Bible Strands
Luke 8:39
“Return home and describe how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and proclaimed all over the town how much Jesus had done for him.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses the healed demoniac immediately after the spirits depart. He issues this command to the man just before departing for the opposite shore.
The words — διηγοῦ (diēgou) literally means "do relate," paired with ὅσα (hosa), meaning "how much." These terms frame the man's task as a factual recounting of specific divine acts.
The thread — This pattern of localized testimony appears in Luke 17:15, where a healed leper returns to praise God, and John 4:29, where a Samaritan woman directs her town to a man who revealed her past. The instruction to prioritize household provision in 1 Timothy 5:8 parallels the command to return to one's own house.
Why it lands — The text requires the reader to recognize that authentic witness originates in personal experience and is directed toward one's immediate community. It demands a factual recounting of divine intervention rather than abstract doctrine.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Return to thine own house, and shew how great things God hath done unto thee. And he went his way, and published throughout the whole city how great things Jesus had done unto him.
Cross-references
- 1 Timothy 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
- Luke 17:15 When one of them saw that he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice.
- John 4:29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
- Deuteronomy 10:21 He is your praise and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome wonders that your eyes have seen.
- Psalms 66:16 Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for me.
- Psalms 126:2 Then our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with shouts of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”
- Daniel 4:1 King Nebuchadnezzar, To the people of every nation and language who dwell in all the earth: May your prosperity be multiplied.
- Daniel 4:34 But at the end of those days I, Nebuchadnezzar, looked up to heaven, and my sanity was restored to me. Then I praised the Most High, and I honored and glorified Him who lives forever: “For His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
- Mark 1:45 But the man went out and openly began to proclaim and spread the news. Consequently, Jesus could no longer enter a town in plain view, but He stayed out in solitary places. Yet people came to Him from every quarter.