Call To Worship, November 26 2017


Expository Thoughts on the Gospel of Luke

J.C. Ryle Luke 7: 24-30

“The first point that demands our notice in this passage, is the tender care which Jesus takes of the characters of His faithful servants. He defends the reputation of John the Baptist, as soon as his messengers were departed. He saw that the people around him were apt to think lightly of John, partly because he was in prison, partly because of the inquiry which his disciples had just brought. He pleads the cause of His absent friend in warm and strong language. He bids His hearers dismiss from their minds their unworthy doubts and suspicions about this holy man. He tells them that John was no wavering and unstable character, a mere reed shaken by the wind. He tells them that John was no mere courtier and hanger-on about king’s palaces, though circumstances at the end of his ministry had brought him into connection with king Herod. He declares to them that John was ‘much more than a prophet,’ for he was a prophet who had been the subject of prophecy himself. And he winds up his testimony by the remarkable saying, that ‘among those that are born of woman there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.'”