Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. Luke
Alexander Maclaren was among the most celebrated preachers of the Victorian era, and this exposition of Luke's Gospel shows why. Moving verse by verse through Luke's narrative, beginning with the angel Gabriel's visitation to Zacharias and the annunciation of John the Baptist's birth, Maclaren weaves together rigorous biblical scholarship with a pastor's gift for spiritual application. He was known for luminous prose and the ability to make difficult texts breathe with contemporary meaning, and this work exemplifies those gifts. This is not a popular retelling but a substantive commentary meant for readers willing to slow down and wrestle with Scripture. Maclaren connects the Baptist's coming with Old Testament prophecy, reflects on the nature of true greatness, and traces the divine promise running through Luke's Gospel. For serious students of the Bible, pastors preparing sermons, or anyone seeking to understand how an earlier generation engaged the text with reverent intelligence, this remains a rich resource.
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“God looks on the upright, as has been said; and the upright shall gaze on Him.... That mutual gaze is blessedness. They who looking up behold Jehovah are brave to front all foes and to keep calm hearts in the midst of alarms. Hope burns like a pillar of fire in them when it is gone out in others; and to all the suggestions of their own timidity or of others they have the answer, "In the Lord have I put my trust; how say ye to my soul, Flee? Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen.””
— Alexander Maclaren
“Lord, I cannot walk in the narrow path. Do Thou Thyself come to me and fill my heart and keep my feet.””
— Alexander Maclaren
“You have nothing to do but to receive the things that are freely given to you of God”
— Alexander Maclaren
“In the religious life it is possible to commit an analogous error, and to prize so unwisely peaceful hours of communion, as to waive imperative duty for the sake of them; like Peter with his "Let us make here three tabernacles," while there were devil-ridden sufferers waiting to be healed down on the plain. Moments of devotion, which do not prepare for hours of practical righteousness, are very untrustworthy. But, on the other hand, the paths of righteousness will not be trodden by those who have known nothing of the green pastures and waters where the wearied can rest.””
— Alexander Maclaren
“Self-preservation is not a man’s first duty: flight is his last. Better and wiser and infinitely nobler to stand a mark for the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" and to stop at our post though we fall there, better infinitely to toil on, even when toil seems vain, than cowardly to keep a whole skin at the cost of a wounded conscience or despairingly to fling up work, because the ground is hard and the growth of the seed imperceptible. Prudent advices, when the prudence is only inspired by sense, are generally foolish.””
— Alexander Maclaren
“True love is an intense desire for the presence of its object. God is only ours in reality when we are conscious of His nearness, and that is strange love of Him which is content to pass days without ever setting Him before itself.””
— Alexander Maclaren
