Luke 8 Discussion

Storms go silent, a legion flees, and a small lamp changes how we think about public faith. We journey through Luke 8 with a clear throughline: God’s word is sown generously, the human heart responds in different ways, and Jesus’ authority reaches every realm—nature, demons, disease, and even death. Along the way, we spotlight the women who traveled with Jesus and funded the ministry out of their own means, a striking picture of how unlikely collaborators sustain the mission in plain sight.

We unpack the parable of the sower with honest questions about our own soil: are we hardened by hurry, shallow under pressure, or choked by worry and wealth? Then we sit with the lamp on a stand and ask what it means to live faith out loud without posturing. A crowded scene reframes belonging when Jesus names obedience as the mark of true family, inviting us to trade proximity for practice. On the lake, we feel the disciples’ fear as Jesus calms a storm with a word, and in the Gerasenes, we witness deliverance as a demonized man finds freedom while a fearful town asks Jesus to leave. Finally, a bleeding woman is restored and a twelve-year-old girl rises, revealing compassion in motion and power with a personal touch.

Throughout, we keep returning to simple, durable applications: sow the word broadly, cultivate deep roots, take the shade off your lamp, and tell what God has done in your life. Expect pushback from fear and comfort, but trust that Christ’s authority is not fragile. If this journey through Luke 8 encouraged you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more chapter-by-chapter conversations, and leave a review to help others find the show. What part of Luke 8 most challenged or comforted you today?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene In Luke 8
• 0:25 Women Who Supported Jesus
• 0:39 The Sower And The Soils
• 0:59 Lamp On A Stand Explained
• 1:11 True Family Hears And Obeys
• 1:22 Jesus Calms The Storm
• 1:32 Legion And The Drowned Pigs
• 2:06 Two Twelves And Two Healings
• 2:30 Public Faith And Bold Witness
• 3:19 Generosity And Unlikely Disciples
• 5:08 Broad Sowing And Hard Hearts
• 6:03 Light That Changes Communities
• 7:38 Redefining Family Around Obedience
• 8:46 Power Over Nature And Spirits
• 9:49 Demonology, Today And Then
• 11:22 Fear, Doubt, And Human Nature
• 13:24 God’s Character And Generous Word
• 16:19 Applications: Confess, Tell, Support
• 18:17 Final Exhortation And Signoff

Transcript

Pastor Plek: 0:10

And welcome back to a chapter day. Keeps the devil away. All right, Pastor Pleck, along with Pastor Holland. We are talking Luke chapter 8. Verses 1 through 3. We're going to outline it and then we're going to get into observation, some interpretation, and finally some applications. Now, verses 1 through 3. We're talking about the women accompanying Jesus and a little description about those ladies who gave up their lives and followed Jesus and hung in his band of disciples. Verses 4 through 15, we hear about the parable of the sower, and then with an exclamation that uh the word of God received variably produces um or different of produces different amounts of fruit, uh, whether it's on the path, the rocks, the thorn, or the good soil. And then we've got verses 16 through 18. It's the lamp on a stand. And we know that lights aren't hidden. God's word will be known. And the response determines the revelation. Verses 19 through 21, Jesus' mother and brothers, crowds block his family. And then Jesus says, Hey, don't worry about it. My true family hears and obeys God's word. Verses 22 through 25. Um, this is where Jesus calms the storm, and the terrified disciples are freaked out, and Jesus rebukes the wind, the waves. Then in verses 26 through 39, we have the healing of a demon-possessed man named Legion, because he has many demons, and Jesus commands the demons to go into the pigs where they drown, and everybody wants them to leave. Um, except the man, the healed man wants to follow Jesus, but he is commanded to go and tell everyone what he has done for him in his own hometown. Then verse 40 through 56, you've got the dead girl and a sick woman whom Jesus heals both. Uh, and after raising the little girl, he tells everybody keep quiet. Okay, let's get into some observations we're making here. Um, especially about like uh when it comes to some of the things that you're learning leaning here. What are you getting?

Pastor Holland: 2:20

Okay, first thing that stands out to me is verse 16 about the lamp.

Pastor Plek: 2:25

Yeah.

Pastor Holland: 2:26

No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar.

Pastor Plek: 2:29

Right.

Pastor Holland: 2:30

But you know, puts it on a stand. And so I think this is a great verse that just really summarizes what Jesus' ministry was like.

Pastor Plek: 2:37

Yeah.

Pastor Holland: 2:38

And what Christianity was like in the Gospels and the Book of Acts as they're following Jesus. It was a public ministry. Yeah, very privately teaching some people in this kind of small um area, disconnected from society and culture. This was out in the open, public ministry. Public square, right? In the public square, proclaiming the truths of God's word, healing, doing good works. It's a public religion.

Pastor Plek: 3:06

Okay, yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think that's one of the things about being bold that we struggle with is it's not it's taboo. Don't be, don't talk about religion, don't talk about politics, keep that to yourself. Um, how about just uh these di the the fact that there's women and that Luke really describes who they are. Uh, and I thought that was wild that he gets into three ladies specifically who are in amongst Jesus followers, and um you don't hear much of a discussion. And supporting the ministry too. Like they're the ones financially supporting them out of their means. What does that mean?

Pastor Holland: 3:52

Yeah, taking um what you know, what God had blessed them with, right? And saying, hey, we're gonna put this toward um supporting the ministry of Jesus and uh taking care of Jesus and the disciples, right? Um this is you know, after he had chosen the apostles, so he's got his 12 apostles, but he's also got you know some other people who are kind of part of their group going from town to town and ministering. And these women are these women, women's these women are um they're supporting the ministry, they're helping take care of practical needs, you know, necessities in the group. Like they're a huge blessing um uh to the ministry of Jesus.

Pastor Plek: 4:31

But how weird is it that Chusa is the head of Herod's household? He's like the chief of Herod's household, and uh, she's the wife, and that's the guy that kills off John the Baptist. You would, I mean, you would think there'd be a conflict of interest there at some point, right?

Pastor Holland: 4:47

Yeah, it is strange, a strange group um who, you know, uh seven demons had gone out of Mary, and then you have the wife of Chusa. Right. And it's like, you know what? This is what church is like, though. Jesus calls all kinds of people, and um I what you know, what we do is we follow him and we use what we have um to bless the ministry of the gospel. All right, let's talk real quick about the different types of soil.

Pastor Plek: 5:12

Um, we've talked about this before that uh your what was it, Bolivian buddy? Uh he was like, this was just a bad uh sower.

Pastor Holland: 5:22

Yeah, come on, why are you throwing seed on the rocky soil? You know, what's what's wrong with you? But in reality, um, what's you know, it's like the idea of broad sowing is kind of praised here. Just get the seed out there and wherever it takes root, it takes root. Yeah, and because we don't know, you know, with the spiritual analogy of this, when we're giving, he says clearly the seed is the word of God. Right. So when we preach, um, when we proclaim Jesus to others, we don't know what kind of soil they are. Right. All we do is we just sow the seed.

Pastor Plek: 5:54

Now I know this might be a little controversial, but is the word of God returning void if it lands on the rocky or on the path? Does God's word ever return void? No, it doesn't, but it sure looks like it in that in that case. I guess you know that just is the judgment pronounced on them because they didn't hear and respond. Yeah, exactly. It serves its purpose of to give an opportunity and they reject. Yeah. Okay. How about um how about a lamp on a stand? And this is probably our problem with at least my problem, uh, with living in modern culture, because I put shades over lamps all the time because I don't want it too bright. Yeah. And the lamps back then were a little flame that would be like kind of like at the end of like a little jar that you had oil in, and so it wouldn't be covered because then it would catch on fire. But so don't think in terms of modern lamps. Torches. Think of torches, think of torches like a little fire. Yeah.

Pastor Holland: 6:51

Yeah. I mean, the idea is that um the whole point, the whole purpose of lighting a lamp is so that you know its light would spread, so that you can see, so that, you know, it would be brighter in there. In the same way, the whole purpose of the church existing in the world is to shine the light of God in the world. Yeah. And to make his truth known, to make his justice and his mercy known, to make the gospel known. And just like a light makes a room brighter, the church should make the world brighter. We should actually impact the world that we live in and see, you know, transformation in the cultures that we belong to, the communities that we belong to. In other words, take off the dim controls of your light.

Pastor Plek: 7:34

Let it shine. All right, let it shine. All right, how about here's one that's just odd. Jesus, mother, and brothers showing up, and the crowds, they can't get through the crowds, they don't have VIP passes, they somehow can't make it to Jesus. Why isn't Jesus um saying, hey, come on back here, let's hang out.

Pastor Holland: 7:56

Yeah, he wants to make a theological point. I could see why, you know, I could I could see people being annoyed of Jesus at times. Um you know, not that they should. Right. But, you know, it's like you always gotta make everything spirit. Does it always have to be a parable? Does it but um Jesus is making a theological point here, you know, where he says, you know, he he goes, Who who are my who is my family? Who is my mother and brothers? And it's those who, you know, do the will of God. And so he's using this opportunity um to show what it really means to belong to the family of Jesus is those actually who have faith in him and who do what he says.

Pastor Plek: 8:42

And he because he could have teleported his his family into the inner circle, but he didn't want to do that. Because the next thing he does is calm a storm with his words. Like that to me shows an unbelievable amount of power that you could control wind. Like that's the one thing that I would say, you know, even today, we struggle at controlling wind. We might be able to harness the wind, we might be able to uh utilize the wind, but to control the wind, that is God power.

Pastor Holland: 9:16

Yeah, and he can just do it with a word. Go this way, go that way, stop, start. You know, just he's completely powerful over again in this chapter, as we've seen in the other synoptic gospels of Matthew and Mark, um, you see that he has power over the spiritual, casting out demons. He has power over um the natural world, being able to stop the wind and the waves. Um, there's nothing that is outside of the power of Jesus. He can heal the sick, he can raise the dead, um, he he can do all things. Right.

Pastor Plek: 9:49

Let's take a look at this the healing of the demonic man, demon demon-possessed man. Now, this is again the third time we hear the story. Yep. Uh Legion is his name because there are many. And this is the problem or the struggle I have is how is he able to communicate or you know, how does the man not have the ability to communicate? You've got the the demons speaking for him. This is sort of a wild deal. And um is this still for today?

Pastor Holland: 10:19

Is is what still for demon-possessed people? Oh, well, yeah, I think um I think uh there's still demons today. Um there are there was a it seems to be in the gospels a really pronounced um uh uh you know a focus of the the demonic activity in and around where Jesus was. Um there's some interesting things about today though. Number one, um, you know, we're not in the ex the same kind of uh time as Jesus being in the flesh ministering where there was heightened satanic and demonic activity right around him, you know, trying to stop the work of God. Um, but also there's way more humans in the world now than there were then, but there's the same amount of demons, right? Demons don't procreate, don't the same number of angels and demons, but there's way more people. This is, you know, get into some interesting demonology. How do children always have their guardian angel before God? Yeah, we looked at that verse before. Yeah, we talked about that.

Pastor Plek: 11:24

How is that possible?

Pastor Holland: 11:25

And we don't know how many angels and demons there are. We know there's multitudes, you know, there's whole hosts of them. Even right here, you know, a legion um doesn't just mean many. Legion was like uh in a a unit in a Roman army, it would be thousands of soldiers, right? So Jesus is literally standing before like a demonic army, and and they have to listen to him. Right. And so it shows how powerful Jesus is. So today, we don't know how many demons there are. We know that demons um are still existing in the world today. Uh Paul teaches us in Ephesians that we wrestle against forces of darkness, spiritual forces of darkness, powers, principalities, rulers, and authorities, and the um, you know, the the spiritual darkness of this age. So that's very much um a reality for Christian life today. But something like this, you know, thousands of demons possessing one man, this is an outstanding, you know, exceptional kind of situation, I think, um, which is why it's in all three of the synoptic gospels.

Pastor Plek: 12:23

And I think, you know, when I look back at like world population data, your point is exactly right. There's about 300 million people uh back in Jesus' time at the most worldwide. And now there's 8.25 billion people. So when you do the math, we're talking like what, 30 times as much, roughly, or you know, 25 times as much. Like that's a lot different. That's a huge number to be to be multiplied by and to have the same number of demons in the world now as there was then.

Pastor Holland: 12:59

So, you know, back in this time, a thousand demons could all go on one guy. Now they got to split up their efforts a little bit. There's way more people. You can't go a thousand to one. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So you probably demons are just like little squirrely demons. And I never thought about that. But um, the good news is Jesus is more powerful than demons, and Jesus lives in us with his Holy Spirit, you know, dwelling inside of us. And so um we don't have to fear the demonic, but we do need to be aware of it. Yes. Our prayers lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. Um, we are taught to pray against demonic forces.

Pastor Plek: 13:34

All right, and then we saw Jesus' power over the physical with the healing of the sick woman of 12 years and the dead girl who was 12 years old. I love that just little fact that they were both had been experiencing life 12 years. I don't know if the little girl had been sick for 12 years and then died or whatever, but she was 12 and then the woman had the issue of 12 years. I thought that was just an interesting number of 12. Yeah, there's 12 disciples. Boom. All right, let's get into um some observation or sorry uh some truths about the nature of man. What do you got?

Pastor Holland: 14:07

For the nature of man, I what I think just the our sinful nature, um, that sin has not only corrupted our hearts, but has, you know, brought corruption to the whole natural world. Um and so the fact that we get sick, the fact that we have these, you know, for 12 years, this woman's struggling, sin has fractured all of creation and um even our physical bodies suffer from sin. Right. Um, how about this?

Pastor Plek: 14:38

People have fear and like are afraid, even when Jesus is present. So the disciples, when he they're about to, you know, they feel like they're gonna drown, like, master, master, we're gonna drown, and they they're you know succumbed by fear. And then whenever Jesus does heal the demon-possessed man, all the town's like, hey, you need to leave. Like there's when they can't control, when they don't understand, they don't want anything to do with it. And I think we can sometimes mistake the presence of God as something to be afraid of because it's it's reordering, reordering our lives according to his will and word, and that can be scary for some people.

Pastor Holland: 15:23

Yeah. You see a lot of you see the fear, you know, with the storm, you see the fear with um, you know, of like we're gonna die. Yep. You see the fear of the people saying, Man, all our pigs are dead because of you, get out of here. Like, who are you? What is going on? Yep. Then you see the people who um, you know, the daughter had died, and Jesus is like, it's okay, and they laugh at him. Yeah, she's just sleeping and they just laugh. You see all these kind of different reactions to Jesus in these different crowds, um, of people dealing with grief and fear, and um so you know, what is it what does this teach about the nature of man? Um our emotional life can lead us to reject Jesus. Oh, wow. To say, get out of here, or to doubt him, or you know, to laugh, even like laugh uh at or mock, you know, his words.

Pastor Plek: 16:12

Uh, how about like in the parable of the sower? Humans often hear truth, but let worry, riches, or pleasure choke it out. The very thing you ask God for becomes a very thing that could choke out your spiritual life.

Pastor Holland: 16:29

Yeah, it's good.

Pastor Plek: 16:30

All right, what about with character God? You got any truths there?

Pastor Holland: 16:33

Uh, he's powerful. Powerful over the spiritual, powerful over the natural world, powerful over our physical bodies.

Pastor Plek: 16:41

Yeah, I like that. How about God generously scatters his word? Oh, yeah. Even to people who won't do anything with it other than be judged by it. And it's a beautiful thing to see the generosity for even people to receive the goodness of his word to save them. That's good. Um, all right, what about some spec? Let's get into an application: sin to confess, a promise to claim, an example to follow, command to obey, or a knowledge to believe. What you got?

Pastor Holland: 17:06

Uh, example to follow. Um, the guy that was healed, you know, the demoniac guy, Jesus says, go tell everybody, you know, and he does. He goes back and he tells everyone what God has done for him. And I think that's a good example for us to follow. Like, who, who in your life have you not told your testimony to yet? Nice.

Pastor Plek: 17:26

Uh, example follow, I thought was the the women's generous support. Yeah. They provided the means of the ministry, which I thought was incredible. Like, here these ladies are the ones providing for these men to go out and proclaim the gospel.

Pastor Holland: 17:44

Um, one more. Yeah, sin to confess. Um cares and riches and pleasures of this life, um, allowing those things to choke out God's word. Yeah. So if that's you, um, if you can see that in your life, you know, confess that sin and and ask the Lord to prepare your heart to be good soil for his word.

Pastor Plek: 18:07

Uh, one more command obey, verse 39 return home and tell how much God has done for you. Yeah. Go and share the gospel with everyone at home. Amen. Hey, thanks so much for uh tuning in today. We'll see you next time on a chapter a day.