Daily Bible Reading 9th September 2026 // Luke 11:27-36
27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgement with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
These verses contain a series of incidents and comments which further underline the challenge of faith and expose the nature of unbelief. The first incident contains what appears to be a sincere and moving utterance and expression of praise, which Jesus however dismisses as an irrelevance. 'The words of the woman in the crowd were a common form of extravagant compliment; but Jesus dismissed them as sheer sentimentality, for the danger of pious effusions is that they are readily enjoyed for their own sake and become a substitute for the one proper response to God's word. By placing the story in its present context, Luke has registered his opinion that sentimentality is a form of unbelief' (Caird). Ah, sentimental reaction will not do duty for real obedience, which is the important thing. The woman in fact missed the point: it is not the natural relationship to Jesus, represented in 27 by Mary, His mother, but the spiritual one which expresses itself in obedience to the word of God (28) that is the real heart of Jesus' teaching. Peter's attitude to Jesus is a good illustration of this contrast: he was the disciple who always made protestation of his love to Jesus, yet when the crunch came, his particular kind of loyalty and enthusiasm was seen to be woefully lacking and shown up for what it was. Hence the radical dealing with him by our Lord on the shores of Galilee after the Resurrection (John 21). It is never enough to be enthusiastic about Jesus. The real question is: do we hear the Word and do it?