Luke 8:1-3

6. The Women who ministered to Jesus: Luke 8:1-3.

By the side of the high religious problems raised by the life of Jesus, there is a question, seldom considered, which nevertheless possesses some interest: How did Jesus find the means of subsistence during the two or three years that His ministry lasted? He had given up His earthly occupation. He deliberately refrained from using His miraculous power to supply His necessities. Further, He was not alone; He was constantly accompanied by twelve men, who had also abandoned their trade, and whose maintenance He had taken on Himself in calling them to follow Him. The wants of this itinerant society were met out of a common purse (John 13:29); the same source furnished their alms to the poor (John 12:6). But how was this purse itself filled? The problem is partly, but not completely, explained by hospitality. Had He not various needs, of clothing, etc.? The true answer to this question is furnished by this passage, which possesses, therefore, considerable interest. Jesus said: “ Seek first the kingdom of God, and other things shall be added unto you. ” He also said: “ There is none that leaves father, mother..., house, lands for the kingdom of God, who does not find a hundred times more. ” He derived these precepts from His daily experience. The grateful love of those whom He filled with His spiritual riches provided for His temporal necessities, as well as for those of His disciples. Some pious women spontaneously rendered Him the services of mother and sisters.

This passage would suffice to prove the excellence of Luke's sources; their originality, for the other evangelists furnish no similar information; their exactness, for who would have invented such simple and positive details with the names and rank of these women? and their purity, for what can be further removed from false marvels and legendary fictions than this perfectly natural and prosaic account of the Lord's means of subsistence during the course of His ministry?

Vers. 1-3. Luke indicates this time as a distinctly marked epoch in the ministry of the Lord. He ceases to make Capernaum, His ἰδία πόλις, His own city (Matthew 9:1), the centre of His activity; He adopts an altogether itinerant mode of life, and literally has no place where to lay His head. It is this change in His mode of living, carried out at this time, which induces Luke to place here this glimpse into the means of His material support. The aor. ἐγένετο, it came to pass (Luke 8:1), indicates a definite time. The καί before αὐτός, as the sign of the apodosis, betrays an Aramaean source. The imperf. διώδευε, He went throughout, denotes a slow and continuous mode of travelling. The preposition κατά expresses the particular care which He bestowed on every place, whether large (city) or small (village). Everywhere He gave Himself time to stay. To the general idea of a proclamation, expressed by the verb κηρύσσειν, to preach, the second verb, to evangelize, to announce the glad tidings of the kingdom, adds the idea of a proclamation of grace as the prevailing character of His teaching.

The Twelve accompanied Him. What a strange sight this little band presented, passing through the cities and country as a number of members of the heavenly kingdom, entirely given up to the work of spreading and celebrating salvation! Had the world ever seen anything like it?

Among the women who accompanied this band, filling the humble office of servants, Luke makes special mention first of Mary, surnamed Magdalene. This surname is probably derived from her being originally from Magdala, a town situated on the western shore of the sea of Galilee (Matthew 15:39), the situation of which to the north of Tiberias is still indicated at the present day by a village named El-Megdil (the tower). The seven demons (Mark 16:9) denote, without doubt, the culminating point of her possession, resulting from a series of attacks, each of which had aggravated the evil (Luke 11:24-26). It is without the least foundation that tradition identifies Mary Magdalene with the penitent sinner of chap. 7. Possession, which is a disease (see Luke 4:33), has been wrongly confounded with a state of moral corruption. The surname, of Magdala, is intended to distinguish this Mary from all the others of this name, more particularly from her of Bethany.

Chuza was probably entrusted with some office in the household of Herod Antipas. Might he not be that βασιλικός, court lord, whose son Jesus had healed (John 4), and who had believed with all his house?

We know nothing of Susanna and the other women. Αἵτινες reminds us that it was in the capacity of servants that they accompanied Him. Διακονεῖν, to serve, here denotes pecuniary assistance, as Romans 15:25, and also the personal attentions which might be rendered by a mother or sisters (Luke 8:21). The reading of the T. R., αὐτῷ, who served Him, may be a correction in accordance with Matthew 27:55; Mark 15:41; but the reading αὐτοῖς, who served them, is the more probable one according to Luke 8:1 (the Twelve) and Luke 4:39.

What a Messiah for the eye of flesh, this being living on the charity of men! But what a Messiah for the spiritual eye, this Son of God living on the love of those to whom His own love is giving life! What an interchange of good offices between heaven and earth goes on around His person!