Luke 8:1 ¶ And it came to pass afterward, that he went
throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of
the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, 2 And certain women, which had been healed of
evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven
devils, 3 And Joanna the wife of Chuza
Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of
their substance.
Tidings is news, information, a message. Glad tidings or good tidings
is happy or good news. Glad tidings
is another phrase for the Gospel. The
Gospel that the kingdom of God has
come in the person of Jesus Christ is the glad
tidings.
Isaiah 61:1 ¶ The Spirit of
the Lord GOD is upon me;
because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the
prison to them that are bound;
Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance
to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised,
The kingdom of God, or
Heaven, does not come across the border as an army carrying spears and swords
led by generals. It comes to the world through the spirit; mind and heart of
every believer in whom God has implanted the Spirit of God and Christ.
Luke 17:20 ¶ And when he was
demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered
them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo
there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
To enter into it one
has to be born again by faith in Christ, trusting in His righteousness and not
one’s own, that He was God in the flesh and that He rose from the dead. By this
faith and belief that Spirit enters into us to live.
John 3:3 Jesus answered and
said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
That new birth is a
work of God, not of man nor of a priest or pastor.
John 1:12 But as many as
received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name: 13 Which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Mary called Magdalene, about whom much myth has
been written, much of it deplorable and disgusting like the Broadway show, Jesus Christ Superstar, had been
delivered of a terrible torment which we moderns deny is possible today. Of
course, much of our thinking has become corrupted and modern people, especially
in western countries, are like the person who denies they hear a burglar in
their house at night or refuses to accept they have cancer.
A short list of our
corrupted thinking that has departed from the Biblical narrative is that
moderns think that God is not the author of all reality either by permission or
by direct action, that there are laws of physics and natural processes that act
independently of God, that there is only the material world and there are no
spiritual entities all around us, life-forms of a distinctly different type
than our carbon-based flesh, that can have an impact on our lives, etc. etc.
Verse 4 shows us that
the apostles and Christ did not just walk around by themselves but that there
were influential people, at least women, who helped support them. This is an
important point, well, two rather. First, no sane Christian would believe that
there was anything untoward or improper about the relationship between Jesus,
His disciples, and their supporters. The second and most important thing is a
statement about how God works. God works through people, among other things. He
did not miraculously leave breakfast and supper somewhere for the “team” to use
although He could, as in the case of Elijah’s supernatural feeding by ravens in
1Kings 17. He did not necessarily leave little bags of coins around
miraculously for the team to pick up to pay for things although He could have
as He provided a coin for taxes to prove a point to Peter in Matthew 17.
He used people and
continues to use people to effect His will just as He uses weather, the animal
world, and microscopic processes in each cell He directs, and other things.
It is interesting to
note that the wicked Herod’s steward’s wife supports Christ out of her own
substance, which was probably abundant due to her husband’s position as Mary
Magdalene’s was most likely pretty limited. Women on all social levels were
extremely important in the spread of Christianity.
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