Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 14-16.

OK, I have some disconnected thoughts about today’s passage.  Perhaps I will manage to tie them together as I write.  Jesus tells us that we should never honor ourselves, nor assume that places of honor belong to us.  Instead of seeking the place of greatest desirability at a gathering or event, let us instead leave such places for others.  Instead wait for others to invite us to such a place, wait for others to hold us up for honor.  Instead of seeking honor for ourselves, let us seek to honor others.  Next I want to write about Jesus’ discussion about the excitement in heaven over finding the lost.  In His parables we normally think of God as being the one who found that which was lost.  While that is certainly the face value of what Jesus is saying, we should think a little deeper.  We should be the ones who energetically, and excitedly, seek out those who are lost and bring them back to God.  Which brings me to the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  We often think, speak, and write negatively about the elder son, because of the jealousy he felt over the feast his father gave his younger brother.  However, when we do that we are overlooking that his father offered him comfort, not condemnation.  The father pointed out that everything he had was the older brother’s and invited him to join the celebration of his brother’s return.  In the same way, God invites us to celebrate the return to Him of those who turned their backs on Him.  We get to decide by how we react whether the older son was ultimately a good brother or a bad brother, because we are the elder son in Jesus’ story.  We may have been, in fact, probably were, the younger son who turned his back on the Father, on God, but now we have been brought back and need to join God in celebrating the return of those who return after us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 12-13.

Today’s passage is the second time that Luke reports that Jesus said there is nothing hidden that will not be made known.  The previous time, Jesus warned us that we should be careful how we listen.  This time, He warns that everything we say in secret will be declared openly for all to hear.  Jesus follows that up by telling us not to fear anything because God keeps track of each and every sparrow and He values us much more than He values sparrows.  It is also in this context that Luke reports that Jesus told us not to worry about what to say in response to those who attack us for our faith: God will provide us with the words to speak.  Jesus then expands on His teaching us not to fear or worry, by pointing out that God will provide for our needs.  Instead of worrying about what we should eat, or drink, or wear, we should seek that which pleases God, that which brings us closer to God’s kingdom.  Rather than investing for our old age, let us invest in our eternity.

When I read passages such as the first part of today’s, I fear that I have squandered opportunities to do God’s will, that my efforts are too small.  However, the second half addresses those concerns.  First, there is the parable Jesus tells of the fig tree here.  The owner has become frustrated that the tree has failed to bear fruit and orders the caretaker to cut it down.  But the caretaker tells him to give it one more year, one more chance.  He, the caretaker, will give the tree special care to cause it to bear fruit.  In many ways I feel like God is giving me one last chance to bear the fruit which He expects of me.  Yet, I feel like even so what I am doing is too small.  And there the final things I want to write about come in.  Jesus told a parable about how large a mustard plant grows from a tiny seed, and how a small amount of yeast transforms a large amount of dough.  Both of these remind us that while the things we do may be small, even miniscule, they may have large consequences.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 10-11.

When the seventy-two disciples whom Jesus sent out to announce His ministry returned, they were overjoyed at the miracles they had been able to perform.  Jesus validates their response, but tells them, and us, that we should not rejoice because we can perform miracles.  Rather we should rejoice about what those miracles say about us.   Our joy should come from the fact that God has chosen to acknowledge us as His.  Perhaps He does not do so by allowing us to perform miracles, but in the way in which we touch the lives of those around us.  In fact, Jesus seems to be suggesting that we should not seek to do miracles, although He also says that we will do them (perhaps not all of us, but we should all expect miracles to happen around us).  Which brings me to Luke’s second account of Jesus using the metaphor of people not lighting a lamp and hiding it.  Jesus says when people light a lamp they put it on a stand so that everyone who comes by can see its light.  Then He tells us that our eyes are the light of our body…if our eyes are healthy our body will be healthy, and if our eyes are unhealthy than our body will be unhealthy.  There is some definite real-world truth to this, but, interestingly, the translators’ notes for the NIV say that the Greek word translated as “healthy” here has the connotation of “generous”, while the word translated as “unhealthy” has the connotation of stingy.  So, Jesus was telling His audience, and us, that if we look upon others and feel generous towards them we are spiritually healthy, if, on the other hand they inspire us to be miserly, we are spiritually sick, and our bodies are full of darkness.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 6-7.

I was struggling with deciding what to write this morning because there are so many good teachings in today’s passage and I could not figure out how to bring them together into one theme.  However, as I read the passage again in my attempt to put my thoughts in some sort of order, as I was reading Luke’s account of John the Baptist’s disciples asking Jesus if He was the One I decided to focus on What Jesus said there.  Not the answer Jesus gave John’s disciples, but what He said after they left.  Jesus talked about how the “best people” rejected John the Baptist because he lead an ascetic lifestyle, because he neither drank wine nor feasted.  On the other hand, they also rejected Jesus because He drank and went to parties with people who were considered unsavory.  So, we have these contrasting styles regarding their ministry, yet Jesus and John the Baptist both recognized the other as doing God’s work.  Some of us will be called to serve God by living an austere lifestyle, calling others to set aside the pleasures of this world in order to serve God.  Others will be called to spend our time with sinners in their pursuits, showing them that God loves and cares about them.  And some will be called to a lifestyle somewhere in between.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 4-5.

When Jesus called Levi the tax collector to be one of His followers, Levi threw a lavish party which Jesus and His disciples attended.  The Pharisees asked Jesus’ disciples why they would associate with tax collectors and sinners.  I want to note that, in the context of the Gospels, tax collectors were those enriched themselves by collaborating with the enemy to the detriment of their countrymen.  To which Jesus replied, even though He had not been asked directly, that He had not come to call the righteous, but rather sinners, to repentance.  The Pharisees then asked Jesus why His disciples did not fast, contrasting their failure to fast with the fasting by the disciples of the various Pharisee teachers and even John the Baptist’s disciples.  Jesus replied with an interesting metaphor.  First, He says that no one puts new wine in old wineskins, because the new wine would burst the old wineskins.  That would seem fairly straightforward: Jesus’ ministry is a new thing and cannot be contained by the traditions and customs of the old thing which the Pharisees and even John the Baptist represent.  There is only one problem with that, Jesus follows up the comment about the wineskins by saying that once someone has drunk old wine they do not want to drink new wine.  So, there is a connection between Jesus’ answer about calling sinners, not the righteous and His answer about wine and wineskins, but I am not quite sure what it is.  There is also a connection between His comment about the friends of the bridegroom not fasting while he is with them, but that they will fast later, and His comment about not wanting to drink new wine after tasting old wine.  Again, I am not quite sure what that connection is.  I think part of what Jesus was saying was that His movement was a new and joyous thing, but it would get better as it aged.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 2-3.

A few days ago in this blog I asked about how Jesus had the credentials to be allowed, and perhaps even invited, to teach in synagogues, which the Gospels report that He did at the very beginning of His ministry.  In today’s passage we get the only direct insight into that.  Luke writes that when Jesus was twelve He spent three to six days in the temple courts  learning from some of the leading religious scholars of the day.  At the age of twelve, those who taught there were amazed by the questions He asked and the answers He gave.  I want to go over the number of days Jesus spent in the temple courts.  So, Luke writes that His parents did not realize He was not with them until they were a day out from Jerusalem, then Luke writes that they found Jesus after three days.  So, the question becomes, did Mary and Joseph find Jesus three days after they left Jerusalem, three days after they realized He was missing, or three days after they got back to Jerusalem?  If the latter, Jesus was in the temple courts for five or six days, because perhaps the reason Mary and Joseph left Jerusalem without Him was because He spent the day before they left at the temple as well.  Not that the exact number of days has any significance.  More importantly, this story indicates that Jesus spent every opportunity He had learning from teachers of the Law, and He was such a student that the teachers of the Law welcomed Him studying with them.  I think that Luke intends for us to understand that Jesus continued in His studies of Jewish Law, thus explaining why He was welcome to teach in the synagogue when He began His ministry.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.