(Tap footnote to read it. Old Testament quotations are underlined. "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love". However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior. It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings. (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".) Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé". Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing. It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )
Healing Dropsy on the Sabbath
- And it happened during Him going into a house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, that they were also watching Him closely.
- And behold, a man suffering with dropsy was there in His sight.
- And answering, Jesus spoke to the Mosaic Law experts and Pharisees, saying: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?”
- But they stayed silent. And having grabbed him, He healed him and then let go.
- And He said to them: “If a son or an ox of yours will fall into a pit,1a potential allusion to Deuteronomy 22:4, and/or Exodus 23:4-5. There might also be a slight connection to Exodus 23:12. which of you won’t also immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”
- And they weren’t able to refute Him on these things.
Humbling, exalting, and the chief seats
- And observing how they were picking the chief seats, He was telling a parable to the men *invited, saying to them:
- “When you’re invited by someone to a wedding feast, don’t recline at the table in the chief seat, lest at some time someone more honorable than you is *invited by him,
- “and having come, the man who invited both you and him will tell you: “Give your place to this man”, and then you will begin to take the last place with shame.
- “But when you’re invited, go recline at the table in the last place so that when the man who *invited you comes, he will tell you: “Friend, come up higher.” Then there will be glory for you in the sight of all the men reclining at the table with you,
- “because every man exalting himself will be humbled, and the man humbling himself will be exalted.”
- And He was also telling the man who *invited Him: “When you make an early meal or a dinner, don’t invite your friends, nor your brothers, nor your kinsmen, nor wealthy neighbors, lest they also invite you at some time in response and it becomes a repayment for you.
- “But when you make a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,
- “and you will be blessed because they have nothing to repay you, for it will be repaid to you in the resurrection of the righteous.”
The Parable of the Great Banquet
- And having heard these things, one of the men reclining at the table with Him said to Him: “Blessed is whoever will eat bread in the kingdom of God.”
- But He said to him: “A man was making a great banquet and invited many.
- “And he sent his slave at the hour of the banquet to tell the men *invited: “Come, because the banquet is now prepared.”
- “And with one voice, all began to make excuses. The first told him: “I bought a field and have a need to depart to see it. I’m asking you, consider me *excused.”
- And another said: “I bought five paired yokes of oxen and I’m going to test them. I’m asking you, consider me *excused.”
- “And another man said: “I married a wife and because of this, I’m not able to come.”
- “And having arrived, the slave reported these things to his master. Then having been provoked, the master of the house told his slave: “Quickly go out into the streets and alleys of the city, and bring the poor, and crippled, and blind, and lame in here.
- “And the slave said: “Lord, what you commanded has happened and there’s still room.”
- “And the lord told the slave: “Go out to the roads and hedges and compel them to enter in so that my house might be filled.
- “For I tell you that not one of those men *invited will taste my banquet.”
Calculate the cost
- And many crowds were traveling with Him, and having turned around, He said to them:
- “If anyone comes to Me and doesn’t comparatively hate his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and further, even his own life, he isn’t able to be My disciple.
- “Whoever doesn’t carry his own cross and come after Me isn’t able to be My disciple.
- “For which of you wanting to build a tower doesn’t sit down first and calculate the cost to see if he has enough for its completion?
- “Lest2“Lest” is literally “so that lest” having laid its foundation and not able to finish it, all the men seeing it might begin to mock him,
- “saying that: ‘This man began to build and wasn’t able to finish it.”
- “Or what king traveling to fight with another king in a war won’t first sit down and deliberate to see if he’s able to meet with his 10,000 men the king coming against him with 20,000 men?
- “And if otherwise, then having sent a delegation with him still being far away, he asks for peace.
- “Therefore, in this manner, every man of you who doesn’t forsake all of his own possessions isn’t able to be My disciple.
- “Therefore, salt is good; but if even the salt has become tasteless,3“become tasteless” is literally “become foolish”, as in “a fool is tasteless”. The double meaning here of foolish and tasteless is probably intended and demonstrates some clever wordplay on Jesus’ part. by what will it be seasoned?
- “It’s useful neither for soil nor for manure; they throw it out. The man having ears to hear, let him hear.”
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