Note: This is a transcript of an audio Bible talk on Luke 8:19–21. It has been lightly edited by Claude AI for readability: misspellings have been corrected, sentences and paragraphs have been formed where necessary, and banter or informal interjections have been marked as such. Scripture quotations are highlighted. The speaker’s meaning and voice have been preserved throughout.
Luke 8:19–21 — Family, Loyalty, and the Word of God
All right, we are in chapter 8 of Luke, and we have just finished the section on “therefore how ye hear,” with the warning that “for whosoever hath” — and we commented on that verse, how utterly contrary it is to the culture of the West, and perhaps every culture, because essentially every state that is outside of the jurisdiction of Christ is, or becomes, socialistic.
[Banter: “I was just trying to see if maybe — did you pause it?” “No, I just didn’t quite know what was going on there.” “I’m sorry, I just thought I would pause the water.” “Pause the water?” “Sorry — tighten the water.” “Tighten the water.” “Okay, good job.” “That’s all right, that’s all right.”]
Verse 19–21: His Mother and Brethren
All right. So we start at verse 19. That was verse 18.
“Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him for the press. And it was told him by certain which said, Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to see thee.” — Luke 8:19–20
And he answered and said unto them — well, again, we can picture in our own minds, with our own image of who Jesus was, a big smiley guy, maybe six foot two, big lovely hair. And of course he is going to be a lovely, soft, cuddly, responsible son. He is going to give his mum a big hug and high-five his brothers. You know, we kind of think we know him. What is it — “Jesus strong and kind,” something like that? Well, if he is strong and he is kind, then he is going to behave a certain way. He is going to give his mum a big squeeze, spin her around, and fist-bump his brothers.
But what actually happens?
“My mother and my brethren are those which hear the word of God and do it.” — Luke 8:21
That — what? That is not very kind. That is not very kind, it would seem.
“Jesus strong and kind.” Well, if we say that Jesus is strong and kind, then we had better be careful to place that within a biblical framework. What is kindness?
I was thinking about this in relationship to some of the things I know I ought to say — things that are right — but which, in my own mind, I fear will only cause upset and division. But I have to consider that for people to know the word of God, and for me to share the word of God with them — in a biblical manner, respectfully, going to different ages, with a hope and an expectation that the word will do certain things and accomplish certain things, without resorting to mere rhetoric, having faith in the power of God and not in the power of my own words — with all those provisos, the kindest thing is to come closest to the word of God.
Anything else sails under the flag of kindness very often, but is not kind at all. It is a species of humanism.
If you do not have the light of the word of God on a given issue, well, you can go sailing on with pleasant feelings, but you do not have an adequate map for reality.
The Kingdom Family
All right. So, the mother and the brethren stand without. The idea is that his basic loyalty is to his mother and the rest of his family. Now, we know from the data that Joseph would have died, and Jesus would have been the main breadwinner for quite some time. So incidentally, he would have been particularly close to his mother, having been the responsible son — and he would have helped to raise his brothers. He would have been like a father to them, I am sure.
But the idea here is that our basic loyalty is to blood. Yet Jesus is outlining with his kingdom that the church — as it will become, called the ekklesia, a much, much better word, meaning “called out” or “assembled,” like an army — is a family. And of course, Israel was a family. They are the children of Israel, after all, who became Israel, a nation. And in a sense, as people were brought in and converted to Israel, they would have been brought into clans and so on.
So he is saying here: I am not going to stop my work, my ministry, for the sake of my blood family. And that is something — whoa — I am preaching to myself again.
We cannot, we must not, say that our basic loyalty is to our blood family.
“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” — Matthew 10:37 (cf. Luke 14:26)
In fact, Jesus said more than once in the Gospels that he who does not hate his mother or father or brother is not worthy of him. He is not saying we must literally hate, of course, but our basic loyalty must be to the Kingdom of God.
And what is the Kingdom of God, for that matter? Well, it is not just the church building, not just people who go through rituals together. The Kingdom of God is the dominion of the King. And it is those who are, in an important sense — as Jesus outlines here — loyal subjects to the King. They demonstrate by their actions that they are loyal subjects.
By “demonstration” we might think this means going through the forms of Christianity: going to church primarily, and the rites of Christianity — baptism, communion. And we debate about baptism, and we debate about communion. But Jesus puts up a basic standard, the basic standard, as important as these other things are.
[Aside: “The going to church is not just one thing; it is a whole mass of things, which have thousands of accretions, I am sure, on top — depending on your communion — on top of what is actually demanded of us. But that is neither here nor there.”]
No. He says that people who are part of his kingdom — which is the basic family, the essential family to which we must have loyalty — are defined by this:
“My mother and my brethren are those which hear the word of God and do it.” — Luke 8:21
Hearing the Word of God
So — those that hear the word of God. Well, that means those who sit under the ministry, as it were, of a good minister. But have I said the whole verse? My mother and my brethren are those which hear the word…
[Aside: “Have I said all the verse? Have I said it all? Have I said everything that needs to be said?”]
Well, that is kind of where we leave it at first reading: you go to what we call the church, and you hear what we call a sermon. The word “sermon” is not really used in Scripture — it would be interesting to do a study on the origin of that word — but it has to be the word of God. That is the first thing.
And so much of preaching, very obviously, is not the word of God. There are modernists who say they have a naturalistic Bible — they do not really know the Bible at all. There are the existentialists who say that the Bible is important but important as myth: it did not really happen, but somehow it matters. There are those, like the setup in Russia, where the church is very important but important as a glue that holds together the fabric of society. Now, that is probably superior in some ways to what we have in the West — an all-out war against the Christian faith — but is it enough? No.
The first thing is to hear the word of God. And many people in church will get rid of a minister, get rid of a pastor, if he preaches the word of God. Very often, if you simply speak about the word of God, you will be forced out of that fellowship by social pressure or even by excommunication. Or maybe you founded the church and you get kicked out — which I know has happened to one friend of mine, because of his insistence on speaking about the word of God.
We do love the word of God. But what if we speak about the word of God — we hear the word of God in some areas but not in others? Areas of our sin, perhaps. Areas where we have an idol set up in our hearts. We may read theology books. We may even teach others. But we have this idol in our hearts.
Well, how then can we, under Jesus’ criteria for who is in the family, be truly part of it? We will end up estranged from the family. We will end up distorting the image of God within us by our sin, and we will not be fit for — not even interested in — being part of the family.
That is a problem. It is a big problem.
You refuse to hear the word of God at that point — which is to say, ah, there are other, more important things. And maybe you choose to focus on society, or whatever it happens to be. There are those who will hear the word about sins — maybe they are not their favourite sins, they have other sins they are attached to — and they will not be prepared to hear the word of God if it interferes with their livelihood. Maybe they teach at a state school and have signed up in their contracts to the LGBT agenda. They do not want to hear the word of God as it speaks there. Or maybe they are head over heels in debt. Maybe they do not want to hear the word of God there either.
So that is the first thing: it begins with hearing.
If you want to be knit together as a family — so that it is more real to us than a biological family — then that is only going to come in any real sense when you and others are, first of all, willing to hear the word of God, even when it hurts, even when it would appear that it would destroy your present life. Maybe you are going to have to change jobs. Who wants to do that, especially when you have a pension?
Justifying God
All right. But the real test, of course, is that they hear the word of God — not selectively, but totally. To everything that God says, they say, “Amen.” And in the words of the previous verses, they justify God.
They say, “God, your judgement of me is right. I justify you. I say you are just, O Lord. Your assessment of me is just. Your word is just in relation to my life.” That is the first step. And then — do it.
“Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.” — Psalm 25:4
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me.” — Psalm 139:23–24
Now, to hear the word of God is a difficult thing, especially if it requires work and discipline. In your individual time with the Lord, you say, “Lord, show me my hidden sins, as David said. Show me if there is any wicked way in me.” Boy, that hurts. It is like surgery. It is a part of us that needs to be removed. You have to get the knife in there.
“For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.” — Hebrews 4:12
That is what the word of God is like — sharper than any two-edged scalpel, you might say.
All right. But then to do it is something different again. Hearing is a necessary precedent to doing. You cannot do without hearing. It does not make sense.
Character
Okay. And this leads us on to what is a category I do not think exists in Northern Ireland. I have really never heard it taught on here, and that is character.
We use the word character, but when we say character, we mean somebody who is an individual, somebody who is distinctive, who stands out. “Oh, he is a real character.” Maybe he is really funny — something we prize heavily in our culture, and why not? Or maybe it is the way he dresses, or that he says outrageous things every so often. Whatever it is, he is a character.
But character — in the biblical sense — is a category we need to acquaint ourselves with, because someone who hears the word of God and then does it has had a process happen in their life. They have, first of all, been disciplined to hear the word of God, probably from childhood. And then they have been disciplined and taught to seek God — not just to have a “quiet time,” but to genuinely seek God and to pray. And that takes character, especially when you feel at certain times that God is not there. You have to pray through that.
If you are developing your own obedience, your own practice of hearing God — and we often hear talk about “spiritual practices” and “how can I get in tune with God?” — the first part is mentioned, perhaps in a defective way, but the second part rarely is. To hear God and to do it, you are going to have to develop what we call character.
“What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” — Matthew 11:7 (cf. Luke 7:24)
What is character? Character is the God-given fixity in your life — the ability, the power, to do the right thing even when nobody else is around. That is what character is. It is a fixity in your life. It is an ability. Just like John the Baptist in the previous chapters — what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A man shaking like a reed in the wind? No. This man had character. He would go against the trend. He would preach to Romans. He would preach to Herod at the risk of his own life.
He lost his head over it, of course. But it was the right thing for him to do. His ministry was that of a prophet, and he would not waver from it. That John the Baptist quality represents character.
And it is something that happens over time. Further, thinking about John the Baptist — it comes from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is conceived of very often, at the extremes, as something which makes you bark like a dog, or produces gold fillings, or leads you to be an out-of-control person given to wild ecstasies. But is this the Holy Spirit? No.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” — 2 Timothy 1:7
The Holy Spirit gives us a sound mind. And a sound mind is able, under pressure, to say, “This is my duty in this given situation.” It gives you the ability to say, “In this situation, I need to seek the grace of God.”
Jacob: Character Formed in the Wilderness
And this is something that requires time and harsh lessons.
Jacob was never quite the man that he is painted to be by so many. But he needed that time away from his family — in the wilderness, night after lonely, cold, tired night, looking after the sheep. To do what? To form his character. What does that mean? For him to practise ethics, practise obedience to God.
“Thou shalt not steal.” — Exodus 20:15
He did so in a very difficult situation — under the pressure of the environment, the wind howling, the cold, the sleepless nights. And Laban, who was an unjust, ungodly man. Those were the pincers that would have tripped up anybody else. But because God’s Spirit was in him, because he was a tam — that is the word often translated “perfect” or “blameless” elsewhere, as with Moses — he endured.
Without that character formation — that obedience under pressure, under pressure, under pressure — it is like a strength training routine. It is day after day of lifting heavy, then resting. Resistance. Resistance to sin. And not just resistance to sin negatively, but positively doing the right thing, which for him was looking after his father-in-law’s sheep. Accumulating capital. Providing for his wives. Providing for his children.
“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” — 1 Timothy 5:8
Did Jacob do that? No, he was a good provider. In fact, he was a righteous man by the definition of Proverbs:
“A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children.” — Proverbs 13:22
Anyway, that is a bit of a digression, but it is also an illustration of what character is.
Moses: Character Formed Through Responsibility
Again — Moses. We mentioned Moses. Moses was a tremendously gifted man. He had tremendous intelligence and martial ability, as we can see from early comments in Exodus. And he had tremendous character in that he was able to break initially with the pomp and circumstance of Pharaoh’s court, and identify himself in his God-given role as a judge, as a civil ruler among his fellow countrymen.
“By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” — Hebrews 11:24–25
But it took forty years of adversity in the desert to form him — to form his character — so that under the most difficult of circumstances he could lead.
And it is interesting that in the cases of both men, it was looking after sheep that was the real test. We have sheep around the corner from us here, and they are cute-looking animals — but I suspect when you get to know them, you would be tearing your hair out at their escapades, getting lost, getting themselves killed, and what have you.
And is it not interesting that character formation comes through the exercise of responsibility in a family setting? Both Jacob and Moses had a wife and family to look after. They were not out on their own in the desert. They were in the wilderness, looking after sheep. It was in the course of employment — not as a hobby. Jacob had lost whatever wealth he had. Moses had lost whatever wealth he had. They were doing that to live.
And in the crucible of life, in the crucible of responsible, obedient life, their characters were formed. And so the Lord Jesus would say:
“He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” — Hebrews 2:11
True Family
And so we return to the question of the biological family. We must honour our father and our mother, but we must also count our brethren and mothers — who? Those people that go to church? Well, kind of. Kind of.
But we can never really have that family feeling — that family reality — apart from the criteria which God, Jesus, the Son of God, lays down here:
“My mother and my brethren are those which hear the word of God and do it.” — Luke 8:21
We can never really have any kind of family bond — that necessary bond of family — with people who merely go to church. Only with those who, by his criteria, hear the word of God and do it.
Now, is this a counsel of perfection — only those who are sinlessly perfect? We know that cannot be the case because there is no one sinlessly perfect. But we must judge just judgement in this case. We should find those people who have a heart to hear all of God’s word and obey it. They have a heart to do so, and when they sin, they will say, “I have sinned.”
We were just commenting about a friend — a brother, really — who was out in Africa doing a new job as a farm manager. In his report, he noted down his shortcomings in preparing a harvest, which would mean a marked drop in the yield of that crop. I thought: wow. This man is seeking to hear the word of God and do it. He sees that he is a man under responsibility.
“For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me.” — Matthew 8:9 (the centurion’s words)
So it is not the sinlessly perfect — in any Greek, otherworldly sense — with whom we can be assured we are family. Rather, it is those who are genuinely seeking after God and are willing to make changes to their beliefs and their practice in terms of the word of God.
And really, apart from that — let us seek those people out. Let us pray to meet those people. And let us try to minister the word to others who are not there yet, so that they might be.
After all, Jesus went fishing. Where did he go fishing? Metaphorically, he went fishing in the synagogues — some of which wanted to kill him, others of which had demon-possessed people running about in them. These were not perfect churches, if you like. But he fished there nonetheless and he ministered among the people. He did not despair of them. He did not throw up his hands and say, “There is no point in doing this.”
No. He lays down this criteria, he ministers to people, he puts the word of God out, he heals, and he does all the things that his Father told him to do. He works his Father’s work.
And so in some real sense, Mary Magdalene — with her seven devils, now cast out — is more mother or sister to Jesus than his own mother, who was, in the parallel passages, seeking to take him away from his ministry. She thought he was a bit mad at this stage.
[Aside: “I am looking for the parallel passage, but I do not have my tools in front of me.” (cf. Mark 3:21)]
Conclusion
So we have counsel here: family comes first. Which family? The family of our true brothers and sisters in Christ.
Who are they? How can we recognise them? They hear the word of God. They are not those who mutter under their breath at a good, godly sermon. They are not those who manifest in their lives that they are not growing and not submitting. They are those who confess their sins and lament over their shortcomings, but in whom we can see growth.
And this, again, speaks to the previous parable — the seed that is planted, takes root, and produces a crop in time. So it is not even the immature that are excluded. The immature may be trying — you can see they are trying — to obey the word of God. It is not only those who are in full fruit that are part of the family. It will have to be those who are showing growth in terms of the principle of life — covenantal obedience, you might say — which is the drive that the Spirit in us has to follow God.
Here is an encouragement for those who have lost biological families for whatever reason. Here is direction for those who are seeking true community. Here is the perfect criteria for assessing that.
And here is a word for those who might be tempted, for the sake of respected biological family members, to cease or alter a ministry: absolutely not. “I will honour you, but my mother and brethren are those who hear the word of God and obey it. If you are not prepared to hear the word of God at this point — never mind obey it — I cannot take your word. I must press on with what God has called me to do.”
It is no honour — it is a dishonour to God — to honour your parents to the extent of disobeying God. It is no honour to your parents either if you obey them in a sense that takes you away from the will of God. There is no conflict in the mind of God. He is not in confusion at this point.
All right, there is plenty there — a little bit of a different meditation for us. But let us pray for grace to hear the word of God at this point and do it. You will have points that the Holy Spirit has highlighted in you that you need to address. And if you address them, he will give you the answer you need, or the grace that you need to obey.
God bless you.
Scriptures Referenced
| Reference | Text / Subject |
|---|---|
| Luke 8:18 | ”Therefore how ye hear; for whosoever hath…” |
| Luke 8:19–20 | His mother and brethren come to him |
| Luke 8:21 | ”My mother and my brethren are those which hear the word of God and do it” |
| Matthew 10:37 | ”He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” |
| Luke 14:26 | ”If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother…” |
| Luke 7:24 / Matthew 11:7 | ”What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” (John the Baptist) |
| 2 Timothy 1:7 | ”God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” |
| Psalm 25:4 | ”Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths” |
| Psalm 139:23–24 | ”Search me, O God, and know my heart…see if there be any wicked way in me” |
| Hebrews 4:12 | ”The word of God is…sharper than any twoedged sword” |
| Exodus 20:15 | ”Thou shalt not steal” |
| 1 Timothy 5:8 | ”If any provide not for his own…he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” |
| Proverbs 13:22 | ”A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children” |
| Hebrews 11:24–25 | Moses refusing to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter |
| Hebrews 2:11 | ”He is not ashamed to call them brethren” |
| Matthew 8:9 | The centurion: “I am a man under authority” |
| Mark 3:21 | Jesus’s family thinking he was “beside himself” (alluded to) |