Alex, I fully agree with you that Christ’s power was not limited. I subscribe to the notion that if Jesus had not said “Lazarus” then when He commanded “come forth” the whole cemetary would have been emptied.

Commentary by Larry Swinford
Posted on: 5/21/2009 15:04 pm

Well,Swinford,The point is this.When Jesus did not heal a sick person or did not raise a dead body,that does not mean that the powers of Jesus are limited.
Read Mark 6:5;John 11:40.

Commentary by Alex
Posted on: 5/21/2009 14:35 pm

Well said Jayant, but we are getting ahead of ourselves by discussing the Go’el so soon in the book.

Alex, I must rather agree with Jayant on God’s selectivity instead of your idea that Jesus raised all the dead people He passed. Several accounts in the gospels mention that Jesus “had compassion” for a particular person, such as the widow of Nain or the leper in Mark 1. Luke 13:1-5 repeats the “except you repent, you shall likewise perish.” Mark 1:15, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” which echoes, if not precedes Matthew 4:17. Jesus warned His followers in passages like Mark 13:12, “Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death” (see also Matthew 10:21). The message of Jesus on His perspective is nicely illustrated in John 5:24-25: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.”

Thank you for the discussion. When I return to the site, I think I will plunge ahead to the next verses.

Commentary by Larry Swinford
Posted on: 5/21/2009 13:36 pm

1)L.Springford,
Refer your comments in post#1.
“Jesus undoubtedly passed many dead people & their funerals”
I think that Jesus did not participate or conduct any funeral service.
“..the dead are raised up.” Matthew 11:5. “…the dead are raised.” Luke 7:22.
The miracle of raising the dead people attested the Messiahship of Christ.
I think that Jesus raised all dead people he passed.
2)Yes,Jeyant.
Kinsman redeemer is the theme of the Book of Ruth.We can see the providential care & protection of the sovereign Lord in the Book of Ruth.Yes,He knows the end from the beginning.

Commentary by Alex
Posted on: 5/21/2009 08:42 am

Selectivity is always there in the working of God Who acts according to His will and pleasure.He does act with some end in view. Would he not direct the steps of those of the persons who were to be the ancestors of David, Solomon and even of Lord Jesus? This was also endorsed by our Lord Jesus Christ, when He said that there were many widow in Israel, But Elijah was sent to the widow in Zarephath! (Luke 4:25-26)

A widow had no right on the ancestral property. In the absence of her husband only the surviving sons had that right. Noami lost both the husband and her sons. She had lost all in Moab and even the ancestral property in Canaan was in jeopardy. She was therefore at disadvantage economically. The problem was overcome through Ruth marrying Boaz, their kinsman. It was God who was working for them and that according to His words- the provisions made in the Law.

Commentary by Jayant Christian
Posted on: 5/21/2009 08:25 am

Alex, I do not for a second doubt that many miracles of all classes or categories beyond those specifically mentioned were performed by Jesus. The last sentence was the issue for the examples I drew from Jesus. As for what I suspect you are questioning, consider that Jesus often went to the Temple, but there as a lame man who was carried to a gate to the Temple “daily” and Jesus did not heal him. He left that for Peter and John (Acts 3). When Jesus sent the Twelve out in Matthew 10, He told them, among other things, to “raise the dead” (v. 8). Would they have had the faith to do that if the only example they saw was the girl in Matthew 9:18:25? That could be enough but it was listed as just another thing along with healing the sick, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons (10:8). While John 21:25 is rhetorical hyperbole but it indicates something, “and there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

Commentary by L Swinford
Posted on: 5/21/2009 03:05 am

Larry,are you saying that Jesus might have raised many dead people other than the three persons who were mentioned in the Bible?
Read John 20:30

Commentary by Alex
Posted on: 5/21/2009 02:10 am

In Hebrew poetry a common feature is parallelism, but this is prose. It would not be strange to have lines re-express a fact because that firms the fact up. The minimalist would find cause to look at this portion and see such a synonymous parallelism and bolster a position of the Book of Ruth as fiction.

Just the same, that is part and parcel of minimalism. Some of the most important expressions in Scripture are found with similar poetic features or phrasing that suggests such. The Psalms and Proverbs tell important stories with parallelism of various forms. To say the names of the two sons, to say they died, then to say again the obvious from just a few lines before that includes the death of the husband into the picture of the widow’s loss is either a wasteful redundancy or purposely placed.

We further find two related places of additional redundancy. As the King James translators placed it fairly, Mahlon and Chilion died also / both of them. Here is where the maximalist gets another couple of points of credibility. Either the alleged fiction writer fumbled the expression, or the repetitious phrasing was making a matter crystal clear—Naomi’s husband and the two children that were the product of their marriage were dead. Her line and place in heritage has ended. Period.

Jesus undoubtedly passed many dead people and their funerals, but there were some that became special. When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus resurrected him to show that He (Jesus) had power over death and therefore cause to believe Him when He spoke of His resurrection (see John 11). When Jesus went to the city of Nain (Luke 7:11-15), Jesus had “compassion” on the scene, “there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow” (v. 12). The thing that John was telling was one thing, that which Luke described was another. A woman without husband and especially without sons, has no one obligated to support and provide for her in her old age when she is no longer able to care for herself. Naomi was in that place. An act of God was needed.

Commentary by Larry Swinford
Posted on: 5/20/2009 20:42 pm