Blog » No Hunting, Part 4
Friday, June 28, 2013 Nick Cirino
Luke 18:37-38 ESV
· a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging... And he cried out, "Jesus, Son of
David, have mercy on me!"
Matthew 20:29-30 ESV
· And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and... they cried out, "Lord,
have mercy on us, Son of David!"
Continued from yesterday's blog:
3. The meaning is the same either way. If I say, “have mercy on us,” certainly “have mercy on me” is included in that. The authors of the Bible may not have always recorded the exact words that were said. They may have condensed or summarized at times. But they definitely kept the same meaning of what was said. Isn’t that how we all relay information?
For example: if Jerry says, “Today I walked to the store and bought granola, milk, and bread” and then I tell you that Jerry said, “Today I went to the store and bought some things,” would you accuse me of misquoting Jerry? Most likely not. I didn’t use his exact words, but I was true to the sense of what he said. I accurately represented what Jerry was trying to communicate. And in a normal conversation like that, we don’t expect each other to be able to quote everything we hear word for word.
Matthew and Luke probably quoted people this way at times too. And the Holy Spirit was at work to make sure that they recorded exactly what God wanted them to record. They didn’t make any errors of judgment. They never misrepresented what Jesus said. We can be confident that when we read the book of Matthew, we are hearing the true voice of Jesus.
As another possibility on the differences, isn't it widely believed that Matthew was written by the apostle, who was actually there at the time of the event. Luke was written by someone not present at the time of the event but who interviewed those that were and recorded events as he was told them. In this case, Matthew was focusing on the whole scene, while Luke narrowed the recording of the event to the more personal level.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how both Matt. and Mark place this healing as Jesus left Jericho while Luke places it while he was entering. There was an old and new Jericho. Is it possible that both accounts are accurate.
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