The chapter
Simply The chapter starts by saying who paid for the travelling: a group of women, named, out of their own money. Then a parable about seed falling on four kinds of ground, a note about lamps, and a short exchange when his family cannot get through the crowd. Then three things in a row that nobody can explain: a storm stopped by an order, a man full of demons left sitting and dressed, and a girl of twelve raised, with a woman ill for twelve years healed on the way there.
Context Verses 1 to 3 are the practical answer to a question the other Gospels never ask, and they are only here. Mark and Matthew mention women who followed and served, but at the crucifixion, at the end. This book puts them at the start, gives three of them names, says one of them was married to Herod's steward, and says plainly that the money was theirs. Joanna, Susanna and Chuzas were searched for in Matthew, Mark, John and Acts and appear in none of them; in this app they exist only in Luke, here and at 24:10.
Verses 4-21
Simply A farmer sows: some seed is trodden on the path and eaten by birds, some falls on rock and dries out for lack of moisture, some is choked by thorns, and some grows a hundredfold. Asked what it means, Jesus says the seed is the word of God, and explains each ground as a way of hearing. He adds that a lamp is not lit to be hidden, and that nothing hidden will stay hidden. When his mother and brothers cannot reach him for the crowd, he says his mother and brothers are the people who hear God's word and do it.
Context The good ground here yields one hundredfold and nothing else. Mark 4:8 and Matthew 13:8 both give three figures, thirty, sixty and a hundred, and both can be opened in this app to check it; this account keeps only the largest. Two smaller changes point the same way. Verse 6 says the seed on rock died FOR LACK OF MOISTURE, which is a farmer's reason rather than a scorching sun, and verse 15 adds that the good ground holds the word FAST AND WITH PERSEVERANCE, which is about time rather than about soil. The answer to the family at verse 21 is also softer than it looks: he does not say they are not his mother and brothers, he says who else is.
Verses 22-39
Simply They cross the lake, Jesus falls asleep, a squall comes down and the boat starts filling. They wake him shouting that they are dying; he orders the wind and the water to stop, and they do. On the far shore a man who has lived for years among the tombs, with no clothes, meets him. The demons ask not to be sent into the abyss, and are allowed into a herd of pigs, which drowns. The townspeople find the man dressed and in his right mind, and ask Jesus to leave. He tells the man to stay and tell his own town what God did.
Context The country at verse 26 does not have one name. Nine of the thirteen offered editions call it the country of the GADARENES and four call it the country of the GERASENES, and the four are Segond 1910, the Riveduta 1927, the Petrus Canisiusvertaling and the Vietnamese 1934. The same disagreement runs inside a single edition across the Gospels: in the World English Bible, Mark 5:1 says Gadarenes and Matthew 8:28 says GERGESENES, a third name. So a reader can be told three different places for one event, and this file names them rather than choosing, because which shore this was is a geographical question the corpus cannot settle. What the corpus can show is that verse 39 sends the man home to speak, when at 5:14 and again at 8:56 people are told to say nothing. He is on the far side of the lake, among people who have just asked Jesus to go away.
Verses 40-56
Simply Jairus, who runs the synagogue, begs Jesus to come because his only daughter, about twelve, is dying. On the way, a woman who has bled for twelve years and spent everything on doctors touches the edge of his cloak and stops bleeding at once. Jesus asks who touched him. Peter points out that the crowd is pressing him from all sides. The woman owns up in front of everyone and he calls her daughter. Then news comes that the girl has died. He goes anyway, puts everyone out except the parents and three disciples, takes her hand, and tells her to get up. He tells them to give her something to eat.
Context The number twelve holds the two stories together, and it is in the text twice: the girl is about twelve years old at verse 42 and the woman has bled for twelve years at verse 43. One has been dying for the length of the other's whole illness. Both are also untouchable under the purity rules of the time, one through blood and one through death, and both are touched, in that order. The interruption is the shape of the passage rather than an accident of it: the delay is what kills the girl, and the man kept waiting is the head of a synagogue while the woman who delays him has no name. Verse 55 ends on food, which is the same small practical instinct as 7:15 giving the son back to his mother.