The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have Me.”
8. For the poor you have always with you. We must observe what I have already pointed out, that a distinction is here drawn expressly between the extraordinary action of Mary, and the daily service which is due to Christ.
In these verses we have, I. The kind visit our Lord Jesus paid to his friends at Bethany, Joh 12:1. He came up out of the country, six days before the passover, and took up at Bethany, a town which, according to the computation of our metropolis, lay so near Jerusalem as to be within the bills of mortality.
Commenting on John 12:1-11
For the poor always ye have with you,.... And so would not want opportunities of showing a regard to them, which Christ always recommended; nor does he here in the least discourage an industrious and affectionate concern for them: the words seem to be a sort of prophecy, that there would be always poor persons in the churches of Christ, to be taken care of...