Глава 18

1–8. The parable of the widow. – 9–14. Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. – 15–30. The blessing of children and the danger of wealth. – 31–43. Christ's prediction of His death and healing of a blind man near Jericho. Luke 18:1. He also told them a parable about how one should always pray and not lose heart, Christ’s words that the disciples would not see “the day of the Son of Man” and would not find reinforcement in the coming of the day of judgment (Luke 17:22) made, of course, a grave impression on them. To show that they still should not lose heart, the Lord tells them a parable, which instructs them that God still hears and will hear the requests of His elect (i.e., them, the disciples of Christ) and will fulfill them. "Always pray". Some interpreters understand here the “constant yearning of the soul for God,” which must continue throughout life, although there are hours of stronger and more concentrated warmth for prayer (Trench, p. 408). But the verb used here “to pray” (προσεύχεσθαι) means actual prayer, in the literal sense of the word. As for the expression “always” (πάντοτε), it undoubtedly has a hyperbolic meaning. So this word is often used in the Holy Scriptures (for example, “my sorrow is always before me” - Ps. 37:18; “we were always in the church” - Luke 24:53). “Do not lose heart” - according to the connection of speech, do not lose heart during prayer when they see that it is not being fulfilled. The content and purpose of the parable here is indicated by the evangelist himself, and not by Christ (as Trench for some reason claims, p. 408). Luke 18:2. saying: in one city there was a judge who did not fear God and was not ashamed of people. Luke 18:3. In the same city there was a widow, and she came to him and said: protect me from my rival. Luke 18:4. But for a long time he didn’t want to. And then he said to himself: although I am not afraid of God and I am not ashamed of people, Luke 18:5. but, as this widow does not give me peace, I will protect her so that she does not come to bother me anymore. This parable is very reminiscent of the parable of a friend who came at midnight with a request to a friend (Luke 11:5 et seq.). Both there and here, the satisfaction of the request is obtained due to the special persistence with which there a friend begs for bread from a friend, and here a widow asks an unjust judge to sort out her case. “So that she doesn’t come to bother me anymore” - more precisely: “to give me black eyes.” The judge, jokingly, says that perhaps the woman in her despair will go so far as to begin to hit him (ὑπωπιάζῃ με) in the face... Luke 18:6. And the Lord said: Do you hear what the unjust judge says? Luke 18:7. Will not God protect His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night, although He is slow to protect them? Luke 18:8. I tell you that he will give them protection soon. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? The meaning of the moral teaching derived from the parable by Christ is as follows. Christ seems to be teaching: “Listen to what the unrighteous judge says! But God – won’t He protect His chosen ones who cry out to Him day and night? Can it really be said that He is slow in relation to them (according to our accepted Greek text, the participle here is μακροθυμῶν, and according to a more verified text, you need to read μακροθυμεῖ - the third person of the present tense)? How can He not come to their aid? Nevertheless, if Christ here really denies delay on the part of God, then He does not say that the matter should not be presented differently to God’s elect. It may seem to them that such a delay exists because God, in His wisdom, does not always fulfill the requests of pious people, postponing it until a certain time. After this, Christ with particular force expresses the following position: “God will bring about the vengeance that His chosen ones are crying out for soon,” i.e. quickly, when necessary, He will free His chosen ones from the enemies who will suffer punishment at the second coming of Christ, and glorify these chosen ones in the Kingdom of the Messiah (cf. Luke 21:22). Although the idea of ​​this vengeance in the Gospel of Luke does not have the sharp form that it received in other New Testament writers, for example in the Apocalypse, nevertheless, it is not at all alien to the Evangelist Luke (cf. Luke 1:51 et seq., Luke 1:71 et seq.). “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” These words undoubtedly stand in connection with the previous idea of ​​the final judgment. Christ seems to be saying: “It is already certain that the Son of Man will come to help believers and punish unbelievers. But the question is, will He find much more faith in Himself when He comes a second time than He found at His first coming to earth?” Here the Lord repeats the thought expressed by Him when depicting the time of the second coming in Luke 17:26 et seq. According to Trench (p. 415) and Bishop Michael, here we are talking about the diminishing of faith in believers, about some weakening of it. But Christ does not say that he will find little faith among Christianity, but in general depicts the state of humanity, “faith on earth” (ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς). Sadness can be heard in these words of Christ; He is pained that He will have to apply strict condemnation to most people, instead of having mercy on them and making them participants in His glorious Kingdom. Luke 18:9. He also spoke to some who were confident in themselves that they were righteous, and humiliated others, the following parable: The parable of the publican and the Pharisee is found only in the Evangelist Luke. The purpose of the parable, undoubtedly, was to somewhat lower the consciousness of self-worth among the disciples of Christ (“the elect” - verse 7) and teach them humility. They should be understood as those who placed their own righteousness too high and humiliated others. Christ could not address the Pharisees with a parable in which the Pharisee was directly brought out. Moreover, the Pharisee depicted in the parable would not at all seem to the Pharisees to have deserved condemnation from God: his prayer should have seemed completely correct to them. Luke 18:10. two people entered the church to pray: one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. “They entered” – more precisely: “they rose” (ἀνέβησαν). The church stood on a mountain. "Pharisee" (see comments on Matthew 3:7). "Publican" (see comments on Matthew 5:46). Luke 18:11. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this tax collector: "Becoming" The Jews usually prayed standing (Matthew 6:5). "In Myself". These words, according to the Russian text, according to the Textus receptus, relate to the word “prayed” and denote prayer “to oneself”, not expressed loudly. According to another reading, this word refers to the word “becoming” (I. Weiss) and will indicate that the Pharisee did not want to come into contact with people like the publican. The latter opinion, however, can hardly be accepted, because the meaning of the Greek expression does not allow this (here it is not καθ´ ἐαυτὸν, but πρὸς ἐαυτόν). "God! thank you." The Pharisee begins the prayer as he should, but now moves on to condemning his neighbors and exalting himself. It was not God who gave him the strength to do good deeds, but he himself did everything. “This publican” is more correct: “that publican over there!” - an expression of contempt. Luke 18:12. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of everything I acquire. In addition to the negative qualities that the Pharisee attributed to himself above (he is not a robber, not an offender, not an adulterer), he now talks about his positive merits before God. Instead of fasting once a year - on the Feast of Atonement (Lev.16:29), he, like other devout Jews, fasts two more days a week - on the second and fifth (cf. Matt.6:16). Instead of giving for the needs of the church only a tithe from the profit received annually from the herd, or from the fruits (Num. 18:26), he gives a tithe from “everything” that he receives - from the smallest herbs, for example (Matt. 23:23). Luke 18:13. The publican, standing in the distance, did not even dare to raise his eyes to heaven; but, striking himself on the chest, he said: God! be merciful to me, a sinner! At this time, the publican stood far from the Pharisee (hitherto we were talking only about the Pharisee, which means that the distance is indicated in the direction from him). He did not dare to step into a prominent place, where, no doubt, the Pharisee had boldly stood, and he prayed to God only that God would be merciful to him, a sinner. At the same time, he struck himself on the chest - as a sign of sadness (cf. Luke 8:52). He thought only about himself, did not compare himself with anyone and did not justify himself in any way, although, of course, he could have said something in his own justification. Luke 18:14. I tell you that this one went to his house justified more than the other: for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. After such a prayer, the publican “went” (more precisely: “went down,” cf. verse 10) home “justified,” i.e. God recognized him as righteous and made him feel this with a special joy of the heart, a special feeling of tenderness and tranquility (Trench, p. 423), because justification is not only an act performed in God, but also passes on to the justified person. The idea of ​​this justification, as combining both the recognition of a person as righteous and the assimilation of the righteousness of God by a person, was revealed even before the writing of the Gospel of Luke by the Apostle Paul in his Epistles, and, without a doubt, the Evangelist Luke, using the expression “justified,” understood it the same way as his teacher, the Apostle Paul. "More than that one." This does not mean that the Pharisee was justified, although not to the same extent as the publican. The Pharisee left, as the context of the speech suggests, directly condemned. “For everyone” is a completely appropriate thought in the parable. For the meaning of the saying, see the comments on Luke 14:11. Luke 18:15. They also brought babies to Him so that He could touch them; The disciples, seeing this, rebuked them. Luke 18:16. But Jesus called them and said: Let the children come to Me and do not forbid them, for to such is the Kingdom of God. Luke 18:17. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it. After borrowing from a source known to him, the evangelist Luke again begins to narrate the journey of Christ to Jerusalem, following mainly the evangelist Mark (Mark 10:13–16; cf. Matthew 19:13–14). “They brought babies to Him too” (τὰ βρέφη - children of the youngest age). “Having called them, he said...” In the Russian translation, apparently, the speech is about the disciples, but, as can be seen from the Greek text, the call of Christ was addressed to the little ones themselves (προσεκαλέσατο αὐτά), and the speech (“said”) - to the disciples. Luke 18:18. And one of the leaders asked Him: Good Teacher! What must I do to inherit eternal life? Luke 18:19. Jesus said to him: Why do you call Me good? no one is good except God alone; Luke 18:20. You know the commandments: do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother. Luke 18:21. He said: I have kept all this from my youth. Luke 18:22. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing: sell everything that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me.” Luke 18:23. When he heard this, he was saddened, because he was very rich. Luke 18:24. Jesus, seeing that he was saddened, said: How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God! Luke 18:25. for it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Luke 18:26. Those who heard this said: who can be saved? Luke 18:27. But He said: what is impossible with men is possible with God. Luke 18:28. Peter said: Behold, we have left everything and followed You. Luke 18:29. He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house, or parents, or brothers, or sisters, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God, Luke 18:30. and would not have received much more in this time, nor in the age to come, eternal life. The conversation about the dangers of wealth is given by the Evangelist Luke in accordance with Mark (Mark 10:17-31). Evangelist Matthew gives this conversation with some addition to the answer to Peter (Matthew 19:16-30). “One of the rulers” (verse 18; ἄρχων τις) - perhaps the leader of the synagogue. This definition is conveyed to Christ’s interlocutor only by the evangelist Luke. Luke 18:31. Calling His twelve disciples aside, He said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that was written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. Luke 18:32. For they will hand Him over to the pagans, and they will mock Him, and insult Him, and spit on Him, Luke 18:33. and they will beat him and kill him: and on the third day he will rise again. Luke 18:34. But they didn't understand any of this; these words were hidden to them, and they did not understand what was said. Luke 18:35. When He approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging for alms, Luke 18:36. and, hearing that people were passing by, he asked: what is this? Luke 18:37. They told him that Jesus of Nazareth was coming. Luke 18:38. Then he shouted: Jesus, Son of David! have mercy on me. Luke 18:39. Those walking in front forced him to remain silent; but he shouted even louder: Son of David! have mercy on me. Luke 18:40. Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought to Himself: and when he approached Him, he asked him: Luke 18:41. what do you want from me? He said: Lord! so that I can see the light. Luke 18:42. Jesus said to him: see! your faith has saved you. Luke 18:43. And he immediately received his sight and followed Him, praising God; and all the people, seeing this, gave praise to God. Evangelist Luke conveys Christ’s prediction of His death and the healing of a blind man near Jericho, following Mark (Mark 10:32–34, 46–52). “Everything that is written through the prophets will be fulfilled” (verse 31). This is an addition by the evangelist Luke, i.e., most likely, the prophecy of Zechariah (Zech. 11:12 et seq.; Zech. 12:10; cf. Is. 53). “They understood nothing” (verse 34), i.e. could not imagine how the Messiah could be killed (cf. Luke 9:45). “When He came near Jericho” (verse 35). The healing of the blind man, therefore, according to the Gospel of Luke, took place before the Lord entered the city, and according to Mark and Matthew, upon leaving the city. This contradiction can be explained by the fact that at that time the Lord healed two blind men, as the Evangelist Matthew reports (Matthew 20:30) - one before entering Jericho, and the other after leaving this city. The Evangelist Luke reports about the first. You might be interested in: