Tag Archives: great

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – SMALL IS GREAT

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SMALL IS GREAT

“They started arguing over which of them would be the most famous. When Jesus realised how much this mattered to them, He brought a child to His side. ‘Whoever accepts this child as if the child were me, accepts me,’ He said, ‘and whoever accepts me, accepts the One who sent me. You become great by accepting, not asserting. Your spirit, not your size, makes the difference,”’ Luke 9:46-48.

This issue of who would be the greatest was on-going with the disciples. Being a disciple and follower of Jesus didn’t cure them of their power struggle. What was it that drove them to want the highest position in the kingdom He kept talking about? What did they understand by the “kingdom of God” anyway?

From the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus’ teaching was aimed at loosing both His disciples and the people who came to listen to Him, from their old ideas about the kingdom of God. They still equated the kingdom with their national boundaries and their national pride. David was their greatest king. He was a warrior and a champion. Under his rule, the boundaries of their territory were extended to the greatest Israel had ever been. They were a free people. Their enemies had all been defeated and they were safe and at peace under their own king.

Roman occupation with its oppression and cruelty aroused a fresh expectation of the Messiah who would deliver them from their enemies and re-establish a golden age of peace and safety. In this kingdom, their king would need a council, and they were surely to be it, but who would be top dog in that council? Each of them wanted the glory that went with the position. James and John even involved their mother in their ambition to be at the top. Perhaps her influence would count for something!

Imagine how shocking and revolutionary His solution was to their squabbling. But, like the issue of His crucifixion, everything He told them about greatness fell on deaf ears. It clashed with their ambition and they dismissed it without another thought. To be really great, Jesus told them, was to stoop down and recognise the value and potential of the smallest and least, a little child, but they would not see it that way.

Children had their place in society but it was at the bottom of the pecking order. They had no authority and wielded no influence. They were there, in the family, waiting to take their place when they became useful as partners in the family business, for example. Until that time, they were irrelevant.

What’s the real issue here? To acknowledge a child is to put oneself on his level, to recognise his worth and to see his potential. That means climbing down off one’s high horse and being willing to look beyond the end of one’s own nose. Jesus was insisting that His disciples foster the same attitude towards a child as He wanted them to have towards the outcasts of society.

It’s not about who performs the best for other people to see and congratulate, but it’s about who can see the potential for greatness in others and do what we can to nurture them towards fulfilment. When we can come down to the level of a child, we are putting things in their correct perspective.

It’s more about cutting ourselves down to size than it is about cutting others down to size. It’s about taking authority over our own hearts rather than having authority over other people. Jesus said, ‘If you want to rule, rule over yourself first. When you can do that, you are qualified to have authority over others because your humble attitude will enable you to act with grace and mercy towards them.’

Helpless people, especially children, need protection, not exploitation. Whatever position we occupy in society, it is up to us to take care of those who have no voice or power to protect themselves. How will irresponsible people, both mothers who make the decision to get rid of their offspring and those who perpetrate the evil deed, answer for the wholesale slaughter of unborn babies in the light of Jesus’ attitude towards little ones?

How do you measure yourself in the light of Jesus’ standard?

Greater Than Levi

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GREATER THAN LEVI

Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch, Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests, to collect a tenth from the people – that is, from their fellow Israelites – even though they also are descended from Abraham. This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater (Heb. 7: 4-7).

Undoubtedly, the priesthood of Melchizedek is a higher office than the priesthood of Levi. Here’s the argument:

Levitical priests received tithes from the Israelites because they were the ordained priests of Israel, yet Abraham, who was the grandfather of Levi, gave a tenth of the spoils of war to Melchizedek. Instead of receiving tithes, Levi, in Abraham, was paying a tithe. That would make Melchizedek’s high priesthood of a higher order than Levi’s.

If Jesus’s high priesthood was in the order of Melchizedek and not Levi, of necessity that would make Him a superior high priest to Levi. That, coupled with the fact that He was no longer subject to death because He conquered death and rose from the dead, would make Him a high priest forever. He need never be replaced because He will never die again.

And, on top of that, He went through everything that human beings go through as part of this fallen world. He is able to support those who come to Him because He is always at the Father’s right hand, in the place of authority and power, to intervene on our behalf. He is, in every way, the high priest we need.

Those believers who were tempted to return to Judaism to avoid persecution ought, by now to have realised that to go back to their old religion would not only be a backward step but also cause them to forfeit all the benefits of being in union with Jesus. They would have to return to all their unfulfilled desires with no hope of ever experiencing the fulfilment of everything their religion promised. If they rejected Jesus as their promised Messiah, there would never be another to fulfil all the prophecies that pointed to Him.

In the one case, the tenth was collected by people who die, but in the other case, by Him who is declared to be living. One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor (Heb. 7: 8-10).

The writer rounded off his argument that Melchizedek’s high priesthood was superior to Levi’s by pointing out that Levi did not receive but paid a tithe to Melchizedek when he was still in the body of Abraham. Therefore, Melchizedek was greater than Levi.

But why this lengthy discussion? The high priest played a significant role in the lives of Jewish people. Their approach to and acceptance by God was centred in the high priest. Without his ministry and intervention, they had no hope of contact with God because he was the mediator – the go between. The Levitical priests offered sacrifices on their behalf so that they could have the assurance that their sins were forgiven and that they were acceptable to God. Without the Levitical priesthood and the high priest, they were cut off from God.

To have a high priest who would never need to be replaced because of death, and to have one who offered, not animal blood as a temporary measure to be repeated over and over again, but His own blood to remove sin once and for all, was far superior to what the Levitical priests could do. On top of that Jesus was both God and man. He represented man to God and God to man. He was the perfect high priest in every way, sinless and deathless.

We Gentiles, who did not live under the system of the Old Covenant, might find it difficult to appreciate what this meant to Jewish people. Why is there such a longing to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem? Is it not so that they can re-establish the sacrificial system? Temple and sacrifices go together. Because they have, in the main, rejected Jesus as their Messiah, they need the animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin. And yet, because they have rejected God’s Lamb, there is no forgiveness for them since the sacrificial system has been fulfilled and replaced by Jesus.

To reject Jesus is to reject the only way to the Father. He is the way and there is no other way.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.