Biblion Bible Commentary
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Take Heed How You Hear
Luke 8:16-21
16 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a container or puts it under a bed; but puts it on a stand, that those who enter in may see the light. · WEB
A lamp is lit to be seen, and the family standing outside is answered by a redefinition.
"No one, when he has lit a lamp, covers it with a container or puts it under a bed; but puts it on a stand" Luke 8:16.
The sayings are in the earliest account Mark 4:1–25, where the lamp follows the sower for the same reason it follows it here. Something has been given privately — the explanation of the parable — and the immediate question is what it is for.
The answer is that a lamp exists to be visible. Hiding one is not caution; it is a category error, and the two hiding places named are comic. A jar over a flame puts it out; a lamp under a bed sets the house on fire.
"That those who enter in may see the light." This account gives the purpose in terms of newcomers — the light is for the people coming in the door, which is a fair description of what the book expects its readers to do with it.
"For nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light" Luke 8:17. The saying cuts two ways and both are in play. What was given quietly to the twelve is destined for publication; and what people conceal has a term on it.
"Be careful therefore how you hear" Luke 8:18.
The other telling has what you hear. This one has how, and after a parable about four kinds of ground that is exactly right. The seed was identical in every case. The manner of the hearing was the whole variable.
"For whoever has, to him will be given; and whoever doesn't have, from him will be taken away even that which he thinks he has." The last four words belong to this account and they are a small masterpiece. What is removed from the man with nothing is not something he had; it is something he thought he had. He does not lose ground. He discovers where he was standing.
His mother and brothers came to him, and they could not come near him for the crowd Luke 8:19.
The scene is told in the earliest account with the detail that his family had come to take charge of him Mark 3:20–35. Here the motive is left out, and what remains is a family unable to get through a crowd — which places them, physically, exactly where the point is made.
"My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it" Luke 8:21.
This version has no rebuff in it. The other tellings have the question who is my mother? first; here he simply names the criterion, and the two verbs are the ones the parable has just been about. Hearing and doing, in that order, is what the good ground was.
And in this Gospel the sentence has a particular edge, because the reader has met his mother. She was the one who heard the word of God from an angel and answered let it be done to me according to your word Luke 1:38, and who kept the sayings and turned them over Luke 2:19 Luke 2:51. She qualifies under the new definition on the same terms as everybody else, and the account has already shown her doing it.
settled What this mark means