Full House

Hello everyone

In my post I wrote about binding the strongman.  The devil is the strongman, but Jesus is stronger.  He is the stronger man, that can bind up the strongman.  Jesus has said all of this in response to accusations that he was in league with the devil.  Today, we will look at how Jesus finishes his rebuttal to his accusers and how one woman in the crowd responds.  Here is my translation of verses 24-26:

 24 When an unclean spirit comes out of someone, it goes through arid places seeking rest, but doesn’t find it. Then it says, “I will return to the house that I came out of.” 25 When it gets there, it finds the house swept out and put in order. 26 It then goes and brings back seven other spirits that are even more evil than itself. They go in and live there, making things worse in the end than they were in the beginning.

Jesus has just stated, in verse 23, that a person is either with him or against him.  Now he begins talking about those who have been exorcized of demons. He is still responding to the charge that he was casting out demons through the power of Beelzebub.  Alan Thompson says “The previous warning against neutrality seems to remain in view here.  Experience of an exorcism without an accompanying trust in the “stronger one” still leaves one weak and vulnerable to Satan’s destructive designs.” (Thomspon, 189.) 

Jesus tells his audience,that when an evil spirit comes out of a person, it goes into arid places, seeking rest, but is unable to find it. Without finding rest, the spirit then decides to return to its previous home. So, where can a demon find rest? One would assume that they find it in another person.  Jesus says they go to arid places to find rest. Does this mean that demons wander around in isolated places, like the desert?  It appears that upon finding no rest, the demon decides to return to the one that it had previously inhabited.  It finds the house swept clean and put in order, but it is just a clean empty house.  The owner of the house has not replaced the evil spirit with something positive.  Finding an empty house, the evil spirit moves back in.  It becomes a squatter in the house, but he brings seven other evil spirits with him. According to Jesus, the person involved here ends up even worse off than he was in the beginning. Why?  Since he didn't fill himself up with good things, he left the door open for all of the evil to return, and it did. 

After Jesus finishes his rebuttal, a woman in the crowd speaks up. Here is may translation of verses 27-28: 

 27 As Jesus said these things,  a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that gave birth to you, and the breast that nursed you.” 28 Jesus responded, “Even more blessed are those that hear the word of God and obey it.”

Remember, Jesus has just finished a rebuttal to those who would accuse him of being in league with Satan,and now a woman speaks up, offering praise to Jesus and a blessing to Mary.  She says, “Blessed is the womb that gave birth to you, and the breast that nursed you.”

Jesus responds to this, saying, “Even more blessed are those that hear the word of God and obey it.”   Jesus is not correcting the woman, or showing disrespect to his mother.  What he is doing is showing that he is not seeking praise as much as he is seeking those who would be obedient to God. 

He has already established that obedience to God’s word makes one a part of his family, and so those people are even more blessed.

In five verses, we get two different stories back-to-back. Can they be tied together? Certainly. In one story, we see Jesus telling about those who may have exorcised their demons, but without refilling themselves with something positive, they will likely fall prey to the same demon, and more, making their situation worse. In the next story, Jesus lifts up those who hear God's word and obey it. They are ones who are truly blessed. The connection is obvious. As we rid ourselves of our 'demons,' let us refill ourselves with the Word of God, and then obey it.

Tom

Alan Thompson, Exegetical Guide to the Greek New Testament: Luke, Nashville, Tennessee, B&H Academic, 2016.