Lukechapter 18
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Speaks with:Mark 10×8Matthew 19×5Matthew 20×4Luke 18×4Luke 16×3Luke 12×2
Summary
Chapter summary
The persistent widow; the Pharisee and the publican: 'God be merciful to me a sinner.' Children received; the rich ruler; third passion prediction; the blind man at Jericho healed. Luke's two prayer parables frame the larger journey toward Jerusalem.
Context
Gospel · Luke — Luke overview
- A. 1–8 The Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge
- B. 9–14 The Pharisee and the Tax Collector
- C. 15–17 Unless You Receive It Like a Child
- D. 18–30 The Ruler Who Had Great Riches
- E. 31–43 Toward Jerusalem; a Blind Beggar Sees
The outline
A.The Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judgevv. 1 to 8
Read vv. 1 to 8 →B.The Pharisee and the Tax Collectorvv. 9 to 14
Read vv. 9 to 14 →C.Unless You Receive It Like a Childvv. 15 to 17
Read vv. 15 to 17 →D.The Ruler Who Had Great Richesvv. 18 to 30
Read vv. 18 to 30 →E.Toward Jerusalem; a Blind Beggar Seesvv. 31 to 43
Read vv. 31 to 43 →
The world behind this chapter
Luke 18The history
The widow's position explains the parable. A widow without a son had no legal standing to press her own case and no income; the Law repeatedly commands special protection for widows precisely because they had none. A local judge who neither feared God nor respected people had no reason to take her side and every reason to favour whoever could pay.
Her only weapon is persistence — and the phrase behind the judge's surrender is vivid, carrying the sense of being worn out or given a black eye by her constant coming.
The temple scene happens at one of the set hours of prayer, when people gathered in the courts. Both men are standing, which was the normal posture. The Pharisee's prayer is not invented mockery; fasting twice a week and tithing everything he acquired were real practices of the devout, above what the Law required. The tax collector standing at a distance, refusing to lift his eyes, beating his breast, is the posture of public grief.
The blind man near Jericho is placed by Luke as they approach the city and by Mark as they leave it. It is a real difference in the accounts, variously explained by the old and new towns lying near each other or by a different arrangement of the material, and it is more honest to name it than to smooth it away.
What it meant to them
The two prayers gave Luke's readers a doctrine in a sentence: this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled.
And the rich ruler's departure is answered by the disciples' worry about who then can be saved. Luke's reader — a man of standing, addressed with a title of honour — is watching a wealthy, moral, religious man walk away sad, and hearing that what is impossible with men is possible with God.
Sources cited
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
- Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Luke 18. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Connections from this chapter
v. 14 · Written to them
Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased
topics/pride→MannaFest topical index
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.