Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 8.

Every year I run into a point where I have trouble not seeing some part of Luke as just a restatement of what I went over in both Matthew and Mark.  Today is that time, or at least the first time this year.  As I was trying to put together what to write my thought was that everything I am seeing in today’s passage went through my mind when it came up in Matthew and/or Mark.   Then I realized that I had not written about one of the thoughts I had about the Parable of the Sower and the Parable of the Lamp.  When explaining to His disciples why He taught with parables, Jesus said that He did so in order that those who did not truly follow Him would not understand His teaching.  I understand Him to mean that those who reject Him will fail to understand what He taught, even if they study it.

He follows that up with the Parable of the Lamp which He concludes by saying, “Be careful how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.”  The first part of that seems strange.  What does how we listen have to do with hidden things being revealed? Or, even with those who have being given more?  We should be careful how we listen, because when we listen to Jesus’ teaching, when we read the Bible, we will find that for which we look.   If we look for understanding and knowledge of God, we will find it.  If, on the other hand, we look for faults and flaws, we will find those as well.  However, in the latter case, we will lose whatever understanding of righteousness and God’s will we had when we started.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.