13 

13:25 His course - His work was quickly finished, and might therefore well be termed a course or race. Luk 3:16.

13:27 For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers - He here anticipates a strong objection, "Why did not they at Jerusalem, and especially their rulers, believe?" They know not him, because they understood not those very prophets whom they read or heard continually. Their very condemning him, innocent as he was, proves that they understood not the prophecies concerning him.

13:29 They fulfilled all things that were written of him - So far could they go, but no farther.

13:31 He was seen many days by them who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem - This last journey both presupposes all the rest, and was the most important of all.

4 

4:19 The desire of other things choke the word - A deep and important truth! The desire of any thing, otherwise than as it leads to happiness in God, directly tends to barrenness of soul.Entering in - Where they were not before. Let him therefore who has received and retained the word, see that no other desire then enter in, such as perhaps till then he never knew.It becometh unfruitful - After the fruit had grown almost to perfection.

4:21 And he said, Is a candle - As if he had said, I explain these things to you, I give you this light, not to conceal, but to impart it to others. And if I conceal any thing from you now, it is only that it may be more effectually manifested hereafter. Mat 5:15; Luk 8:16; Luk 11:33.

4:22  Mat 10:26; Luk 8:17.

4:24 Take heed what ye hear - That is, attend to what you hear, that it may have its due influence upon you. With what measure you mete - That is, according to the improvement you make of what you have heard, still farther assistance shall be given.And to you that hear - That is, with improvement.

4:25 He that hath - That improves whatever he has received, to the good of others, as well as of his own soul. Mat 13:12; Luk 8:18.

4:26 So is the kingdom of God - The inward kingdom is like seed which a man casts into the ground - This a preacher of the Gospel casts into the heart. And he sleeps and rises night and day - That is, he has it continually in his thoughts. Meantime it springs and grows up he knows not how - Even he that sowed it cannot explain how it grows. For as the earth by a curious kind of mechanism, which the greatest philosophers cannot comprehend, does as it were spontaneously bring forth first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear: so the soul, in an inexplicable manner, brings forth, first weak graces, then stronger, then full holiness: and all this of itself, as a machine, whose spring of motion is within itself. Yet observe the amazing exactness of the comparison. The earth brings forth no corn (as the soul no holiness) without both the care and toil of man, and the benign influence of heaven.

4:29 He putteth in the sickle - God cutteth down and gathereth the corn into his garner.

4:30  Mat 13:31; Luk 13:18.

15 

15:2 Ye are saved, if ye hold fast - Your salvation is begun, and will be perfected, if ye continue in the faith.Unless ye have believed in vain - Unless indeed your faith was only a delusion.

15:3 I received - From Christ himself. It was not a fiction of my own. Isa 53:8-9.

15:4 According to the scriptures - He proves it first from scripture, then from the testimony of a cloud of witnesses. Psa 16:10.

15:5 By the twelve - This was their standing appellation; but their full number was not then present.

15:6 Above five hundred - Probably in Galilee. A glorious and incontestable proof! The greater part remain - Alive.

15:7 Then by all the apostles - The twelve were mentioned Co1 15:5. This title here, therefore, seems to include theseventy; if not all those, likewise, whom God afterwards sent to plant the gospel in heathen nations.

15:8 An untimely birth - It was impossible to abase himself more than he does by this single appellation. As an abortion is not worthy the name of a man, so he affirms himself to be not worthy the name of an apostle.

15:9 I persecuted the church - True believers are humbled all their lives, even for the sins they committed before they believed.

15:10 I laboured more than they all - That is, more than any of them, from a deep sense of the peculiar love God had shown me. Yet, to speak more properly, it is not I, but the grace of God that is with me - This it is which at first qualified me for the work, and still excites me to zeal and diligence in it.

15:11 Whether I or they, so we preach - All of us speak the same thing.

19 

19:16 And behold one came - Many of the poor had followed him from the beginning. One rich man came at last. Mar 10:17; Luk 18:18.

19:17 Why callest thou me good - Whom thou supposest to be only a man. There is none good - Supremely, originally, essentially, but God. If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments - From a principle of loving faith. Believe, and thence love and obey.And this undoubtedly is the way to eternal life. Our Lord therefore does not answer ironically, which had been utterly beneath his character, but gives a plain, direct, serious answer to a serious question.

19:19  Exo 20:12. etc

19:20 The young man saith, All these have I kept from my childhood - So he imagined; and perhaps he had, as to the letter; but not asto the spirit, which our Lord immediately shows.

19:21 If thou desirest to be perfect - That is, to be a real Christian: Sell what thou hast - He who reads the heart saw his bosom sin was love of the world; and knew he could not be saved from this, but by literally renouncing it. To him therefore he gave this particular direction, which he never designed for a general rule. For him that was necessary to salvation: to us it is not. To sell all was an absolute duty to him; to many of us it would be ali absolute sin. The young man went away - Not being willing to have salvation at so high a price.

19:24 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, (a proverbial expression,) than for a rich man to go throughthe strait gate: that is, humanly speaking, it is an absolute impossibility. Rich man! tremble! feel this impossibility; else thou art lost for ever!

19:25 His disciples were amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? - If rich men, with all their advantages, cannot? Who? A poor man; a peasant; a beggar: ten thousand of them, sooner than one that is rich.

19:26 Jesus looking upon them - To compose their hurried spirits.O what a speaking look was there! Said to them - With the utmost sweetness: With men this is impossible - It is observable, he does not retract what he had said: no, nor soften it in the least degree, but rather strengthens it, by representing the salvation of a rich man as the utmost effort of Omnipotence.