Category: LUKE

Re:Verse passage – Luke 15:1-10 (day four)

It is likely that the name, Erdmann Neumeister, does not ring a bell with you.  God had given Erdmann a special gift…when he read Scripture, he was able to verbalize the truth of that Scripture into the form of a hymn.  It was the early 1700’s when Neumeister penned the words to “Christ Receiveth Sinful Men.”  This hymn, based on this parable in Luke 15, repeats a reoccurring message of Jesus…go after the lost!  (The hymns of our faith are great teachers of the theology of God’s Word.)

“Sinners Jesus will receive; Sound this word of grace to all Who the heavenly pathway leave, All who linger, all who fall.”  Christ is reaching out to the sinners and calling us to dine at His table.  Neumeister understood that we, as believers, have a responsibility to search for the one who does not know Jesus.  Then, we celebrate when they are found.  Sounds like a great invitation to missions!

Re:Verse passage – Luke 15:1-10 (day three)

“What woman…does  not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?

Everybody understands that some things command attention and some things simply don’t. So ingrained is the giving or withholding of attention that people adjust their level of attentiveness without giving much thought to it. It’s common to find a penny on the ground; pennies receive little attention. It’s rarer to find a hundred-dollar bill on the ground; that currency receives considerably higher attentive care. And when someone finds a briefcase containing 2.3 million dollars, that’s…only in the movies. At any rate, you don’t care about the penny, and you care much more about the hundred. And it really hurts when it goes missing. You will search hard. This is what heaven’s going through right this moment.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 15:1-10 (day two) Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him.² Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” vs. 1-2

Have you ever been invited to a function talks about charity, homelessness, poverty, or other societal woe and yet nowhere in the event is someone who looks, represent, or who personally knows these issues first-hand? Don’t get me wrong there are many wonderful organizations that raise awareness and funds for great causes, but I think you understand my point. Would those same people come to a banquet if everyone was disheveled and hurting? Similarly in our churches do we talk about helping the hurting world, and yet don’t welcome them into our walls? Yes, Jesus received and ate with sinners, do you?

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day seven) 

But they all alike began to make excuses… I have bought a piece of land… I have bought five yoke of oxen… I have married a wife. vs 18-20

The most shocking part of this parable is that the excuses are legit. No one would cancel their honeymoon for a friends party. Nor would people bat an eye if the CEO flew across the country to check on his new factory.  These are not bad things. In fact, they are good things, but good things can make for bad priorities.

How many of us do the same thing? How often do we get preoccupied with our everyday life occurrences and inadvertently neglect our spiritual health? We fill our schedule with good things justifying our actions because the things we did were not sinful. However, good things, if they are not Kingdom things, can quickly become an idol.  Our priority as followers of Christ should be “What we can do for the Kingdom?” not “Does the Kingdom fit into our schedule this week?”

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day six) 

³⁴ “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.”-Jesus, Luke 13:34

No matter how much they may have deserved it, Jesus’ words were not always colored with anger when confronting the self-righteousness of the pharisees. To be sure, there were moments when Jesus was angry with them, but more often than not he told his parables with compassion and longing for repentance. The one he tells while at the pharisee’s house is no exception.

Jesus had dinner with these pharisees and experts of the law, not to pass immediate judgement, but to help them truly see themselves; that they were fully invested in building their own kingdoms rather joining God in building his.

I imagine that required God-sized compassion.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day five) 

“And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.”

Do you see and sense the picture of the parable?  The master is sending his servant/slave out to bring people to the dinner. The directive was to compel them to come. Not by force. After all, only one man  couldn’t realistically use force.  Not argue. A slave was not well regarded socially. Yet the master sends someone who has experienced the magnitude of the master’s wealth and generosity. I wonder how the slave spoke of the master. I wonder how the slave described the dinner.

We are sent in the same way…. to compel others to come and feast with the master. How will we describe what we have experienced?  What will we say about the Master? What will we say about His character and kindness?  His invitation for others should always be on our lips.

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day four)

Remember the context of where Jesus was teaching…He had been invited to one of the Pharisee’s home, for the purpose of entrapping Him in some misstep.  The other guests were scrambling for the best seats at the table and Jesus had already rebuked them for their self-centeredness and greed.

Jesus lays out a scenario that would never have occurred with this group of people.  The guest’s pronouncement of the pending blessing in heaven (v.15) was the expectation that they…the Pharisees…would be the ones enjoying the honor at the great banquet in heaven.  The Pharisees saw their own righteousness and works as their pass into heaven.  It was a rejection of God’s grace for man who could never earn his way to heaven.

Where is your trust placed for forgiveness of sin?  Is it your personal righteousness or God’s grace?  “For by grace we have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  (Ephesian 2:8-9)

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day three)

“Go out into the highways and along the hedges…”

There’s a party happening somewhere to which you’re not invited, an A-list somewhere on which your name does not appear. Conversely, you’ve never planned an open house that’s completely open. There are always parameters. Whether it’s finances or social standing or affinity drawing the lines, everybody knows that invitations have limits. The story Jesus tells here upends that convention. It’s unimaginable, really, because nobody’s that rich. And if the host is that rich, the company kept by that host tends toward exclusivity in the extreme. But here we have in this parable a host who’s unfathomably wealthy and, by the end of the story, tearing down the gates to the mansion lest anyone be hindered from partaking in the feast. Will you still insist the host needs you as a bouncer?

Re:Verse passage – Luke 14:12-24 (day two) 

…and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous. vs. 14

What’s in it for me? Don’t feel bad, that is the normal response to about any sort of social interaction. If we are going to put effort, time, and resources into something we want to know what we can expect in return. In this exchange with Jesus, we are indeed promised a reward, but not in a monetary sense. The more immediate concern, however, is what it does for those we are called to serve. We have something to offer that they do not have. It may be something very temporal such as food or clothing. Your blessing to them is a gift far greater than you could receive. It also gives you currency when sharing the greatest gift, Jesus. What you are offering, through Jesus, is life everlasting. Stop thinking only of yourself. What’s in it for them?