CMP Review 2025-06-15

Luke chapter 14 opens with a meal setting, which continues until verse 24, according to D. L. Bock. “But this is not an ordinary dinner party, nor is the conversation normal table talk. On the menu is theological and ideological reflection about what God is doing.”

The scene opens with an unexpected guest. “At the meal is a man with dropsy,” explains Bock, “which means his limbs are swollen with excess body fluids—a condition much discussed in later Judaism and associated with uncleanness and immorality… Jesus does not shy away from the situation.”

Charlotte Mason’s poem “Dinner on Sabbath” captures the theology — and the emotion — on the menu at this meal. Read or hear it here.

@artmiddlekauff

🖼️: Christ Healing the Dropsical Man, Monastery Dečani fresco