What does Luke 9:56 Mean?

Context Summary

The Master's steadfast face rebukes us! Alas, we so often flinch and cannot appropriate Isaiah 50:7. But whether we follow afar off or closely, that lithe, alert, eager figure is always in front and taking the upward path.

We need to remember which kingdom we belong to. We have passed out of the sphere of force and war, into the kingdom of the Son of God's love. It is a reversal of the divine plan of evolution to go back to the fire of vengeance. The only fire that we can invoke is that of the Holy Spirit; and it is remarkable that one of these two brothers lived to call down that very fire on those same villages. See Acts 8:14-25.

The Lord was ever acting as a winnowing fan, detecting the wheat and the chaff in human motive. Be prepared to follow your Lord through loneliness, homelessness, the rupture of tender ties, and the plowing of a solitary furrow. But keep your eye fixed on the correlatives supplied on the eternal side of your life! [source]

Chapter Summary: Luke 9

¹  Jesus sends his apostles to work miracles, and to preach
⁷  Herod desires to see Jesus
¹⁰  The apostles return
¹²  Jesus feeds five thousand;
¹⁸  inquires what opinion the world had of him; foretells his passion;
²³  proposes to all the pattern of his patience
²⁸  The transfiguration
³⁷  He heals the lunatic;
⁴³  again forewarns his disciples of his passion;
⁴⁶  commends humility;
⁵¹  bids them to show mildness toward all, without desire of revenge
⁵⁷  Many would follow him, but upon conditions