” Here it is fear. Luke often expresses the emotional reaction to God’s work in terms of awe and respect (Luke 1:65; 5:26; 8:25, 37; Acts 2:43; 5:5, 11; 19:17) (Bock, p. 653).
There is nothing wrong, and everything right, with the fear of God settling over your minds. Don’t let the Happy Highlight Preachers on TV tell you otherwise.
When Jesus revealed himself with more power and glory, the people said that God was visiting his people. This relates to his birth and his name Emmanuel (Matt. 1:22-23). Jesus was God in the flesh, and people caught a glimpse of it, but they were not able to see it fully. So they called him a “great prophet.” That’s about right for where the people were in their limited worldview after such a wonderful miracle. Further, Jesus was anointed by the Spirit; he was the Anointed One. So now we see the Father, his Son, and the Spirit working together to usher in the kingdom, including miracles of recovery (Luke 4:18-19). We will never be able to figure out completely and in detail how the three interact within the person of Jesus of Nazareth, until we get glimpses like this.
Of course, this report circulated around everywhere, and well it should. It is humbling and stunning to think that God would show so much love to a widow woman. The people of Nain must have been stunned.
GrowApp for Luke 7:11-17
1. Study Heb. 13:8. Do you believe that Jesus works miracles today?
2. How did you react when God worked a miracle in your life, or when you heard about one?
RELATED
11. Eyewitness Testimony in Luke’s Gospel
3. Church Fathers and Luke’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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