Expository Thoughts (continued)
man who will be daily blessing and praising God. Thankfulness is a flower which will never bloom well excepting upon a root of deep humility!
Notes on 17:11-19
12. They stood at a distance. Lepers were thought of as outcasts and were not allowed to live with other people. See Leviticus 13:46.
14. "Go, show yourselves to the priests." Leviticus 13—14 explains this. The priests were appointed by God to judge all leprous cases and to decide whether the leper was clean or unclean, cured or uncured. See also Deuteronomy 24:8.
A Jewish leper would see from the command of our Lord a hint that he would hear good news when he showed himself to the priests.
15. One of them . . . came back, praising God. Burgon has the following apt quotation: "The nine were already healed, and going off to the priests so that they could be restored to society: but the first thoughts of the Samaritan are turned to his deliverer. He had forgotten all, in the sense of God's mercy and of his own unworthiness."
LUKE 17:20-25
THE KINGDOM OF GOD
We are taught, firstly, in this passage that the kingdom of God is utterly unlike the kingdoms of this world. The Lord Jesus tells the Pharisees that "it comes not with observation." He meant by this that its approach and presence were not to be marked by