The chapter
Simply The twelve are sent out with nothing and come back. Herod, who beheaded John, wants to know who this is. Five thousand people are fed from five loaves. Peter says who he thinks Jesus is and is told to keep quiet. On a mountain his face changes while he prays, and Moses and Elijah talk with him about what is going to happen in Jerusalem. Then, halfway through the book, he turns towards Jerusalem and starts walking, and the rest of the chapter is about people who want to come and the conditions attached.
Context Verse 51 is the hinge of the whole book, and its size can be measured. From there to 19:27 is four hundred and six verses out of the eleven hundred and fifty in Luke, which is thirty-five per cent of the Gospel spent walking to one city. The text keeps saying so: 9:51, 9:53, 13:22, 13:33, 17:11, 18:31 and 19:28 all state the destination again. Nothing on this scale exists in Mark or Matthew. Most of what only Luke has, including the Samaritan at 10:30 and the son who comes home at 15:11, is inside this stretch.
Verses 1-17
Simply The twelve are given authority and sent to preach and heal, told to take no bag, no bread, no money and no spare shirt. Herod hears about it and is disturbed, since some are saying John has come back from the dead, and Herod knows he beheaded him. The apostles return and Jesus takes them away, but the crowds follow. Late in the day the twelve want them sent off to find food. He tells the twelve to feed them, and with five loaves and two fish about five thousand men eat, sitting in groups of fifty, and twelve baskets of pieces are collected.
Context Herod's question at verse 9 is left hanging on purpose. He asks who this is and wants to see him, and the book does not answer him: the next time Herod gets to see Jesus is at 23:8, at the trial, where he asks for a sign and gets no reply at all. In between, the same question is asked twice more by other people, at verse 18 and verse 20, and it is the disciples who have to answer it. The five loaves, two fish, twelve baskets and five thousand men are the one miracle all four Gospels tell, and the four agree on all four numbers.
Verses 18-27
Simply Praying alone with the disciples nearby, Jesus asks who the crowds say he is, then who they say he is. Peter says: the Christ of God. He orders them to tell nobody, and says the Son of Man must suffer, be rejected, be killed and be raised on the third day. Then he says the same thing to everyone about themselves: anyone who wants to follow must deny himself and take up his cross daily, and whoever tries to save his life will lose it.
Context This is the fourth time in the book that a large moment starts with him praying, after 3:21, 5:16 and 6:12, and the pattern is this Gospel's own. The order of verses 20 to 22 is worth keeping: the title is accepted, then immediately suppressed, then explained by a sentence about being killed. Nothing is denied and nothing is celebrated. Verse 23 then applies it to the reader, and one word in it is not in every edition. Ten of the thirteen have him say to take up the cross DAILY: Segond 1910, the Reina Valera 1909, La Biblia en Espanol Sencillo, the Riveduta 1927, the Luther 1912, the Biblia Gdanska, the Petrus Canisiusvertaling, the Bible kralicka, the Cornilescu and the Vietnamese 1934. Three do not, and they are the World English Bible, the Bible libre and the Nova Biblia Livre. The word decides whether this is one decision or a routine, and the two French editions land on opposite sides of it. Neither parallel has it at all: Mark 8:34 and Matthew 16:24 were opened here and both stop at the cross.
Verses 28-45
Simply About eight days later he takes Peter, John and James up a mountain to pray. While he prays his face changes and his clothes turn dazzling white, and Moses and Elijah appear and talk with him about what he is going to accomplish at Jerusalem. The three disciples are half asleep. Peter offers to build three shelters, not knowing what he is saying. A cloud covers them and a voice says: this is my Son, listen to him. The next day a father whose only son is thrown down by a spirit asks for help, because the disciples could not do it.
Context Four things here are in neither of the other two accounts, and all four can be checked by opening Mark 9:2 to 8 and Matthew 17:1 to 8 in this app. The date is different: eight days here, six days in both of the others. He is PRAYING when it happens, which is why it happens at all in this telling, and neither of the others says so. Moses and Elijah are given a subject, HIS DEPARTURE, WHICH HE WAS ABOUT TO ACCOMPLISH AT JERUSALEM, where the other two say only that they talked with him. And the three disciples are HEAVY WITH SLEEP, which nobody else reports and which happens again at 22:45, in the garden. Verse 42 ends the way 7:15 did: the boy is given back to his father.
Verses 46-62
Simply The disciples argue about which of them is the greatest, so he stands a child next to him and says the least is the great one. John admits they stopped someone casting out demons because he was not one of them, and is told not to. Then Jesus sets his face for Jerusalem. A Samaritan village will not have him because of where he is going, and James and John ask whether they should call down fire. He rebukes them. Three men then offer to follow, and each is given an answer harder than the offer.
Context The rebuke at verses 55 and 56 is not the same length in every edition, and the difference is a whole sentence rather than a word. Twelve of the thirteen offered editions have him say YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT SPIRIT YOU ARE OF; the Riveduta 1927 alone has only that he turned and rebuked them. Eleven then add THE SON OF MAN DID NOT COME TO DESTROY MEN'S LIVES BUT TO SAVE THEM, and two do not, the Riveduta and the Vietnamese 1934. So a reader can be given the rebuke with its reason, with half its reason, or with none. This file reports the three and does not choose between them. What every edition keeps is the request itself: the fire is proposed by the two disciples who were on the mountain eighteen verses earlier, and they cite Elijah, who had just been standing there.