Monthly Archives: February 2020

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – WHAT’S BEHIND THE APPEARANCE?

Bible Study, ,

WHAT’S BEHIND THE APPEARANCE?

“When the Pharisees, a money-obsessed bunch, heard Him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing Him as hopelessly out of touch. So Jesus spoke to them, ‘You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others but God knows what’s behind the appearance.'” Luke 16:14, 15.

What a powerful hold deception has over people’s minds! It is Satan’s potent and elusive weapon, blinding us to the most simple and obvious truths. If we would just stop and think logically for a moment, we would recognise how easily we have been duped.

In this case, the Pharisees, who loved money and power and paid any price to get it, made two serious errors; they thought that by outwardly acting holy, they could cover up their greedy hearts, and secondly, they thought that they could fool God. Had they only stopped to think, they would have realised how wrong they were.

Jesus’ words should have brought them back to reality with a bump, but it only drove them deeper into their hardened attitude. That’s the other part of Satan’s arsenal that is so difficult to overcome. He trades on human pride to keep his deception in place. Once a person has made his erroneous beliefs public by acting on them, he will not easily back down and admit that he is wrong.

This stubborn attitude disqualifies a person from access to the kingdom of God. Truth and humility are the two requirements for understanding and entering into the realm of God’s rule. They are like the guiding lights that must be lined up to give a ship safe entry into the harbour. Truth displaces the lies that cause us to veer off course, and humility softens our hearts to believe and receive the truth.

Jesus gave us clear directions for getting free from the lies that ensnare us and drive us into misery, pain and loss, “To the Jews who believed Him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” John 8:32 (NIV). The truth in and of itself cannot set us free. It must first be believed and internalised to become effective in breaking the bondage of deception.

There is a process in moving from deception to truth. Sometimes it happens is a blinding flash of understanding and at other times it follows a period of careful investigation and growing conviction.

For the disciples, barring Judas Iscariot, it was a combination of the two. They followed, watched and listened to Jesus for three years and then came His death and resurrection. His appearance to them was the last piece of the puzzle. From that moment, nothing could budge them from the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Until then, they still wobbled and tottered in their faith, but the presence of the risen Jesus cancelled all their doubts and misunderstandings.

This is the moment of revelation and transformation. It happened to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus; it has happened to millions of people across two thousand years but it never happened to the Pharisees because they refused to examine the evidence. They chose lies over truth and became part of the tragedy of those who never fulfil their God-given potential.

If you examine the evidence with a humble desire to know the truth, there will come for you the dazzling moment of conviction and the life-changing experience of faith, giving you entry and access into the realm of God’s passionate love and unfailing goodness. All His resources will be yours; you will find the meaning and purpose of your existence, and your eternal future will be secure, based on the infallible truth of God’s word.

But is all comes back to the same thing. You choose….

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – AS NOW, SO THEN

Bible Study, ,

AS NOW, SO THEN

“Jesus went on to make these comments,

‘If you’re honest in small things, you’ll be honest in big things;                                                    If you’re a crook in small things, you’ll be a crook in big things;                                                If you’re not honest in small jobs, who will put you in charge of the store?

No worker can serve two bosses. He’ll either hate the first and love the second,                    or adore the first and despise the second.                                                                                        You can’t serve God and the Bank.'” Luke 16:10-12.

Women love to pride themselves on being able to multi-task! A fallacy except in the area of hands and mouth! However, Jesus insisted that there is no such thing as multi-tasking when it comes to loyalties. It’s either or, not both and…

Although His comments were aimed primarily at the hypocritical religious leaders who prided themselves on their loyalty to the law, but in fact were hiding their greedy hearts behind their play-acting masks, Jesus was stating a universal and unchangeable principle. ‘You can’t fool God,’ He said, ‘because, if your loyalty is to your bank account, it automatically excludes God.’

That may be absolutely true on the surface but it actually hides a far deeper and more sobering truth than just applying to this life. Our attitude to our money and possessions in this life is the preparation for our level of responsibility in the God’s eternal kingdom. The measure of our faithfulness now is the measure of what we will be entrusted with in the life to come. The NIV translation makes it even clearer, ‘So, if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches. And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?’ Luke 16:11, 12.

The implication of Jesus’ statement is that what we have now is a trust from God, on loan as a test of our stewardship. The many parables He told about money and possessions all point to this same truth. In this life, God entrusts us with His property in order to train us to use it wisely and to prepare us for our role in His eternal kingdom.

Why does God use something as ‘worldly’ as money to test the level of our spirituality? Why not love, or any of the other fruits of the Spirit? Why not the number people we have won to Jesus, the number of people we have discipled or even the spiritual gifts we have used faithfully and increased?

God is smart! He knows that our attitude to our money and possessions is the most accurate test of our love for Him. Nothing ensnares our hearts as much as the love of money. Where our treasure is, there our hearts will be. In this life only, we have opportunity to safeguard our treasure by investing it in the kingdom of God. Once we leave here, our apprenticeship is over.

Take Abraham, for example. God gave him a son after twenty five years of waiting – probably even longer – and how he must have treasured that boy! And then, of all things, God said, ‘Kill him!’ Abraham could have refused. ‘God, are you crazy? Why give me a son and then demand him back in such a cruel way?’ But Abraham never flinched, never questioned, never hesitated; He did what he was told. What was his core attitude? Trust!

Isn’t that also the heart of our attitude to our money? After all, money represents our security. When we have money, we feel safe in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. When we let go of our trust in our bank account and place it in the security of God’s faithfulness, we are set free to use our money instead of our money using us. It is a good servant but a bad master.

We cannot change the truth. As now, so then. If we want to enjoy the place in God’s kingdom reserved for us, we must decide now who we will serve and who will master us. Beyond the grave is too late.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – BE SMART

Bible Study, ,

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BE SMART

“‘Now here’s a surprise: The master praised the crooked manager! And why? Because he knew how to look after himself. Streetwise people are smarter in this regard than law-abiding citizens. They are on constant alert, looking for angles, surviving by their wits. I want you to be smart in the same way – but for what is right — using every adversity to stimulate you to creative survival, to concentrate your attention on the bare essentials, so you’ll live, really live, and not complacently just get by on good behaviour'”  Luke 16:1-9.

The point of this story is not easy to understand. We must not get lost in the details or we’ll end up thinking that Jesus was advocating dishonesty as a way to wriggle out of the awkward situations we create for ourselves. Not at all! What was He really getting at?

Let’s look at the story. A certain farm manager had been feathering his nest at his master’s expense. When he was found out, he had to devise a plan to curry favour with his master’s debtors so that, when he was fired, he would have friends to take care of him. He was too lazy or too proud to lower himself to doing manual labour.

His plan was to reduce the debt of his master’s debtors so that they would be indebted to him. Good plan if you can deal with your conscience! When his master found out what he had done, he was so taken aback that he actually congratulated him on his wily scheme!

Jesus often told stories that highlighted the contrast between the ways of the world and the ways of the kingdom of God. This is one of them. For some strange reason, when we give our lives into the hands of Jesus, we seem to lose our sense of responsibility for some areas of our lives. For example, we ignore God’s economic system, spend all our money and even go into debt like the rest of the world and then naively declare that God will meet all our needs.

Of course God has promised to meet our needs but that promise fits into a framework of responsible stewardship and not wanton spendthrift-ness. God never advocates that we make no provision for our future. He has built into His way of doing money a savings policy that ensures that we and our families are adequately cared for in times of crisis and for the future.

God’s economic policy is built on giving, not hoarding, which ensures that we function in the realm of faith. Generosity is His way of keeping resources circulating. When we give what He asks us to give to make provision for the needs of others, He promises an abundant return on our generosity. In this way we are making deposits into a ‘banking system’ which will not crash with the stock market.

So what does that have to do with this parable? There is a principle in this story which believers need to get hold of. We need to be smart in the ways of the kingdom, just like this crooked manager was smart in the ways of the world, not in dishonesty but in the kind of risky living which takes God at His word and reaches out to take care of the needs of others first, above our own.

The kind of righteousness that really pleases God is not the ‘righteousness’ which looks after its own reputation like the Pharisees’ kind of righteousness – don’t do this and don’t do that. That is sterile ‘do-nothing-ness’. It produces only plastic fruit. Jesus said that life is much more than getting by on good behaviour.

Really living is about risking being generous in every way – not just being generous with our money but being generous with our hearts, forgiving when we have been wronged, loving when we are despised, treating all people with respect and dignity, even if they smell bad, and dying to our own selfish demands and requirements for the sake of others.

So here’s the deal. A crisis in our lives demands a plan of action. Here is the simple principle; to look after your own needs, look after the needs of others and God will step in and take care of yours. Isn’t that just what the crooked manager did? Now that’s really being smart, not streetwise but kingdom wise, because that’s how God’s kingdom works.

Micah, the prophet, put it like this: “…What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8 (NIV).

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – LOST AND FOUND

Bible Study, ,

LOST AND FOUND

“Their grumbling triggered this story, ‘Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in all your friends and neighbours saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’  Count on it – there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than of ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.'” Luke 15:4-32.

Jesus’ stories always had a target audience. Sometimes they were used to teach and other times to expose wrong thinking or bad attitudes – especially of His religious opponents. In Hebrew thought, parables were intended, not for information but for identification. Who am I in the story?

This story was one of three, called chain parables. There was a theme running through them, except that the third story had the punch-line. In the first two, Jesus spoke of lost property, a sheep, a coin, of value to the owners. In both stories, the search yielded success – the valuable property was found and the owner called on the neighbours to celebrate. We assume that the neighbours obliged by rejoicing with him or her because there was legitimate cause for rejoicing.

In the third story, something changes; not a sheep wandering away, or an inanimate object like a coin being misplaced, but a wayward son choosing to renounce his father, his family and his heritage and to celebrate his ‘freedom’ by squandering his inheritance with equally worthless hooligans. Of what value was he? In that state, a disgrace to his father and family.

And yet, when he shamefacedly made his way home, his father did not reject him as one would expect, but welcomed him home with open arms, and ordered a huge celebration for the ‘lost’ son who had been ‘found’. But unlike the neighbours in the previous two parables, the elder brother did not value him as a returning lost brother but rejected him as a worthless good-for-nothing. He focussed on his behaviour, not on his intrinsic worth as a son.

And here is the point of the story. It was glaringly obvious who the elder brother represented. The Pharisees had just been criticising Jesus for eating with rejects. They saw no worth in the people who did not ‘behave’ as they did, forgetting that their attitude of superiority was a stench in the nostrils of Jesus, far more offensive than the sins of the ‘sinners’ they despised.

Particularly offensive to Jesus was the contemptuous attitude of those who refused to rejoice over the return of lost sinners. From His perspective, it was nothing short of idolatry because they were elevating themselves above people and even above God. They were honouring themselves as the epitome of virtue and writing everyone else off as worthless.

There were two categories of people that Jesus warned about the fires of hell – the greedy and the hypocrite. Of no other groups did He tell stories to highlight God’s attitude to them. Unless they repented, they would be consigned to the garbage dump where worthless rubbish is burned.

The Pharisees thought sinners were worthless but they could not see that their own attitude stifled their potential and made their lives fruitless for God. The returning sinner was welcomed home and came back on track to fulfil his purpose in life. The interlude of his wandering away did not disqualify him from being a son. It only interrupted his fellowship with his father and his growth in becoming a mature son. It was not only an interruption but, in the long run, also a learning experience.

But for the hypocrite there was nothing of value in his attitude, only alienation from the father and the family. This series of stories should have alerted these religious prigs to the very thing in themselves that they judged in others. No wonder they could not rejoice over the return of lost sinners because they had no idea of just how ‘lost’ they were!

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – OLD FRIENDS?

Bible Study, ,

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

OLD FRIENDS?

“By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, ‘He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends….'” Luke 15:1-2.

Strange that Jesus attracted the ‘bad’ and repelled the ‘good’ people! Can it be that He had a different way of evaluating people from the way we do? Certainly, the Pharisees did not see eye to eye with Him regarding the ‘sinners’ He considered His friends. Why were the Pharisees so incensed by His eating with the riff-raff?

Eating a meal with someone had great significance. The Hebrew word for a meal is shul, while the word derived from the root, shul, is shulkan, which means ‘table’, ‘reconciliation’ or ‘a lamb’s skin’. The imagery is beautiful. Where there was no table, they would put a lamb’s skin on the ground as a ‘picnic’ blanket. A lamb had to die for them to eat together. Therefore, to eat a meal with someone meant that you had no issues with that person. You had settled your differences and were now reconciled.

No wonder the Pharisees were upset with Jesus for eating with prostitutes and tax collectors! They did not understand the heart of a merciful and compassionate Messiah. Their idea of ‘holiness’ was isolation from people. Jesus’ holiness separated Him from sin but not from sinners. Yes, God is holy, but He is holy-love. His holiness demands perfection, but His love provides the covering so that we can be reconciled and become His true friends.

The Pharisees regarded themselves as their own standard and they despised everyone who did not live up to their criteria. Jesus offended them because He was not fazed by those they regarded as ‘sinners’. He saw beyond their exterior to hearts that were hungry for God and were willing to listen to Him and who drank in His love and His message of mercy.

Are we any different from the Pharisees? Do we not judge people by their appearance, their social standing, their financial position, their neighbourhood, their achievements, and even their speech and accent? These are only the circumstances of their lives, not the evidence of their intrinsic value as human beings made in the image of God.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to follow, learn from, imitate and obey our Master. This is an absolute prerequisite for discipleship. One function not entrusted to us is judgment and yet we assume the role of judge for everyone who does not measure up to our value system or self-proclaimed standards. This is dangerous for two reasons; firstly because we have usurped the role that belongs to Jesus alone and, secondly, because the standard we set for others is the standard by which we will be judged.

When we carefully consider the last statement, it should make us tremble because our standards for others are always so much stricter than our standards for ourselves. God’s justice is perfectly just. It is always based on what we choose. Yes, God has objective standards of right and wrong based on who He is, but He gives us exactly what we choose, whether it be obedience to His way or our own way. He knows where each way will end.

The way of the Pharisees with their hoity-toity self-righteousness took them farther and farther from the heart of God and deeper and deeper into the kind of sin that alienated them from God and people. No amount of rebuke or exposure shifted them from their arrogant pride. Not even Jesus could reach their hardened hearts.

God’s word is faithful to warn us of the attitude that thinks we are right and everyone else wrong. When we look at people through the eyes of Jesus, we see, not the sin that scars their souls but the beauty of our Creator God who has packed the potential in each one of us to become a mirror image of Him.