Mark Bradford's Bible Blog

This blog is moving

2010-04-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not really moving, I'm discontinuing this version of the blog. The Google version of my Bible blog has always only been a copy of the blog I host on my website, mark-bradford.com. I've been copying my blog here in an effort to get more readers. But because of dissatisfaction with the interface here, and the inability to find out anything about how many views the blog is getting (without subscribing to some "site stats" service), I'm going to stop copying my blog to this location.

If you've been reading my Bible blog here, I want to thank you, and ask you to please continue reading it at mark-bradford.com. If you've been subscribing to it via RSS, you can resubscribe to it there.

Thanks, and may God bless you.
-Mark Bradford

Holy Week 2010: The Resurrection

2010-04-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

The Resurrection

¹When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. ²Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb ³and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" (Mark 16:1-2)

The Jewish Sabbath is from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. So the women were able to buy the spices they intended to use on Jesus' body on Saturday night, but they couldn't go to the tomb to do their work until Sunday morning, when it was light enough. I wonder who this Mary the mother of James was. Is it the same Mary that Mark calls "the mother of Joses"? Matthew tells us that Mary Magdelene and "the other Mary" went to the tomb on Sunday morning (Matthew 28:1). I can't help but think this was Mary the mother of Jesus. Jesus had a brother named James, who wrote the book of James. I don't know if he had a brother named Joses or a sister named Salome, but we know Jesus had brothers (Mark 3:31) and probably had sisters too. Plus, the job of treating bodies for burial was the responsibility of the closest family members. So it would make sense that Jesus' mother and sister would be among those who went to the tomb. Many Biblical scholars also believe that the myrrh that the Magi left when they visited the Christ child was intended for use at his burial. I can imagine Mary carrying this container of myrrh that she had saved for over 30 years to the tomb, finally expecting to use it, but never being able to! If this Mary was Jesus' mother, why did Mark keep referring to her by the names of her other children? Maybe Mary wanted anonymity. Maybe Joses and Salome became leaders in the early church, and Mark wanted to mention them. Or maybe this was some other Mary altogether.

If Mary and Salome were immediate family members, that explains why they were going to the tomb to anoint Jesus' body. So why was Mary Magdalene with them? Her devotion to Jesus was well known, but she was not related to him as far as we know. But her devotion was rewarded a little later in the story, as we will see.

As the women went to the tomb, they wondered who would roll the stone away from the entrance for them, since it was too big and heavy for them to move. There was supposed to be a Roman guard there, but they would not have helped these Jewish women. Why didn't any of the disciples come with them to help? They let these women go by themselves, even though they wouldn't be able to get in without help?

⁴But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

⁶"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "

⁸Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16:4-8, NIV)

When the women arrived, they saw that they didn't have to worry about who would help them roll the stone away. It had already been done. The stone had been rolled away, not so that Jesus could escape (we know from John 20:19 that Jesus in his resurrected body could pass through solid walls), but so that others could enter the tomb and see that he had risen. The fact that neither the women nor the disciples were expecting this shows how little they understood of what Jesus had been telling them. How many times had he told them he would rise again on the third day? We are often surprised by miracles. Why should we be surprised when a miracle happens if we say we believe in a miracle working God?

Mark says they were alarmed when they found the entrance to the tomb open. At first, they may have thought his body was stolen. What would you think if you went to the grave of a loved one and found the grave open and their body missing? Instead of the body of Jesus, they found an angel. The angel identified who they were looking for, as if they might think they had gone to the wrong tomb. He not only told them Jesus was risen, he showed them the place where his body was laid. These same women had followed Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and had observed his burial two days before (Mark 15:47). They had seen where they laid his body. So by showing them this place, the angel proved the resurrection to them. This started a long series of physical evidence given to prove the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus appeared to his disciples and showed them his scars. He knew they would need that kind of proof to be able to endure the persecution that lay ahead for them. Most people will not endure torture and death for what they know is a lie. The martyrdom of the Apostles proves that Jesus really is risen.

In verse 7, Peter is singled out from the rest of the disciples. Some think he was no longer considered a disciple at that point because he had denied Christ, and had not yet been restored. I think it may be that, since scholars believe that the Gospel of Mark is really Peter's gospel, it's not that the angel didn't want to count him among the disciples right then, it's that Peter himself did not want to be considered a true disciple before Jesus restored him. It's interesting to me that the angel singled Peter out to be notified of Jesus' resurrection. None of the others were mentioned by name. Even when we have failed Christ miserably, he seeks us out personally and calls us by name in order to restore us to him.

¹Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. ²So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

³So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. ⁴Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. ⁵He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. ⁶Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, ⁷as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. ⁸Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. ⁹(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) (John 20:1-9, NIV)

As we just saw above, Mark 16:8 says that the women who went to the tomb "said nothing to anyone", but here in verse 2, John says that Mary Magdalene did tell Peter and John about it, as the angel told them to do. I don't think this is necessarily a conflict. Since Mark tells us that three women went to the tomb, but John only mentions Mary Magdalene, I can't help but think that maybe she went back with the other women and stayed quiet at first, but then felt driven to go back to the tomb again by herself, as if to make sure she hadn't imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was at that point that she went and told Peter and John. It's clear from John 20:2 that she still didn't really accept that Jesus was risen. She thought the body had been stolen. It's possible she didn't realize that it was an angel who had appeared to them earlier. Mark 16:5 simply calls him "a young man in a white robe." It seems she didn't know what to believe, and who could blame her?

So Peter and John ran to the tomb to see for themselves. This passage in John 20 struck me several years ago, and since then I've had my own belief about what it means. John specifically describes the way Jesus' grave clothes are folded, and I wondered why. I've heard other theories about this, but naturally, I like mine best! :-)

This was a group of guys that had traveled together for 3 years. When you travel with someone for that long, you get to know them pretty well. John was Jesus' best friend. It occurred to me that there must have been something about the way the linens were folded that spoke to John, because verse 8 says "he saw and believed". In that group of 13 guys, it's easy for me to picture Jesus as "the neat one." I imagine that his mother Mary taught him to fold his bed clothes neatly every morning when he got up. I imagine that Jesus and John, being best friends, roomed together when they stayed in some rich person's house, which they did quite a lot. Best friends tease each other, and I'm sure Jesus and John were no exception to that. When you travel with someone for that long, there are gonna be some inside jokes. Just ask anyone who's ever toured. I can see John giving Jesus a hard time about the way he folded his clothes so neatly every day. These are the kinds of things you learn about people when you live with them.

When I come back from a gig out of town, sometimes I get home during the day after my wife has left for work. If I wanted to look for signs she's been there, I'd look for personal details only I know about her. The half empty water bottle she leaves on the nightstand, for example. Peter went into the grave first, and saw the linens first, but he didn't get it. Maybe he didn't room with Jesus on the road that much. He probably roomed with his brother Andrew. I think John went into the tomb, and saw the grave clothes folded up the way only Jesus would have folded them. I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and before he left the tomb, he folded his clothes the way he always did, for John's benefit. He did it so that John would take one look at the way the linens were folded and think, "Only Jesus would fold his clothes like that. He's alive!"

¹⁰Then the disciples went back to their homes, ¹¹but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb ¹²and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

¹³They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him."(John 20:10-13, NIV)

Now, in verse 10, John says there were two angels, rather than just one young man in a white robe, seated where Jesus' body had been laid. Mary is still so distraught that she isn't afraid of the angels. Her only thought is for Jesus. Others had come to the tomb, and one believed, but they had all gone back to their homes, except for Mary. She would not rest until she found him. If we seek Jesus with that much passion and commitment, we will find him.

¹⁴At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

¹⁵"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

¹⁶Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

¹⁷Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

¹⁸Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:14-18, NIV)

Mary's devotion to Jesus was rewarded. She was the first one to see his resurrected body. Apparently, she was so glad to see him that she grabbed onto him and wouldn't let go. That's easy to understand. When we really meet Jesus, we want to grab onto him and never let go. But Jesus didn't rise from the dead to go back to his old life. He had to ascend to the Father. Now he sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us (Romans 8:34). His instruction to us is the same as it was to Mary; go and tell that he is risen!

I hope that my Holy Week posts have been helpful to you, and that they've added to your observance of our Lord's death and resurrection. Tomorrow I will pick up where I left off in Luke 18.

Holy Week 2010: The Burial of Jesus

2010-04-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

The Burial of Jesus

³⁸Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. ³⁹He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. ⁴⁰Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. ⁴¹At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴²Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. (John 19:16-42)

⁴²It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, ⁴³Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body. ⁴⁴Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. ⁴⁵When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. ⁴⁶So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. ⁴⁷Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where he was laid. (Mark 15:40-47)

Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man, and a prominent member of the Sanhedrin. John says he was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews (John 19:38). He must have been there at Jesus' trial, but did nothing to stop it. Now, perhaps out of guilt, he goes to Pilate to ask for Jesus' body. When we feel we should speak up for Jesus, but don't because we're afraid, we may regret it bitterly later. By the time we find our courage, it may be too late. Even now, Joseph is taking a risk because of his position. Those who followed Jesus at that moment had good reason to fear for their lives.

Normally, the bodies of the crucified were left on the crosses to rot or be eaten by animals. But the Jews would not stand for that horror being on display during Passover, so Rome allowed the bodies of those crucified during Passover to be given to the families for a proper burial. But even then, someone had to go and request the body. Since Jesus' mother, Mary, was a widow, and probably poor, they might not have had a tomb available, or at least not one this nice. But Joseph of Arimathea did, and he offered it to Jesus. This was probably a tomb he had had cut out of the rock for himself, the way we buy grave plots in advance for ourselves and family members. Grave sites are not cheap. They are like family heirlooms. And it's not like Joseph knew he was going to get the grave back in a few days. He thought he was losing the use of it forever. Are we willing to give our most precious things to Jesus, not expecting repayment?

Death by crucifixion normally took much longer than it took for Jesus, so Pilate was surprised that Jesus was already dead. After confirming it with a centurion who was there, he gave the body of Jesus to Joseph. According to John, Nicodemus went with Joseph, and bought myrrh with aloes to treat Jesus' body for burial (John 19:36). Two prominent members of the Sanhedrin who believed in Jesus, but who were afraid to stand up for him while he was alive, now did what they could for his body. But they were also helping Jesus' family. As men of means, they could give Jesus a better burial than Mary could have given him. Even if we have missed "God's best" for us, there is always something we can do for Christ and his kingdom. It could well be that the generosity of Joseph and Nicodemus helped legitimize the testimonies of Jesus' resurrection. Because of how secure Jesus' burial was, in a tomb cut from rock with a stone over the entrance, and a Roman guard posted, stealing Jesus' body was impossible. Even though the authorities spread that rumor after the resurrection, their story had less credibility than it would have had if Jesus was buried in a pauper's grave, which anyone could dig up. Would Joseph and Nicodemus have been able to stop Jesus' death if they had defended him at his trial? Probably not. But by coming forward after his death, and doing what they could for him and his family then, they probably caused more people ultimately to believe.

Holy Week 2010: The Crucifixion

2010-04-02T08:59:00.001-07:00

The Soldiers Mock Jesus

¹⁶The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. ¹⁷They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. ¹⁸And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!" (Mark 15:16-18, NIV)

After having scourged Jesus within an inch of his life, the soldiers were not through with him yet. Jesus was in or near a state of shock, and that was the only mercy for him in this ordeal. In shock, Jesus may have been only dimly aware of what was happening to him. On the other hand, he was acutely aware on the cross, so maybe he did feel every blow and hear every insult. I hope not, but if so, it makes his sacrifice for us all the greater. How many soldiers would have been involved in his scourging? 3 or 4? Half a dozen? However many there were, that would have been more than enough to continue beating up a bleeding, exhausted man in shock, but instead they called together the whole regiment or garrison. A garrison, also called a cohort, was 480 men, which was the total amount of soldiers stationed in Jerusalem at the time. This group was probably only those who happened to be in the Praetorium at that time of day, since many would have been stationed throughout the city keeping order during Passover, but it would still have been a large group of soldiers all abusing one helpless man. But of course, Jesus was not helpless. He could have called the armies of Heaven any time he wanted to. But he endured all of this willingly.

Each part of this mockery was a cruel parody of homage to a king. Kings wore purple, it was considered the royal color. It may have just been a faded red soldier's cape that looked close enough to purple to suit their purposes. They stripped Jesus naked and put that on him, and it would have stuck to the bloody wounds on his back. Then they wove the crown of thorns. Botanists say that there were many thorny plants growing in that area at the time, with long sharp barbs. Some soldier wove together a "crown" out of a thorny branch, using his metal gauntlet to protect his hand, then shoved it roughly onto Jesus' head. The blood rushing down his face from that crown of thorns probably blinded Jesus. The standard greeting for Caesar was "Hail Caesar", so shouting "Hail King of the Jews" was a mocking parody of that.

¹⁹Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. ²⁰And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. (Mark 15:19-20, NIV)

Matthew 27:29 says "they placed a staff in his right hand". Putting that together with what Mark says in verse 19, we can surmise that they put some sort of branch or stick in his right hand as a mock scepter to complete the "mock king" picture. Roman centurions were given sticks to designate rank, and they could use those sticks to beat disobedient soldiers or subjects. It may be one of these that Jesus was given. Whatever it was, after they placed it in his hand, they then took it away from him and beat him over the head with it. This would have resulted in multiple concussions, dazing Jesus further. Another customary way to greet a king was to kneel and kiss his ring. These soldiers mocked Jesus by kneeling before him, and leaning in as if to kiss him, spit in his face instead. Then they ripped the robe or cape off his back, which was stuck to the bloody wounds, tearing more flesh from him, and put his own clothes back on for the march to Golgotha.

Finally, they tired of these cruel games, and led him out to be crucified. Those who were crucified were made to march through Jerusalem in a parade while a herald called out the crimes of the condemned. This was done to make people afraid of offending Rome. This is exactly what Jesus was referring to when he called upon us to take up our cross and follow him (Mark 8:34)(See my blog on this passage).

Do we sometimes feel mocked or persecuted for our faith? There are many throughout the world who are persecuted and martyred for Christ to this day, but for those of us who live in a country with freedom of religion, we don't really know the meaning of mockery or persecution. If we ever start feeling offended or sorry for ourselves because someone made fun of us, or because the media doesn't give Christians a fair shake, we need to remember what Christ endured, and be thankful our lot is as comfortable as it is. (Hebrews 12:2-3)

The Crucifixion

²¹A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. ²²They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). ²³Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. ²⁴And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. (Mark 15:21-24, NIV)

To be honest, I have no desire to delve into the details of our Lord's agony. But we can't turn away from the cross. Jesus faced it, and we must take up our cross and follow him. By the time Jesus was supposed to carry his cross, the soldiers had abused him to the point that he was too weak to carry it, or even to walk. Mark 15:20 says they led him, but two verses later, they had to bring him. Typically, the condemned had to carry the crossbar, which was tied to their arms. They were marched though the streets naked, carrying crossbeams that weighed from 75 to 125 pounds. With Jesus incapacitated, the soldiers had to force someone else to carry his cross. No Roman would carry it for him, and if they forced a local Jew to carry it, it could start a riot. So they forced a stranger to do it. Simon was from Cyrene, in Northern Africa, so he may have had black skin. That would have made him easy for the solders to pick out of the crowd as an outsider. Cyrene was 800 miles away, on the other side of the Mediterranean. He must have been a pilgrim, a convert to Judaism in Jerusalem for Passover.

It's not remarkable to me that we know someone was forced to carry Jesus' cross, but it is remarkable to me that we know not only his name, but his sons' names, and where they were from. Why would Mark have made sure his readers knew this? Many scholars believe that Simon of Cyrene's son, Rufus, is the same Rufus mentioned in Romans 16:13. He was a Christian, known in the early church. Since his other son, Alexander, is also mentioned, it seems likely their whole family became Christians, perhaps converted because of this experience.

They offered him wine mixed with myrrh. This was an anesthetic, intended to dull the pain. The women of Jerusalem had adopted this practice in obedience to the admonition in Proverbs 31:6-7. But Jesus refused it. Maybe he did not want to dull the agony. but to continue to suffer for us. It's also possible that, in his fragile state, he thought if he took the narcotic mixture, he would pass out, and he needed to remain conscious until all was accomplished. Maybe it was both.

They crucified him. Jagged spikes were driven through his feet and wrists. His back, torn open from the scourging, scraped against the upright of the cross every time he tried to breathe. Death by crucifixion was a long, slow, horrible way to die. It took hours, and sometimes days. Insects would light on the faces and eyes of the condemned, and birds of prey would peck at them.

¹⁹Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read:|sc JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁰Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. ²¹The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

²²Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written." (John 19:19-22, NIV)

The sign that Pilate posted was not a confession of faith. It was a notice of the charge against Jesus. The Romans would not crucify him because he claimed to be God, or the Jewish Messiah. The Romans had many gods, one more wouldn't matter to them. The charge on which they executed him was that he was called the King of the Jews, which would have been considered treason against Rome. Crucifixion was an instrument of terror meant to intimidate populations and keep them from offending Rome in any way. Even though Jesus refused to take on the role of a political Messiah, he was still crucified on a false political charge.

²³When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

²⁴"Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it."
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,
"They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing." So this is what the soldiers did. (John 19:23-24, NIV)

They divided his clothes. When you see a picture of Christ on the cross, or see it in a movie, Jesus is wearing a loin cloth. But that is only the modesty of the artist, or the movie studio trying to avoid an NC-17 rating. Jesus was crucified naked, as all who were crucified were. This was one more form of humiliation of the Jews by the Romans. Under Jewish law, stoning victims were permitted a loin cloth, but the Romans did not have the moral objections to public nudity that the Jews had. Their athletes competed naked in the public arenas, so to crucify criminals naked was no big deal to them. It was just another way to intimidate those who would commit crimes against Rome.

²⁵Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," ²⁷and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:25-27)

This passage shows how close Jesus and John were. Mary was a widow by this time, as most Biblical scholars believe that Joseph died when Jesus was a teenager. Taking care of widows and orphans was a priority for Jesus, and when it came to the end, he wanted his widowed mother to be taken in by his best friend.

²⁵It was the third hour when they crucified him. ²⁶The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁷They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left.^[a] ²⁹Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, ³⁰come down from the cross and save yourself!"

³¹In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! ³²Let this Christ,^[b] this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. (Mark 15:25-32, NIV)

Of all the insults that were heaped on Jesus as he hung on the cross, the most revealing is what the religious leaders said about him in verse 31. They admitted that he saved others. The whole city and region were littered with those Jesus had healed and saved from death, yet they still did not believe in him. By throwing this insult at Jesus, they were actually condemning themselves. Those who have seen first hand what Jesus can do, but still refuse to believe are without excuse, and will receive the harshest judgment. There was good reason the people Jesus was most critical of during his ministry were the very religious. We in the church have to keep that in our minds all the time. If we spend our whole lives hearing the gospel preached and seeing the change Jesus makes in people's lives, but still fail to really believe, we are truly lost.

³³At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. ³⁴And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"^[c] (Mark 15:33-34, NIV)

Many have supposed that the darkness at noon which happened at the crucifixion was a solar eclipse. Luke says that the sun stopped shining (Luke 23:45). But solar eclipses don't last for 3 hours, and Passover is always held during a full moon. A total solar eclipse is impossible during a full moon, so this was something else. Whatever it actually was. physically, it was the universe reflecting God. God turned away from his Son. He couldn't look upon him because he became sin for us. Jesus had to experience God's wrath for the sin of the world while on the cross. Some theologians believe, as it says in the Apostle's Creed, that Jesus descended into hell when he died in order to defeat hell at the resurrection. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that hell is separation from God, and Jesus experienced complete separation from God for 3 hours while being crucified. That sounds like hell to me.

When Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", he wasn't complaining that God had turned his back on him. He was quoting Psalm 22, which is prophecy of his death on the cross. He was declaring that that prophecy was fulfilled. Read Psalm 22 and see how it describes both the agony of Jesus on the cross, and also the victory he won with that sacrifice.

³⁵When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah."

³⁶One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said. (Mark 15:35-36, NIV)

When Jesus cried, "Eloi", some there thought he said "Eli", and they either ignored or didn't hear the rest. If they were Roman soldiers, that's understandable, since their Aramaic was probably not that good. They would also have missed the fact that Jesus was quoting scripture. And it appears to me they were drunk. The wine vinegar they offered him was different than the wine mixed with myrrh that was offered to him as an anesthetic. This sour wine was a soldier's ration, and also a common drink among laborers because it was cheap. I can't prove this, but I imagine that the soldiers who scourged and abused Jesus drank while they did it, and got deeper into a drunken stupor while they tortured him. Alcohol breaks down inhibitions, and those who may have pangs of guilt for doing those things would be able to desensitize themselves by getting drunk. Drunkenness makes the mean even meaner. Once Jesus was helpless on the cross, I can see one of the soldiers offering Jesus some of the sour wine they had been sharing, as if to say, "See, we're not such bad guys".

²⁸Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." ²⁹A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. ³⁰When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28-30, NIV)

"It is finished". The three greatest words in our faith. Whatever you're afraid of, don't be afraid. It is finished. Spiritual warfare? The war is over, the devil just doesn't know it yet. It is finished.

³⁷With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

³⁸The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. ³⁹And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and^[d] saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son^[e] of God!" (Mark 15:37-39, NIV)

Most victims of crucifixion were exhausted or unconscious when they died. They died of suffocation, and when you're suffocating, you can't cry out. The person being crucified had to pull themselves up to breathe. As their legs tired out, they would eventually suffocate. This usually took hours, and sometimes days. So if they wanted to hasten death, they would break the legs of the crucified so they couldn't support themselves to breathe. That's why they didn't break Jesus' legs. It wasn't necessary, because he was already dead. This passage shows how nobody took Jesus' life from him. He gave it willingly. After having had the threat of death hang over him for so long, when it came time for Jesus to give up his life, he breathed his last. Even in his weakened state, Jesus was in control of when and how he died. This was what impressed the Roman centurion so much. He had seen many die on the cross, but this man's death was different from all the others. Some say that Roman soldier became a believer at that moment, since what he said can be taken as a confession of Christ. That seems like a stretch to me, but verse 39 does say he heard his cry and saw how Jesus died. That was when he said what he did. He experienced darkness at noon for 3 hours, and earthquakes. Then when he heard Jesus cry out when he should not have had the strength, and die of his own free will, he knew this was more than just a man. If we can somehow hear Jesus' cry and see how he died, it will have a profound effect on us.

The curtain that was torn from top to bottom was the curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the sanctuary in the temple. When Jesus died on the cross, that curtain was no longer necessary. We are now able to approach God directly because of the perfect sacrifice of Christ on the cross. (Hebrews 9)

³³But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. ³⁵The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. ³⁶These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken," ³⁷and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced." (John 19:31-37, NIV)

When they pierced Jesus' side, as John testifies, blood and water flowed out. Doctors say that the only way for that to happen is if his heart had burst within his chest. Jesus literally died of a broken heart. John is the only one of the gospel writers who mentions the piercing of Jesus' side and the flow of blood and water. John is the only one of the disciples who is listed as having been there at the cross while Jesus was crucified. The others were no doubt hiding in fear. But John was there, and saw it himself. He didn't just tell us a story, he gave testimony, and his testimony is true. Why did he give this testimony? He did it so that we might believe. Do you believe?

Holy Week 2010: The Trial of Jesus

2010-04-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

¹²Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him ¹³and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. ¹⁴Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people. (John 18:12-14, NIV)

The Jewish leaders bear the most blame for the death of Jesus. They instigated his arrest and the charges against him. But they were not just defending the status quo, and their own position. It was their job to keep potential troublemakers in line. If they let an insurrection get too far out of hand, the Romans would come down on the whole nation like a ton of bricks, and many would die. I don't think this was the first time someone spoke out against the established order, gained a following, and the religious leaders tried to quash it in order to keep the peace. I'm sure Jesus seemed like the most dangerous one yet to them, after what he had done the past 3 years, and after the crowds had lined the streets calling him the Messiah just a few days before.

⁵³They took Jesus to the high priest, and all the chief priests, elders and teachers of the law came together. ⁵⁴Peter followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. There he sat with the guards and warmed himself at the fire. (Mark 14:53-54, NIV)

This trial of Jesus was illegal under Jewish law. Jewish law had many protections for the rights of the accused, much like the American legal system, but all of those protections were ignored by those who simply wanted Jesus dead. Peter seemed to be inviting discovery, since he followed right into the courtyard area. Much of the crowd that came to Gethsemane to arrest Jesus must have been there by the fire. It would make sense that most of those who went to Gethsemane with swords and clubs would not have been allowed into the trial itself, but told to wait outside in the courtyard. Yet Peter went in there, even after cutting off the ear of the High Priest's servant! If he didn't want to be recognized, why even go in there? It seems that in spite of the danger, he wanted to be near Jesus. He had to know what was happening to him.

Note: In order to focus on the trials of Jesus, and to save space in an already very long blog post, I am skipping over Peter's denials. If you're interested in my post on Peter denying Christ in Mark 14:66-72, you can read that here.

¹⁹Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

²⁰"I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. "I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. ²¹Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said."

²²When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. "Is this the way you answer the high priest?" he demanded.

²³"If I said something wrong," Jesus replied, "testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?" ²⁴Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest. (John 18:19-23, NIV)

Here is another example of the illegality of this "trial". It was the High Priest's duty to call forth the witnesses first, beginning with those for the defense. These basic legal protections for the accused under Jewish law were not observed in the trial of Jesus. By telling Annas to ask those who heard him teach, Jesus wasn't being uncooperative, only asserting His legal right. There was to be no formal charge until witnesses had been heard and been found to be truthful.

⁵⁵The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. ⁵⁶Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.

⁵⁷Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: ⁵⁸"We heard him say, 'I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.' " ⁵⁹Yet even then their testimony did not agree. (Mark 14:55-59, NIV)

One would think that the chief priests would have gotten their act together enough to have their false witnesses get their stories straight, but apparently not. Under Jewish law, no one could be convicted of a crime unless two or three witnesses testified against him, and there were severe penalties for bearing false witness (Deut. 19:15-19). The accusation against Jesus in verse 58 is a reference to what Jesus said in John 2:18-21, where Jesus was clearly talking about his own body. It's a classic case of being misquoted. They may have been purposely misquoting Jesus in order to try to convict him, but they may also have just misunderstood what he said, and were very offended by it. The temple was the pride of Israel, and throughout the Greco-Roman world, destruction of places of worship was a capital offense. They may well have been confusing what Jesus said in referring to his body as "this temple" and what he had predicted about the destruction of the temple in Mark 13:2. It wouldn't have been the first or last time someone was falsely accused because of a misunderstanding.

⁶⁰Then the high priest stood up before them and asked Jesus, "Are you not going to answer? What is this testimony that these men are bringing against you?" ⁶¹But Jesus remained silent and gave no answer.
Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ,^[f] the Son of the Blessed One?"

⁶²"I am," said Jesus. "And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven." (Mark 14:60-62, NIV)

For the high priest to stand and approach Jesus was a desperation move. Normally the high priest would remain seated and render judgment, but all the evidence they had put up against Jesus had gone nowhere. At that point, the only way to convict Jesus was to try to bully him into making some sort of confession, to try to get him to say something they could condemn him for. So the high priest asked Jesus straight out if he was the Messiah. If Jesus says yes, they can accuse him of blasphemy. If he says no, they can accuse him of being a false prophet and have him stoned.

Jesus could have mounted a magnificent defense of all he had done, the people he had healed, the dead he had raised, and all the rest, but he did not. It's not surprising to me that Jesus did not respond to the false accusations, because they were not worthy of a reply. The fact that the high priest had to get up and confront Jesus showed that. But when the high priest asked him this question, Jesus responds by first saying, "I AM", using the same words God used to identify himself to Moses (Exodus 3:14). He's literally saying "The I Am is here" or "I Am the Lord". Then he quotes from Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13, both of which were well known as Messianic prophecies. What Jesus is saying back to the high priest is, "I not only am the Messiah you seek, I am the Lord. You may think you judge me, but in reality I come to judge you".

⁶³The high priest tore his clothes. "Why do we need any more witnesses?" he asked. ⁶⁴"You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?"

They all condemned him as worthy of death. ⁶⁵Then some began to spit at him; they blindfolded him, struck him with their fists, and said, "Prophesy!" And the guards took him and beat him. (Mark 14:63-65, NIV)

If Jesus had said, "Let me make a deal with you. You know I'm the best candidate for Messiah you've seen. You've seen the throngs who follow me, and you know the good work I've done. Why don't you just proclaim me Messiah and king, and together we'll rid Israel of our Roman oppressors and the corrupt reign of Herod", this whole episode might have ended differently. But Jesus had no interest in self preservation. Jesus gave them the excuse they needed to have him executed. He could have saved himself, but instead he chose to endure what he knew was coming in order to save us.

Jesus Before Pilate

²⁸Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. ²⁹So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"

³⁰"If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you."

³¹Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law."

"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. ³²This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled. (John 18:28-32, NIV)

The hypocrisy of the religious leaders is laid bare in this passage. They were worried about ceremonial uncleanness, but they were more than willing to execute an innocent man. If the Jews had executed Jesus, he would have been stoned. But that would not have fulfilled what Jesus had said about "the kind of death he would die", as it says in verse 32. In John 3:14-15, Jesus said that he "must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." Since only the Romans could crucify, this prophecy could only be fulfilled by turning Jesus over to them.

The Romans had made it illegal for the Jews to execute criminals in 7 A.D. Stonings still happened from time to time, as in the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:54-60), but since Jesus was so popular with the people, if the Jewish leaders put Jesus to death themselves, the crowds might have turned against them. By having the Romans do it, they could always blame the Romans. The reason the chief priests had to have their trial of Jesus in the wee hours of the night, before the rooster crowed, was because Roman trials were held early in the morning, just after sunrise. If they wanted Jesus executed on Friday, they had to hand him over to Pilate early Friday morning. Jesus had been up all night. He endured everything he went through on Good Friday without having slept the night before.

³³Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

³⁴"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

³⁵"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"

³⁶Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

³⁷"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.
Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

³⁸"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. (John 18:33-38, NIV)

When Pilate asked, "What is truth?", I wish Jesus had answered him. Maybe he did, and the gospels don't record it. We know from what Jesus said elsewhere that he is the truth, the way, and the life. Truth is God's very nature. We have lost the idea of absolute truth in this culture. But science and mathematics are full of absolute truth. The speed of light is an absolute, immutable fact, not subject to anyone's opinion or perception. If you think 2 + 2 = 5, you may have a right to that opinion, but you're wrong. And if absolute truth exists in the physical realm, then it must also exist in the spiritual realm, because both come from the Creator.

²"Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate.
"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.

³The chief priests accused him of many things. ⁴So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of."

⁵But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. (Mark 15:2-5, NIV)

The primary charge against Jesus was that he called himself King of the Jews, that he held himself up as a king in opposition to Rome. This charge was completely false, but it was one that would get Pilate's attention. Jesus claiming he was God would not have mattered at all to Pilate. The Romans had hundreds of gods. One more would not have mattered to them. But if he claimed to be king, that was a problem. There was only one king, and that was Caesar. Jesus' response in Mark 15:2 was not a straight out "yes". The "yes" that's in the NIV in verse 2 is not in other translations. His actual answer was something more like, "You said it". If he had responded by saying, yes, he was King of the Jews, he would have been calling himself Israel's true king, and the trial would have been over then and there. That would have been treason against Rome. Pilate was used to men groveling before him, begging for their lives. That's why he was so amazed that Jesus would not defend himself.

⁶Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. ⁷A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. ⁸The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did.

⁹"Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, ¹⁰knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. ¹¹But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead.

¹²"What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them.

¹³"Crucify him!" they shouted.

¹⁴"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

¹⁵Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. (Mark 15:6-15, NIV)

Th crowd that gathered that morning was there because of the custom of releasing a prisoner, and they were probably all supporters of Barabbas. They had gone there with intention of asking for his release. But Pilate, not satisfied that Jesus was guilty of anything, saw this as a way to release an innocent man. But he had two things working against him. First, the crowd was there to get Barabbas released, not Jesus. Second, it was a Jewish crowd, and the Jewish leadership was stirring them up against Jesus. The Jews hated Pilate, so of course they would side with their own religious leaders against whatever Pilate wanted. Though reluctant to execute an innocent man and release Barabbas, a real enemy of Rome, Pilate was afraid of a riot breaking out, which would get him into a lot of trouble with his superiors. History shows that Pilate was a cruel governor who crucified hundreds, if not thousands of Jews during his time. So in the end, he relented and did as the crowd demanded.

All too often I have heard it said that the same crowd that was cheering him during his Triumphal Entry was shouting “crucify him” at his trial. There is no evidence for this assertion. Jerusalem was a large city, even then, and there were thousands of pilgrims there for Passover from other places. Sometimes I think people say that because they have to use the same crowd in their church Easter productions, so they say it was the same crowd in Jerusalem. But the Bible never says that, so please stop saying it when you don't know that it's true. If it was the same crowd, why were the Jewish leaders afraid to execute Jesus themselves? Why were they afraid to arrest him in broad daylight? It's much more likely that they were completely different crowds.

I don't want to get into the gory details of the flogging of Jesus. We've all heard about this many times, and I've sure you've all seen The Passion Of The Christ. That movie goes overboard on that, by the way. I thought Mel Gibson did an excellent job with that movie, although he did take some liberties, which artists always do. I'm OK with most of the liberties he took, except for the scourging. He went too far with that, way beyond what the Bible says. Roman law stated that only 39 lashes were allowed with the lead and bone tipped whip, and in the movie, there are over 100 lashes, which no one could survive. I counted. There's no way Jesus could still have been conscious after a beating like that to go back to Pilate, have a conversation with him, and then carry his cross. He would have been dead right there, and the crucifixion would never have happened. I think Mel Gibson was trying to emphasize the brutality of what Jesus went through, because that had not been given its due in previous Jesus films, even the ones by Christan studios. But he went too far with it. What the Bible describes is bad enough. There's no need to exaggerate it. But 39 lashes were enough to rip Jesus' back to shreds, and put him in a state of shock. After scourging, most did not survive the cross for long. Keep in mind that Jesus had the power to stop this at any time, but he did not, for one reason. He let it continue out of love for us. It was the only way he could save us.

Holy Week 2010: Gethsemane

2010-03-31T08:29:00.000-07:00

Jesus Arrested

¹When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it. (John 18:1, NIV)

The Kidron Valley was a ravine with a brook running through it. At the time of the Passover, the water in the brook ran red with the blood of Passover lambs. As they crossed over, this would have been a stark reminder to Jesus of the sacrifice he was about to make.

³²They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, "Sit here while I pray." ³³He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. ³⁴"My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death," he said to them. "Stay here and keep watch."

³⁵Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. ³⁶"Abba,^[e] Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." (Mark 14:32-36, NIV)

Gethsemane means "olive press" It was a place where olives were pressed to make olive oil from the surrounding olive groves on the Mount of Olives. Jesus led the remaining 11 disciples there to find a place to pray. Why did they not simply stay in the upper room? Maybe Jesus didn't want to cause trouble for whoever owned the house. That person was probably a supporter of Jesus, and Jesus wanted to protect him. Mark tells us that Jesus told his disciples where to sit when they got to Gethesemane, but then took Peter, James and John with him to the place where he would pray. Those three had been included in some of the most amazing times of Jesus' ministry, and now Jesus wanted them to help support him in his hour of need. Jesus was vulnerable with them, and let them see how troubled he was. If Jesus felt the need to ask for support from those who were closest to him in a time like this, how much more do we need the support and prayers of our closest spiritual brothers and sisters in difficult times?

The phrase that strikes me in verse 35 is that Jesus fell to the ground. Have you ever been so overwhelmed with sorrow that you could not even stand? I have to admit that I never have. What troubled Jesus so much wasn't just the physical torture and humiliation that he knew was coming. It was also, and perhaps mainly, the burden of carrying the sin of the whole world. He was made sin for us (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus was sinless and holy, and the horror of bearing all the sin of everyone who had ever lived and ever would live was almost too much for him, especially since he knew that his Father would look upon him and see all of that sin, and turn away.

Even though Jesus knew what he had to do, and had been telling his disciples about it for weeks, when the time came, he asked his Father if there was any other way to save humanity. Don't you think God wanted to grant that request? The fact that the Father didn't make another way shows that there was no other way. Jesus called his Father "Abba", which was a child's intimate term, the equivalent of "daddy". Jesus had the most intimate relationship with his Father, and his actions here made it possible for us to have the same kind of relationship with God.

In the end, Jesus submitted to the Father's will. For me, this passage proves that, despite what some preach, the Bible does not really teach that believers can simply pray the "prayer of faith", and expect to get whatever they ask for. If even Jesus did not receive what he asked for in this instance, and had to qualify his request by saying "not my will, but yours", what makes us think we can claim more authority with God than Jesus could?

³⁷Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Simon," he said to Peter, "are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? ³⁸Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

³⁹Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. ⁴⁰When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

⁴¹Returning the third time, he said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. ⁴²Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"

Jesus wanted Peter, James and John to pray with him, to support him in prayer and to keep watch for Judas and the temple guards that he knew were coming. In spite of all Jesus had said, the disciples still did not know what was coming. John knew that Judas would betray Jesus, but apparently Jesus had not spelled out for them that he expected Judas to arrive at Gethsemane with troops to arrest him at any moment. If he had, they probably would have been more alert, but then there might have been premature violence, and a more or less peaceful arrest might not have been possible. Jesus needed prayer and support, and he also needed his disciples to survive this night, so that they could become the leaders of his church later on.

To fall asleep while keeping watch is inexcusable. I don't know what the penalty for that is in the military, but I'm sure it's not good. When Jesus came back and found them sleeping, he wasn't reprimanding them, but trying to encourage them to strengthen themselves spiritually for what was to come. Jesus spent the hour in prayer, and he was strengthened to complete his task. The disciples slept, and when the time came, they scattered. If Peter in particular had watched and prayed like Jesus told him to, maybe he would have found the strength not to deny Jesus. It's interesting that in that moment, Jesus called him Simon, not Peter. Peter was acting like his old self, not the new man of God Jesus wanted him to be.

Jesus went back and prayed the same prayer three times. What does this tell us about persistence in prayer? And Jesus did not receive what he asked for, but because of his persistence in prayer, he did receive the power to do what God wanted him to do. That's what prayer is really about, achieving intimacy with God, so we can call him "daddy", and through knowing him, receive the power to do what he asks of us.

²Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. ³So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.

⁴Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want?"

⁵"Jesus of Nazareth," they replied.

"I am he," Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) ⁶When Jesus said, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground. (John 18:2-5, NIV)

John is the only one who tells this story of the men who came to arrest Jesus falling back to the ground when Jesus says "I am he". That's pretty amazing, and it makes me wonder why the others left it out. In Young's Literal Translation, verses 5 and 6 read like this:

Jesus saith to them, `I am [he];' -- and Judas who delivered him up was standing with them; --

⁶when, therefore, he said to them -- `I am [he],' they went away backward, and fell to the ground.

See that the word "he" is in brackets, which I think means that Jesus' actual answer is "I AM". There are more instances coming up in Jesus' trial when he is asked who he is, and his answer is "I AM". This may be the first instance of that. If so, no wonder they fell backwards. Jesus is declaring publicly that he is God. It seems to me that at that moment, God the Father was speaking through Jesus in his own voice, and the sheer power of God's voice made them fall backwards in amazement.

⁷Again he asked them, "Who is it you want?"
And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth."

⁸"I told you that I am he," Jesus answered. "If you are looking for me, then let these men go." ⁹This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: "I have not lost one of those you gave me."

¹⁰Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.)

¹¹Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" (John 18:7-11, NIV)

⁴³Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.

⁴⁴Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard." ⁴⁵Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Rabbi!" and kissed him. ⁴⁶The men seized Jesus and arrested him. ⁴⁷Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear. (Mark 14:43-47, NIV)

While Jesus was still telling Peter, James, and John to wake up, Judas arrived with the temple guards. Where were the other eight disciples? Maybe the crowd came by a different way than where they were, but I would think they would have seen or heard them coming, and would have warned Jesus and the others. I would also think that since Jesus was a familiar figure in the temple courts, he would not need to be identified by a kiss, but apparently Judas needed to greet Jesus so the guards would know who to arrest. But why the false show of affection? It seems unnecessary and insulting. Maybe Judas was trying to convince himself that he was really doing this for Jesus' own good. He may not have realized then that the religious leaders intended to kill Jesus. Maybe he even thought Jesus would prove he was the Messiah to the elders, and they would accept him and proclaim him king. Throughout history, many who thought they were doing the church a favor were really doing the Kingdom great harm. Many make the mistake of thinking they know better than God.

We can see from John's version that Peter was the one who cut off the servant's ear, and John identifies the servant as Malchus. Only Luke tells that Jesus healed the servant's ear (Luke 22:50-51). Most Biblical scholars believe that Mark's gospel is actually Peter's gospel. Mark was a constant companion to Peter in the early days of the church, and scholars think that Mark's gospel is largely comprised of stories of Jesus that Mark heard Peter tell. Not for the first time in the Gospel of Mark, Peter leaves out details regarding himself in his account. He doesn't say that it was he who cut off the man's ear. But maybe this part of Mark's gospel is not from Peter, but from Mark himself. He was there, as we will see. Maybe he didn't want to embarrass Peter further when he was about to relate Peter's denial of Christ. Peter, not unlike Judas, thought he knew better than God in that moment. If Jesus had not healed Malchus, Peter certainly would have been arrested along with Jesus.

⁴⁸"Am I leading a rebellion," said Jesus, "that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? ⁴⁹Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled." ⁵⁰Then everyone deserted him and fled. (Mark 14:48-50, NIV)

The religious leaders were too afraid of the crowds to arrest Jesus in broad daylight where everyone could see. They waited until they could seize him in the dead of night, when the crowds weren't around. If you have to make sure no one sees what you're doing, you're not doing anything good. At this point, Jesus' prediction in verse 27, “All of you will desert me" comes true. As I said yesterday, Jesus had spent the previous hour in earnest prayer, and he had the strength to face arrest, while the disciples had spent the hour sleeping, and did not have the strength, so they fled.

⁵¹A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, ⁵²he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. (Mark 14:51, NIV)

Most Biblical scholars believe this young man was John Mark, the author of this gospel. As I said in yesterday's blog, many suppose that the Last Supper was held in an upper room at a house owned by Mark's family. We know from the account of Peter's escape from prison in Acts 12 that the home of John Mark's mother, Mary, was a place the followers of Jesus often gathered to pray (Acts 12:12). So it would make sense that this would have been a place for Jesus and his disciples to "hang out" as well. This might explain why Mark was wearing so little at the garden. Maybe he was at the house, and Judas came there first with the temple guards, because that was where they were when Judas left them. When Judas found they were no longer there, he would have tried the Mount of Olives next, because, as we just read in John 18:2, Judas knew the place. Jesus and his disciples went there often. Perhaps Mark grabbed something to wear in a hurry, and ran to Gethsemane to try to get there ahead of Judas so he could warn them. Why would Mark include this seemingly unimportant detail? Maybe to say, "I was there", or maybe it was to take some of the embarrassment onto himself and deflect it away from Peter. If you're willing to embarrass yourself in order to save someone else from embarrassment, that's being a true friend.

Holy Week 2010: The Last Supper

2010-03-30T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Lord's Supper

¹²On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him, "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?"

¹³So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. ¹⁴Say to the owner of the house he enters, 'The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' ¹⁵He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there."

¹⁶The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover. (Mark 14:12-16, NIV)

I'm skipping ahead in the week to the Last Supper in order to cover the "events" of Holy Week. Most of my life I've thought of that week in terms of its events; the Triumphal Entry, the cleansing of the temple, the Last Supper, the arrest and trial, etc. But if you read through the chapters of any of the gospels, what you find is that Jesus did a lot of teaching that week. He taught in the temple courts for 3 days after he cleared out the money changers, and a lot of that teaching is recorded. John has 4 chapters of teaching at the Last Supper! But for my Holy Week blogs this year, I'll focus on the events. That's why I'm skipping from the temple cleansing to the Last Supper. This event didn't take place until Thursday, as we all know, but too many things happened on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to try to cover all of those events on those two days.

Jesus had obviously prepared for a place to eat the Passover meal with his disciples ahead of time. Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims, and there must have been a booming business in renting out furnished rooms where pilgrims could partake of this feast. It seems that Jesus had booked this room in secret, even keeping it from his disciples. Since he knew Judas would betray him, maybe this was to keep Judas from arranging his arrest too soon. Some scholars believe that the Last Supper was held in an upper room at a house owned by John Mark’s family. I'll talk about that more tomorrow in my post on Gethsemane. If that's true, I can't help but wonder if John Mark was the man carrying the water jar, since he mentions that detail.

Jesus Washes His Disciples' Feet

¹It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.

²The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. ³Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; ⁴so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. ⁵After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.(John 13:1-5, NIV)

Only John mentions this event. John's gospel was written after the others, and I can't help but think that John thought the other accounts of the Last Supper were incomplete. So he told us about this act of service on the part of Jesus, and included a lot of teaching that Jesus did that night. Of the gospel writers, only John and Matthew were actually there for this Passover meal. But Matthew didn't give us this much detail. He pretty much just copied Mark's version of it. Mark would have gotten his version of it from Peter, a man of relatively few words. We owe John a great debt for giving us so much detail about this last meal Jesus shared with his disciples.

For some reason, I always thought Jesus washed the disciples' feet as they came into the upper room, as the custom would have been. But verse 2 says the meal was already being served, and still their feet had not been washed. This was normally the duty of a slave, or whoever had the lowest status. I would think one of the disciples would have taken on this responsibility, but they loved to argue about which of them would be the greatest, and even argued about that at this meal! (Luke 22:24) So none of them would volunteer for this task. It would be admitting that they had the lowest status. So Jesus did it for them.

The traditional picture of the Last Supper is nothing like what actually happened. They didn't sit in chairs like we do. Whenever I see that classic painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, I always think of the old joke that goes, "OK, everybody get on the same side of the table for a picture!" In middle eastern culture to this day, they recline with their heads toward the table, leaning on their left elbows and eating with their right hands. As the disciples reclined at the table with their feet sticking out behind them, Jesus got up from his meal, dressed like a slave, filled the water basin, and went from one disciple to the next, washing their feet as they ate.

⁶He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, are you going to wash my feet?"

⁷Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand."

⁸"No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet."
Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."

⁹"Then, Lord," Simon Peter replied, "not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!"

¹⁰Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you." ¹¹For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean. (John 13:6-10)

Of all the disciples, only Peter objects to Jesus washing his feet. Sometimes it's harder to receive service from someone than to give service to someone. But that's as much an issue of pride as not wanting to take a menial job. Why would we not want to receive charity from others? Because we are proud. Jesus' reply to Peter is instructive. If we will not receive the cleansing that Jesus wants to give us, we have no part with him.

¹²When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. ¹³"You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. ¹⁵I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (John 13:12-17, NIV)

Jesus was teaching his disciples humility. He showed them what true humility looks like by volunteering for the most menial servant's task. When we feel entitled to a certain position in the church, or a certain solo in the choir, or recognition for something, we need to heed the example of a servant's heart that Jesus showed here. And if we will serve others as Jesus did, we will be blessed. This relates to Peter's objection. If we believe that it's more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35), then the one who gives gets the greater blessing than the one who receives. So if we refuse someone's gift to us like Peter tried to, we are robbing them of their blessing. We need to be humble enough to serve, and also humble enough to be served.

¹⁷When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. ¹⁸While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, "I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me."

¹⁹They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, "Surely not I?"

²⁰"It is one of the Twelve," he replied, "one who dips bread into the bowl with me. ²¹The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." (Mark 14:17-20, NIV)

²¹After he had said this, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, "I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me."

²²His disciples stared at one another, at a loss to know which of them he meant. ²³One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him. ²⁴Simon Peter motioned to this disciple and said, "Ask him which one he means."

²⁵Leaning back against Jesus, he asked him, "Lord, who is it?"

²⁶Jesus answered, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon. ²⁷As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

"What you are about to do, do quickly," Jesus told him, ²⁸but no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. ²⁹Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast, or to give something to the poor. ³⁰As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night. (John 13:17-30, NIV)

Now Jesus reveals his knowledge of Judas' plot. I can imagine the sinking feeling Judas must have had when he knew he was "busted". In John's version, Jesus reveals to John who the traitor is, but apparently he didn't reveal it to the whole group. In Luke's account of this event, we learn that the disciples had two swords with them at the time (Luke 22:38). What do you think they would have done with those swords if Jesus had revealed to the whole group that Judas was about to betray him? But Jesus kept Judas' secret, and sent him out ahead of the group so he could do what he intended to do. It strikes me that Jesus was giving Judas one last chance to change his mind, but Judas was committed. He had already made arrangements with the Chief Priests to betray Jesus, so it's curious to me that John would say that Satan entered into him when he took the bread from Jesus. It seems to me that Satan had entered into him before that. Perhaps Judas was having second thoughts in that moment. Jesus had just washed his feet, too.

In Middle Eastern culture, it was and is still considered the worst form of treachery to betray someone after having broken bread with them. Each of the disciples asked if he was the traitor, including Judas. Matthew tells us that Jesus did answer in the affirmative when Judas asked (Matthew 26:25). So there was no doubt in Judas' mind that Jesus knew all about what he was planning, but Jesus did nothing to stop him. In fact he sent him on his way, knowing what was to come.

Jesus Predicts Peter's Denial

³¹When he was gone, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. ³²If God is glorified in him,God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

³³"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

³⁴"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:31-34, NIV)

This is something we need to be constantly reminded of. How will people know that we are his disciples? By our doctrine? Our beautiful buildings? The cutting edge multimedia in our worship services? By the lifestyle rules we live by? No, by the way we love one another. People may be enticed to enter our church doors because of a special program, but what will attract them to Christ is if they see love in action. Everyone wants to be loved, and to belong to something greater than themselves. Who wouldn't want to be part of a group that loves each other, cares for each other, and supports each other?

³⁶Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?"
Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."

³⁷Peter asked, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you."

³⁸Then Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times! (John 13:36-38, NIV)

Peter did both things, actually. He denied Christ in a moment of weakness, but sometime after Pentecost, he suffered the same death Jesus suffered; crucifixion. But Peter did not consider himself worthy to be crucified the way Jesus was, so he asked to be crucified upside down. The Romans granted his request. To this day, all across the world, believers are martyred for Christ. Where Jesus went, they follow.

²²While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body."

²³Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it.

²⁴"This is my blood of the^[b] covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. ²⁵"I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God."

²⁶When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. (Mark 14:22-26)

This was no typical Passover meal. There are strict traditions about what is eaten and what is said, by whom and in what order when eating the Passover. If you've ever attended a Seder meal, you know what I mean. Perhaps they had already gone through the established ritual by this point. But now Jesus shared with them a new supper, the Lord's Supper. The Passover was central to the old covenant, and the Lord's Supper is central to the new covenant. Jesus is starting the new covenant right here, in that moment.

The Amplified Bible puts verse 24 this way:

²⁵Solemnly and surely I tell you, I shall not again drink of the fruit of the vine till that day when I drink it ^[c]of a new and a higher quality in God's kingdom.

Jesus' promise not to drink wine again until he does so in Heaven has always struck me a little odd. After all, he hardly had the chance after that. But according to the Amplified translation, he's not just saying he'll wait until then, he's saying it will be of a new and higher quality. I don't think he's just talking about better wine, though I'm sure the wine will be really good in Heaven. I believe he's talking about the whole meal. The Passover meal, the central feast of the old covenant, was a foreshadow of the Lord's Supper, which ratified the new covenant (Mark 14:24, Amplified). The Last Supper is a foreshadow of the Marriage Supper Of The Lamb. This is what Jesus is referring to in verse 25. Neither the Passover meal nor the Lord's Supper could be considered real feasts, at least by any definition I know of. But the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, now that will be a feast! If you think Thanksgiving dinner is good, that will pale in comparison to the spread at that feast. Everything will be "of a new and a higher quality in God's kingdom".

It's interesting to me that Mark and Matthew both mention that they "sang a hymn". According to the definition of hymns that I learned in my church music courses in college, hymns did not exist then, so I wonder about the translation from Greek. There are other places in the Bible where hymns are mentioned (Psalm 40:3, Acts 16:25, 1 Corinthians 14:26, Ephesians 5:19), and I'm curious what was meant by that term. But the definition of what type of song they sang is not as important as the fact that they sang. How could Jesus sing, knowing what would soon happen? Because his attitude of praise was not based on his circumstances, but on his adoration of the Father, as ours should be.

The traditional psalms that were sung at the end of the Passover meal were Psalms 116, 117, and 118. Maybe those were the songs they sang. Read those Psalms and imagine how they would have ministered to Jesus on the night before his death.

Holy Week 2010: The Cleansing of the Temple

2010-03-29T08:51:00.001-07:00

Jesus Clears the Temple

¹⁵ When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, ¹⁶ and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace.^[c] ¹⁷ He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”^[d](Mark 11:15-17, NIV)

This event takes place in all four gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place it during Holy Week, after the Triumphal Entry. But John places it at the beginning of his public ministry, right after he changed water into wine (John 2). Some say that this must mean Jesus did this twice. But the text in in each of the accounts is so similar, that seems unlikely to me. It also seems unlikely to me that Jesus did this and then continued to have a public ministry for three years. It took him doing it again three years later for the authorities to try to find a way to kill him? I side with those who say that John placed this event earlier in order to make a point. It doesn't constitute a mistake on anyone's part. Standards of writing were different then, as we can see from the fact that the three synoptic gospels have so much material copied from other sources. Today, that would be considered plagiarism. But the motivation of the gospel writers was not to produce an original work of literature, it was to tell the Good News to those who hadn't heard. When Jesus cleared the temple is irrelevant. What's relevant is that he did it. Since the majority of the gospels place the cleansing of the temple during Holy Week, I'm including it in this week's posts. But I will refer to John's version, even though John doesn't place it during this week, because I've only blogged on the gospels of Mark and John so far, at least when it comes to this part of the story.

What was actually going on here was that pilgrims would bring in animals for sacrifice, but the vendors in the temple courts were cheating them. They would tell the pilgrims that their animals weren’t flawless enough, and would offer to sell them “perfect” ones at exorbitant prices. Then they’d confiscate the animals the pilgrims brought, and turn around and sell them to other pilgrims. It was a huge money making racket. That’s what made Jesus so angry. Plus, every Jewish male had to pay a "Temple tax", which they could only pay using the temple currency. So they would have to exchange their regular money for Temple money, and the exchange rates were outrageous. On top of all that, this was done in the outer courts of the temple, which was the only place Gentiles could come and pray. They really had made a house of prayer into a den of thieves. Jesus' statement to that effect was a reference to Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11. The temple was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations.

¹⁵So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." (John 2:15-17, NIV)

A key fact for me, is that Jesus took the time to weave his own whip. He didn't just "fly off the handle." He carefully planned what he was going to do. The quote that the disciples were reminded of in verse 17 is from Psalm 69:9. How much zeal do we have for God's house? The disciples may have been reminded of that one line from Psalm 69 because of the zeal for God's house that Jesus showed in that moment, but if you read all of Psalm 69, it's a very apt description of the rejection and torment Jesus was about to experience.

The kind of corruption in the temple that Jesus was challenging can still be an issue in the church today. We all know of cases where people are cheated into giving large amounts of money to dishonest "ministries". Be very careful of giving your money to a TV preacher or some other operation that claims to be using it for minstry, but is really lining their own pockets. Any church or organization that does not submit to genuine financial accountability may be turning a house of prayer into a den of thieves.

¹⁸ When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching.

¹⁹ That evening Jesus and the disciples left^[e] the city.

The religious leaders were already plotting to kill Jesus, and this just confirmed their plans. But they had to be careful about how they did it. They were afraid to arrest him in the open, because he was so popular with the people. It's amazing that after this event, Jesus continued to teach in the temple courts for the rest of the week, and they never laid a hand on him until late Thursday night, away from the crowds.

Palm Sunday 2010

2010-03-28T06:05:00.000-07:00

⁹Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ¹⁰So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, ¹¹for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and putting their faith in him. (John 12:9-11, NIV)

I know it seems odd to start a post with the word "meanwhile", but I start it here for a reason. John combines the story of Mary anointing Jesus with the Triumphal Entry. According to John, this happened right before Jesus entered Jerusalem. Mark places it later in the week, just before the Last Supper. Lazarus, Mary, and Martha were all related and lived in the same house. It appears from John's gospel that Jesus and his disciples stayed with them in Bethany for the Passover. Of course, Jesus had recently raised Lazarus from the dead, so crowds were coming to see Lazarus because of what they had heard. Maybe the crowd coming to see Lazarus was larger than usual this time because Jesus was there as well. But whereas people were drawn to see Lazarus because of what Jesus had done for him, the chief priests wanted to kill Lazarus for the same reason! What were they going to do, kill everyone Jesus had healed? As they were about to see, the religious leaders were in a no-win situation.

The Triumphal Entry

¹As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, ²saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' " ⁴They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, ⁵some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?" ⁶They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. (Mark 11:1-6, NIV)

The time had come for Jesus to enter Jerusalem as the Messiah. Everything about this event fulfilled prophecy. On purpose, I believe. Up until now, Jesus did not want to be called the Messiah publicly because if he had allowed that, he would have been arrested prematurely. Now that the time for his arrest had come, he entered Jerusalem, not incognito or keeping a low profile, but in the most public way possible. According to Zechariah 9:9, the Messiah was to enter Jerusalem riding a young colt, the foal of a donkey. It appears that Jesus prearranged for just such a colt to be available for him to ride into the city. That's how the disciples were able to take the colt by simply saying what Jesus told them to say. We'll have more success in life if we'll say what Jesus tells us to say.

Mark makes a point of telling us that this was a colt that had never been ridden before. Have you ever tried to ride a horse that has never had anyone sit on their back? I'm no cowboy, but I'm pretty sure horses and donkeys need to be broken in order to be ridden. They won't let just anyone ride on their back the first time they try. I may be reading more into this than is really there, but this simple thing, to me, shows an aspect of the Lordship of Jesus, the fact that he could simply get on this young colt's back and not be thrown off. I believe that if Jesus were here in the flesh, he could walk among a pride of lions in the wild, and they not only would not harm him, they would be rubbing against him with affection and purring like a house cat. The lions would know him and love him. I believe this unbroken colt let Jesus ride him because he recognized him for who he was and trusted him. Do we have that kind of simple trust in Jesus, that we'll let him do what he wants with us just because we know and love him?

⁷When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. ⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. ⁹Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
"Hosanna!^[a]"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"^[b]
¹⁰"Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!"
"Hosanna in the highest!" (Mark 11:7-10, NIV)

The crowd also seemed to be aware of the prophecy they were fulfilling, and played their part. They were quoting scripture. They knew that "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" is from Psalm 118:26, and that it refers to the Messiah. They were recognizing his kingship. If you click on footnote ^[a] you'll see the word "Hosanna" means "save". By shouting "Hosanna", some are probably saying, "Save us from the Romans". But all of their actions, from laying down palm branches and their coats to pave his way to shouting praises that each of them knew were intended to address the Messiah, show that they believed that Jesus was the Messiah, entering Jerusalem to save them.

¹⁶At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.

¹⁷Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. ¹⁸Many people, because they had heard that he had given this miraculous sign, went out to meet him. ¹⁹So the Pharisees said to one another, "See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!" (John 12:16-19, NIV)

Ever notice how often the disciples who wrote these books talk about how little they understood at the time? It just shows they were regular people like us. They too, looked back and thought, "How could I have been so stupid?" The Pharisees could see the writing on the wall. They could see that their plot to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus was not going to work, but they also knew that if they didn't do something fast, this Jesus movement would get out of control.

¹¹Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mark 11:11)

Malachi 3:1-3 describes how the Messiah will come to the Temple, but questions whether the Temple will be able to endure his coming. Of course, we know that less than a generation after this, the Temple was destroyed. After Jesus entered Jerusalem, he went directly to the Temple. Verse 11 says he looked around at everything, as if surveying the situation. He knew that he was going to cleanse the Temple, and it seems to me he was either looking the Temple over first as a means of fulfilling prophecy, or he came to the Temple first intending to cleanse the Temple then, but decided to wait because it was too late in the day. Maybe the money changers had gone home for the day, so Jesus decided to come back when they were there. Whichever it was, Jesus was fulfilling prophecy each step of the way now. This would be the last week of his natural life, and he made the most of it.

Luke 18:1-8

2010-03-27T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Parable of the Persistent Widow

¹Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

This is the only parable I know of where the meaning of the parable is given before it starts. We know ahead of time that the parable is meant to teach us to keep on praying and never give up. It's easy to get thrown by the fact that God is represented by an unjust judge in this parable, but we just have to keep in mind that we've been told from the start what the parable is trying to teach us.

²He said: "In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. ³And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, 'Grant me justice against my adversary.'

⁴"For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, 'Even though I don't fear God or care about men, ⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won't eventually wear me out with her coming!' "

This was a scenario that was probably very familiar to Jesus' listeners. Widows had a terrible time in that society. They had no legal rights to their husband's estate, and were often reduced to begging. If they had grown children, they often were taken care of, but if they had young children or no children, they were on their own. I imagine that this was the nature of the widow's request. Her husband had died, and his relatives would not let her live in her husband's house. She was out on the street. She was powerless, but she had one thing going for her; persistence. The judge, on the other hand, would also have been a familiar character to people of Jesus' time. A judge who neither feared God or cared about men would have been corrupt. Perhaps he was used to receiving bribes to rule in someone's favor. Maybe he was even in the pocket of the family that the widow wanted justice against. A powerful man against the most powerless in that society, a widow.

Jesus had a special concern for widows and orphans. After all, most biblical scholars believe that Joseph died when Jesus was a teenager. That made his mother, Mary, a widow, and he and his siblings orphans. And even though taking care of widows and orphans was a big concern for Jesus, that wasn't the point of this parable. The point Jesus was making was that the judge finally granted the widow justice because of her persistence. It seems like Jesus may be saying that God is like the unjust judge, and will only answer our prayers if we hound him like the widow hounded the judge. But that's not what he's saying at all.

⁶And the Lord said, "Listen to what the unjust judge says. ⁷And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? ⁸I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Jesus is saying that if even an unjust, corrupt judge will bring about justice for a lowly widow if she is persistent, how much more will a just and loving God bring about justice for those who continually come to him in prayer? I don't think Jesus is talking about granting prayer requests here. He's talking about bring about justice against our adversary. Who is our adversary? The devil, of course. There are times in our lives when it seems like the devil is winning. It surely must have seemed that way to the followers of Jesus during his coming trial and execution. But God swiftly brought about the defeat of our adversary at the resurrection, which we will celebrate a week from tomorrow.

Just before this parable, Jesus had been teaching about the coming of the kingdom of God. He ties that into the conclusion of this parable. When he returns, will he find a people with enough faith to persistently seek him? Will he find people who keep on praying, and never give up? He will grant us justice against our adversary. He has already defeated him on the cross.

Jesus also taught about persistence in Luke 11:5-13. See my post on that passage here. In that illustration, Jesus taught about persistence in bringing requests to God in prayer. But here, I believe he is talking about always praying and never giving up in order to gain victory over the enemy. We will never have victory over Satan without a consistent prayer life. It's not that God will only do something if we keep bugging him. It's that praying without ceasing changes us. The more we pray, the more we come to care about what God cares about. If we always pray and never give up, he will swiftly give us victory over our adversary.

In celebration of Holy Week, starting tomorrow, I will be updating and reposting some of my past blogs on Christ's passion from the books of Mark and John. I hope they are an encouragement to you. After Easter, I will continue in Luke from where I left off.

Luke 17:20-37

2010-03-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

The Coming of the Kingdom of God

²⁰Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, ²¹nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within^[b] you."

There are different interpretations of this exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees. Some say the word that's translated careful observation really means hostile examination, so they say the Pharisees were pressing Jesus to tell them when this kingdom he was talking about was coming. By that interpretation, Jesus' reply to them is that the kingdom of God would not come because of their hostile examination of him. The other view I've heard is that the word Jesus used is correctly translated careful observation, and so Jesus is saying the kingdom will not come because you spend all of your time watching for it. This should be a lesson for those who devote a lot of energy to End Times theories. Every era for the last 2000 years has had their idea of what the second coming of Christ would look like. Every interpretation so far has been wrong (including the apostles' belief that Jesus would return in their lifetimes), and we shouldn't be so arrogant that we can't accept that our theory might be wrong too.

All of the scholarship I've seen says that Jesus' statement that "the kingdom of God is within you" is more correctly translated "among you", or "in your midst." Some have taught that "the kingdom of God is within you" means that Jesus is saying the kingdom is present in everyone in some New Age sense. But look at who he was saying it to. He said this to the Pharisees, not to his followers. It's doubtful that Jesus was telling the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was within them. Instead, he was saying that the kingdom of God was in their midst, in the person and work of Jesus himself. The kingdom of God began with Jesus, his disciples, and the early church. The Church of Jesus Christ is the kingdom of God. Not any one denomination or building, but the Church Triumphant. Ultimately, of course, Jesus will rule an earthly kingdom from David's throne, but the kingdom began with Jesus and with those who believe.

²²Then he said to his disciples, "The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. ²³Men will tell you, 'There he is!' or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. ²⁴For the Son of Man in his day^[c]will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. ²⁵But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

This is a confusing passage to me. But then, all prophecy is! For one thing, Jesus talks about both the "day" of the Son of Man and the "days" of the Son of Man. Then he says his coming will be like a flash of lightning. In later verses, he also seems to describe an instantaneous event, but then says we should not go back for anything. But if it's instantaneous, there won't be time to do anything. When lightning strikes, is there time to go and pack a bag?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I think Jesus is making a couple of points with this passage. First, he's warning his disciples of the time that will soon come when they would no longer have him with them. They will be looking for his return, and may be tempted to follow false messiahs that did spring up after Jesus ascended. He said pretty much the same thing to them later, in Luke 21:8, so this must have been a concern for him. I think he was saying that his coming will be obvious to everyone like a flash of lightning is, so they should not be fooled by someone who says that he has returned. Many have been fooled by false messiahs since the time of Jesus and his disciples. Even Charles Manson said he was Jesus Christ! Don't be fooled. When Jesus returns, no one will be able to deny it.

The other point he's making here is that in order for the kingdom to come, he first had to suffer and die. This would have seemed like a contradiction to the disciples. How could he be king if he died? After his resurrection and especially after Pentecost, they understood what he meant.

²⁶"Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. ²⁷People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸"It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. ²⁹But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

³⁰"It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. ³¹On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. ³²Remember Lot's wife! ³³Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. ³⁴I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. ³⁵Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left."^[d]

I dislike trying to interpret End Times prophecy. It's impossible to read it with an objective eye and not have my view colored by the theories I've heard since high school. I think some passages that have been taught as prophecy of the "Last Days" are not that at all. But all the scholarship I've seen holds that Jesus is talking about his second coming in these passages. My confusion over whether Jesus is describing an instantaneous event or a process, a day or days, continues in these passages. Many believe these verses refer to the Rapture, but I'm not sure that's true. The Rapture is a relatively recent idea in Christianity, and the Bible never uses that term.

I believe that the examples of Noah's flood and Sodom that Jesus uses here are meant to teach that when the time comes, it will be business as usual on earth. People will be going about their daily lives when destruction comes upon them. But Noah's flood was not an instantaneous event. It just started raining and didn't stop for 40 days. The destruction of Sodom probably happened pretty fast, but there's no reason to believe it happened instantly, like the Rapture is supposed to. And at the Rapture, it is supposed, those who are left are not destroyed, merely "left behind." Also, if Jesus is talking about an instantaneous event, what's the point of saying someone on the roof or in the field shouldn't go back for anything? There wouldn't be time anyway, would there?

What Jesus says in verse 33 he also says in Matthew 10:39 and 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24 and John 12:25. Each time he says this, it's in the context of telling his disciples about his coming suffering and death. He is telling them each time not to hang on to their own lives, but to give up their lives for the sake of his kingdom. This is also the point of the reference to Lot's wife and his exhortation not to go back for anything on the day of the Son of Man. That lesson applies to all of us. Anything Jesus said that many times is something we must really pay attention to. Regardless of our view of the end times, when we commit our lives to Jesus, in a sense, the day of the Son of Man has come for us. We can't look back, or try to hang on to our old lives. No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:62)

Verse 35 is especially regarded as a reference to the Rapture. I have no other explanation for it, but I still doubt that the Bible really teaches the Rapture as a separate event from the Second Coming. The idea of the Rapture was not taught in Christianity until the 1700's and was not popularized until the 1800's. If this is one of the essential doctrines of Christianity, why did Christians not believe in this concept before then? I think to take that one verse that way is to take it out of context with the rest of what Jesus is saying. Jesus is talking about the kingdom of God, and the day that the Son of Man is revealed. The Son of Man will be revealed to all at his second coming. It will be obvious to all, like a flash of lightning. To me, Jesus is talking about his second coming, and if verse 35 is about the Rapture, then the Rapture and the second coming must be the same event, as most Christians believed before Hal Lindsay wrote The Late Great Planet Earth in the 1970's.

The Pharisees asked him when the kingdom of God would come. Jesus told his disciples he must suffer and be rejected by their generation first. Both the Pharisees and Jesus' disciples expected that when the Messiah came, he would free Israel and rule a righteous kingdom. That was the picture of the kingdom of God that they had in their heads. It seems to me that Jesus is basically telling his disciples, "The kingdom you're expecting will happen, but first I have to die. My kingdom will start as a spiritual kingdom. When I do come again to reign in the flesh, it will happen something like this."

³⁷"Where, Lord?" they asked.
He replied, "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather."

Rather than asking when or how, the disciples ask, "Where, Lord?", which I take to mean "where were they taken?" Jesus' reply is hard to understand. Perhaps this was a common saying at the time whose implication was apparent to the disciples, but not to us. When vultures circle a carcass, they can be seen for miles around, and it's obvious to everyone who sees them that there is a dead body in the area. Maybe this is another way of saying that when Jesus returns, it will be obvious to all.

Jesus was trying to prepare his disciples for his suffering and death, and for the persecution they would suffer after he was gone. His main message here, to me, is not to be fooled by false messiahs or various end times scenarios, but to give up our lives for his sake, and be about his business.

Luke 17:11-19

2010-03-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

Ten Healed of Leprosy

¹¹Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹²As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy^[a]met him. They stood at a distance ¹³and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

Since lepers were unclean outcasts, they would often hang together in groups. Since they couldn't go near anyone else, their only company was other lepers. As we see later in the story, at least one of the lepers was a Samaritan. The implication is that not all of them were. Jews and Samaritans of that time despised and avoided each other, but this mixed group of Jews and Samaritans stayed together because of their common illness. It's amazing how our ideological differences become less important when we face a common adversity.

Lepers were supposed to cry out "Unclean!" when anyone walked by so that people would not come into contact with them and be made unclean themselves (Leviticus 13:45-46). And lepers were permanently ceremonially unclean, which meant that they could never participate in Israel's worship. They could not be saved. Leprosy not only affected them physically, but spiritually as well. When these ten lepers saw Jesus coming, they kept their distance like they were supposed to, but they didn't cry "Unclean!" Instead, they called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" This was another common plea of lepers and other beggars. Lepers relied on the pity of others for all the necessities of life. They recognized Jesus, and knowing him to be a man of compassion, asked him to take pity on them. They didn't specifically ask to be healed. But Jesus showed them more than pity. He gave them their lives back.

¹⁴When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed.

When Jesus healed another leper in Luke 5:12-15 (see my post on that passage here), he touched the leper when healing him. But this time, he simply told the group to go show themselves to the priests. When a leper was cleansed, which was extremely rare, there was an elaborate procedure they had to go through over a period of 8 days to be restored to Israel's worship community. The procedure is described in Leviticus 14:2-32. These lepers were not cured yet, but Jesus told them to take a major leap of faith, and go show themselves to the priests anyway. And as they went, they were cleansed. They didn't say to Jesus, "We can't go yet, you have to heal us first!" They did as Jesus told them, and were cleansed on the way. This reminds me of when Israel crossed the Jordan into the promised land in Joshua 3 (blog), when God commanded the priests to step into the Jordan before he stopped the waters. Sometimes God asks us to step out in faith and believe him even when it looks bad. The word believe means to live in accordance with. We demonstrate our faith by what we do (James 2:14-26).

¹⁵One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" ¹⁹Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

At some point along the way, the lepers found themselves healed. Nine of them continued on their way to the priests, but one went all the way back to Jesus to thank him. He praised God in a loud voice. His thanks and praise to God were as loud as his cry for mercy had been. Is our gratitude to God as loud as our many requests are? Jesus was obviously bothered by the fact that only one had returned to thank him, but the ones who did not may well have thought they were simply doing what Jesus told them to do, go and show themselves to the priests. We can't get too busy to stop and thank God for what he's done for us, even when we're doing his work. The one who returned threw himself at Jesus' feet. After all he has done for us, the only appropriate response is to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus in gratitude and praise. Jesus told the man, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well." The word that the NIV translates well can also be translated saved. We can be healed through faith, but more importantly, we are saved through faith.

Luke 17:1-10

2010-03-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sin, Faith, Duty

¹Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. ²It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. ³So watch yourselves.

This is a serious issue that is ignored by many Christians. There may be things that are fine for a mature Christian to do that would be a major stumbling block for a new Christian. We need to be very careful about putting a new Christian in a situation where they could be drawn back into their old life. There are also cases where new Christians are drawn by some in the church into their petty squabbles and divisions. If someone is newly saved in our church, what kind of image of Christianity do they get from us? What do they observe from our behavior and attitudes? How many times have people rejected Christianity after being disillusioned by the actions of Christians? Jesus took this very seriously, as this passage shows. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. ⁴If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."

The issue of forgiveness is another one that is not stressed enough in the church. See my other posts on the issue of forgiveness here. One difference in Jesus' teaching here from other places I've blogged on so far is his stipulation that we must forgive our brother if he repents. Does that mean we withhold forgiveness until then? I don't think so. What if the person you need to forgive is no longer alive? The key is to forgive them in our hearts. That means we no longer hold their sin against them. Some would say that God does not forgive us until we repent, but I don't believe that's true. It's not that he doesn't forgive us until we repent, it's that we can't receive his forgiveness until we repent. If your brother or sister who sinned against you never repents, you must still let it go and forgive him in your heart. You can't continue to hold it against him or her until they come around, or bitterness will take hold and destroy you from the inside. On the cross, Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." (Luke 23:24) Those who crucified him never repented, but he forgave them anyway. But they never received the benefit of his forgiveness, because they did not repent.

I admit I have a hard time with the idea of rebuking someone who sins. I don't think Jesus is saying if you hear someone swear, you should walk up and rebuke them. He's talking about someone who sins against you, as he says in verse 4. Let God take care of sins against him. And I don't think he's talking about petty slights and getting your feelings hurt. He's talking about serious sins, like if someone steals from you, or tells lies about you, or some other major offense. All rebuking must be done in love, however. Love must rule over all of this. Love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Cor 13:5). If someone sins against us, we can't just pretend it never happened, and we can't keep it bottled up inside. But we can't blow up at the guilty party either. We must speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15).

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"

⁶He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

In the parable of the mustard seed (Luke 13:18-21, blog, Mark 4:30-32, blog), Jesus compared the kingdom of God to a mustard seed. The kingdom of God is built on faith. It started small like a mustard seed, and like a weed (which the mustard plant was in that culture) it grew and spread. By the same token, if we start with faith as small as a mustard seed, the longer we walk with Jesus, the more it will grow like the mustard plant. That kind of faith can overcome any obstacle.

⁷"Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? ⁸Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? ⁹Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? ¹⁰So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' "

We are the servants in this illustration. We shouldn't think we're getting brownie points in Heaven for all the ministries we're involved in. When we realize all God has done for us, there is no way we can repay that debt. As the song says, the whole realm of nature would be a present far too small. Even when we dedicate our entire lives to Jesus, we are only doing our duty.

Luke 16:19-31

2010-03-23T12:13:00.001-07:00

The Rich Man and Lazarus

¹⁹"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

There is a lot of debate about what the meaning of this parable is. Some even say it's not a parable at all, but a true story that Jesus told from before he came to earth. Those who believe that cite the fact that Jesus does not start by saying it's a parable, and Lazarus is named, and nobody in the parables of Jesus is named, so he must be telling a true story. Others say Jesus was drawing upon a popular Jewish folk tale about a rich man and poor man whose lots after death are completely reversed. This story is certainly intended to convey a spiritual lesson, and it appears to be the end of the conversation that began at the beginning of chapter 15, when the Pharisees accused Jesus of eating with sinners. I think this story needs to be taken in that context.

The story begins with a description of the two characters. The rich man was very rich, and Lazarus was destitute. It's notable that Lazarus lay begging at the gate of the rich man's estate. The rich man could have helped him at any time, but ignored him. Lazarus longed to eat the scraps from the rich man's table, but the rich man never gave him anything. The dogs licking his sores show just how destitute and helpless he was. Dogs in Jesus' time were not the beloved pets they are today. They were feral scavengers, and were considered unclean.

²²"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³In hell,^[c] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

²⁵"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. ²⁶And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

Many teach that this is a depiction of Heaven and hell, but "Abraham's bosom" in this story and the descriptions of Heaven in the Book of Revelation are very different. Also, the word that is translated hell in the NIV and other translations is actually hades, the place where they thought the dead awaited the final resurrection. The Jewish term for hell in Jesus' time was Gehenna, not hades. Hades in Greek was the equivalent of Sheol in Hebrew, the place of the dead. Does this mean that Jesus was teaching some sort of Purgatory? I don't believe so. I think he was telling a story using common beliefs of the time to make a point.

When Lazarus dies, he is taken straight to be with Abraham, "into Abraham's bosom". This seems to be a reference to the practice of leaning against the chest of the person to your left when reclining at the dinner table, as John reclined against Jesus at the Last Supper (John 13:23-25). The rich man is buried (Lazarus is not even given a burial) and ends up in hades, where he experiences torment. The rich man and Lazarus can see each other and even communicate, which to me is another indication that this story is not talking about Heaven and hell as we understand them. Could anyone truly enjoy Heaven if you could observe your loved ones being tormented in hell, and even communicate with them, but do nothing to help them? Plus, the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his tongue with one drop of water. Would one drop of water make any difference in the lake of fire?

One remarkable thing is that, even given their reversal of roles, the rich man still sees Lazarus as an inferior. He wants Lazarus to bring him a drink! At first, Abraham's reply in verse 25 made me think that this story might be an illustration of the principles Jesus laid out in the blessings and woes in 6:20-26. See my post on that passage here. I do think that principle is valid, and that those who are rich and well fed in this life will have less reward in the next than those who are poor and suffering, because as Jesus said in chapter 6, and as Abraham tells the rich man, we have already received our comfort. But I don't think that's the ultimate message of this story, parable or not. Certainly we can't conclude that Jesus is teaching that there's anything wrong with riches. Abraham was far richer than the rich man in this story. The rich man's problem wasn't that he was rich, but that he did nothing to help the beggar outside his door.

²⁷"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, ²⁸for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

²⁹"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

³⁰" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

³¹"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

Here it becomes clear who this story is aimed at. It's aimed at the Pharisees in particular, and Israel in general. One clue is that the rich man had five brothers. That seems an unnecessary detail until you realize that Judah had five full-blooded brothers, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, and Zebulun (Gen. 35:23). The remnant of Israel that survived to Jesus' time was mostly from the tribe of Judah. The kingdom of Judah more closely adhered to the covenant during the divided kingdom, and of course, the Messiah was to come from the tribe of Judah. Judah was the "central" tribe of Israel, and still is. This was a reference that would have been picked up on by the Pharisees, who were very proud of their heritage.

I think the main message of the story is this. The rich man represented Israel, who had Moses and the prophets. Most of Israel still did not believe even when Jesus was raised from the dead, like the brothers in the story would not. Israel had the riches of God's blessing and his covenant, but instead of being a "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:5-6) that was a blessing to all nations, they despised the surrounding Gentile peoples. Lazarus represented the unclean Gentiles outside of Israel who were referred to as dogs, even by Jesus himself (Mark 7:24-30). The unclean Gentiles were about to welcomed into "the bosom of Abraham" as the partakers of the new covenant because of their belief in Jesus, whereas those in Israel who rejected Jesus would not (Matt. 8:10-12). Of course, Gentiles who reject Jesus suffer the same fate as Jews who reject him, but Jesus, the ultimate righteous Jew, is talking to Jews here.

What do we make of the torment and flame described in this story? If the rich man represents Israel, what has happened to the Jews since their rejection of Jesus? Their nation was destroyed in 70 A.D. They were scattered and have been subject to persecution and attempts at extermination. I think that may be the torment this story refers to. Whenever we read the teachings of Jesus, or the epistles in the New Testament for that matter, it's important to be aware of who is being spoken to in order to discern the meaning of what is said. Jesus was speaking to three groups all through chapters 15 and 16. He was teaching the sinners and tax collectors who came to hear him (15:1), the Pharisees who accused him and sneered at him (15:2, 16:14) and his disciples (16:1). The sinners and outcasts who came to hear Jesus teach would have related to Lazarus very well, and the Pharisees would have known that the rich man represented them. They would not even teach the word of God to those they considered unclean, as the rich man would not help Lazarus. The disciples, because of their belief in Jesus, would be rejected by the Jewish leaders like the outcasts represented by Lazarus. But unlike the Pharisees and the rich man, they would share the spiritual riches they received with the unclean Gentiles, and be partakers of the new covenant along with all those who believe.

So what's the message for us? We who believe in Jesus, as his body, have the riches of salvation and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If we fail to share those riches with those in need of them, our fate will more closely resemble the rich man's than the fate of Lazarus.

Luke 16:16-18

2010-03-22T09:37:00.001-07:00

¹⁶ “Until John the Baptist, the law of Moses and the messages of the prophets were your guides. But now the Good News of the Kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is eager to get in.^[d] ¹⁷ But that doesn’t mean that the law has lost its force. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the smallest point of God’s law to be overturned. (NLB)

The Pharisees were very concerned about strict adherence to the law, and to the many rules they had added to the law. They thought this made them more righteous than everyone else. Jesus exposed their hypocrisy, showing them that even though they followed all of these rules and traditions, they still loved money, rule keeping, and prestige more than people and God. They had forgotten love, mercy, and justice, which are at the heart of the law. In this very brief teaching, Jesus explained to them how the era of the law of Moses was giving way to a new paradigm, the kingdom of God. The dividing line between the old paradigm and the new was John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus preached the good news of the kingdom of God, the Gospel. In the kingdom of God, things would be different.

There are conflicting translations of the second part of verse 16. The NIV translates it, "Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it." The Amplified Bible says, "since then the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone strives violently to go in [would force his ^[l]own way rather than God's way into it]." Most versions translate this part of verse 16 that way. But the New Living Bible translates it as above, "and everyone is eager to get in" or "everyone is urged to enter in." The difference is in how the Greek word biazo, which means "to apply force" is translated. It can be translated that force is applied by everyone, or that force is applied to everyone. Most versions accept the former translation, but the NLB uses the latter. I prefer the New Living translation, because it seems more true to me. The problem with translating it the other way is that it's simply not true that everyone is trying to force their way into the kingdom of God. Many reject the Kingdom altogether. But it is true that through the preaching of the Gospel, everyone is urged to go in. The law excluded all of those who were not Jews. But in the kingdom of God, all are urged to go in. I think that's what Jesus is really saying in that verse.

Jesus did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). The law and the prophets all pointed to this moment, when the kingdom of God would be introduced. But does verse 17 mean that the laws of the Old Testament must still be followed? Look at what Jesus actually said in verse 17. "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the smallest point of God’s law to be overturned." The NIV says, "It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law." The New King James says, "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail." First, the law didn't fail, it was fulfilled. Second, heaven and earth will pass away, so Jesus isn't saying that it's impossible for a new paradigm to supersede the law. Just that only God can do it, as only he can make heaven and earth pass away.

We know that sacrifices for sin are no longer required because of the sacrifice of Jesus. He fulfilled that part of the law, making further sacrifices unnecessary (Hebrews 7:27). That part of the law did not fail, it was not overturned, and it did not disappear. It was fulfilled. Other laws that have been superseded by the kingdom of God and the new covenant are laws whose purpose was to identify a person as Jewish as opposed to Gentile, like circumcision and concern about clean foods. These are no longer necessary (Acts 10--11, 15), because in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile (Gal. 3:28, Col. 3:11). To me, these are good principles to keep in mind when reading the Old Testament and trying to figure out which laws still apply to Christians and which don't.

To this day, there is a tension between law and grace. I think a lot of it comes down to personality. Some people are more comfortable with law and some are more comfortable with grace. But there is danger in both schools of thought. For those who love rule keeping, it's easy to become legalistic and judgmental of others like the Pharisees. For those who prefer grace, it's easy to discard all rules and think they can live however they want, because they're not under law, but grace. During my lifetime, I have seen the church in America swing from one extreme to the other. It's interesting to me that in the space of two verses, Jesus depicted the tension between those two opposing views perfectly. In talking to the legalistic Pharisees, he started by saying that the law and prophets were the standard until John the Baptist, and in the next breath says that it's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one small part of the law to fail. And so the struggle to find a balance between law and grace continues 2,000 years later.

¹⁸ “For example, a man who divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery. And anyone who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.”

Here was an example of how the Pharisees had perverted the law. They were very strict about keeping their rules and the law of Moses, but they took the most liberal view of divorce. They thought it was OK to divorce their wife if she burned a meal, or they found someone prettier. Jesus used this as a way of pointing out a law of God which still was in effect, but that they were not keeping. Jesus taught much more about marriage and divorce in Mark 10:1-12. See my post on that passage here. Remember that this whole conversation started when the Pharisees in 15:2 accused Jesus of associating with sinners, which in their eyes, made him a sinner. But they were the ones who were committing adultery with their attitude toward marriage and divorce. Take the plank out of your own eye before you try to take the speck out of someone else's eye (Luke 6:41-42).

Luke 16:1-15

2010-03-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

The Parable of the Shrewd Manager

¹Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. ²So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.'

³"The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— ⁴I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.'

⁵"So he called in each one of his master's debtors. He asked the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'

⁶" 'Eight hundred gallons^[a] of olive oil,' he replied.
"The manager told him, 'Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it four hundred.'

⁷"Then he asked the second, 'And how much do you owe?'
" 'A thousand bushels^[b] of wheat,' he replied.
"He told him, 'Take your bill and make it eight hundred.'

⁸"The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. ⁹I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

This is parable I have never understood, to be honest. In my research on it, I've discovered I'm not alone in that. Why is Jesus using the example of a dishonest person to illustrate how his disciples should act? After some study, I think Jesus is again teaching about laying up treasures in Heaven, as he did in chapter 12.

Under Mosaic law, Jews could not charge interest when they loaned each other money (Deut. 23:19). So many merchants would get around that by overcharging for goods and services purchased on credit in lieu of charging interest. That still happens today. The 0% financing you get when you buy a car isn't really 0%. The interest the bank would have made on the loan is added to the price of the car. Maybe that was the kind of mismanagement the manager was guilty of. So when he called the debtors in and reduced their debt, maybe he was giving back what he had overcharged them, and his boss commended him for that.

Another thing to remember is that the manager was acting on behalf of his master. So when he called the debtors in and reduced their debt, he was making his master look generous. The debtors would have thought he had his master's authorization to do that. So the master could either expose the manger for exceeding his authority and appear selfish and greedy, or he could let the manager's actions stand and look generous and benevolent. The manager was shrewd indeed! By doing this, the manager made friends who might help him in his time of need later, and maybe even save his job.

In verse 9, Jesus makes the point that we should be as shrewd in dealing with other believers as people in the secular business world are in their dealings, particularly in regard to how we use our money. Some think that Jesus is telling us to make wise investments, not go into debt, and be honest in our financial affairs. Those are all good things, but the specific command in regard to money Jesus gives in verse 9 is to use worldly wealth to gain friends like the shrewd manager did. We lay up treasures in heaven by using what wealth we have to benefit others.

¹⁰"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. ¹¹So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? ¹²And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

The way we handle our money gives a clear indication of where our priorities lie. If we say we love God, but are stingy in our giving to the church and to others, what does that say about where our heart is? What would we think of a husband who told his wife, "I love you honey, but I'm not giving you any of my money?" If we think we want greater responsibility in the Kingdom, and more opportunities for ministry, and wonder why those things aren't working out for us, maybe we need to look at our financial affairs. The #1 cause of divorce in America is not infidelity or "irreconcilable differences", it's money. If a husband or wife has bank accounts or credit cards that the other doesn't know about, that spells trouble for a marriage. We must be financially accountable to our spouses for a marriage to work. That's also true in our relationship with God. Our finances must be given over to him, and handled in a way that pleases him. That means no "off the books" money, by the way. All income must be tithed upon.

¹³"No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

¹⁴The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. ¹⁵He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight.

If my assumption regarding the manager overcharging is correct, he started out by serving money, and his master was going to fire him. But when he corrected his previous behavior and made restitution, he was serving his master, and his master commended him. If we focus on how much we get rather than what we can do for others, we are not serving God, we're serving Mammon. I quote here from David Guzik's commentary:

Many people would say they love God, but their service of money shows that in fact they do not. How can we tell Who or what we are serving? One way is by remembering this principle: you will sacrifice for your God. If you will sacrifice for the sake of money, but will not sacrifice for the sake of Jesus, don't deceive yourself: money is your God.

The Pharisees loved money, and they were also the ones in the previous chapter who criticized Jesus for associating with sinners. They thought they were so righteous because of all the rules they kept, but in their hearts they were more interested in money and appearances than in others. What is our attitude toward our money? Do we consider it ours, and we'll throw some in the offering plate if it doesn't hurt too much? Or does everything we have belong to God, so we need to be good managers of what he's entrusted to us? God knows our hearts, but our hearts are revealed by how we handle our money.

Luke 15:11-31

2010-03-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Parable of the Lost Son

¹¹Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. ¹²The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

Jesus concludes his reply to the charge that he associates with sinners with his most familiar parable of all, the parable of the lost son. According to custom, if a man had two sons, the older son got two thirds of the estate, and the younger got one third. The impression we get from this parable is that the father is wealthy, since he has property, flocks, and servants. So the younger son would have received a substantial amount, enough to start out on his own. Surely the father knows his younger son's nature. He knows that his son will not use his inheritance to start a new business in another town and build his own estate. He knows that instead, his younger son will waste his inheritance, but he gives it to him anyway. He knows that his son is asking for this out of rebellion, but he lets him go his way and make his own mistakes. Many parents know the pain of having to let their child do just that.

I have always thought of this parable in terms of the actions and attitudes of the two brothers, but in context with the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep, and given that Jesus is replying to the Pharisees about God's desire to seek and save the lost, I'm now more focused on the father's attitude in this parable. The father represents God, of course. Like the father in the parable, our heavenly Father is rich beyond measure. And like the father in the parable, he gives to us freely, and even allows us to rebel against him using the gifts he gave us.

¹³"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

Here we see what happens when we rebel against God. We may start out having a good time, but the story never has a happy ending. When he got to the far off country (think Babylon, far off but close enough to make the journey, with a decadent pagan culture), the younger son started out as the life of the party. He had lots of money, and spent it freely. When you do that, everybody's your friend. But then the money ran out, and his friends deserted him. I'm reminded of the bridge to the old blues song, "God Bless The Child" by Billie Holiday. The words go like this:

And when you've got money, you've got lots of friends

Crowding 'round your door

But when the money's gone, and all your spending ends

They won't be 'round anymore

The only work the younger son could find was feeding pigs, which would have been the most degrading work a Jew could stoop to. And the pigs were eating better than he was! But then he came to his senses.

¹⁷"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' ²⁰So he got up and went to his father.

The younger son was a hired servant working for a man who wouldn't even give him anything to eat. He realized how much better his father's servants had it than he had, and more importantly, how much better of a master his father was than the man he was working for. Sometimes, especially when we're young, we think God's rules are restrictive, and we want the freedom to do whatever we want. But ultimately, none of us gets to be our own master. As Bob Dylan once said, you gotta serve somebody. And when we rebel against God, we eventually discover that God is a much better master than the devil is.

I don't think the younger son's thought that he would ask his father to hire him as a servant was an empty offer. He meant it. When he asked for his inheritance, he forfeited his rights as a son. His only thought was, if he had to be a servant, he'd be better off serving his father. If you gotta serve somebody, it may as well be your heavenly Father who loves you.

But we can't come back to God with demands. We have to come back in humility, confessing what we've done wrong like the son did. The son didn't blame anyone else for what had happened to him. He took responsibility for his sin. This is what Jesus meant when he talked about repentance earlier in this chapter. In fact, this whole part of the parable is a picture of repentance. The son didn't just say he was sorry and keep on feeding the pigs. He came to his senses and returned to his father. He did a complete 180 degree turn, with abhorrence for his past sins.

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.^[b]'

²²"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

All the time his younger son was gone, his father never gave up on him. He kept watching for him, saw him a long way off, and ran to meet him. If that's not a picture of God, I don't know what is. I like the fact that in verse 21, even though some early manuscripts add the phrase "Make me like one of your hired men", all three translations I use leave it out. I can just picture the son rehearsing this speech all the way back, but when he finally got back, his father wouldn't even let him finish it! Instead, he immediately started the celebration.

The Amplified Bible calls the "best robe" in verse 22 the festive robe of honor. This was an image that had resonance for that culture, like when Pharaoh honored Joseph in Genesis 41:41-42. It also recalls Zechariah 3:3-5, when Joshua the high priest had his filthy clothes replaced by rich garments to symbolize his sin being taken away. The ring would have been a family ring to show that he belonged to the family again. The son had fallen so far that he walked all the way home barefoot, so his father gave him sandals for his feet. The father didn't say to his servants, "Very well, take this man to the servant's quarters and give him work to do." He said, "This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found." The robe, the ring, the sandals and his words all restored his son to his previous status. The son was no longer worthy to be called his father's son, and in our sin and rebellion, we are no longer worthy to be called God's children. But God will restore us like the father did in this parable if we will return to him in full repentance and humility the way the younger son did.

²⁵"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'

²⁸"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'

³¹" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

Here is where the Pharisees come into the story, and I'm sure they realized it. The Pharisees were objecting to the fact that Jesus welcomed sinners and even ate with them just like the older brother objected to the celebration at his brother's return. One of the things the older brother may have been upset about was that if his younger brother was restored, that might mean the younger brother would be owed another inheritance, which would come out of his share. Have you ever been upset because someone at church got a ministry opportunity you felt you should have had? We've all been there, but if that's our attitude, we're like the elder brother.

But I keep coming back to the father's attitude. He gave the younger brother his inheritance out of love, and restored him when he returned out of love. He also went out to plead with his firstborn, and every word out of his mouth is spoken in love. Everything he says and does is out of love for his sons, and everything God says and does is out of love for us.

All three of these parables illustrate how God seeks to save us when we are lost, and how he rejoices when we are found. The parables of the lost sheep and lost coin show the effort to which God has gone to seek us out, but only the parable of the lost son shows how the responsibility of coming back to him, of repentance, is on us. Some are troubled by this, those who believe there is nothing we can do to be saved. They are more comfortable with the first two parables. Though it's true that we cannot save ourselves through our own efforts, some action on our part is required for salvation, namely repentance. When does celebration erupt in Heaven? When a sinner repents. A sheep can't repent, and neither can a coin. But we can, and we must.

Luke 15:8-10

2010-03-18T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Parable of the Lost Coin

⁸"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins^[a] and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' ¹⁰In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

For many, the parable of the lost coin is the one that most accurately depicts our situation in relation to God and salvation, because the coin is totally incapable of doing anything to help itself. The lost sheep can bleat, and the lost son can come to his senses and return, but the coin can do nothing. There was nothing we could do to save ourselves without God first taking the initiative to seek us out.

The coin that Jesus refers to is a silver drachma, which equaled about one days wages at that time. To calculate how much that would be worth for you, divide your annual income by 365. The average yearly household income in America today is about $50,000. That would make one day's wages $191.57, assuming that "average American household" works 5 days a week. If you lost a check worth that much money, how hard would to try to find it?

Also, why did Jesus make it a woman searching for the lost coin, rather than a man? Another theory about the coin I've read is that it's possible Jesus was referring to one of several silver coins that were worn on a chain around a woman's head in Jesus' time to mark her as a married woman. If that's the case, losing one of those coins would be like a woman in modern Western culture losing her wedding ring. Neither my wife or I have ever lost our wedding rings, thank the Lord, but we know people who have. How sick would you be over that, and how much effort would you put into finding your wedding ring if you lost it? And how much joy and relief would you feel after finding it again? That's a pale shadow of the joy God feels when we repent. His joy at our salvation is greater than ours would be at finding our lost wedding ring, greater than the shepherd's is at finding his lost sheep, and greater than mine was at finding my lost dog (see yesterday's blog).

I am always struck by the Amplified Bible's expansion of the word repent. Check out verses 7 and 10 in the Amplified Bible:

⁷Thus, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one [^[c]especially] wicked person who repents (^[d]changes his mind, abhorring his errors and misdeeds, and determines to enter upon a better course of life) than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.

¹⁰Even so, I tell you, there is joy among and in the presence of the angels of God over one [^[e]especially] wicked person who repents (^[f]changes his mind for the better, heartily amending his ways, with abhorrence of his past sins).

Both of these expansions come from Joseph Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon. To repent means to change our mind for the better, to abhor our past sins, to heartily amend our ways, and to enter upon a better course in life. It's not just a trip to the altar, not just telling God we'll do better. It's doing a 180 degree turn and going in the opposite direction from the way we were headed. A coin can't really do that, but I don't think the coin's helplessness is the point of this parable. God's joy at a sinner's repentance is the point. Jesus is still responding to the charge that he ate with tax collectors and sinners. But because he did that, they were coming to him to hear him teach. The Pharisees, so convinced of their own righteousness, wanted Jesus to act like them and have nothing to do with these unclean people. But God is not impressed with our holiness. Our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). What makes God happy is when we recognize our need of him and repent.

Luke 15:1-7

2010-03-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

¹Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. ²But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

Here Jesus begins the three "lost" parables; the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. All three parables are responses to the accusation, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." The Pharisees considered themselves clean and everyone else unclean. Anyone who did not conform to their strict standards of behavior were considered sinners. Of course, now we know that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), but at that time, Paul's letter to the Romans hadn't been written yet. The Pharisees considered themselves to be righteous. They were so "righteous" that they not only refused to socialize with "sinners", but they would not teach sinners the word of God. The accusation they made against Jesus regarding eating with sinners was, on one level, an understandable one given the culture. When you broke bread with someone in that culture, you were saying, "These are my people." That's part of what made Judas' betrayal of Jesus such outrageous treachery, because he betrayed Jesus after having eaten with him. So because Jesus reclined at the table with sinners, in the eyes of the Pharisees, that made him a sinner as well. And Jesus didn't just associate with people who didn't follow all the rules that the Pharisees did. He ate with tax collectors, who were Roman collaborators and traitors. He ate with the dregs of society.

But what was the result of Jesus doing these things? The tax collectors and "sinners" gathered around to hear him. People will be more likely to want to hear about Jesus from us if we befriend them first. Unfortunately, many Christians have the same attitude as the Pharisees did. How welcoming are we to those who don't look, act or talk like us?

³Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' ⁷I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Having spent my life in the big city, I haven't been around sheep much. But anyone who's seen the movie Babe knows one thing; Sheep are stupid. No animal wanders away from the flock more easily than a sheep. Once they've gone astray, they'll bleat for the flock while running in the opposite direction from the flock. A lost sheep isn't quite as helpless as a lost coin, but it's pretty helpless. Do you know anyone who stupidly wandered away from God, heedless of the harm they were doing to themselves? Have you ever been that person? I have.

The Pharisees had the idea that they were righteous because they diligently sought God and others did not. But Jesus turned that idea around. In this parable, the sheep does not seek out the flock and return to it by its own efforts. The shepherd leaves the rest of the flock to find the one that's lost. God diligently seeks us out while we are still lost.

The joy of the shepherd in finding the lost sheep is profound because it's so obvious. Even the Pharisees could understand that. Many of them probably had a sheep or two, and it would be very expensive to lose one. What they didn't want to hear was the idea that God was more excited about the tax collectors and sinners who were coming to hear Jesus teach than he was with the Pharisees keeping all of their rules. That doesn't mean that God does not take joy in our continued obedience to him, and in our striving to live holy lives. Of course he does. But when a sinner repents, when a lost sheep is found, there's a party in Heaven!

A few years ago, one of our dogs got lost. We had two dogs at the time, a Golden Retriever who was very smart, and a Lab/Border Collie mix who is very dumb. My wife and I were in California for a wedding, and got the word from our house sitter that the Lab had gotten out of the yard and was lost. He's black, and it was at night, so there was no way to find him. He was freaked out and would not come when called, especially by strangers. Needless to say, we were frantic. When we got home the next day, he still had not been found. We searched shelters, put up flyers, and searched the neighborhood calling his name, Ziggy, to no avail. He was lost for 3 days, but managed to stay alive long enough to seek out the smell of food coming from a nearby restaurant. Someone at the restaurant coaxed him with food and water, read his tags and called us.

I can't help but think about that incident when I read this parable. Like the lost sheep, Ziggy was too stupid to simply come home on his own. He was hungry, scared, and completely wigged out. He was not himself. Though we were grateful for the dog who had not run away, we were sick about the one who had, and spent all of our time trying to find him. When we finally did, there was great joy and relief at our house. In the same way, while I was stupidly wandering away from God, he sought me with greater effort and heartbreak than I sought Ziggy. And his joy at finding me was greater than mine was at finding my lost dog.

Luke 14:25-35

2010-03-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

The Cost of Being a Disciple

²⁵Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Large crowds of people were following Jesus around, hearing his words and seeing his miracles, but they were not true disciples the way the Twelve were. They had not left everything to follow Jesus. So Jesus tells the crowd what it takes to go from being a casual observer to being a true disciple. There are lots of casual observers in the church. They may enjoy the music and preaching, and get a warm feeling from being in church, but they are not interested in making a real commitment to Christ. To be a disciple of a rabbi in Jesus' time meant you left everything and devoted your life to following your master, learning to be like him and do the things he did. Here Jesus lays out the cost of going from being a casual observer to being a true disciple.

Jesus' statement in verse 26 has been troubling to many, including me. Is he really saying that in order to be a Christian I have to hate my family? The answer is no. Unfortunately, many people use this verse to say that Christianity preaches hate. But look at how the Amplified Bible translates this verse:

²⁶If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his [own] father and mother [^[g]in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God] and [likewise] his wife and children and brothers and sisters--[yes] and even his own life also--he cannot be My disciple.

Jesus is saying that he must come first, even before our family, our spouses and our own lives. One of the problems with this verse is with the Greek language. The Greek word for hate that's used here is miseo, and it's the same word that Jesus uses later in Luke 16:13, to illustrate the same principle. It's also the same word that appears in the Septuagint (the first five books of the Old Testament translated into Greek) in Genesis 29:30-31 to describe how Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. The KJV translates the word hated while the NIV translates it not loved. Miseo can mean not just hate the way we think of it, but it can also mean simply to love less. Jacob didn't really hate Leah. She did bear him children, so he couldn't have hated her that much! He just loved Rachel more.

In Luke 16:13, Jesus isn't saying we must love one master and hate the other the way it comes across in English. He's saying we can only serve one master. And that's what he's really saying here. Not that we must we must feel hatred toward our families and our own lives, but that we must prefer him over them. We must love Jesus more than we love even our spouses and children, more than we love our own lives. That's what the Twelve had done. They had left their families, businesses and lives in order to follow Jesus and learn to be like him. And if our families don't support us in our faith, if our families are divided over our testimony, it will feel like hate to them when we place Jesus ahead of them in our priorities.

Jesus drives the point home even further in verse 27. A condemned man carrying his cross really was leaving everything behind. He was walking on death row. Everyone Jesus was talking to knew what he meant. They had all seen the procession of condemned men carrying their crosses. Their lives no longer belonged to them. They were naked, not having a single possession of their own anymore. That's the kind of commitment it takes to go from being an observer to being a disciple. When we are a disciple, our lives are no longer our own. Everything we have is no longer ours, but his. The thing is, nothing we have is really ours anyway. It already belongs to God. It all comes from him in the first place. Being a disciple means recognizing that fact, and living that way.

²⁸"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? ²⁹For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'

³¹"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Perhaps there were some in the crowd who thought they wanted to be part of Jesus' "inner circle", but had no clue what would be required. They hadn't "counted the cost." We've probably all had the experience of thinking we want a certain job or responsibility, but when we got it, it wasn't what we thought it would be. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. Jesus always wanted people to understand what it would cost them to be his disciple, especially while he was on his way to Jerusalem to take up his own cross. Salvation is free, but discipleship costs something.

In Luke 9:57-62, there are three examples of men who thought they wanted to follow Jesus, but weren't willing to pay the price. See my post on that passage here. In verse 33, Jesus again says that in order to be his disciple, we have to give up ownership of everything we think we have, whether it's our possessions, our time, our ambitions or the people we love. And even then, our sacrifice does not begin to approach the sacrifice he made for us. If we think we're giving up a lot to follow Jesus, remember that being a disciple means learning to be like our master, learning to do the things he does. What did he do? He sacrificed everything, including himself. He owns everything that is, but he gave it all up, and carried his cross naked, out of love for us. If we want to be his disciples, we must be willing to sacrifice all out of love for him the way he did for us.

³⁴"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Salt fit for the soil or the manure pile? I never knew this before today, but apparently salt can be used as fertilizer. It can be added to manure to make it more effective, or scattered on the ground. It was widely used that way in Jesus' time. Salt is still an ingredient in many chemical fertilizers today. But we're not talking about table salt here. Only the highest grade of salt makes it to the dinner table. Most poorer grades of salt are used in industrial processes. So what did Jesus mean when he talked about salt losing its saltiness? How does that happen? I quote here from JP's Mind, an excellent Christian blog:

In ancient times, salt was rarely pure. During Biblical times, most salt in Israel came from the Dead Sea and was often mixed with impurities, making the salt less salty. There were also conditions in which salt could be leached out or made less effective, through exposure to water, air, excessive sunlight or even other chemicals. The Victor Bible Background Commentary informs us:

“In Israel salt was mined from a great ledge of rock salt lying near the Dead Sea and evaporated from that Sea’s waters. The rock salt deteriorated in high temperatures, and moisture could leach the salt from the rock. Thus this important product could lose its saltiness – and become absolutely worthless.“

I've heard many sermons preached on the whole salt and light concept, but they always focused on other aspects of salt, that it's a preservative, or its seasoning properties, or that it was used as currency. But Jesus didn't say we were the "salt of the meat", he said we were the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13). In verse 35, he didn't say that if we lose our saltiness by being diluted or impure, we were not fit for the dinner table. He said we're not fit for the manure pile! This fits in well with the parable of the sower (blog). God spreads the seed (the Word of God), and peoples' hearts are the soil. We are the salt of the earth, the fertilizer that helps the word grow in the soil of people's hearts. If we allow impurities or diluted faith to make us ineffective, we are worthless to him. I don't much like thinking of myself as fertilizer, but if I am a disciple of Jesus, my job is to help the kingdom to grow. I can't let my walk become diluted or impure. I must put Jesus first, take up my cross and follow him, be like him, and do what he does. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Luke 14:15-24

2010-03-15T10:13:00.001-07:00

The Parable of the Great Banquet

¹⁵When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, "Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God."

¹⁶Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'

This is a continuation of the conversation in verses 1-14. Jesus was invited to a Sabbath meal at the home of a prominent Pharisee. He had just healed a man with dropsy, and after reprimanding them for their preoccupation with social status, someone is moved to make this statement regarding what was referred to in Judaism as the Messiah's Banquet. According to the beliefs at the time, when the Messiah came and rescued Israel, there would be a great banquet and celebration. If we keep in mind what Jesus had just said to them regarding their own social practices, that they shouldn't be so concerned about taking the places of honor at the table, and that they should invite those who could not repay them, this seems like an attempt to steer the conversation away from those uncomfortable topics.

So Jesus replies with this parable of a great banquet, as if to say, "So you want to talk about the great banquet in the kingdom of God? OK, let's talk about it." He then proceeds to give them an illustration of how the great banquet in the kingdom of God will be just like he had just told them their banquets should be. In that culture, banquets were large celebrations that were planned well in advance. Invitations were sent out in two stages. the first weeks ahead of time, and the last the day of the event, when everything was ready. After the first round of invitations had been responded to, the food would be prepared for the amount of people who had agreed to come. To turn down an invitation that you had previously agreed to on the day of the banquet was a great insult to the host. The food that had been prepared would not keep in a world without refrigeration. It would go to waste.

¹⁸"But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, 'I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.'

¹⁹"Another said, 'I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I'm on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.'

²⁰"Still another said, 'I just got married, so I can't come.'

All of these invitees had previously agreed to come to the banquet, and food had been prepared for them, at great cost to the host. Have you ever thrown a party and had a bunch of people who had RSVP'd call at the last minute to say they couldn't come? Or worse, just not show up? Throwing a party or a banquet requires a lot of work and costs a lot of money. Though this parable has a much deeper spiritual meaning than this, it can also be taken to mean that if you're invited to something, and you agree to come, show up!

The excuses given here are all lame, as excuses usually are. The first two are ridiculous. No one would buy a field without looking at it first, and no one would buy oxen without trying them out first. As one commentary I read today said, this is like saying you can't come to a banquet because you have to try out five cars you just bought sight unseen. The third excuse is worse, because it uses a scriptural principle to make the excuse (Deut. 24:5). Also, this man would have known what his marriage status would be when he accepted the invitation the first time. Plus, the man who invited him would have just attended his wedding, according to the principle Jesus outlined in verse 12. The host of the banquet had shown up for his wedding, but he would not show up for the host's banquet when he had said he would.

Of course, the spiritual parallel is obvious. God has invited us to his great banquet, and though many of us say we will come, when it comes down to it, we make excuses. We tell God that we'll come to him after A or B happens. But like the men in this parable, the excuses we make are lame or worse. The real reason the men in the parable turned down the invitation is that they didn't really want to come. We make excuses to God for the same reason.

²¹"The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'

²²" 'Sir,' the servant said, 'what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.'

²³"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' "

Anyone who has thrown a party and had a bunch of people who had agreed to come not show up understands the anger of the host. Do I sound like this has happened to us? It has, but I'm not mad anymore :-). I wonder if the Pharisees at this table got the message. The original invitees in the parable represented Israel. God's invitation to his banquet was Jesus himself. He came to the Jews first, but most rejected him. Only after he was rejected by Israel was the invitation extended to the rest of us, the Gentiles. This is where Jesus shows how God invites the undesirables they way he had just told them they should. He invites those who can't repay him. When we receive an invitation to a party, often we are asked to RSVP by a certain date. This is sort of like the second invitation in the parable. The point is, there is a time limit on our invitation from God. One day, it will be too late to respond, either because we died before accepting God's invitation, or because we ignored him for so long we became unable to respond. The invitation to attend the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is the greatest honor we can ever receive. Why would we be so crazy or stupid to miss it because of our lame excuses?

Luke 14:1-14

2010-03-13T09:10:00.000-08:00

Jesus at a Pharisee's House

¹One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. ²There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. ³Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?" ⁴But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away.

⁵Then he asked them, "If one of you has a son^[a] or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?" ⁶And they had nothing to say.

Here is a third instance in Luke's gospel of Jesus healing someone on the Sabbath and challenging the religious leaders on the subject. The other two cases are in 6:1-11, blog, and 13:10-17, blog. Each time he did it, he made the same point. People are more important than rules, and the command to remember the Sabbath Day and keep it holy (Exodus 20:8-11) was never meant to keep us from doing good for others. Remember that the next time someone asks you to help them move on a Sunday!

From the passage immediately preceding this chapter and this passage, we can gather that Jesus had friendly relationships with some Pharisees, but he challenged their legalism and pride. None of them would have hesitated to help one of their animals on the Sabbath, but they hesitated to help a person in need. As we see in the next verses, this was a dinner where people of elevated social status were invited, and social ranking was a big deal. That makes me wonder who this man with dropsy was, and why he was there. Since Luke does not say that the Pharisees were angered by the healing in this case, I wonder if the man with dropsy was related to someone, maybe even the host. Perhaps one of the prominent Pharisees made sure this man was there, either to test Jesus, like in 6:1-11, or maybe even hoping Jesus would heal him because he was someone the Pharisee cared about, but he was too proud to ask Jesus to do it, especially on the Sabbath. It's amazing how our rigid ideology suddenly becomes less important when we or someone we care about needs help.

⁷When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸"When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

In that culture, places at a banquet table were determined by social status. Though we don't have that same custom today, the same principle applies in other areas. In my area of ministry, music, this dynamic is often in play. People want to be in the prominent positions, singing solos and being on the praise team. They want to be in the spotlight, and think they have to be self promoters to get there. What many don't realize is that those who do get asked to do a lot of solos are those who are consistent, show that they can be counted on, and have an attitude of ministry, not self promotion. Jesus was a perfect example of someone who deserved the highest place, but made himself a servant, and then was given the highest place. (Phil 2:5-11). He is our example, and when we humble ourselves, we are like him.

¹²Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. ¹³But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Not only did the guests at this dinner seek the places of honor at the table, the Pharisee who hosted it invited his guests based on their social status. As a popular rabbi of the time, This may be why Jesus was invited. He was, in a way, a celebrity. In verse 12, Jesus talks about being repaid like it's a bad thing! But this is part of his principle of laying up treasures in Heaven (Matthew 6:19-20). Giving to those who can't repay us is also Christlike. We can never begin to repay Jesus for all he's done for us, but he keeps on giving. If we want to be like him, we must love the unlovable and give to those who can't repay us like he did, and continues to do.

Often, when I am at a ministry event, people thank me for the music I've produced that they use in their ministries, as if I did them out of charity. I do approach my work as ministry, and I'm grateful that it's used to further the Kingdom, but I get paid to produce these CD's. Therefore, based on what Jesus teaches here and elsewhere, I've already received my reward. It's the ministry that I volunteer for, and never expect to be paid for that comes closer to the standard Jesus set. It's not giving if we expect to be repaid. If we want to be truly Christlike, we must humble ourselves, and give like he gave.

Luke 13:31-35

2010-03-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

Jesus' Sorrow for Jerusalem

³¹At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, "Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you."

³²He replied, "Go tell that fox, 'I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.' ³³In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!

It's interesting to me that Jesus was warned by Pharisees about the threat from Herod. It's ironic, because Pharisees would be very involved in the plot to kill Jesus themselves. Perhaps these Pharisees were supporters of Jesus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee and a believer in Jesus (John 3:1-2). So even though many Pharisees opposed Jesus, not all did. Herod had tried, unsuccessfully, to see Jesus earlier (9:7-9). Now he wanted to kill Jesus. Of course, during his trial, Jesus was sent to Herod, but Herod did not kill Jesus when he had the chance (Luke 23:7-11). Herod Antipas seemed to have a mixture of fascination with Jesus, while feeling threatened by him at the same time. Maybe by this time he had done the math and figured out that Jesus had escaped his father's attempt to kill the prophesied King of the Jews, and was worried that Jesus might challenge his claim to the throne. In any case, these Pharisees had heard that Herod wanted to kill Jesus, and tried to warn him away from going to Jerusalem. But Jesus would not be distracted from his mission.

When Jesus called Herod a fox, it wasn't a compliment. The Amplified Bible expands the word fox to say "sly and crafty, skulking and cowardly". Herod pretended to be king of Israel, but he was really a lackey for Rome. Jesus not only refused to run from Herod, he told the Pharisees to tell Herod that he was going to keep right on doing what he had been doing, healing and casting out demons. There were times in Jesus' ministry when he escaped death because it was not his time (4:28-30, 8:22-25), but now his time had come, and he walked straight toward it. When he said in verse 32, "on the third day I will reach my goal", he is talking about the resurrection, the ultimate goal of his mission on earth.

³⁴"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! ³⁵Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'^[b]"

The only record we have in the Old Testament of a prophet being killed in Jerusalem is in 2 Chronicles 24:20-21, where Zechariah was killed in the courtyard of the Temple. Jesus referred to this in Luke 11:51. John the Baptist was also killed in Jerusalem by Herod (Matthew 14:1-10). And Jesus was also looking ahead to his own death outside the walls of Jerusalem. When Jesus speaks of how he has longed to gather Jerusalem together and protect them like a hen would protect her chicks, I don't think he's just talking about his time in the flesh. I think he's speaking from the perspective of God the Father. Jesus and the Father are one, and God the Son, preexisting with the Father, witnessed all the times Israel broke their covenant with God, and his heart broke for them. Any parent who has had a wayward child who they wanted to protect and love, but their son or daughter would not allow it understands this emotion. When a mother hen sees a predator coming, she calls her chicks to her and hides them under her wings. If the chicks will not come, they are much more vulnerable. God still wants to protect us from ourselves, but like wayward children, we sometimes tend to run away and ignore his call. Jesus had just talked about striving to enter the narrow door. The mother hen's wings and the narrow door are illustrations of the same principle. If we will walk through the narrow door and make our home in the Master's house, we are protected and loved like the chicks under their mother's wings.

In verse 35, Jesus predicts the cheers of the crowds in Jerusalem during his Triumphal entry. He knows that they will quote from Psalm 118:26, proclaiming him to be the Messiah. But the authorities in Jerusalem will not accept him as Messiah and Lord. That was also true for John the Baptist. Many of the common people believed in him, but the authorities killed him. Because of their failure to repent and believe, their house was left to them desolate (v. 35). Jerusalem would be destroyed by the Romans less than one generation later.

Luke 13:22-30

2010-03-11T09:42:00.000-08:00

The Narrow Door

²²Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. ²³Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"

He said to them, ²⁴"Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. ²⁵Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.'
"But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'

Jesus is asked a question that many have asked over the centuries. Will many be saved, or only a few? It was a popular topic of discussion among rabbis of Jesus' time, and the debate still rages today. How can a God of love condemn so many people to eternal punishment? These are questions that people smarter than me have debated for millennia, and only God really knows the answer. Jesus did not answer the question directly, he turned the question back on the questioner. In verse 24, he seems to be saying, "Don't worry about how many will be saved, just make sure you are saved." He says to make every effort to enter through the narrow door. The phrase make every effort in the NIV is translated work hard in the NLB and strive in the NKJ and Amplified. The Amplified Bible adds "force yourselves through it" in brackets. The point is not to take our salvation casually.

Many Jews of Jesus' time thought they would be saved just because they were children of Abraham. Some today think they are saved because they went to Sunday School as a kid, or they "live a good life". Jesus is not preaching salvation by works, but he is telling us not to assume we are saved, but to make every effort to enter through the narrow door. What's the narrow door? Jesus himself is the narrow door. We can do good works all we want, but we can only enter into salvation through him.

According to verse 25, we only have a limited time to enter the narrow door. At some point, the door will be closed. Many take this to mean that we must be saved before we die, but for many of us, the door closes long before that. It's not that God closes the door on us, it's that we close the door on him. We walk by the open door, ignoring it for so long that we eventually forget it's there. Our hearts become hard to the point that we can no longer see the open door. That makes it doubly important to strive, work hard, and make every effort to accept the invitation of Jesus to enter his house while we can.

²⁶"Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'

²⁷"But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!'

²⁸"There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. ²⁹People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. ³⁰Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."

Those who are unable to get in because they waited too long object in verse 26 that they "hung around" with Jesus, so they should be let in. Lots of people go to church and "hang around" with Jesus. They have lots of excuses for why they never get serious about their faith. The answer the master of the house gives is that he doesn't know them or where they come from. He doesn't know them because they never made an effort to get to know him. How much of an effort do we make to get to know God? We get to know God by spending time with him in Bible study, worship and prayer, and by obeying him.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him." John 14:21 (NIV)

To me that's what making every effort to enter through the narrow door means. It means taking my relationship with God seriously enough to get to know him and obey him. If we obey him, we show that we love him, and he will show himself to us. If I never make the effort to really know God, I will be one of the ones trying to get in at the last minute when the door is closing. If I don't really know him, will he say of me that he doesn't know me, or where I come from? the Amplified Bible puts verse 27 like this:

²⁷But He will say, I tell you, I do not know where [^[n]what household--certainly not Mine] you come from; depart from Me, all you wrongdoers!

It's not that God will not recognize us, as though he's never seen us before. but if we don't make every effort to enter the narrow door early, it means we didn't really care if we were part of his household or not. When the door is finally shut, we will never have been part of his household. How can we be part of his household if we waited until the last minute to walk through his door?

In verses 28-30, it seems to me that Jesus is talking primarily to his Jewish audience. They believed that because of their heritage, they would be first in the kingdom of God. But many Gentiles would come from all parts of the globe to take their places at the master's table, while many who believed it was their birthright to be first would actually be last. There are many today who believe they will be saved because of their upbringing. But no one enters the narrow door by birthright. Only those who make every effort to enter will be part of the Master's household.

Luke 13:18-21

2010-03-10T08:41:00.000-08:00

The Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast

¹⁸Then Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? ¹⁹It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches."

²⁰Again he asked, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? ²¹It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount^[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough."

The parable of the mustard seed also appears in Matthew 13:31-32 and Mark 4:30-32. See my post on Mark's version here. There is a lot of debate about the meaning of this parable, especially since it's coupled with the parable of the yeast. Google "parable of the mustard seed", and you'll see what I mean. Some, like David Guzik, say these are negative parables about corruption in the church. The mustard plant was not a desired plant in that area in Jesus' time. It was a controlled weed. You' weren't supposed to let it get as big as a tree. If they got that big, they were considered out of control. Also, birds represent the devil in the parable of the sower. So some say Jesus added birds to the parable to give it an added negative connotation.

The fact that Jesus combined the parable of the mustard seed with the parable of the yeast is further proof for some that Jesus is talking about corruption. Yeast, or leaven, has a negative meaning in much of Jesus' teachings (Matt 16:11 Mark 8:15, blog Luke 12:1, blog). It represented pride in Jewish culture in Biblical times because of the way it "puffs up" bread. So some think that Jesus is giving warnings about corruption in his kingdom with these two parables. I have a hard time with these negative interpretations, however. The more "standard" view of these parables is that Jesus is illustrating the explosive growth of the church which was soon to come. Out of this tiny group of believers that surrounded Jesus would come the Church Triumphant. In comparison to the mighty Roman Empire at that time, this little group of disciples must have seemed insignificant. But after Pentecost, this group would literally change the world.

I prefer the more positive interpretation of these parables, though the other argument has merit. If Jesus was warning against corruption in the church, why did he start by saying that this is what the kingdom of God is like? He wasn't talking about human bureaucracy, he was talking about the kingdom of God. And birds don't always have a negative connotation in Jesus' teachings. In Luke 12:6, not one sparrow is forgotten by God. And in 12:24, the ravens don't sow or reap, but God feeds them. While it's true that the parable of the yeast would be the only positive reference to yeast in Jesus' teachings, if Jesus meant it that way, I say again that if Jesus had meant this parable as a negative, he would not have started it by saying, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? It is like yeast". Why would Jesus say that the kingdom of God is like something bad? His whole message was about proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. If the kingdom of God is like something bad, it's not good news, is it?

I think Jesus was encouraging his disciples with these two parables. It's true that yeast, birds, and mustard pants had negative associations in Jesus' time. But soon, so would the early church. They were not admired, they were persecuted. The mustard plant, as a weed, was considered a nuisance, and so would the early church be. But like the spread of a weed, the growth of the church could not be controlled by man. Likewise, as a woman of Jesus' time would take a pinch of leavened bread and mix it in with a new loaf to make it rise, God would take single witnesses and little groups, and place them all around the region, and as a result, the church would rise. I think Jesus may have been saying that though society may not view them positively, God was using them to grow his kingdom. And he uses us the same way, if we'll let him.

Luke 13:10-17

2010-03-09T09:08:00.001-08:00

A Crippled Woman Healed on the Sabbath

¹⁰On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, ¹¹and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." ¹³Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

¹⁴Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."

This is the second instance of Jesus healing someone in the synagogue on the Sabbath in Luke's gospel. The other is in 6:6-11. See my post on that passage here. When Jesus healed the man with the shriveled hand in chapter 6, he simply told the man to stretch out his hand. But this time, he told the woman she was free, and then he put his hands on her and she was healed. A word and a touch from Jesus is all we need to set us free from anything that binds us.

Surely Jesus knew the reaction this would cause. But the synagogue leader did not reprimand Jesus for healing the woman, he reprimanded the woman for coming to be healed (v. 14). Perhaps this woman sat in a more prominent seat than she was supposed to, hoping Jesus would see and heal her. Maybe this infirmity kept her from coming to the synagogue on most Sabbath days, but when she heard Jesus was going to be there, she made a special trip, hoping to be healed. How much trouble are we willing to go to to meet with Jesus? Do we come to him with hope and expectation that he will free us?

What Jesus had just done could not be considered work by any reasonable definition, but there were all kinds of unreasonable, man-made rules about what constituted work on the Sabbath in Jesus' day. Jesus makes the same point here that he made in chapter 6, that God's commandment concerning keeping the Sabbath was never intended to keep us from doing good for others.

¹⁵The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"

¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

The synagogue ruler, like many of his day, was more concerned with rules than people. It was more important to him to keep the rules than to help this woman. It's easy to get so comfortable with the way we "do church" that we lose sight of the needs all around us. Right now my church is going through the process of adding a second service, and it seems everybody has their own ideas of what that service should look like. Some people are upset that it's not shaping up like they think it should. I have been guilty of that myself. What upsets us, little things that don't matter much in the light of eternity, or the needs of people right in front of us? Are we like the synagogue leader, critical when things don't happen the way we think they should, or like the people in verse 17 who were delighted with what Jesus was doing, even if the methods used aren't what we're used to?

Luke 13:1-9

2010-03-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

A Call to Repentance

¹ About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple. ² “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? ³ Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. ⁴ And what about the eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too.” (NLB)

Jesus talks here about two tragedies that had happened recently. Apparently the murder of these Galileans had just happened, and someone told Jesus about it. Since Jesus was a Galilean on his way to Jerusalem, it's easy to see why people would want him to know about this and would want his reaction to it. We don't have any records in secular history of this tragedy, and this is the only place in the gospels where it's mentioned. The scholarship I've seen thinks that some Galileans were making their sacrifices in the Temple, and Pilate sent soldiers in and slaughtered them in the Temple courts, during their act of worship. In the NIV and Amplified Bible, what the NLB translates "Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices" is translated, "the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices". That's why scholars think they were murdered while their sacrifices were being made, because their blood was "mixed" with the blood of their sacrifices. This would have been a terrible outrage to Jews of that time. But rather than rail against Pilate for this crime, Jesus used that tragedy and another, the fall of the Tower of Siloam which killed 18 people, to illustrate the importance of repentance.

In that culture, the popular view was that if something bad happened to you, it meant you were especially guilty, and the tragedy was God's judgment on you. Sadly, some still think that way today. The age-old question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" still haunts many. We'd still like to think that the wicked should suffer, but the innocent should not. But Jesus didn't say the people killed were innocent, he said they were not worse sinners than anyone else. We are all guilty. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The people Jesus was talking to probably felt that those who had died tragically must have been more guilty than they because of what had happened to them. Some today may feel the same way toward a gay AIDS victim, or a guy whose meth lab blows up and kills him. But those people are no worse sinners than any of us, and if we don't repent, our fate will be the same as theirs.

The Amplified Bible translates the word repent in verses 3 and 5, "change your mind for the better and heartily amend your ways, with abhorrence of your past sins". Is that our definition of repentance? Do we go that far in changing our ways? David Guzik, in his commentary on this chapter, says that the tense for the Greek word for repent is different in verse 3 than it is in verse 5. In verse 5, it's a "once and for all" repentance, and in verse 3, it's a continuous repentance. Both are necessary for following Jesus. We must repent when we first accept Jesus as our Savior, but then, as we grow in him, we continue to repent in areas of our life that God is not pleased with. Repentance is both a crisis event and a process.

Parable of the Barren Fig Tree

⁶ Then Jesus told this story: “A man planted a fig tree in his garden and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. ⁷ Finally, he said to his gardener, ‘I’ve waited three years, and there hasn’t been a single fig! Cut it down. It’s just taking up space in the garden.’

⁸ “The gardener answered, ‘Sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I’ll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. ⁹ If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down.’”

After warning them about repentance, Jesus uses this parable to talk about God's patience and judgment. One thing I'm not sure about in this parable is who the man who planted the tree is supposed to represent, and who the farmer is supposed to represent. Do they both represent God? God is the one who "plants" us, and God is the one who looks for fruit in our lives. But God is also the one who cares for us and nurtures us to try to get us to produce good fruit. Perhaps the man who planted the tree represents the judgment of God, and the farmer represents the patience and mercy of God.

So what does "fruit" mean? Jesus told another parable about a tree and its fruit in 6:43-45. See my post on that passage here. In that parable, Jesus seems to be saying that our words and actions show what's in our heart. Galatians 5:22-23 tells us what the fruit of the Spirit is. Certainly love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are evidence of Jesus living in us and through us. If our lives show those characteristics, God will be pleased with the fruit that our lives produce. But there's one other aspect of fruit. Fruit is how some trees reproduce. If left unattended, a fruit tree will drop its fruit in the fall, and the rotting fruit on the ground fertilizes the seeds, producing more fruit trees. If our lives are really producing good fruit, the kind that God wants, we will be reproducing ourselves as Christians. That's also the kind of fruit God is looking for from us. He wants to see more people coming to Jesus because of us.

But God's patience is not infinite. In the parable, the farmer gets one more year to try to nurture the tree so it will produce fruit. In the context that Jesus was speaking, I think his immediate message was to Israel. Jesus' presence with them in the flesh was the "one more year" they were getting to repent. They actually had almost a full generation of witnesses preaching about his resurrection to repent and believe before the "tree" was cut down when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. God's patience is also not infinite with the church today. If our lives individually, and the church collectively, do not produce the kind of fruit that God planted us for, our fate will be no better than Jerusalem's was in the first century.

Luke 12:49-53

2010-03-05T08:22:00.001-08:00

Jesus Causes Division

⁴⁹ “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! ⁵⁰ I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished. (NLB)

Jesus had his mind fixed on the task ahead of him. The fire he speaks of in verse 49 must be the tongues of fire at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-3). Jesus knew that after Pentecost, the Gospel would spread like wildfire across the Roman Empire, and eventually reach around the globe to everyone. He was anxious to get that fire started, but first he had to go through his baptism of suffering. Because of his baptism of suffering, we can be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Because of his baptism of suffering, his purifying fires can cleanse us from every impurity. Jesus did not come to make us comfortable, he came to set the world on fire.

⁵¹ Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! ⁵² From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.

⁵³ ‘Father will be divided against son
and son against father;
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother;
and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’^[e]” (NLB)

Jesus is prophesying that families would be divided over him. This was certainly true of the early church, and it's still true today. If you are the only Christian in your family, hopefully your family is tolerant of your faith and open to your witness. But in the first century AD, when the church was being persecuted, families would turn Christian family members in to the authorities to be imprisoned for their faith. Doubtless this still goes on in some parts of the world.

Jesus gave his disciples other warnings similar to this in Matthew 10:21, 35-36 and Mark 13:12-13. See my post on Mark 13:12-13 here. Salvation is free, but following Jesus will cost us something. Jesus wants us to count the cost and make sure we are willing to face whatever rejection we may come up against when we profess to belong to him (Luke 14:27-30). By talking about these things here, Jesus is warning his disciples of the persecutions to come. Jesus would soon suffer, and so would his disciples. But as a result of their willingness to endure it all for the sake of the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ set the world on fire. Are we willing to endure the same kind of suffering in order to see the world ablaze for him?

Luke 12:35-48

2010-03-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

Watchfulness

³⁵"Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, ³⁶like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. ³⁷It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. ³⁸It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night. ³⁹But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁰You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

Jesus now turns to the subject of readiness for his return, which seems like an abrupt change of subject at first glance, but it's not. Jesus had been talking about greed and worry. If we worry or are greedy, we focus on the wrong things. If we seek his kingdom and his righteousness, we focus on the right things. Jesus now illustrates what it means to seek his kingdom. These illustrations show what will happen with servants who seek his kingdom by being ready and about their master's business, and what will happen with those who don't. Remember that Jesus is not talking about those who are not servants at all, those who are outside the master's house. He's talking about his servants, those who are already pledged to serve him. Believers, in other words.

Jewish weddings of that time were often at night, and if the master of a house went to a wedding, there would be no telling when he would return. There were no electric lights then, so the master depended on his servants to keep the lamps burning so he could see when he came home. If all the servants went to bed, and weren't dressed and ready for his return, they weren't doing their job. Jesus has entrusted us, his servants, to keep his light burning, and to be about his business, dressed and ready. Readiness doesn't just mean waiting by the door doing nothing. It means doing the work that he has entrusted to us. That's seeking his kingdom and his righteousness. If we do that, we will be ready to meet our master, whether at his return or at the time of our death. Not only will we partake at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, but Jesus himself will serve us the way he served his disciples at the Last Supper (John 13:1-16).

⁴¹Peter asked, "Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?"

⁴²The Lord answered, "Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? ⁴³It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. ⁴⁴I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. ⁴⁵But suppose the servant says to himself, 'My master is taking a long time in coming,' and he then begins to beat the menservants and maidservants and to eat and drink and get drunk. ⁴⁶The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

⁴⁷"That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. ⁴⁸But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

In the first paragraph, Jesus talks about faithful servants who are doing their job, and what their reward will be. Now he talks about what will happen to unfaithful servants. Again, he is not talking about unbelievers, but his own servants. Peter asks him if he is talking just to his disciples, or to everyone. Jesus replies by talking about managers, which indicates that he's not only talking about his servants, or disciples, but managers, those who minister to believers. Who was Jesus hardest on during his ministry? The religious leaders, those who presume to teach others. Perhaps there were some Pharisees and scribes in the crowd, but Jesus wasn't really talking to the crowd here. He was talking to his disciples, and holding them to the same standard that he held the leaders of Judaism to. If those who are in positions of spiritual authority don't take their responsibility seriously, or worse, abuse their position of authority like the unfaithful manager, their punishment will be more severe than it will be for servants with less authority. Ask any former pastor or Christian leader who has lost his ministry due to scandal if he feels he has been beaten with many blows. And if he is called Home while the abuses are still taking place like in verse 46, he will be assigned a place with unbelievers, and his hell will be worse than it will be for those who never believed.

Then Jesus concludes this lesson by talking about two groups; those who have been given much (servants), and those who have been entrusted with much (managers). Those of us who have accepted Jesus as our Savior and serve him (not to mention those of us who have been blessed with a godly upbringing and have spent our lives in the church) have been given much, so much is demanded of us. If we don't keep the light of Jesus burning, who will? If we aren't dressed and ready for his return, how can we tell others to be? And those who have been called to ministry have been entrusted with much, and much more will be asked of us. If you're in ministry, you know how true that is! The more we show ourselves to be faithful servants and managers, the more God asks of us. But we have to be careful not to get lazy, or feel entitled to be served ourselves. Whatever authority we have comes from him, and we ourselves are under authority. It's not our church, it's his church, and one day he will call his church home. Therefore let us make sure we are faithful servants and faithful managers of his church.

Luke 12:22-34

2010-03-03T08:48:00.001-08:00

Do Not Worry

²²Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. ²³Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. ²⁴Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! ²⁵Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]? ²⁶Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

Jesus continues his teaching on our attitude toward material things. Look at verse 23. Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you". This was a follow-up to what he had just taught in the parable of the rich fool. He was still responding to the man who asked Jesus to take his side in a financial dispute. As the old expression I've heard since I was a kid goes, whenever you see a therefore in the Bible, go back and see what it's there for. This same lesson appears in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:25-34. The fact that Jesus used this same lesson here shows that he did teach the same lessons and preach the same sermons everywhere he went. But he tailored those lessons for each crowd he spoke to.

The man who wanted Jesus to tell his brother to share his inheritance with him was obviously worried about money, so Jesus took the opportunity to teach him and his disciples about greed and worry. The rich fool's problem was greed, this man's problem was worry. I maintain that what Jesus is saying here is that worry is sin. Can we not agree that if Jesus himself, more than once, dedicated an entire passage, not just one verse, to specifically telling us not to do something, if we do it, it's sin? But somehow, I never hear sermons that put it that way, probably because so many pastors worry.

In verses 25 and 26, Jesus points out how useless worrying is. It doesn't help anything, and it's very destructive to us. Though Jesus is specifically talking about worrying about material things, those two verses also apply to worrying about anything. The health or safety of a loved one, for example. What good does it do our loved one if we worry about them? None at all. Worrying about whether or not we will have enough to meet our needs, or anything else, shows a lack of trust in God. If we worry about those things, how can we say we trust God to meet our needs or take care of those we love?

²⁷"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ²⁸If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! ²⁹And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. ³⁰For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. ³¹But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

The Amplified Bible translates worry "being overly anxious and troubled with cares". If we are overly anxious and troubled with cares, we are focused on ourselves rather than God. So what should we do instead of worrying?

1. Seek his kingdom and his righteousness. If we're seeking him first, we're focused on God rather than on ourselves.

2. Pray (Phil 4:6). Instead of going over and over your worries in your mind, like a dog worrying a bone, present your requests to God and leave them with him. Trust him with them.

3. Work. Don't worry about whether you'll have enough money coming in, do something about it.

³²"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. ³³Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Why should we worry about how much or how little we have when our Father is pleased to give us the kingdom? If we are rich toward God, no stock market crash can affect our treasures in Heaven. He is the source. If we have much, our attitude should be that all that we have is his. If we have little, we should trust that he will meet our needs out of his glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:19).

Verse 34 is a simple statement of fact. If you came to my house, you would see that much if my treasure is in musical equipment. That shows you where my heart is. It would be good for all of us to take a good look at where our treasure is and ask what it says about where our heart is.

Luke 12:13-21

2010-03-02T09:35:00.000-08:00

The Parable of the Rich Fool

¹³Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."

¹⁴Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" ¹⁵Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

This man in the crowd obviously came to Jesus with his own agenda. He wasn't there to learn from Jesus, he was there to get something from him. We can't come to Jesus with our own agendas. Too many of us only approach Jesus because we want something from him rather than simply wanting him. He thought he could get Jesus to take his side in a financial dispute with his brother. The law of that time was that in an inheritance, if a man had two sons, the eldest son got two thirds, and the younger got one third. We don't know if this was the case here, but it seems this man was not satisfied with his inheritance, and thought it should have been divided equally. Of course, if he was the older brother who got two thirds, he probably would have thought it perfectly just.

Jesus pointed out that he was not a judge between this man and his brother. This makes me wonder if the man had already gone to a judge and not gotten the result he wanted, so he went to Jesus. Then Jesus used the opportunity to teach about the dangers of greed and covetousness, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Idolatry is placing anything above God. In verse 15, Jesus says, "a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." Our life should be in God, not in how much or how little we have. Then Jesus told this parable to illustrate his point.

¹⁶And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. ¹⁷He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

¹⁸"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

²⁰"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

²¹"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

The rich fool's problem was not that he had riches on earth, but that he was not rich toward God. Jesus had many wealthy friends, like Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. But what did they do with their riches? They supported Jesus' ministry. There is nothing wrong with being rich. As I've heard many times, there is nothing wrong with owning things, as long as things don't own you. It's what you do with your riches that matters. The problem for many of us is that if we are financially well off, we don't learn how to depend upon God. We think we can take care of ourselves.

But the man who wanted Jesus to make his brother give him a bigger share of the inheritance was not rich. His problem was not the same as the rich fool in the parable, self satisfaction in his wealth. It was covetousness. He was jealous of those who had more than he did. Most of us never face the issue of being "set for life" like the rich fool in the parable. Our issue is not being satisfied with what we have like the man in the crowd. Read what Timothy 6:9-11 says about the desire for wealth.

⁹People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

I struggle with this issue myself. Like many people, I used to make a lot more money than I do now. I'm not that far from retirement age, and if things keep going like they have been the last few years, it's hard for my wife and me to see how we will ever be able to retire. I have always tended to fantasize about being rich someday, and if I did receive some sort of financial windfall that enabled me to take it easy like the rich fool, what would I do? First, we'd tithe on our windfall and pay off our debts, but then what? What would you do? I must admit that if, for example, I suddenly had millions of downloads on iTunes, I might think it meant that I could retire comfortably and do whatever I wanted. But then my attitude would be the same as the rich fool. It's easy for people to say that we would give large gifts to our church and support missions, but if those things are not priorities for us now in our current financial state, there's no reason to believe our priorities would change if we suddenly got rich. In fact the evidence shows just the opposite. We've all seen many examples of athletes, celebrities, and lottery winners who went from rags to riches. How many of those stories have unhappy endings?

The rich fool did not have a happy ending. He couldn't take his riches with him, and he had not used his wealth to help anyone else. He was not rich toward God. So how do we become rich toward God? The good news is, we don't have to be financially rich to be rich toward God. What did Jesus tell the rich young ruler?

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." (Luke 18:22)

What did Jesus say about treasures in Heaven?

¹⁹"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. (Matthew 6:19-20)

What did he just say about the poor and rich in chapter 6?

²⁰Looking at his disciples, he said:
"Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.

²⁴"But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.

These are hard concepts. The issue, I think, is in our attitude. It's not money that's the root of all evil, it's the desire for money. Is our attitude one of giving of whatever resources we have to help others, or is it all about what we receive? Is what we have ours, or does it really belong to God?

Luke 12:1-12

2010-02-25T09:46:00.000-08:00

Warnings and Encouragements

¹Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: "Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. ²There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ³What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

Jesus warned about the "yeast" of the Pharisees at other times, but here he identifies that yeast as hypocrisy. Yeast, or leaven, was a symbol in ancient Judaism for pride, because of the way it “puffed up” bread. Pride and hypocrisy go hand in hand. Jesus had just chastised the Pharisees and experts in the law for their hypocrisy, and now he warns his disciples not to be be hypocrites like them. Hypocrisy relies upon concealment, but God exposes hypocrisy, especially in those who presume to teach others. Just ask Ted Haggard about that. When his sin was exposed, I was bothered by the fact that many in the church saw it as the devil attacking a prominent Christian leader, when in reality, it was a case of verses 2 and 3 of this chapter being proved true. Be sure your sins will find you out (Numbers 32:23).

⁴"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. ⁵But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. ⁶Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies^[a]? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. ⁷Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Jesus is telling his disciples not to fear the men who will persecute them, but to fear only God. Fear of death is a natural instinct, but if we believe that death is not the end, why should we fear it? Many say that when the Bible tells us to fear God, it only means that we are to have a healthy respect for God, but I think that's baloney. At the Transfiguration, when Peter, James and John were enveloped in the presence of God, they were terrified (Matt 17:5-6). Whenever God, or even an angel, makes direct contact with anyone in the Bible, the first reaction of the people involved is always fear, no matter how righteous they are. I can't help but wonder if the reason we have lost our fear of God in this culture is that we don't get that close to him.

God doesn't want us to live in fear of him, he wants us to approach him boldly. But he wants us to fear the consequences of not obeying him. There is no conflict between fearing God and loving God. On some level, we all fear those we love. We don't want to displease them, and we want to avoid the consequences of displeasing them. We love them so much we don't want to disappoint them. I think fearing God on a day to day basis is a lot like that. But if the presence of Almighty God filled the room you're in right now, in a cloud of his Shekinah glory like at the Transfiguration, and you heard his voice speak to you audibly, I think you would understand very clearly what fearing God means.

Then Jesus turns around and assures his disciples of their value to God. Jesus' reference to the sparrows is a familiar one. Living in Colorado, we see many birds that winter here in huge flocks. You can watch them in the sky flying in groups of many thousands, swirling in amazing patterns, and it's incredible to realize that God knows each of them individually. Not one of them is forgotten by God! By the same token, God also knows the how many hairs are on each of our heads. Insert your own bald joke here. The point is, God knows every detail of his creation intimately, from the largest galaxy to the smallest subatomic particle, and out of all his creation, he took our form in order to save us. That's how valuable we are to him.

⁸"I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. ⁹But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God. ¹⁰And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

How clear are we in our testimony for Christ? Is there anyone we know well who has no clue what we believe? More importantly, do our lives back up our testimony? If we are not our front about our Christianity, or if we talk the talk but don't walk the walk, we are disowning Christ as much as Peter did.

I don’t want to get into a long discourse about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and the unforgivable sin, because lots of people smarter than me have written volumes about it. Let me just say this. Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came, he would “convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8) so most Biblical scholars say that the unforgivable sin is to continually reject the overtures of the Holy Spirit when he tries to draw us to Jesus. Way too many people torment themselves by thinking they have somehow committed the unpardonable sin. Relax. It’s not something you can do one time and be condemned. All you have to do to make sure you don’t commit this sin is accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, repent and be saved.

¹¹"When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, ¹²for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say."

Jesus is describing exactly what will happen to the apostles after Pentecost. They were brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities as witnesses for Christ. A powerful example of what Jesus is talking about can be found in Acts 4:1-22, when Peter and John testified before the Sanhedrin. If they had prepared a speech for that trial, it would not have had the power of the Holy Spirit that their testimony had. This part can definitely be applied to us. We must be prepared to defend our faith, but if we come at people with prepared speeches or scripts, they will see through them. And Jesus is talking about persecution here, not laziness in ministry. If we are persecuted for our faith, if our faith is challenged, we must rely on inspiration from the Holy Spirit to answer our accusers. But this verse should not be taken as a license not to prepare our sermon, Sunday School lesson, or song for ministry, because we’re “relying on inspiration from God”. God wants us to study, prepare for ministry, and “present ourselves as one approved, who correctly handles the Word of Truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

Note: I am going out of town this weekend for two ministry events, and may not be able to blog again until Tuesday.

Luke 11:37-53

2010-02-24T12:28:00.001-08:00

Six Woes

³⁷When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. ³⁸But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.

³⁹Then the Lord said to him, "Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ⁴⁰You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? ⁴¹But give what is inside the dish ^[j] to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.

An exchange similar to this appears in Mark 7:1-23. See my post on that passage here. That incident and this one start in similar ways, but then go in different directions, which means they were most likely separate incidents rather than different gospel accounts of the same incident. The fact that controversy arose more than once over the issue of ceremonial hand washing makes me wonder if Jesus did this purposely in order to provoke a reaction from the Pharisees. This was not the kind of hygenic hand washing with soap and water that we do today. It was strictly ceremonial, was done in a very specific way, without soap, and was done even between courses of a meal. It wasn't that the Pharisees thought Jesus was eating with dirty hands. They were offended that he, as a rabbi, did not observe all the rituals that they thought were so important.

It may seem rude of Jesus to have accepted a dinner invitation from one of these Pharisees and then insulted him in his home. But these were probably the same Pharisees who had just been accusing Jesus of casting out demons with the help of Beelzebub and asking for signs. I can't help but wonder if Jesus, after having put up with their criticism all day, accepted this invitation and purposely snubbed their silly customs in order to get them to open the door for him to tell them what he thought of them. The Pharisees were like a lot of people today, more interested in outside appearances than inward cleanliness. I love the Amplified translation of verse 40;

⁴⁰You senseless (foolish, stupid) ones [acting without reflection or intelligence]! Did not He Who made the outside make the inside also?

Senseless, foolish, stupid ones acting without reflection or intelligence. He's calling them idiots! At their own dinner table! His solution in verse 41 is interesting. The New Living Bible puts it like this:

⁴¹ So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.

So many of us think living the Christian life is just about the things we don't do. But there are more do's in the Bible than dont's. If we'd do the do's, we wouldn't have time to do the don'ts. And compassion toward others is a big part of the do's. Many of us ignore the "social justice" stuff in the Bible and only pay attention to rules of personal behavior. But Jesus was all about helping the poor, the sick, and the unlovable. If we are unwilling to help others in need, all the rules we kept will mean nothing at the Judgment.

⁴²"Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

Again Jesus stresses the same point. The Pharisees were so meticulous in their tithing, they would count out individual leaves and seeds in their gardens to give a tenth to God. That's admirable, but what had they left out? They did not show others justice and the love of God. We shouldn't neglect our tithe, and frankly, I'm shocked at how many who consider themselves Christians do just that. But if we tithe but don't show the love of God to others, will tithing save us?

⁴³"Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

⁴⁴"Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it."

The Pharisees were divas. They loved getting attention and flattery, and being thought of as righteous. Can you think of anyone in your church like that? It's easy for those of us on the platform on Sundays to fall into that trap. In Judaism, if you touched a grave, even without knowing it, you were ceremonially unclean for 7 days (Numbers 19:16). For that reason, Jews of that time would always clearly mark graves, usually by whitewashing them so they could be easily avoided. Rather than being the spiritual examples they thought they were, the Pharisees were actually defiling those who came into contact with them, like an unmarked grave would. We need to be careful that our lives match our image, especially if we are in positions of spiritual leadership.

⁴⁵One of the experts in the law answered him, "Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also."

⁴⁶Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.

The expert in the law would have been better off keeping his mouth shut. I can just picture Jesus, after this guy objects to what he is saying, looking at him like, "Oh, you want some too?" The experts in the Mosaic law had added so many ridiculous rules to the actual law of Moses that it was impossible for anyone to get through a day without breaking some rule or other. I quote here from David Guzik's commentary:

For example, they taught that on the Sabbath, a man could not carry something in his right hand or in his left hand, across his chest or on his shoulder. But you could carry something with the back of your hand, with your foot, with your elbow, or in your ear, your hair, or in the hem of your shirt, or in your shoe or sandal.

They had made it impossible for people to live lives without guilt, even if they observed the scriptures and made their sacrifices for sin. Have you ever had the feeling, when pulled over by a police officer, that even if you were obeying the law to the best of your knowledge, they could find something to give you a ticket for if they wanted to? The experts in the law made all Jews feel that way all of the time.

⁴⁷"Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. ⁴⁸So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹Because of this, God in his wisdom said, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.' ⁵⁰Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, ⁵¹from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all.

The religious leaders of Jesus' day erected monuments to the prophets of old, but persecuted the prophets of their own day, like John the Baptist and Jesus. The rejection of the prophets through the ages culminated in their rejection of Jesus, which brought down judgment on the whole nation when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. Jesus would illustrate this in his parable of the tenants. The age of law was about to give way to the age of grace, but no one could see that but Jesus.

⁵²"Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

⁵³When Jesus left there, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, ⁵⁴waiting to catch him in something he might say.

The scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law played a central role in the plot to kill Jesus. Within one generation of the crucifixion of Jesus, the temple was destroyed, and the whole house of cards that the Pharisees and their cohorts had set up came crashing down. But the worst thing they did was hinder others from knowing God. If we are more focused on rules than people, and don't live lives that are as holy as they appear on the outside, we too hinder those who look to us as examples from knowing God.

Luke 11:33-36

2010-02-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

Receiving the Light (NLB)

³³ “No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a basket.^[k] Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house.

The "lamp under a bowl" analogy was a favorite of Jesus. It appears in 4 different places, by my count (Luke 8:16-18, Mark 4:21-25, Matt 5:14-16), including here. In Mark and earlier in Luke, it has one meaning, in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, it has another, and here, it has a third meaning. See my posts on Luke 8:16-18 here and Mark 4:21-25 here.

This paragraph is a continuation of the warning to those who attributed his miracles to demons and demanded more and greater miraculous signs, in addition to what they had just seen. These were people who considered themselves righteous, and Jesus is warning them to be careful that the light that they think is within them is not darkness.

³⁴ “Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when it is bad, your body is filled with darkness.

When your eye is good or bad? What is he talking about? The smart aleck in me wants to say, "Yeah, my eyes used to be bad, but then I had lasik surgery." I've thought at times that maybe Jesus was talking here about the things we look at, to make sure we're not looking at the wrong things. Though it's true that we need to be careful about that, I don't think that's what he's talking about here. Look at how the Amplified Bible puts this verse;

³⁴Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye (^[p]your conscience) is sound and fulfilling its office, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound and is not fulfilling its office, your body is full of darkness.

He's talking about our conscience. The people who were asking for signs and attributing his miracles to Satan were saying those things because their hearts were hard. Their consciences weren't working properly. If you've allowed your heart to become hard by ignoring the overtures of the Holy Spirit, your conscience isn't fulfilling its office, or doing its job. Then you can't recognize God working right in front of you. The Pharisees that Jesus was talking to were not unique. There are people just like them today, people who consider themselves Christians, but have not really listened to God for a long time. They're more interested in keeping rules and outside appearances than in having the light of Jesus light up their lives.

³⁵ Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. ³⁶ If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light.”

Why might some of us resist the idea of letting Jesus shine his floodlight inside of us? Maybe because we don't want our dark corners exposed. But the more we keep those dark corners hidden, the more darkness will take over. Even though we think we're trying to live a Christian life, as long as we try to keep things hidden from his light, it will never work. The light we think we have will become darkness. Think about it. Why does no one put a candle under a bowl? Because if you do, not only will you not see its light, soon the candle will go out. But the light Jesus wants to shine within us is not a candle, it's a lamp. It's a floodlight. If we don't let Jesus expose all of our dark corners with his floodlight, the light within us will be smothered like a candle under a bowl.

But if we do let Jesus fill us with his light, that light will reveal any areas of our lives that need to be cleaned up. And once we're clean on the inside, then his light within us will shine so brightly that others will be able to see it. Our consciences will be working like they should, alerting us to right and wrong and making us sensitive to his voice. Here's the thing about light and dark. All darkness is is the absence of light. All evil is is the absence of God. When you walk into a dark room and flip the light switch, what happens? The room is filled with light. Darkness can't fight it. All you need to defeat darkness is a light source. The darkness within us is nothing. If we let the light of Jesus shine within us, the darkness has to flee.

The image I keep thinking about is of Jesus at the Transfiguration and at the Resurrection, when Jesus' face shone like the sun (Matthew 17:6), and his appearance was like lightning (Matthew 28:3). The wording of the Greek in both of those cases indicates that it wasn't an external light shining on Jesus, it was a brilliant light shining out from within Jesus. What the best reason to let Jesus' light illuminate every part of our lives from the inside? It's Christlike. If we let him do that, we will be like him.

Luke 11:29-32

2010-02-22T08:19:00.001-08:00

The Sign of Jonah

²⁹As the crowds increased, Jesus said, "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. ³⁰For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. ³¹The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and now one^[i] greater than Solomon is here. ³²The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.

Jesus had just shown his authority over Satan by delivering a man from demon possession which made him mute. This was thought to be impossible, and the crowd was amazed, but some still sought another sign. Jesus had performed miracle after miracle, but these people still still did not believe. They weren't interested in him or his teaching, they wanted to be entertained. Our generation is also guilty of that. We crave entertainment and distraction. We want to be amazed. Many enjoy Christian music and worship, but it makes no difference in their lives. Do we want to take up our cross and follow Jesus, or do we just want to be entertained?

Jesus tells them that no sign will be given to that generation except the sign of Jonah. What's that? In Matthew's version of this passage, Jesus adds this sentence;

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matt. 12:40)

As Jonah was swallowed up for days and was alive and free after, so Jesus gave the same sign with his resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus is the only sign his generation would receive, and it's our sign also. The people of Nineveh, a gentile city, repented in sackcloth and ashes at the sign of Jonah, and at his message (Jonah 3:4-10). The story of the Queen of the South (or the Queen of Sheba) and her visit to Solomon is found in I Kings 10:1-13. Hearing Solomon's wisdom was enough for her, a Gentile queen, to believe in Solomon's God, and the word of God delivered by Jonah was enough for the Ninevites to repent, but the teachings and miracles of Jesus were not enough for most of the people of his generation of observant Jews, who believed themselves to be the chosen people of God.

It's easy for us to condemn the people of Jesus' day for not accepting him, but we have the sign of his resurrection ourselves, as well as the gospel accounts of his miracles and his teachings. Are they enough for us to truly believe and follow him?

Luke 11:14-28

2010-02-20T11:42:00.001-08:00

Jesus and Beelzebub

¹⁴Jesus was driving out a demon that was mute. When the demon left, the man who had been mute spoke, and the crowd was amazed. ¹⁵But some of them said, "By Beelzebub,^[g] the prince of demons, he is driving out demons." ¹⁶Others tested him by asking for a sign from heaven.

This story, or one similar to it in which Jesus gives essentially the same answer, appears in Mark 3:22-30. See my post on that passage here. Mark does not give a specific incident that led to Jesus being accused of being in league with demons, but here, Luke does. As Jesus mentions later, there were Jewish exorcists at the time who cast out demons, but the belief then was that you could only cast a demon out by knowing its true name. Therefore, a demon that caused muteness could not be cast out because its name could not be learned. That's why the crowd was amazed, because Jesus was able to drive out a demon from a man who could not speak. Although the Bible does not say this, I suspect that Jesus knew and said the demon's name without being told what it was, and this amazed the crowd even more. This also may have led to the accusation of demon possession. It may have seemed logical to some that Jesus knew the demon's name without being told because he was in league with them.

Jesus was accused of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub. Many consider that to simply be another name for Satan, but it may be one of Satan's lieutenants. The name derives from a pagan god that was worshiped in the Philistine city of Ekron in Old Testament times. He is mentioned in 2 Kings 1. The worship of any pagan god, ultimately, is Satan worship. There are levels of demons as well as levels of angels, because demons are fallen angels. When Satan fell from Heaven, he took many fallen angels with him. The demon that possessed this man and made him mute would be assumed to be a lower level demon which Beelzebub would outrank.

¹⁷ He knew their thoughts, so he said, “Any kingdom divided by civil war is doomed. A family splintered by feuding will fall apart.¹⁸ You say I am empowered by Satan. But if Satan is divided and fighting against himself, how can his kingdom survive? ¹⁹ And if I am empowered by Satan, what about your own exorcists? They cast out demons, too, so they will condemn you for what you have said. ²⁰ But if I am casting out demons by the power of God,^[g] then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you. ²¹ For when a strong man like Satan is fully armed and guards his palace, his possessions are safe—²² until someone even stronger attacks and overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his belongings.

²³ “Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me. (NLB)

I'm using the New Living Bible for this part. I think it gives the meaning of the passage more clearly than the NIV does. If Jesus was casting out demons with the help of Beelzebub, then Beelzebub was at war with Satan, and Satan's kingdom was in civil war. Jesus points out that if they accuse him of these things, they also accuse their own exorcists, although their exorcists were unable to do what he had just done, which may have given rise to this accusation in the first place.

I was always confused by the "strong man" analogy until I studied the Gospel of Mark. The NLB makes it clear that Jesus is referring to Satan as the "strong man" guarding his possession, the man this demon occupied. But Jesus is the stronger man who overpowers him. We are no match for Satan, but Satan is no match for God. Jesus is telling them that he was not under Satan, he is stronger than Satan. Verse 22 is encouraging. When Jesus defeats Satan in our lives, he overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his possessions. We may never have been demon possessed like this man was, but in our sin we belonged to Satan. He had a claim on us. But when we accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, Satan no longer has any claim on us. We now belong to Jesus.

In verses 17-18, Jesus makes clear that Satan's kingdom is not divided against itself, and in verse 23 he makes clear that the kingdom of God is not divided either. We are either with him or against him. This statement may seem at odds with his statement in 9:49-50 where he said "whoever is not against you is for you", but it really isn't. Both of these statements have to do with casting out demons. In chapter 9, someone was driving out demons in Jesus' name and the disciples wanted to stop him. But no one can do anything in Jesus' name without being on Jesus' side. There can be no neutrality in the war between good and evil. As the band Rush said in their song Free Will, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice". Which side are you on?

²⁴"When an evil^[h] spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' ²⁵When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. ²⁶Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."

This seems an odd passage to me, but I think Jesus may be talking about the other exorcists of his day. When they cast out demons, they were unable to replace that demonic presence with the presence of Jesus, so often the people they helped ended up worse off than before. But when Jesus defeats Satan in our lives, he carries away the strong man's possessions. He takes up residence in the house that was formerly occupied by his adversary. We can try to change our behavior with self-help books or personal motivation techniques, but only the power of Jesus can defeat Satan in our lives. If we try to change on our own, we will end up worse off than we were before.

²⁷As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, "Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you."

²⁸He replied, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."

So how do we show that we are on God's side? By hearing the word of God and obeying it. Then we are truly blessed.

Luke 11:5-13

2010-02-19T08:44:00.000-08:00

⁵ Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story: “Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight, wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, ⁶ ‘A friend of mine has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat.’ ⁷And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night, and my family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you.’ ⁸ But I tell you this—though he won’t do it for friendship’s sake, if you keep knocking long enough, he will get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence.^[d]

I am using the New Living Bible for the rest of this passage, because I think it communicates the meaning better than the NIV does, which I usually use. I actually read each days' passage in three translations in parallel, the NIV, the New Living, and the Amplified Bible, but I normally quote from the NIV in this blog. I also don't give nearly enough shout outs to the best Bible website on the internet, BibleGateway.com. That's the site I always use, and I highly recommend it.

Jesus continues teaching his disciples about prayer with a lesson on persistence. This illustration has always troubled me because it seems to cast God in the role of a reluctant friend who doesn't want to help, and only does so to get rid of someone who keeps bothering him. But that's not Jesus' intent. He uses this illustration and the one later about parents giving good gifts to their children to show that if we, being evil, will do these things if a friend is persistent, how much more will God reward our persistence?

In that culture, whole families lived in one room houses, and all slept on the same raised platform in the house. There was no way to wake up one person without waking up the whole house. My wife and I don't have children, but we have been to the homes of friends and seen what a big production it is putting young kids to bed. Once they're all down, the last thing you want is someone waking them up again. That's the kind of imposition that Jesus is describing. But our persistence with God in prayer is not an imposition on him. We don't need to worry about "bugging" God with the same requests over and over. God wants us to continually, fervently ask him to meet our needs, even though he knows what we need before we ask. Why? Because it changes us.

⁹ “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

In the original Greek, the tense of each of the verbs in verse 9 is continuous. It doesn't just say "Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened". The real meaning is the way it's put in the NLB, which is why I'm using it today. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking. Why does Jesus stress this kind of persistence? He does it because if we persist in asking God to meet our needs and grant our desires, over time, he will change us so that our desires match his. If we only seek him once, or for a brief time, we can't expect to receive from God. But if we persist in seeking him, we will find him. If we keep on knocking on doors, over time, God will help us to knock on the right doors, the ones he wants to open for us. It doesn't mean that if I ask God every day of my life to let me win the lottery, that one I day will. But if I persist in asking, seeking, and knocking, I'll learn that what I really want and need is him.

This kind of persistence works in life and business, too, by the way. The number one factor in making it in the music business, for example, is persistence. It's not talent, though that's one of the factors. There are lots of talented people who never go anywhere in the music business. I'm one of them! :-) It's not luck, though luck is often involved, too. It's not even "who you know", though it does help to know someone. But if you don't know anyone in the business, how do you go about getting to know people? By being persistent and committed. Many who seem like overnight sensations really have been at it for years, working in small venues, making calls, building relationships, and relentlessly sending out demos. They keep knocking on doors until someone finally gives them a shot. Nothing succeeds like persistence.

¹¹ “You fathers—if your children ask^[e] for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? ¹² Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! ¹³ So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Here Jesus shows that God is not like the reluctant friend, he's more like a loving parent. And he drives home the point that what we should be asking for is the Holy Spirit. If we persist in asking God, seeking God, and knocking on his door, we'll discover that what we really seek is him. We don't need things, we need him. We don't need to know the answers to our questions, we need to know him. God is anxious to give the Holy Spirit to those who continually ask him, and to reveal himself to those who continually seek him.

Luke 11:1-4

2010-02-18T10:01:00.001-08:00

Jesus' Teaching on Prayer

¹One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."

Jesus' disciples were listening to him pray, and wanted to learn how to pray like Jesus did. Maybe Jesus was leading the group in prayer. How many times had the disciples heard Jesus pray aloud, and wondered at the power and intimacy of his relationship with God? Jesus had powerful prayer life, and often went off by himself to pray, sometimes praying all night. When someone who has a prayer life like that prays publicly, you get a glimpse of what their relationship with God is like. I've had the privilege to know several people like that, people who, as soon as they start praying, the room seems to fill with the presence of God. Imagine what it would have been like to listen to Jesus pray out loud! It's no wonder the disciples wanted him to teach them how to pray like that. Apparently, John taught his disciples about prayer. Andrew was one of John's disciples, and must have heard John's teaching on prayer. But he wanted to learn how to pray like Jesus. Books and sermons on prayer are good and useful, but we need Jesus to teach us how to pray, for we do not know how to pray as we ought (Romans 8:26).

Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray in this passage in Luke, and teaches the crowd about prayer in Matthew 6:5-15, as part of the Sermon on the Mount. Both times he uses what we have come to call The Lord's Prayer, but the prayers are slightly different, and the lessons surrounding them are different. This version of the prayer in Luke is more compact. Some manuscripts filled it in so that it had all the familiar phrases from the Sermon on the Mount version, but apparently most have a shorter version of it, like what follows in the NIV.

²He said to them, "When you pray, say:
" 'Father,^[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.^[b]
³Give us each day our daily bread.
⁴Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.^[c]
And lead us not into temptation.^[d]' "

Father. The public prayers that Jews of Jesus' time were used to hearing tended to be long, flowery, and began with many salutations, names and titles of God. Jesus started his prayer simply with "Father". The disciples had admired the intimacy with God that Jesus showed when they heard him pray, and they wanted to pray like him. Of course, Jesus had a head start when it came to intimacy with God. He is God, after all. But Jesus didn't take his intimate relationship with his Father for granted. He spent a lot of alone time with God. You can't have intimacy with anyone unless you spend time with them and share everything with them. That's true of human relationships, and certainly true in a relationship with God. Jesus wanted his disciples to have the kind of intimacy with God that he had, and he wants the same for us.

Hallowed be your name. Hallowed means holy, or set apart for holy use. The first half of the Lord's Prayer is all focused on God. If this is our model prayer, that's the first lesson. Begin by recognizing who God is, how great, mighty, and above all, holy he is. It's not that God wants to hear us compliment him, it's that saying out loud how holy and awesome God is changes us. It gives us proper perspective. So often I have been guilty of taking up my whole prayer time with laundry lists of my needs. Lord, give me this. Lord, help me with that. Lord help so-and-so. God wants us to ask him for things, as we'll see later on, but he doesn't want us to start there, or worse, take up our whole prayer time with requests. Prayer is about building our relationship with God, not just about asking and receiving. The angels that surround the Throne of God continually call him holy (Isaiah 6:2-3, Rev. 4:8). If we start our prayers by joining with the angels in Heaven in proclaiming God's holiness, we'll be on the right path to having the kind of intimate relationship with God that he wants us to have with him.

Your kingdom come. Though this shorter version of the prayer doesn't continue with your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, like we're used to hearing, the meaning is still there. We are to pray for the kingdom of God to come on earth. All through Jesus' ministry, he preached the good news of the kingdom of God. If there was one theme to Jesus' teaching, that was it. So it should be important to us. What will happen when that kingdom comes? God's will will be done on earth to the same degree as it is in Heaven, completely, and without reservation. So Jesus begins his prayer not with a list of his own needs, but by saying "Father, your name is holy, and may your kingdom, your dominion, your will be accomplished on earth, and in my life, just as completely as it is in Heaven. Is that the attitude our prayers begin with?

Give us each day our daily bread. Only now does Jesus get to material needs. He doesn't say, "Give us enough to stock up for the month, or enough in our 401k to retire". He says, "Give us each day our daily bread." God wants us to depend upon him day by day. Later in this passage, Jesus talks about asking, seeking, and knocking, and many have taken that passage and others to mean that we can ask for anything we can think of, no matter what our motivations are. But in his model prayer immediately preceding that teaching, Jesus gives us examples of the kinds of things to ask for. Modest things like enough food for today.

Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. Here's the tough part. Jesus assumes that when we ask God for forgiveness for our sins, we have already forgiven others. He ties the two together, right there in the Lord's Prayer. The meaning of this request is not, "Forgive us, and then we'll forgive others". It's more like "Forgive us to the same degree that we forgive others". In the version of this prayer in Matthew, Jesus immediately follows his prayer by saying this;

¹⁴For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15).

That's serious business, folks. I've talked about forgiveness before in this blog because I believe it's a major issue in the church, and it's an issue that has affected me personally. There are people in every church in the world who believe they are Christians, but will miss Heaven because there is someone they will not forgive. Jesus clearly said that if we don't forgive others, God will not forgive us. He put the issue of forgiving others as a condition of our forgiveness right in the middle of the Lord's prayer! We can't even ask God for forgiveness unless we can also say for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. Are we getting it yet?

And lead us not into temptation. I prefer the way the New Living Bible puts this part. It says, "And don’t let us yield to temptation." I don't believe that God leads us into temptation. There has to be something lost in the translation from Aramaic to Greek to English on that one. God wants to help us overcome temptation. And let's be honest, many of us play fast and loose with temptation. We leave the door open. That's a losing game. As anyone on a diet can tell you, the best way to defeat temptation is to avoid it. And the best way to avoid it is to spend time with God. The closer we get to him, the less we want to mess around with temptation, and the more we will have the kind of intimacy with God that the disciples wanted, and that we need to have to be like Jesus.

Luke 10:38-42

2010-02-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

At the Home of Martha and Mary

³⁸As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. ³⁹She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

This is one of three events recorded in the gospels that happened at Mary and Martha's house. The other two are the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-43, blog), and Mary's anointing of Jesus (Mark 14:1-10, blog, John 12:1-10, blog). It seems logical to me that this was Jesus' first visit of the three. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were close friends and supporters of Jesus, so there may have been other visits before this that aren't recorded, but of the ones that are, it makes sense to me that this happened first. Then later, Jesus came back and raised Lazarus, then after that, out of gratitude, Mary anointed Jesus with perfume.

Martha was busy with preparations for dinner. I imagine that Mary helped with the preparations before Jesus arrived, but when Jesus showed up, she only had eyes for him. The New King James Version adds the word also to verse 39.

³⁹ And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’^[a] feet and heard His word.

I don't want to add too much weight to that one word, since no other translations I've seen have it, but there may be an implication in the original Greek that Mary did help with some of the preparations, at least part of the time, but she was not distracted by them the way Martha was. Martha was more focused on her work, while Mary was more focused on Jesus. Martha loved Jesus, and was doing her best to serve him, but she had forgotten what was really important; just being with him and listening to him. Martha was distracted by the preparations, but what was she distracted from? She was distracted from Jesus. It's easy to get so busy working for the Kingdom that we don't take time to simply be with Jesus and listen to him. Mary, on the other hand, sat at Jesus' feet and listened to what he said. Lots of people are very busy working for God and the church but forget to spend time with Jesus, but I have yet to meet anyone who spends time with Jesus and fails to work for him. Our work for Jesus must flow from our time with him.

⁴¹"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴²but only one thing is needed.^[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Are we worried and upset about many things, when only one thing is needed?

One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

I want to make sure I choose what is better. I have grown more spiritually in the past year and a half than in my whole life before that, and I believe it's for one reason; writing this blog. I spend 90 minutes to 2 hours, sometimes more, on this blog each day, studying the Bible, learning about God, reading online commentaries and doing research. I've volunteered my time in the church my whole life, but all my years of work did not bring me closer to Jesus the way the past 18 months spending time studying the Bible has. I can tell you from my own personal experience that activity, even for God, will not bring you closer to him like simply spending time with him will. I will continue to be involved in ministry, but not at the cost of sitting at his feet, listening to him.

Luke 10:25-37

2010-02-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

²⁵On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

²⁶"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

²⁷He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'^[c]; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'^[d]"

²⁸"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

This is probably the most familiar parable of Jesus, and it only appears in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus had been teaching about the kingdom of God and the eternal life that was offered through belief in him, and this teacher of the law wanted to know how to inherit this eternal life that Jesus was talking about. Though verse 25 says the teacher of the law stood up to test Jesus, the Greek word for test does not necessarily indicate a malicious intent. This seems to be a sincere question. Jesus replied by asking him what the law and prophets said, as if to say, "You already know what is required". This teacher of the law understood that the law and the prophets were summed up in these two commandments.

Has anyone, other than Jesus, completely lived up to these standards? Who among us has completely loved God, without reservation, in all of these areas?

1. With all of our heart, which I take to mean our emotions in this context. Our emotions wax and wane, they come and go. Our emotions are fickle. We can't live on emotions, and if we don't control our emotions, they will get us into trouble. God wants our emotions to be devoted to him.

2. With all of our soul. The Greek word for soul in this context is not talking about what we think of as our eternal soul, which I am no longer convinced the Bible really teaches anyway. The Greek word for soul is the same as for life or self. We are to love God with all of our life, with all that we are. Not just during our times of worship, but all of the time, during every part of our life.

3. With all of our strength. I think this is referring to our physical activity. Loving God isn't just a spiritual thing, it should infuse everything we do with our bodies. Too often we separate the physical from the spiritual, and we say we love God, but that love is not reflected in what we actually do.

4. With all of our mind. This is the hardest part, to love God with every thought. The best instruction regarding this in the Bible that I know of is in 2 Corinthians 10:5;

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. That's loving God with all of our mind. The second command is just as hard as the first, to love our neighbor as ourselves. Contrary to current popular belief, this does not mean that we must love ourselves in order to love others. It means that we are to take care of others like we take care of ourselves, and be just as concerned about the welfare of others as we are about our own welfare. Who among us has lived up to that standard?

²⁹But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Apparently this lawyer thought he had kept the first commandment pretty well, since he didn't ask about that one. His only concern was with figuring out who he had to love, and who he didn't. It all depended on how he defined the word neighbor. The Jews of Jesus' time believed that they had to love their neighbor, but they also believed they were supposed to hate their enemy. But of course, Jesus wanted to demolish that belief (Matthew 5:43-45). Loving our enemies is a difficult concept, but this parable is a perfect illustration of it.

³⁰In reply Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³²So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵The next day he took out two silver coins^[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'

The teacher of the law was asking who he had to love. It seems to me that Jesus could have answered his question more directly with this story by making a Samaritan the one who was hurt, and a teacher of the law the one who helped him. But instead, Jesus made a priest and a Levite (a pastor and a worship leader) the bad guys of the story, and a hated Samaritan the hero, which challenged the lawyer's belief system even more.

The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notorious for bandits, so all of Jesus' listeners could relate. Bandits and robbers were a real problem on the roads between cities in the ancient world. Mary and Joseph had reason to fear for Jesus' life when they lost him on the journey home from Jerusalem when he was a boy for that very reason (Luke 2:41-48). They probably all knew of cases like this where someone was robbed and beaten on this road. In Jesus' story, a priest, who made the sacrifices for their sins, and a Levite, who led the worship at the temple, both passed by without helping the injured man. But a supposed enemy, who Jews of that time believed it was their duty before God to hate, didn't just stop at the next town and tell someone to send help, he stopped and helped the man himself, at considerable cost. He treated the man's wounds. He put the man on his own donkey, which meant he walked the rest of the way. He paid for a room at the inn, and spent the night taking care of him. As he left, he paid the innkeeper two denarii, which was two days wages for a working man. Divide your yearly salary by 365, multiply that number by 2, and that's how much the equivalent would be for you. The average yearly income in America is $50.000 per year. So in today's dollars, he paid about $275 on top of what he had already paid, and he committed to pay any additional costs the innkeeper incurred after that money was gone.

³⁶"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

³⁷The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him."
Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."

By telling the story in this way, and putting the Samaritan in the role of the hero rather than the victim, Jesus didn't really answer the question the way the lawyer wanted him to. Instead, he illustrated what it means to be a neighbor to someone else. The teacher of the law was asking who he had to love in order to inherit the eternal life Jesus was talking about. He wanted to love his neighbor, but hate his enemy. Jesus gave him an example not of a Jew showing love to an enemy, but an enemy showing love to a Jew. It's obvious that the teacher of the law didn't like Jesus' answer much. When Jesus asked him who had been a neighbor to the injured man, the lawyer wouldn't even say the word Samaritan. He just said, "The one who had mercy on him."

Lots of people think the Bible tells us to love everyone, but it doesn't. The Bible tells us to love our neighbor. So who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is the one who we might think of as an enemy. Our neighbor is the one who has a need right in front of us. And loving them is not feeling affection toward them, it's doing everything in our power to help them with their need. It's loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Luke 10:17-24

2010-02-15T13:34:00.000-08:00

¹⁷The seventy-two returned with joy and said, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."

¹⁸He replied, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The seventy-two had been sent out to heal the sick and preach about the kingdom of God. The authority to cast out demons was not mentioned in this chapter like it was when he sent the Twelve (9:1-6). Since so many of his instructions this time were repeated from the last time, maybe he did give them that authority and it's just not mentioned. Or maybe it was an added blessing. Jesus' reply to them is instructive in two ways. First, he tells them the reason the demons submitted to them. The authority they had came from Jesus, from the fact that they acted in his name. Jesus did not simply witness Satan's fall from Heaven. As Almighty God, he expelled Satan from Heaven himself. That's the same authority he used to cast out demons on earth, and the same authority he gave his disciples. When we act in Jesus' name, we have authority over Satan and his minions. But it's not our authority, it's his, and we need to make sure we really are acting in his name.

Second, he told them not to rejoice in the authority they had been given, but to rejoice that their names were written in Heaven. Of course, he's talking about the Lamb's Book of Life (Revelation 21:27). His message to the 72 is simple; Don't be pleased with yourselves because you've had success in ministry. Don't rejoice in what you've done for me, but in what I've done for you. Sometimes, after good morning of leading worship, or concert that went well, I am tempted to be very pleased with myself. But that's pride, and it's the very thing that caused Satan to fall like lightning from Heaven. If we're tempted to be proud of our success in ministry, remember that Satan once stood closer to the throne of God than any other archangel, and fell because of pride. If it can happen to him, it can happen to us.

²¹At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

Jesus got very excited here. Verse 21 says he was "full of joy through the Holy Spirit". The original Greek literally says he was thrilled with joy. What made him so happy? His joy came from the fact that his disciples were experiencing victory over Satan. When we act in Jesus' name and experience spiritual victory because of it, Jesus gets excited! He's thrilled with joy! What was his response to that joy? He praised God. The incorrect response to success in ministry is pride. The correct response is to praise God.

Jesus' prayer of praise is not a statement against education or intellectualism. Jesus himself was very educated. His knowledge of the scriptures did not come from omniscience, it came from religious education and upbringing. But his disciples were not learned men. They were uneducated peasants, for the most part. And in Jesus' time, Judaism was dominated by those who were very proud of their education but missed the really important things. Faith in God is simple, but not easy. The smallest child understands faith, and lives by it, literally. The older and "smarter" we get, the more we think we can take care of ourselves.

I am bothered by the anti-intellectual streak I see in much of America and in the church. But we want our pastors to be educated, don't we? We definitely want that of our doctors and surgeons! I hear people complain about the Ivy League "elites", but any parent would be proud if their child got into Harvard or Yale. It makes no sense to be anti-education and anti-thought. If that's our attitude, why have Christian colleges? The point I believe that Jesus is making with this statement is not that it's bad to be "wise and learned", but that those things are not necessary for victory over Satan. Jesus was filled with joy that his followers had learned that by acting in his name, they had discovered that they could have victory over evil, and he thanked his Father for showing this basic truth to the simplest of people, while the more educated men of his time were missing it.

²²"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

Jesus' authority came directly from his Father. Because of that, the intimacy that Jesus had with his Father while he was on earth is also possible for us here on earth. The Trinity is impossible for us to get our heads around, but I think that before and after the Incarnation, Jesus and the Father are one. They were briefly distinct from one another while Jesus was in the flesh, and one of the purposes of the Incarnation was to show us how a human being can have intimacy with God. Jesus showed us how by the way he lived. If we do everything in Jesus' name, we have victory over sin, and he reveals himself to us (John 14:21).

²³Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. ²⁴For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."

One of the things that has jumped out at me in the gospels is how often Jesus helped those who had no access to salvation because of permanent ceremonial uncleanness. The lepers he healed, the woman with the bleeding problem, even Matthew the tax collector. Not to mention all the demon possessed he delivered. None of them could be saved before Jesus came along, because they could not make sacrifices for their sin. Because of Jesus, we have it much easier today. Blessed are the eyes that see what we see.

Luke 10:1-16

2010-02-12T09:15:00.001-08:00

Jesus Sends Out the Seventytwo

¹After this the Lord appointed seventy-two^[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.

Jesus now sends out a much larger group than he did at the beginning of chapter 9, with many of the same instructions. It may seem like he was sending them to cover more ground than he could cover in person, but this verse indicates that he was sending them to places he was about to visit. So it seems they were sent to prepare these places for Jesus' arrival.

²He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. ³Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

What happens if a field is ripe for harvest, but there are not enough workers to harvest it all? Much of the harvest spoils before it can be harvested. It goes to waste. This verse is not just about how large the task before us is, but also how time sensitive it is. If the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few, we have to first pray that God will send more workers so the harvest will not go to waste, and then get to work ourselves now. People who are ready to hear the Good News now may not be a year from now.

I don't like the idea of being sent out as a lamb among wolves much, but that's exactly how Jesus was sent. We can't be concerned with how we will be treated. Our only concern should be whether or not Christ is preached.

⁴Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

This was the same instruction Jesus gave to the Twelve in 9:3. They were to take no provisions. That way, they would learn how to depend upon God. Also, they would not be sending any mixed messages by carrying a money bag for begging the way itinerant preachers usually did. I don't think Jesus' instruction about not greeting anyone was an instruction to snub people. It's not that they couldn't say hello, but they were not to allow delays caused by ceremonies of etiquette. It takes some people in my church 30 minutes to get from one part of the church building to another because they stop to talk with everyone they meet along the way. I've been to many choir rehearsals where very little work got done because people were so happy to see each other that they talked all through the rehearsal. I think this is what Jesus is talking about. It's wonderful to have fellowship with our friends, but not if it keeps us from our work for the kingdom.

⁵"When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' ⁶If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. ⁷Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

As I've mentioned many times before, Jesus and his disciples stayed in private homes. Hotels were known as houses of prostitution in Jesus' time. His instruction regarding the "peace" blessing is sort of lost on me, I must admit. I'm not sure what he means by this. In the Bible, a spoken blessing is a powerful thing which could not be revoked. That's why Isaac could not take back the blessing that Jacob deceived him into bestowing (Genesis 27:1-40). But in this case, if the blessing was not received by the man of the house, the blessing would return to the bestower. I want to be a man of peace, so I can receive the blessing of peace on my house. Some of us do not receive well from others. If someone blesses us in the name of Jesus, we need to receive that blessing and be thankful.

Whether or not their host received their blessing, they were to stay in that house. Perhaps by rubbing shoulders with disciples of Jesus, the host would learn what the peace of Christ was all about. If Jesus was teaching the people who showed hospitality to his followers how to receive his blessing of peace, he was also teaching his disciples how to accept hospitality as earned payment for their work for the kingdom, rather than thinking of it as charity. The phrase "the worker deserves his wages" has been used many times to support the idea of paying people in ministry. I believe in that, and I've used this saying myself to justify paying professional musicians in church, which I much prefer to working with volunteers. But Jesus' instruction here is not to those who would pay, but to those who would be paid. I think it works both ways, but in this instance, Jesus is not telling the hosts to feed his disciples well because they deserve it. He's telling his disciples not to refuse what they get, because they deserve it.

Jesus gave the Twelve the same instruction in 9:4 to stay in the same house while they were in a given town. They were not to move around. Maybe it would be considered an insult to leave a house that showed you hospitality in order to stay someplace else in the same town. I'm not sure about that one, either. If someone knows what that instruction was about (or the peace blessing), please comment!

⁸"When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. ⁹Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.' ¹⁰But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ¹¹'Even the dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off against you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God is near.' ¹²I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

This set of instructions is largely repeated from 9:1-6. They were sent out to do what Jesus did; to heal the sick and to preach the Good News of the kingdom of God. Many Christian charities and missions today work on the same principle. If we meet someone's physical needs first, they are more likely to listen to our message. As in 9:5, Jesus instructs them to shake the dust of a town off their feet as they leave if they are not welcomed, like they would a Gentile town. This was a way of saying, “We want no part of this place”. But this time, these towns were not just rejecting a visit from two disciples of Jesus. Jesus was sending them ahead to places he was about to visit. If a town rejected his disciples, that town probably got crossed of the list of places Jesus would go. This literally fulfills what Jesus says later, in verse 16. Maybe this was part of the purpose of sending them out, to find the places that would be receptive to Jesus, so he would not waste time on those who would not.

¹³"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. ¹⁴But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. ¹⁵And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths.^[b]

¹⁶"He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

The gospels don't record any miracles of Jesus in Korazin, but obviously Jesus did perform at least one miracle there. Jesus healed a blind man in Bethsaida, and Peter, Andrew, and Phillip were all from there (John 1:44). If any town had no excuse, it was Bethsaida. Tyre and Sidon were rival Gentile cities in Lebanon. Sidon is now called Saida, and is a large city of 200,000 people. Sidon had a bad reputation for several reasons. Sidon was a Philistine city in Old Testament times. Solomon took a wife from Sidon (1 Kings 1:11), and as a result, their idol worship found its way into Israel. Jezebel was a Sidonian princess (1 Kings 16:31). But Jesus visited the region of Tyre and Sidon, and performed one miracle there that we know of, the healing of a demon possessed girl (Mark 7:24-30). Jesus actually lived in Capernaum for a while (Matthew 4:12-16), and performed many miracles there. They were without excuse as much as Bethsaida was, maybe more. Sometimes, in conversations with non-believers, they ask me what God will do at the Judgment with all of the people who never heard about Jesus. I don't know the answer to that question, but I believe that God will be just, and more than that, he will be merciful. But for those of us who have heard about him time and again, and who have seen what he has done for others, there is no excuse. It will be more bearable on the Day of Judgment for the millions of heathen who never heard the Gospel than it will be for us if we reject Jesus.

Luke 9:57-62

2010-02-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

The Cost of Following Jesus

⁵⁷As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

⁵⁸Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

Here Luke gives us three short examples of people who wanted to follow Jesus, but would not or could not pay the price. There must have been many who were attracted to the message, miracles, and person of Jesus, but when it came down to leaving everything to follow him, could not go through with it. They couldn't make the commitment that was necessary. There have always been lots of people like that. There have been times when I went to a musical production at church and thought it would be fun to be part of it, if only I could just be up there for the performances and skip all the rehearsals and work that goes into it beforehand. But it doesn't work that way. There is a price to be paid for excellence. It takes commitment.

This man was like many people, making bold statements without realizing what he was committing to. We don't have any backstory on him, but from Jesus' response, we can assume he was a man who was used to comfort. Jesus, who was on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified, was letting the man know that following him was not always comfortable. Jesus had no home of his own. He relied on the hospitality of others. He could have gone back to the family home in Nazareth, but that would have meant abandoning his ministry and mission, and that was not an option. Following Jesus meant living like Jesus lived. Perhaps this man saw the large crowds that followed Jesus around and thought it looked glamorous and fun, like being in a celebrity's entourage. But Jesus lived hand-to-mouth, and this man would have had to live like that too. Following Jesus means trusting him to meet our needs. He will supply all of our needs, but he does not promise us a certain level of comfort. Why do you think he tells us to take up our cross and follow him?

⁵⁹He said to another man, "Follow me."
But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

⁶⁰Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

In this case, Jesus asked the man to follow him. The first man volunteered, but this man was asked. A great honor. His request seems reasonable at first, and honestly, I've always thought Jesus' reply to him sounded insensitive. But look at the way the Amplified Bible expands verse 59:

⁵⁹And He said to another, ^[v]Become My disciple, side with My party, and accompany Me! But he replied, Lord, permit me first to go and bury (^[w]await the death of) my father.

Many scholars interpret this verse that way. Apparently this man's father was not dead. It doesn't even say he was sick. He might just have been old, but this man wanted to wait until his father was dead and buried to follow Jesus. Maybe he was waiting for an inheritance to support him on the road. There are lots of reasons for not following Jesus that sound perfectly reasonable at the time. How many times have we thought, "Once A or B happens, then I'll really commit my life to Christ"? Now is the time to follow Jesus and proclaim the kingdom of God. There will never be a better time than right now.

⁶¹ Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family."

⁶²Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

Again, this seems like a reasonable request at first. Why would Jesus not allow him to say goodbye to his family? Did he want the man to simply disappear without a word? But people lived in extended families in that culture, and "saying goodbye" could well mean staying with them for weeks and tidying up his affairs before going off to follow Jesus. What this man and the last did not understand was that by the time they took care of their own business to their satisfaction, Jesus would already be crucified. Only if they followed him immediately would they have any part in his mission. I wonder if either of these men became believers after Jesus' crucifixion. I wonder if they ever heard of his resurrection, and realized the mistake they made. Many of us make foolish mistakes and don't make the commitment to Christ that we should when we are young. Some come around later in life, but many do not. Even those who do commit to Jesus later miss years of impact they could have had in the kingdom had they stayed committed from their youth. Who might these men have been in the early church had they been willing to pay the price to follow Jesus when they had the chance?

Farmers in that day would plow straight rows by focusing on an object straight ahead, like a tree. If they started to plow, but kept looking back, they would never plow straight rows. Their field or garden would be a mess. If we start to follow Jesus, but keep looking back to our old life, we will never make it. We'll certainly never produce a crop. Only if we keep our eyes fixed on him will we keep going in a straight line.

Luke 9:51-56

2010-02-10T08:27:00.000-08:00

Samaritan Opposition

⁵¹As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. ⁵²And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; ⁵³but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem.

This is the point where Jesus began his long, determined journey to Jerusalem to enter into his suffering. He had been trying to prepare his disciples for this, but his warnings had gone over their heads. He sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village, to see if they would be welcomed there. I wonder what welcoming means, exactly. I imagine they were looking for a house where they could stay for the night. Maybe he also wanted permission from the local rabbi to teach in their synagogue. In verse 5, when Jesus sent his disciples out to preach and heal, he had told them what to do if the people of a town did not welcome them, so apparently this was the usual practice, to send messengers ahead to see if they would be "welcomed" in a town. Whatever welcoming means, this Samaritan village would not do it, for the specific reason that they were on their way to Jerusalem.

Jews of that time despised Samaritans, and the feeling was mutual. Devout Jews would walk a long way around to avoid even walking through a Samaritan area, so it's revealing that Jesus and his whole group were not only going to travel through a Samaritan village, but wanted to be welcome there. The prejudices of his time did not keep Jesus from trying to minister to people. The division between Jew and Samaritan went back to the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. When the Northern kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., they intermarried with their conquerors, so Jews considered them "half-breeds". Although the divided kingdom and their captivity stemmed from pagan religious practices, in Jesus' time, Samaritans were strict monotheists, and though they didn't practice mainstream Judaism, they did worship Yahweh. They only regarded the first five books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch, as canonical, and they insisted that the true temple for Israel's worship was on Mt. Gerazim, rather than Mt. Zion in Jerusalem. They looked for the Messiah, but they expected him to rule from Mt. Gerazim, not from Jerusalem. (If you're interested in learning more about the Samaritans, I recommend Bible-History.com's pages on it.) That's why the Samaritans would not welcome Jesus and his group, because they were on their way to Jerusalem for Passover. So they missed out on having Jesus in their village because of their ideology. Do we argue about doctrine so much that we miss Jesus?

⁵⁴When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them^[c]?" ⁵⁵But Jesus turned and rebuked them, ⁵⁶and^[d] they went to another village.

When Jesus had sent his disciples out to preach and heal, he told them in verse 5 that if they were not welcomed in a town, they should shake the dust of the town off their feet, like they would the dust of a Gentile town. That was enough of a statement for Jesus, but that apparently was not enough for James and John when it came to this Samaritan village. What amuses me about their question is that they didn't ask Jesus if he would call down fire from Heaven on the village, they asked if he wanted them to do it. As if they could! If you click on the footnotes in verses 54 and 56, you will see that there are some things missing that appear in other translations. Some manuscripts add an expanded conclusion to verse 55 and an additional sentence in verse 56. In verse 55, some manuscripts have James and John asking if they should call down fire from Heaven like Elijah did. They are referring to II Kings 1:9-16, where the wicked king of the northern kingdom, Ahaziah, had consulted with pagan gods to see if he would recover from injuries he had sustained. Elijah called down fire from Heaven on Ahaziah's army because of his wickedness. But James and John wanted to do this because of a perceived personal insult!

In the rest of the part that's left out of the NIV, Jesus says this in verse 56:

And he said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of, for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

Jesus knew that the divisions between Jews and Samaritans (and Gentiles, for that matter) would no longer matter in the new covenant that he was about to establish. In fact, Samaritans would be quicker to accept Jesus as the Messiah after his death and resurrection than his own people would. So they simply went on to another village. I wonder if that was a Samaritan village also, but one that did welcome them. Jesus will not force his way into our lives. He wants us to welcome him. Is Jesus welcome in your life?

Luke 9:46-50

2010-02-09T08:25:00.001-08:00

Who Will Be the Greatest

⁴⁶An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. ⁴⁷Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. ⁴⁸Then he said to them, "Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest."

This story also appears in Mark 9:33-37. See my post on that passage here. As usual, Luke does not give us as much detail as Mark does. Luke's gospel is more comprehensive than the other gospels, in that it gives us more of the events of Jesus' life and ministry than the other gospels do, but in order to do that, Luke leaves out many details that appear elsewhere. As I mentioned in my post on Luke's introduction to his gospel, some scholars believe that Luke and Acts may have been prepared as legal briefs for Paul's trial in Rome, since Acts ends with Paul arriving there. If that's true, that may be the reason Luke left out some of what might be considered by a Roman court to be "unnecessary" details.

A favorite topic of argument for the disciples was which of them would have the greatest position in Jesus' kingdom. They all thought he was going to end up as King of Israel, being the Messiah, and each of them wanted to be his "Chief of Staff". It's no wonder they didn't get it when Jesus tried to tell them that he would soon be arrested and killed. How could that possibly happen to the Messiah? That's one of the reasons most Jews still do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, because he didn't ascend to the throne of David. Not yet.

It's easy for us to criticize the disciples for arguing about which of them was the greatest, but that attitude is all too common in the church today. Ask any choir director if there's jealousy among choir members about who gets the solos. If we concern ourselves with small stuff like who did what and who got the credit or the applause, we are not Christlike. As I said in my post on Mark's version of this story, I believe that the child that Jesus used as an example was one of the disciple's children. Mark says they were in a house (Mark 9:33), so it seems to me this child must have been part of their group. No one had lower status in that society than children, other than slaves. But interestingly, Jesus did not say that they should be like this child, at least not here. He said that they should welcome him or her. Welcoming those with the lowest status is like welcoming Jesus himself. In Mark, this statement by Jesus is immediately preceded by him saying, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." (Mark 9:35-37) The "welcoming" duties in a Jewish household of that time, the washing of the feet and the anointing with oil, often were performed by slaves. If you did these things, you were saying that you had lower status than the person you did it for, and Jesus was telling his disciples, right after they argued about which of them was the greatest, that they should do these things for children, who had no status at all. That's having the attitude of a servant. Not being concerned about who in the church got to do the thing we wanted to do, but considering others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).

⁴⁹"Master," said John, "we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us."

⁵⁰"Do not stop him," Jesus said, "for whoever is not against you is for you."

Here is another case of the disciples being worried about who got the credit. See my post on Mark's version of this here. They were jealous that someone else was able to cast out demons in Jesus' name when they had just failed at that. It can be hard to rejoice in someone else's success when we are failing, even in ministry. Even if we are suspicious of someone's motives, we should always rejoice when Christ is lifted up, no matter who is doing it. I don't care for most TV preachers, and it bothers me when some secular artists do gospel albums when I don't necessarily believe that they live what they're singing about. But I have no idea who is being reached for Christ or blessed because of what they do, so who am I to judge them? Jesus said that whoever is not against us is for us in verse 50, but all too often we have the opposite attitude, that whoever is not part of our group is against us, even other Christian churches. This attitude reflects an "us first" or "me first" attitude just as much as arguing about which of us is the greatest. If we have the attitude of Christ, we don't care which of us gets the honors, or whose ministry is succeeding, as long as Christ is lifted up.

Luke 9:37-45

2010-02-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

The Healing of a Boy With an Evil Spirit

³⁷The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. ³⁸A man in the crowd called out, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. ³⁹A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams; it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. ⁴⁰I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not."

This event also appears in Mark 9:14-29. See my post on that passage here. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this event immediately follows the Transfiguration. As soon as they came down from the mountaintop, they were confronted with the devil. We've all been there. Mark gives us more details regarding this story than either Matthew or Luke do. In Mark 9;14, we are told that there was a large crowd and a group of scribes there arguing with the disciples, probably about their inability to cast out the demon, though the scribes had obviously not been able to do it either. These were the remaining disciples who had not gone up to the mountaintop with Jesus. These same disciples had been able to cast out demons before (Mark 6:13), but this one was more difficult.

Another detail that Mark gives us and Luke does not is found in the Amplified Bible in verse 15. It seems that Jesus may still have been glistening from the Transfiguration when they came down the mountain. But here's a detail Luke gives that neither Matthew or Mark do. Neither Matthew or Mark tell us how much time passed durng the Transfiguration, but Luke says here that they came down from the mountain the next day. I imagine that it didn't feel like that much time had passed to Peter, James, and John. But the remaining disciples had been stuck down there trying to deal with this problem while Jesus and the others were on the mountaintop for a whole day. They had cast out demons without Jesus right there with them previously, so they probably thought they could handle this without him too. After a great spiritual victory, it's easy to think we've "arrived" and can now handle things on our own. If we ever let ourselves think that way, we will fail just like they did.

This father was desperate. He had probably been to Jewish exorcists, who hadn't been able to help, so he tried to come to Jesus, but only found some of his disciples, who couldn't help either. For so many people, Jesus is their last resort when no one else can help, rather than their first choice. Lord, help me not to wait till I'm at the end of my rope to come to you!

⁴¹"O unbelieving and perverse generation," Jesus replied, "how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here."

In Mark 9:19 in the New Living Translation, Jesus' reply here can also be translated that he said this to his disciples, rather than to the father who brought his son for healing. That makes more sense to me. I think Jesus was chastising his disciples for not having enough faith to drive the demon out, but he could also have been talking to the scribes there, and even to the boy's father for trying every other option before coming to him.

⁴²Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the evil^[b] spirit, healed the boy and gave him back to his father. ⁴³And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.

Luke leaves out the entire conversation between Jesus and the boy's father, which I feel is key to this story. Here is Mark's version of the exchange.

²¹Jesus asked the boy's father, "How long has he been like this?"

"From childhood," he answered. ²²"It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us."

²³" 'If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes."

²⁴Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

Jesus had just rebuked his disciples for their lack of faith, and now he teaches them a lesson in what faith can do. The key line, to me, is when the boy's father says, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" We can all relate to that statement. The disciples and the boy's father were all struggling with their faith. The disciples, I'm sure, considered themselves believers in Jesus, and the boy's father had at least demonstrated hope in Jesus by bringing his son to him, but Jesus still called them an "unbelieving and perverse generation". Even believers need to grow in our faith. It took the disciples 3 years of hanging around with Jesus, witnessing his death and resurrection, and experiencing Pentecost before they had the faith necessary to do the kinds of things that Jesus did. Faith is a process. It grows as we grow in Christ.

Luke, in verse 43, says that when Jesus healed the boy and gave him back to his father, that "they were all amazed at the greatness of God." Jesus' miracles always pointed people to God. They glorified God, and they helped people to believe. As I keep saying, that's still the purpose of miracles today, and it's the purpose of all ministry, for that matter. Does everything that we do and call ministry meet that standard? Does it glorify God, and help people believe? If not, we are missing the mark.

While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he said to his disciples, ⁴⁴"Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men." ⁴⁵But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

Only Luke places this conversation immediately after the healing of the demon possessed boy. After having performed this miracle, Jesus reminded his disciples of what he had just told them in verse 22. Jesus continued to try to tell them what he must suffer, but the disciples never got it until it actually happened. Why are we so slow to take God at his word? That's part of faith too. Faith is taking God at his word, whether he's giving us happy news or hard news.