Luke 11:44

And the Lord said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. AND THE LORD SAID UNTO HIM, NOW DO YE PHARISEES MAKE CLEAN THE OUTSIDE ... For the exposition of all these verses, see the notes at Matthew 23:1....

37-54 We should all look to our hearts, that they may be cleansed and new-created; and while we attend to the great things of the law and of the gospel, we must not neglect the smallest matter God has appointed. When any wait to catch something out of our mouths, that they may insnare us, O Lord, give us thy prudence and thy patience, and disappoint their evil purposes. Furnish us with such meekness and patience that we may glory in reproaches, for Christ's sake, and that thy Holy Spirit may rest upon us....

Verse 44. _YE ARE AS GRAVES WHICH APPEAR NOT_] In Matthew 23:27, our Lord tells them that they _exactly resembled white-washed tombs_: they had no fairness but on the _outside_: (see the note there:) but here he says they are like _hidden tombs_, graves which were not distinguished by any outward decorations, and were not elevated above the ground, so that those who walked over them did not consider what corruption was within; so they, under the _veil_ of hypocrisy, covered their iniquities, so that those who had any intercourse or connection with them did not perceive what accomplished knaves they had to do with....

See Matthew 23:6, Matthew 23:27....

EXPOSITION LUKE 11:1 The _Lord_'_s teaching on the_ _subject of prayer. _Again the scene is far away from Jerusalem; no special note of _time _or _place _enables us to fix the scene or date with any exactness. Somewhere in the course of the last journeyings towards Jerusalem, related especially in this Gospel, did this scene and its teaching take place. LUKE 11:1 LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY, AS JOHN ALSO TAUGHT HIS DISCIPLES. It seems as though some of his disciples—we know at this period many were with him besides the twelve—heard their Master praying. It appeared to them—no doubt, as they caught here and there a word and expression as he prayed, perhap

WOE UNTO YOU SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, HYPOCRITES,.... As they are all along called by Matthew; though only here by Luke. The Vulgate Latin only reads, "woe unto you", leaving out all the rest: but the whole is retained in all the Oriental versions; FOR YE ARE AS GRAVES WHICH APPEAR NOT; being covered with grass; "or which were not marked", as the Ethiopic version renders it; that is, were not whited or covered with lime, as some were, that they might be seen at a distance, and be known what they were; that so men might avoid going near them, and prevent their being defiled with them; Matthew 23:27 AND THE MEN THAT WALK OVER them ARE NOT AWARE OF THEM; and so are defiled by them. Christ compares the Pharisees, because of their hypocrisy, and secret iniquity, both to whited sepulchres, and to those that were not: to those that were, b

Luke 11:14. _And he was casting out a devil, and it was dumb. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake and the people wondered. But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils._ One would hardly have thought that they could have gone to such a length as that; but when men hate Christ, there is nothing they will not say against him. It is no subject of surprise when great heresies arise, for they are the natural outcome of human enmity against Christ and his truth. People in such a state of heart will say anything; they will give utterance to thoughts that you could not have imagined would have entered any human brain; it is the enmity of the heart to Christ that produces this blasphemy of the tongue. Luke 11:16. And others,

CHAPTER 11 _ 1. The Prayer Given to the Disciples (Luke 11:1 .)_ 2. The Friend at Midnight. (Luke 11:5) 3. Encouragement to Pray. (Luke 11:11) 4. A Demon Cast Out and the Blasphemous Accusation. (Luke 11:14) 5. The Return of the Unclean Spirit. (Luke 11:23) 6. The Blessedness of Hearing the Word. (Luke 11:27) 7. The Sign of Jonas. (Luke 11:29) 8.

CONDEMNATION OF PHARISEES AND SCRIBES._ Cf._ (though the arrangement is different) Matthew 23*, where the Jerusalem setting is more suitable (perhaps Lk. wishes to make the Jerusalem discourses end with the apocalypse of Mark 13). It is strange that Jesus should offend His host, first by deed, then by word. The Pharisees emphasized outer cleanliness at the expense of inward, but on the other hand early Christian asceticism distorted the teaching and example of Jesus, and produced a crowd of unwashed saints. LUKE 11:38 reminds us of Mark 7:2. Luke 11:39. of the cup and of the platter may be an insertion from Matthew 23:25.

TEACH US TO PRAY (Luke 11:1-4)...