1 After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. ~ Luke 8:1-3
It is our understanding of God's definition of all things as found in the Scriptures and the confidence that it renders that enables us to live the life the Lord Jesus died to give us. And, once we realize the truth of God applied to our thinking and choosing, we discover that we want others to experience the same kind of life. In John 5:30 the Lord Jesus said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me." The Scriptures define our lives and life from God's standpoint, His teachings work in our lives as we choose to be defined by Him.
In v.1 of our text, we read, "After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him." The Lord Jesus came to teach us "the good news of the kingdom of God." He began in Galilee which was not the intellectual center of the world. It wasn't the place you would think He would want to go and carry on this several-year ministry. But that's exactly what He did. He went to the least first with His teachings on His kingdom. This is the way He always works, from the inside out, from the least toward the greatest.
The Lord Jesus primary message was the "kingdom of God." The Lord Jesus came "proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God." Proclaiming means to publicly herald something, like a town crier. Before we had the various forms of media, the king would send his representative into the city square and he would declare, "Hear ye, hear ye," then he would give the message from the king.
The heart of the Lord Jesus' message was "the Kingdom of God." Thirty-two times in his gospel, Matthew calls it the kingdom of heaven, in order to help his Jewish readers to understand.
In Matthew 19:23, the Lord Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Then He said in v.24, "it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The Lord Jesus used the two, the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God, interchangeably. The Lord Jesus demonstrated that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are the same subject.
Then, in Matthew 19:25, "the disciples who heard it were very astonished and said, 'Then who can be saved?'" The kingdom of God is the sphere in which God defines all things and we come to Him for those definitions. In His definitions, we discover our salvation, which is more than forgiveness of sin. Salvation includes being defined by God in all ways. This is not a political message, it is a salvation message. Those who cry out to God to be their God, those who enter into a personal relationship with God through His Son, they are the qualified.
The whole Bible is the story of salvation. All the way through human history from Adam to the very end and all the way through redemptive history from election to glorification, the whole Bible is the saga, the story of salvation. Preaching the kingdom is preaching the good news then, that sinners can be brought into a personal relationship with God. We can be delivered out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. Delivered out of the domain of Satan into the domain of Christ. This is the message of the kingdom.
The Lord Jesus not only had twelve men with Him, but, according to v.2-3, "also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means." This flew in the face of the conventional thinking. The Lord Jesus went against the grain of normal rabbinical behavior. But traveling along with the Lord Jesus were some women, not necessarily all the time, or all together, but during His travels. They were women who had been delivered spiritually and physically by His power over illness and over demons. They had become believers.
Mary Magdalene, once possessed by seven demons, became the first witness of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, and the first person in history to tell others the full and complete message of Christ’s power over sin and death. Her darkest moment in life, shedding tears at the tomb of Jesus Christ, became her greatest moment when the Lord Jesus appeared to her and commissioned her to be His first witness. These followed the Lord Jesus because they loved Him.
The Bible is God's written witness of Himself to us. What we make of the Bible will never be as great as what the Bible will, if we let it, make of us. We must live in and out of this truth, and go forth with great faith in His ability to direct us into His continued ministry in this sin-filled world.
