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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 8.

    I do not think I have ever given much thought to Luke’s passage here about the women who accompanied Jesus and the twelve as they traveled around Galilee. It is somewhat interesting that these women were travelling around with a group of men in that culture. At least a couple of these women were prominent women. In particular, Luke mentions the wife of Herod’s business manager and a woman named Susanna, someone with whom he appears to assume his audience is familiar. I conclude from this that Susanna was someone who was significant in the early Church (or at least in the area where he was sending this letter). However, the part of this which caught my attention is that these women were covering the expenses of Jesus’ ministry out of their own resources. The way Luke words this suggests that some amount of support for Jesus and the Twelve came from people in the towns they preached in, but that these women provided the expenses which could not be covered that way. The fact that Luke emphasizes that these women did this out of their own resources suggests that he wants to make it clear that they were not using their husband’s or their family’s money to support Jesus. These were women who HAD their own resources to support Jesus’ ministry.

    In reading the parable of the lamp in Matthew, Mark, and now in Luke I have started to realize that there is something there more than what I have traditionally understood. My traditional understanding of it, and what I remember being taught about it, is that we should stand up and not be shy about others learning that we are believers in Christ. However, Jesus immediately follows this parable by saying that secrets will eventually be revealed and that the hidden will be exposed. While that suggests that Jesus may mean something other than the traditional understanding, the very next thing makes it certain. The next thing Jesus tells us is that we need to be careful how we listen to what He says, that we need to really work at it. Those who don’t just hear what He says, but actually listen will gain more understanding, but those who think they do not have to listen will lose what little understanding they already have. I don’t quite understand how these things connect. The best I can come up with is that we need to make sure that we let people know that our actions are motivated by what Christ teaches and that we are constantly striving to understand Him better. Let our words and our actions shine light upon Jesus and His teachings.