<p>7:22 <i>And he answered and said to them: Go and tell John the things which you have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up- </i>See on Mk. 6:3; Lk. 15:7. They had already told him once- the same word is used for how they initially had told John these things (:18). There is definitely the sense that John needed to work through the implications of what he was hearing, rather than having some specific explanation from the Lord. The request that John &lsquo;hear&rsquo; these reports more carefully begs connection with the Lord&rsquo;s frequent comment that the Jews heard but did not really hear (e.g. Mt. 13:13-17). John&rsquo;s lack of understanding appears to be in some sense culpable and at best disappointing to the Lord. The Lord is seeking to assure John that if he just thinks about the evidence, it&rsquo;s clear that Jesus is indeed Messiah, and as John had earlier preached- Son and lamb of God, who saves His people from their sins. He seems to be saying that that was so wonderful and fundamental, that the rearrangement of the prophetic timetable is in a sense irrelevant compared to that. Whether or not the timing or chronology of events surrounding the Kingdom comes true as we expect, or whether or not we discern how God has re-planned the fulfilment of prophecy- is all irrelevant compared to the wonder of knowing Jesus as the Christ and personal Saviour.</p><p>The teaching of Jesus included frequent quotations from and allusions to the Old Testament. When we go back and read around the contexts of the passages He quoted, it becomes apparent that He very often omits to quote the negative, judgmental, or conditional aspects of the blessings which He quotes. Consider the way He quotes Is. 29:18; 35:5,6 and 61:1 in the parallel record in Mt. 11:5,6. These are all talking about Messianic blessings. But they are embedded amidst warnings of judgment and the conditionality of God&rsquo;s grace. Likewise Luke records how Jesus read from Is. 61:1,2, but He stopped at the very point where Isaiah&rsquo;s message turns from promise to threat. None of this takes away from the terrible reality that future failure is a real possibility, even tomorrow. We can throw it all away. We may do. We have the possibility. And some do. There is an eternity ahead which we may miss. And each one who enters the Kingdom will, humanly speaking, have come pretty close to losing it at various points in his or her mortal life. But the Lord&rsquo;s positivity is a powerful example.</p><p><i>The poor have the good news preached to them</i>- This was as remarkable and significant as the previous miraculous signs, of the blind seeing etc. There was a deep impression that religion was for the middle class or wealthy. Teachers didn&rsquo;t bother preaching to the poor because there was no possibility of financial support coming from them. Yet the Lord opened His manifesto in the Sermon on the Mount by saying that His message was especially intended for &ldquo;the poor&rdquo; (Mt. 5:3 s.w.). In many Christian circles, the same is true today. Churches need money (or, they think they do), and so their focus is not on taking the Gospel to the poor but rather to the potential tithers. The disciples were amazed that the rich wouldn&rsquo;t be saved (Mt. 19:24,25), so deeply ingrained was this idea that spirituality and wealth were somehow supposed to go together. The Lord was teaching the opposite. There&rsquo;s no doubt that the Gospel is designed for the poor; and that if one were to bring &ldquo;the poor&rdquo;&nbsp;<i>en masse</i>&nbsp;into many churches / ecclesias today, the existing membership would up and go somewhere else. The Spirit was clearly upon the Lord Jesus exactly&nbsp;<i>because</i>&nbsp;He preached the Gospel to the poor (Lk. 4:18). Our preaching attitude to &ldquo;the poor&rdquo; is a reflection of our spirituality. &ldquo;The poor&rdquo; in the immediate context were the disciples, for the Lord had just looked upon them in love and commented: &ldquo;Blessed are you poor&rdquo; (Lk. 6:20). In the response of &ldquo;the poor&rdquo; to Him, the Lord saw a Divine confirmation of His ministry. And it is the same with us. Our ministry is to take the Gospel to the unbelieving poor, and not to get middle class Christian religionists to shift churches and allegiance to our group. James 2:5 is clear that God chooses the poor&nbsp;<i>more than&nbsp;</i>the rich to be heirs of His Kingdom; so in this case, our preaching focus should be specifically towards them.</p><p>The same passage alluded to in Is. 61:1 promised freedom and good news to the imprisoned- which was where John was at the time, according to Mt. 11. The Lord was encouraging him in a hidden kind of way that He was aware of where John was, and there would be ultimate freedom from that prison in the Kingdom.</p>