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Luke 17: What the Passage Says

67 claims across 37 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What Luke 17 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jesus teaches his disciples about causes of sin, forgiving a brother who repents again and again, faith the size of a mustard seed, and servants who claim no credit for doing their duty. On the way to Jerusalem he heals ten men with leprosy, and only one, a Samaritan, comes back to thank him. When the Pharisees ask when the kingdom of God will come, Jesus says it does not come with things people can watch for, and he tells his disciples what the day of the Son of Man will be like, comparing it to the days of Noah and of Lot.

Claim by Claim

  1. 17:1
    • Jesus said this to the disciples.
    • It is impossible that occasions of stumbling should not come.
    • Woe belongs to the one through whom occasions of stumbling come.
  2. 17:2
    • It would be better for that person to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea.
    • That is better than for him to cause one of these little ones to stumble.
  3. 17:3
    • Jesus told them to watch themselves.
    • If your brother sins against you, rebuke him.
    • If he repents, forgive him.
  4. 17:4
    • If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turns back to you saying 'I repent', you shall forgive him.
  5. 17:5
    • The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith.'
  6. 17:6
    • The Lord said that if they had faith like a grain of mustard seed, they could tell this mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey them.
  7. 17:7
    • Jesus asked which of them, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, would say to him when he comes in from the field, 'Come at once and sit down to eat.'
  8. 17:8
    • Jesus asked whether the master would not rather tell the servant to prepare his supper, to gird himself and serve him while he eats and drinks, and afterward the servant may eat and drink.
  9. 17:9
    • Jesus asked whether the master thanks that servant because he did what was commanded.
    • Jesus said he thinks not.
  10. 17:10
    • Jesus said that likewise, when they have done all the things commanded them, they should say, 'We are unprofitable servants; we have done only what was our duty to do.'
  11. 17:11
    • As Jesus went to Jerusalem, he passed through the middle of Samaria and Galilee.
  12. 17:12
    • As he entered a certain village, ten leprous men met him.
    • They stood at a distance.
  13. 17:13
    • They lifted up their voices and said, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.'
  14. 17:14
    • When Jesus saw them, he told them to go show themselves to the priests.
    • As they went, they were cleansed.
  15. 17:15
    • One of them saw that he was healed.
    • He turned back and glorified God with a loud voice.
  16. 17:16
    • He fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.
    • The man was a Samaritan.
  17. 17:17
    • Jesus asked whether ten were not cleansed.
    • Jesus asked where the nine were.
  18. 17:18
    • Jesus said none were found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner.
  19. 17:19
    • Jesus told the man to rise and go.
    • Jesus said the man's faith had made him whole.
  20. 17:20
    • The Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come.
    • Jesus answered that the kingdom of God does not come with observation.
  21. 17:21
    • Jesus said people will not say, 'Look here!' or 'Look there!'
    • Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you.
  22. 17:22
    • Jesus said to the disciples that days will come when they will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man.
    • Jesus said they will not see it.
  23. 17:23
    • Jesus said people will tell them, 'See here' or 'See there'.
    • Jesus told them not to go after them or follow them.
  24. 17:24
    • Jesus said that as the lightning flashes from one part under heaven and shines to the other part under heaven, so also will the Son of Man be in his day.
  25. 17:25
    • Jesus said he must first suffer many things.
    • Jesus said he must be rejected by this generation.
  26. 17:26
    • Jesus said that as it was in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man.
  27. 17:27
    • People ate and drank.
    • People married and were given in marriage.
    • This continued until the day Noah entered the ark.
    • The flood came and destroyed them all.
  28. 17:28
    • Jesus said it was likewise in the days of Lot.
    • People ate and drank.
    • People bought and sold.
    • People planted and built.
  29. 17:29
    • On the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from heaven.
    • It destroyed them all.
  30. 17:30
    • Jesus said it will be like that on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
  31. 17:31
    • Jesus said that on that day, whoever is on the housetop with his goods in the house must not come down to take them away.
    • Jesus said that whoever is in the field must likewise not turn back.
  32. 17:32
    • Jesus told them to remember Lot's wife.
  33. 17:33
    • Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it.
    • Whoever loses his life will preserve it.
  34. 17:34
    • Jesus said that on that night two men will be in one bed.
    • One will be taken and the other left.
  35. 17:35
    • Two women will be grinding together.
    • One will be taken and the other left.
  36. 17:36
    • Two men will be in the field.
    • One will be taken and the other left.
  37. 17:37
    • They asked him, 'Where, Lord?'
    • Jesus said that wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

17:1
"Offences" in 1611 did not mean insults or hurt feelings. It translates a Greek word for the trigger of a trap, or anything laid in a path to bring a person down, so the sense is causing someone else to fall into sin. "It is impossible but that" is old English for "it cannot turn out any other way than that."
17:2
The stone meant is not the small hand stone a woman turned in her kitchen but the great upper wheel of a mill turned by a donkey, weighing hundreds of pounds. Drowning a man with a weight tied to him was a known form of execution in the Roman world and was regarded with particular horror.
17:3
"Brother" here means a fellow member of the community of followers, not a blood relative. "Repent" translates a word meaning to change one's mind and turn around, which is why the rendering spells it out as being sorry and changing.
17:4
Seven was the ordinary number for fullness or completeness. "Seven times in a day" means as often as it happens rather than a quota that runs out on the eighth offense.
17:5
"Apostle" is a Greek word meaning one who is sent out as someone's representative. Luke uses it for the twelve men Jesus chose from among his followers.
17:6
The mustard seed was proverbially the smallest seed a farmer handled. The "sycamine tree" is probably the black mulberry, though some take it as the sycamore fig; either way both were known for roots that made them very hard to shift. Planting a tree in the sea is a deliberate absurdity: the point is the size of the faith, not the size of the tree.
17:7
The word translated "servant" means a slave, a person owned by the household, not a hired worker who could quit. Two phrases here have shifted sense since 1611: "by and by" meant immediately, straight away, the opposite of what it means now, and "meat" meant food of any kind, so "sit down to meat" is simply sit down to a meal.
17:8
"Gird thyself" means tie up your long loose robe with a belt or sash so you can move freely, the standard posture of a servant on duty. "Sup" means to eat the evening meal.
17:9
"I trow not" is archaic English for "I think not." To trow was to believe or suppose; the word dropped out of use not long after 1611.
17:10
"Unprofitable" translates a Greek word meaning without any claim, unworthy of special treatment. The sense is that the servants have earned no extra credit, not that their work was useless.
17:11
Samaria was the region lying between Galilee in the north and Judea, where Jerusalem stood, in the south. Because of longstanding hostility between Jews and Samaritans, Jewish travelers often went around it rather than through it. The Greek phrase here is vague and could describe passing through the middle of the two regions or along the border between them.
17:12
"Leprosy" in the Bible covers a range of persistent skin conditions and is not limited to the disease called leprosy today. The law in Leviticus 13 required anyone with such a condition to live apart from the community and warn others off, which is why these ten stand at a distance instead of coming near.
17:13
"Master" here translates a Greek word used only by Luke, meaning someone set over others, a chief or commander. It is a word of rank rather than the usual word for a teacher.
17:14
Leviticus 14 sets out the procedure: only a priest could examine a person, declare the skin condition gone, and clear them to rejoin ordinary life and worship. Jesus sends the ten off to be certified before anything has visibly changed.
17:16
Samaritans were the people of the old northern territory of Israel. They worshiped the God of Israel and kept their own version of the five books of Moses, but their temple stood on Mount Gerizim rather than in Jerusalem. Jews and Samaritans each regarded the other as corrupted, which is the sting in the detail being saved for the last word of the sentence.
17:18
KJV "stranger" translates a word meaning one born of another people, a foreigner or outsider. It does not mean a person who happened to be unknown to them.
17:19
The Greek verb behind "made thee whole" means both to heal and to save, and Luke uses it in both senses. All ten were cured of the disease; this larger word is used only of the one who came back, and the English cannot carry both meanings at once.
17:20
The Pharisees were a movement devoted to exact keeping of the law of Moses as interpreted by their own tradition, and they carried considerable weight with ordinary people. "With observation" translates a word for the close watching of signs, the way one might scan the sky or count off a calendar waiting for a signal.
17:21
The Greek phrase behind "within you" can mean either inside you, in the heart, or in your midst, among you as a group. "You" is plural and the people addressed are the Pharisees. Translators have gone both ways for centuries and the wording itself does not settle it.
17:22
"Son of man" is the phrase Jesus regularly uses of himself. In Hebrew and Aramaic it can simply mean a human being, and it also echoes Daniel 7, where "one like the Son of man" is brought before God and given authority and a kingdom. Both senses are in play and the Greek keeps the oddness of the phrase rather than smoothing it out.
17:25
In 1611 English "rejected of" means rejected by. "This generation" means the people alive at that time, the present crop of contemporaries, not an age of the world.
17:26
"Noe" is the Greek spelling of the name Noah. The King James Version generally keeps the Greek forms of Old Testament names when they appear in the New Testament. The story referred to is the flood in Genesis 6 to 8.
17:27
The ark is the great wooden vessel Noah built before the flood. "Given in marriage" reflects a society where marriages were arranged: men took wives, and daughters were handed over in marriage by their fathers. Everything on this list is ordinary daily business rather than wickedness; the point being made is that nobody saw it coming.
17:28
Lot was Abraham's nephew, who settled in the city of Sodom. The account of his leaving the city and its destruction is in Genesis 19.
17:29
"Brimstone" is the old English word for sulfur, which burns with a choking flame and a foul smell. "Fire and brimstone" was the standard phrase for what fell on Sodom.
17:31
Houses had flat roofs used for work, storage and sleeping in hot weather, reached by stairs on the outside of the building. A man on the roof could therefore leave without ever going back inside. "Stuff" is the ordinary 1611 word for household goods and possessions and carries no suggestion of junk.
17:32
Genesis 19:26. As Lot's household fled the burning city, his wife looked back and became a pillar of salt. The two words assume the reader already knows the story.
17:33
The word translated "life" covers a person's life, self and inner being all at once, so the saying turns on a single word that English has to split between "life" and "soul."
17:34
The Greek says only "two," with masculine grammar; "men" is supplied by the translators. Ordinary households slept several to a bed or mat, so the picture is simply of close quarters at night. The text does not say who does the taking, or whether being taken is the better outcome.
17:35
Grinding grain into flour was the daily work of the household, done at first light by two women sitting opposite each other and turning a hand mill between them.
17:36
This verse is missing from the oldest manuscripts of Luke and was most likely copied in by a scribe from the similar passage in Matthew 24:40. The King James Version includes it; many modern editions leave it out or move it to a footnote, which is why their verse numbering skips from 35 to 37.
17:37
The Greek word rendered "eagles" covers both eagles and vultures, and birds circling over a carcass are vultures. The reply is a proverb rather than a location: you will not have to ask where, because it will be as unmistakable as birds gathering in the sky.

Where the Manuscripts Differ

Worth knowing before you stand up: a listener following a modern translation may not have this verse in front of them.

17:36
Most modern translations leave this verse out. It is in the Greek text the King James translators worked from, but not in the older manuscripts found since, so scholars generally take it as a copyist’s addition rather than part of the original.

Read Luke 17