Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
13. Bid my brother divide Our Lord, when requested to undertake the office of dividing an inheritance, refuses to do so. Now as this tended to promote brotherly harmony, and as Christ’s office was, not only to reconcile men to God, but to bring them into a state of agreement with one another, what hindered him from settling the dispute between the two brothers?
This man appeals to Christ as though his brother's refusal to divide the inheritance were a matter worthy of divine judgment, when his real disease is covetousness, a sinful desire for more than God in His providence has allotted him. He wants Christ to overturn the law itself, not to right a wrong.
AI summary
Commenting on Luke 12:13-21
And one of the company said unto him,.... Not one of the disciples of Christ, but one of the multitude, or crowd, about him, Luk 12:1 Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me: the firstborn, according to the law, in Deu 21:17 had a double portion: but the eider brother here, it seems, was for keeping all, and would not...