What is the meaning of Luke 17:37? I don't understand the question or the significance of Jesus' response to the question. Are the disciples asking where the will these people be taken? Is Jesus' reference to the corpse an inference of who will be taken (i.e. the dead in Christ both physically and spiritually)? -- Althea Frimpong (London)
I think it’s a reference to a familiar feature of wartime - the First Jewish War of 66-73. The Romans will come, many will die, and corpses will be everywhere. One person is "taken" — that is, she heeds the call and thus removes herself (is, indirectly speaking, removed by God) from the danger. The heedless woman stays and dies. Recall that Jesus warned the early Christians to flee Jerusalem, not to side with the rebellion.
Yet there is another possibility: As vultures are drawn to a corpse, so the Son of Man will draw his faithful ones to himself. I prefer the first explanation. Most commentators admit the passage is obscure.
