Jesus gives teaching on offenses and forgiveness
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📚Then he said to the disciples, “It is impossible for causes of stumbling not to come. But woe to him through whom they come! 2 📚It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 📚Watch yourselves! If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 📚And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day comes back to you, saying, ‘I repent’, you must forgive him”.17:4 Compare Matt 18:21-22. Notice here the words “I repent”.⚜
Jesus shows how faith is increased
5 📚And the apostles 📖 said to the Lord, “Increase our faith 📖”.
6 📚And the Lord said, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’, and it would obey you.
17:6 Compare Matt 17:20.⚜
7 “But which of you who has a servant plowing or tending the sheep will say to him as soon as he comes from the field, ‘Go and sit down to eat?’ 8 📚But will he not rather say to him, ‘Get things ready for me to eat, put your belt on, and serve me while I eat and drink. And afterwards you may eat and drink?’ 9 Does he thank that servant because he did what he was ordered? I think not.
10 📚“So you also, when you have done all that you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable 📖 servants; we have done only what it was our duty to do.’ ”
17:7-10 In these verses Jesus seems to be changing the subject, but actually He is showing how faith may be increased. The way is not to think of ourselves as great ones, or to aim at self esteem and self confidence, or to try to feel good about ourselves as if God should be grateful to us because of our service. The way to greater faith is to think lowly of ourselves, as we ought to think (compare 1 Cor 3:6-7; 2 Cor 3:5; Eph 3:8. See notes on Rom 7:14-25; and 2 Cor 12:7-10). The way is to recognize not only that we are unworthy but that the Lord Jesus has the right to tell us what to do, and that we are to put His work first in our lives and obey Him without question.
When we renounce ourselves and make Christ the center of our lives and humbly submit always to His authority, we will find a steadily increasing faith in Him and in His ability to do things. Basically, it is not the believer’s faith which works wonders, it is the One Whom he or she believes and serves Who works the wonders.⚜
Jesus heals ten lepers
11 📚And as he was going to Jerusalem, it came about that he travelled between Samaria and Galilee. 12 📚And as he entered a certain village, ten men who were lepers 📖 met him. They stood at a distance, 13 📚and raised their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us”.
17:13 Whoever spoke such words in vain to the Lord Jesus? Compare Matt 8:2-3.⚜
14 📚And when he saw them, he told them, “Go show yourselves to the priests”. And it came about as they went, that they were cleansed. 15 📚And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 📚and fell down on his face at his feet and gave him thanks. And he was a Samaritan 📖.
17 📚And in response Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 📚No one is found returning to give glory to God, except this foreigner”.
17:17-18 Ingratitude is a grave sin and greatly displeases the Lord Jesus. See also Rom 1:21. Notes on thanksgiving at Lev 7:12-13; Ps 7:17; 1 Thess 5:18.⚜
19 📚And he said to him, “Get up. Go on your way. Your faith has made you well”.
Jesus speaks of His second coming
20 📚And when he was asked by the Pharisees 📖, when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, “The kingdom of God 📖 does not come while being watched for. 21 📚Nor will they say, ‘Look here!’ or, ‘Look there!’, for, see, the kingdom of God is among 📖 you”.
22 📚And he said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will want to see one of the days of the Son of man, and you will not see it.
17:22 Note on Son of man at Matt 8:20. He would go into heaven and His disciples would face great troubles and difficulties and long for His return.⚜
23 📚And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ Or, ‘Look there!’ Do not go out, or follow them. 24 📚For just as the lightning that flashes from one part of the sky shines to the other part of the sky, so also the Son of man will be in his day. 25 📚But first he must suffer many things, and be rejected by this generation.
26 📚“And just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of man. 27 📚They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark. And the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 📚It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot also. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. 29 📚But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 📚It will be just like this in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31 📚“In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods inside the house, should not go down to take them away; and he who is in the field also should not return.
32 📚“Remember Lot’s wife.
17:32 Gen 19:17, 26. When God’s judgment begins to fall how foolish to be concerned for material things. But it seems that Lot’s wife’s heart was set on the things she was leaving behind. Let us make sure that our treasure is in the right place (Matt 6:19-21).⚜
33 📚“Whoever strives to preserve his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
34 📚“I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed. One will be taken, and the other will be left. 35 📚Two people will be grinding together. One will be taken, and the other left.
17:34-35 Compare Matt 24:40-41.⚜
36 Two people will be in the field. One will be taken, and the other left”.
37 📚And they answered and said to him, “Where, Lord?” And he said to them, “Where the dead body is, there the vultures will gather together”.