Daily Bible Reading 19th June 2026 // Luke 11-17
11 Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” 14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” 15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
Death is spoken of in the New Testament in almost personal terms. Paul calls it 'the last enemy'. It 'reigns as a king', as he says in Romans 5:14 (such is the force of the Greek word he uses). Death is the king of terrors and all mankind is under this dark, oppressive rule. If, therefore, help is to come to man, that help must consist in delivering him from this dark enemy, death. And the glory of the gospel is that this is what is proclaimed that Christ has come to do. And this is what history is saying to us, and to all men, today: Christ can deal with the ultimate human problem; indeed, Christ has dealt with it! As such, therefore, the miracle of raising the widow's son from the dead is properly to be regarded as a token - a token of the gospel itself. For if death is the wages of sin, and death is dealt with by the Prince of life, it can only mean that the cause of death - sin - is dealt with by Christ. And He deals with it by bearing it in His own body on the tree. This is why it is not only legitimate, but essential, to spiritualise the miracle and take it as an illustration of the spiritual grace of the gospel which raises men dead in trespasses and sins to newness of life. This, in fact, is the truest and deepest understanding of what took place that day. If what we have said is true, then the deepest thing this story has to say to us is that Christ stands over against the deadness of men in their sins, and in His gospel speaks to them the word of life, the life-giving word, that brings them into newness of life.