Luke 14:12-14

3 d. Luke 14:12-14.

The company is seated. Jesus, then observing that the guests in general belonged to the upper classes of society, addresses to His host a lesson on charity, which He clothes, like the preceding, in the graceful form of a recommendation of intelligent self-interest. The μήποτε, lest (Luke 14:12), carries a tone of liveliness and almost of pleasantry: “Beware of it; it is a misfortune to be avoided. For, once thou shalt have received human requital, it is all over with divine recompense.” Jesus does not mean to forbid our entertaining those whom we love. He means simply: in view of the life to come, thou canst do better still. ᾿Ανάπηροι, those who are deprived of some one sense or limb, most frequently the blind or the lame; here, where those two categories are specially mentioned, the maimed in general.

In itself, the expression resurrection of the just, Luke 14:14, does not necessarily imply a distinction between two resurrections, the one of the just exclusively, the other general; it might signify merely, when the just shall rise at the inauguration of the Messianic kingdom. But as Luke 20:35 evidently proves that this distinction was in the mind of Jesus, it is natural to explain the term from this point of view (comp. 1 Corinthians 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Philippians 3:11; Revelation 20).