Hi everyone. Welcome again to Logical Bible Study. It's the Catholic podcast where we do an

exegesis of scripture, so really helping you understand what the text itself is saying. And so today we're

looking at a short passage from Luke. So it's Luke chapter 8, verses 1 to 3. Jesus made his way

through towns and villages preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.

With him went to the 12, as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and ailments.

Mary surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,

Joanna, the wife of Herod's Stuart Chuser,

Susanna, and several others who provided for them out of their own resources.

So that's it. It's a nice short passage from Luke today. Let's start by thinking about the context, what has just happened.

And whenever you're doing an exegesis of scripture, if you really want to understand what it's saying, you should, as much as possible, look at what has come just before it.

So just prior to this, Jesus has begun his ministry in Galilee, and that is in the northern

part of Israel.

So that's where he starts his ministry.

Now, in the passage previous to this one, so in chapter 7 verses 36 to 50, there's the story of Jesus forgiving a sinful woman.

Now, that woman is not named, but she is clearly a sinner and Jesus forgives her in that passage.

Now, it's quite likely that that story would have been pretty shocking to the gospel's hearers because she's probably some sort of prostitute,

and yet Jesus accepts her and heals her and forgives her.

In that culture, women were considered to have very low social status, particularly sinful women.

So that was quite a shocking story for Luke to include, and that comes just before this.

But Luke probably wanted to include that story first to show that forgiveness and the

kingdom of God are open to all people, including women, which might have been disputed,

at least to an extent, by some of the Jews in Jesus' time.

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