Luke 21:37

And every day he was teaching in the temple; and every night he went out and lodged in the mount that is called Olivet. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, to hear him.

And every day ... The fact that Jesus taught "every day" of the final week contradicts the near-unanimous opinions of scholars to the effect that "Wednesday and Thursday were spent in retirement."[38] Robertson, in his "Harmony of the Gospels," scheduled no word or event from Jesus on Wednesday, and nothing on Thursday except the Last Supper.[39] This misunderstanding of that week is due to the near-universal opinion that Jesus was crucified on Friday. He was, however, crucified on Thursday, April 6, A.D. 30, as the Scriptural records reveal, confirmed by modern computer studies of those early dates. See dissertation on this under Mark 15:42 in my Commentary on Mark. The reason why people cannot find anything that Jesus taught on Thursday is that Jesus was on the cross that day.

Lodged in the mount that is called Olivet ... Adam Clarke was of the opinion that Jesus stayed each night in the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, in Bethany, a village located on the nearby slopes of Mount Olivet; but as Childers noted:

The Greek word translated ABODE (or LODGED) in this verse means literally to lodge in the open. Thus it seems that Jesus spent the nights in the open on the Mount of Olives.[40]

It is also significant that Jesus apparently never spent a night in Jerusalem, except as a prisoner. God's displeasure because of Jerusalem's rebellion against himself was never more evident than in such a fact as this.

And all the people came early in the morning ... This has reference to the daily schedule of teachings followed by Jesus. This mention of the early hour shows that the days were very long working periods, filled to the utmost with teaching by the Master.

After calling attention to the fact that some ancient manuscripts have here (following Luke 21:38) the story of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11), Tinsley remarked that:

This story is very probably one of the detached units of genuine material about Jesus which some early Christians were anxious to get into one gospel or another. Most manuscripts include this in John's Gospel.[41]

The last public teaching, as far as we know, had been completed when Jesus praised the widow's two mites; and had lifted the perspective all the way to final judgment. Only the deed upon which everything else depended remained to be enacted, and that was the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord; and the inspired evangelist Luke's final three chapters deal with that final act and consummation of Jesus' redemptive mission on earth. Like all the other gospels, Luke's account is original, fresh, independent, historical, and totally in harmony with all the others. The gospel records form a composite description of the most important week ever lived upon this earth. In these records is unveiled God's offering for human transgression, who is our Lord Jesus Christ.

[38] H. D. M. Spence, op. cit., p. 187.

[39] A. T. Robertson, A Harmony of the Gospels (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1922), pp. 189-190.

[40] Charles L. Childers, op. cit., p. 593.

[41] E. J. Tinsley, The Gospel according to Luke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 186.