Luke 18:19

18:19 Jesus ¹  said to him, “Why do you call me good? ²  No one is good except God alone.

Luke 6:45

6:45 The good person out of the good treasury of his ³  heart ⁴  produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury ⁵  produces evil, for his mouth speaks ⁶  from what fills ⁷  his heart.

[18:19]  ¹ tn Grk “And Jesus.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[18:19]  ² sn Jesus’ response, Why do you call me good?, was designed to cause the ruler to stop and think for a moment about who Jesus really was. The following statement No one is good except God alone seems to point the man in the direction of Jesus’ essential nature and the demands which logically follow on the man for having said it.

[6:45]  ³ tn Grk “the”; the Greek article has been translated here and in the following clause (“out of the evil”) as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[6:45]  ⁴ sn Mention of the heart shows that Jesus is not interested in what is done, but why. Motives are more important than actions for him.

[6:45]  ⁵ tn The word “treasury” is not repeated in the Greek text at this point, but is implied.

[6:45]  ⁶ sn What one utters from one’s mouth is especially singled out as the example of this principle. James seems to have known this teaching (Jas 1:26; 3:1-12).

[6:45]  ⁷ tn Grk “for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”