<p>8:39 <i>Return to your family, and declare what great things God has done for you- </i>We must &quot;do&quot; the Lord's will (Mt. 7:21), but the Lord also 'does' for us by His grace (&quot;mercy&quot;); our 'doing' is in response to His 'doing' for us. The same word is used in Jn. 4:1 (also Acts 15:17) of how the Lord 'did' or &quot;made&quot; disciples. That was the end point in view; the &quot;great things&quot; done were not just the cure, but the making of a disciple. Mary&rsquo;s praise that &ldquo;He has done to me great things&rdquo; is surely behind her Son&rsquo;s words in Lk. 8:39, where He bids a man go home &quot;and shew how great things God has done unto you&quot;.</p><p><i>And he went his way, publishing throughout the whole city how great were the things Jesus had done for him</i>- This public preaching in the city and all the Decapolis (Mark says) rather than to his family could be read as disobedience. The Gospels are transcripts of the twelve disciples&rsquo; own preaching and obedience to the Lord&rsquo;s commission for them to go into all the world and tell the news of what they had seen and heard of Him. Yet there is a theme in the Gospels, consciously included by the writers and speakers, of men being disobedient to the preaching commission which the Lord gave them. When some were told to say nothing, they went and told many others (Mk. 7:36). And as Acts makes clear, the disciples themselves were disobedient, initially, to the commission to go tell the Gentiles the good news of their salvation. Legion&rsquo;s disobedience is especially instructive for us:</p><div align=center><table border=0 cellspacing=10 cellpadding=0 width=80%>    <tbody>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p><strong>Mk. 5:19</strong></p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p><strong>Mk. 5:20</strong></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>Go to   your&nbsp;<i>house</i></p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>He goes to the<i>&nbsp;ten cities&nbsp;</i>Decapolis</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>unto your&nbsp;<i>friends </i>relatives</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>He goes   to&nbsp;<i>strangers</i></p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p><i>tell&nbsp;</i>them Lk. 8:39 &ldquo;<i>show</i>&nbsp;them&rdquo;- by   personal demonstration to individuals</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>He &ldquo;<i>publishes</i>&rdquo;</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>how great   things</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>how great   things</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>the&nbsp;<i>Lord i.e. God</i>&nbsp;has   done for you</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p><i>Jesus&nbsp;</i>had done for him</p>            </td>        </tr>        <tr>            <td valign=top>            <p>and how he had   mercy on you.</p>            </td>            <td valign=top>            <p>ignored</p>            </td>        </tr>    </tbody></table></div><p>The record of the commission given him and his obedience to it are clearly intended to be compared. The man went to strange cities, indeed he organized a whole preaching tour of ten cities- rather than going home and telling his immediate friends / family. And how true this is of us. It&rsquo;s so much easier to embark upon a campaign to strangers, to do &lsquo;mission work&rsquo;, to &lsquo;publish&rsquo; the Gospel loudly, rather than&nbsp;<i>tell</i>&nbsp;and<i> show</i>&nbsp;it to our immediate personal contacts. And we notice too how he omits to tell others of the Lord&rsquo;s merciful grace to him personally. Rather does he speak only of the material, the literality of the healing. And he tells others what Jesus had done for him, rather than take the Lord Jesus&rsquo; invitation to perceive the bigger picture in all this- that this was the hand of God. One wonders whether the disciples were commenting upon their own sense of inadequacy in their initial personal witness. The Lord told the cured demoniac to go back to his friends (Mk. 5:19) and family (Lk. 8:39) and witness to them. Clearly enough, the man didn&rsquo;t have any friends- for he had a history of violence and lived alone, many having tried unsuccessfully to bind him due to the grievous harm he must have inflicted upon many. Yet the man went out and preached to the whole area (Mk. 5:20). Was this just rank disobedience to what His Saviour Lord had just told him? Perhaps, due to unrestrained enthusiasm. But more likely is that the man now considered the whole world around him to be his family and friends, and therefore he witnessed to them. His care for others in desiring to witness to them flowed quite naturally from his experience of conversion at the Lord&rsquo;s hands.</p><p>There are some things in Scripture which are recorded in such a way as to promote meditation, and therefore they will always be ambiguous in terms of the actual interpretation which is sustainable. We can't <i>always</i> say &quot;This word means X, this phrase means Y, therefore this verse means interpretation Z; and if you don't agree with that, you don't really accept the Bible&quot;. Because it is possible to say that about the interpretation of basic doctrine doesn't mean that we can adopt this attitude to the interpretation of every Bible passage. The record of the crucifixion is a good example of this. Or consider how it is recorded that some of those healed by the Lord <i>didn't</i> afterwards do what He said: one preached to his whole city rather than to his family (Lk. 8:39); another didn't obey the Lord's plea to not tell anyone else (Mk. 1:45). How are we to read these responses? Rank disobedience? Misguided zeal? Zeal in doing over and above what they were asked? You may have your ideas, and it is right that we should meditate upon these things and discuss them. But I suggest that ultimately they are left 'hanging' for the very purpose of promoting meditation and personal application, rather than being statements which shout for an obvious interpretation.</p>