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

Luke mentions that Jesus began a teaching tour accompanied by the Twelve and some women He had cured.  I suspect that Luke named women were sources for parts of his account.  More importantly, Luke was telling his readers that these women, both those he named and the others who were there, were every bit as authoritative as to what it meant to be a follower of Christ as the Apostles.

I really want to explore the story about the homeless guy mentioned here.  We usually think of him as the demon-possessed man, and that is fine because that is what the passage tells us he was.  However it also tells us that he was homeless.  It helps me visualize him to think about the homeless men I have seen in various urban areas.  The locals had attempted to help him, but he reacted violently so they eventually gave up.  I wrote that because I do believe this passage should influence the way in which we deal with the homeless.  I am just not sure in what way.

Now that I started writing about this I want to point out one other lesson.  This guy approached Jesus and demanded to know why Jesus was interfering with him.  Jesus did not approach the demon possessed man.  We will run into such things with people around us.  They will come to us, then demand that we leave them alone. That does not mean that they are demon possessed.  I just want to point out that we will have to face situations like that.