Tag Archives: widow

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE SADDUCEES HAVE A GO!

March 15, 2020Bible Studyresurrection, Sadducees, widowLuella Campbell

THE SADDUCEES HAVE A GO!

“Some Sadducees came up. This is the Jewish party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked, ‘Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to take the widow to wife and get her with child. Well, there were once seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless. The second married her and died, and then the third, and eventually all seven had their turn, but no child. After all that, the wife died. That wife, now – In the resurrection whose wife is she? All seven married her.'” Luke 20:27-33.

Quite a contrived story!

It must have been obvious to Jesus that it was a trick question. Perhaps these arrogant Jews were hoping to insult Him and make Him look like a fool so that they could undermine His credibility with the people.

Under normal circumstances, the Pharisees and Sadducees were on opposite sides of the fence. The Pharisees were the fanatically religious leaders, sticking rigidly to the minutiae of the Law while the Sadducees were part of the political wing. They denied the supernatural; hence they rejected any possibility of resurrection.

They made up this story to catch Jesus out, to make Him and the whole possibility of resurrection look silly, to undermine His claim to be Messiah and, ultimately, to be the Son of God because He was supporting a pipe-dream!

These men had to learn that God’s truth and God’s ways were not some superficial and poorly-devised idea to give them false hope and lure them into worshipping Him under false pretences. They were correct in their understanding of the law of levirate marriage but, as we examine Jesus’ response in the next study, their understanding of God’s kingdom and the life to come was way off track.

This is the problem when we try to rationalise God’s revelation and apply human wisdom to God’s ways. “‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ’As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV).

God does not reveal Himself and His ways to satisfy our curiosity. He only reveals what He wants us to know to show us His greatness so that we will take His word seriously and submit to His authority. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” Deuteronomy 29:29 (NIV).

The attitude of the Sadducees is still alive today. People who have no desire to know the truth so that they can follow Jesus, replicate the Sadducees’ approach to Him. Their questions are not for honest answers but because they are looking for an excuse to justify their unbelief.

We need to be careful if we think we can make a fool of God. As the Apostle Paul said, ‘God’s foolishness is wiser than our wisdom!’ His mercy is wide open to those who are humble enough to recognise their need and to call on Him, but there is nothing but judgment for the people who think they can make it on their own.

God has made it clear that He has no time for arrogant fools but endless mercy and grace for the humble. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6b (NIV).

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – PERSISTENT FAITH

February 27, 2020Bible Studyjudge, persistent faith, pray constantly, widowLuella Campbell

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PERSISTENT FAITH

“Jesus told them a story showing that it was necessary for them to pray constantly and never quit. He said, “There was once a judge in some city who never gave God a thought and cared nothing for people. A widow in that city kept after him. ‘My rights are being violated. Protect me.’ ….After this went on and on he said to himself,…’Because the widow won’t quit badgering me, I’d better do something and see that she gets justice – otherwise I am going to end up beaten black and blue by her pounding.’

“Then the Master said, ‘Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think that God won’t step in and work justice for His chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t He stick up for them? I assure you, He will. He will not drag His feet. But how much of that kind of persistent faith will the Son of Man find on the earth when He comes?'” Luke 18:1-8.

Another story that reveals the character of God by contrast! A godless judge is moved to action by a shamelessly persistent ‘nobody’ widow to get her off his back. It was not her need or his compassion that drove him to action but her nagging that got him going.

We must not think for a moment that God is like that. He is, first and foremost, a Father. Does a father hold out against his child until the child’s persistent nagging gets him down? Not if he is a loving and caring father but, however loving and caring an earthly father he may be, he can never match the love of God for His children.

So why does God sometimes seem deaf or unmoved by the cries of His children? If I had the answer, I would be the first person in Christendom to solve this mystery! I can only make a few suggestions from the evidence of Scripture as to why God’s answers don’t come when we expect them.

God is painting His picture on a very big canvas. We often tend to think that we are the only people in the universe. When our need arises, God must step in and do something when we call. But He is working out His purposes, not only in our lives but also across communities, nations and the world.

He heard the cries of His slave people in Egypt but He had to prepare a Moses and a national and international situation that would be the right time to deliver His people from slavery and take them into the Promised Land. With a new dynasty in Egypt, He changed their status from pampered and protected people to slaves so that they would groan under their oppression and long for freedom. Then God was ready to take them out.

God gave sons to aged and childless couples like Abraham and Sarah, Manoah and his wife and Zachariah and Elizabeth to fulfil His greater purposes for His nation and for the eventual coming of His Messiah. God weaves the answers to our prayers into a much bigger picture in some mysterious way that is beyond our comprehension.

Jesus spoke of ‘persistent faith’. These two words are almost interchangeable. Real faith is confidence in God that does not give up, even when things seem really bad. Once again, Abraham is a good example. What father would deliberately take his own son, that one who was born to him in his old age, and raise a knife to kill him on a sacrificial altar? Only a man, whose confidence in God was unshakeable, would do that because his faith was tried and tested.

A statement I heard in a teaching long ago has helped me to understand why God’s delays seem like unanswered prayer: “God will not answer your prayers until He has put all the structures in place to maintain that answer,”

Now that makes a whole lot of sense. If He were to jump to attention every time we call, He would leave a string of disasters behind because every answer to prayer needs a supporting structure so that God’s work in our lives is not wasted.

Imagine if God had given Abraham his son when he first began to pray, or if God had delivered Israel when they first began to cry out. Abraham would not have grown a faith so strong that he trusted God for his son’s life. There would not have been a Moses, raised in the palace and honed in the desert to lead His people out of slavery.

So what’s the point? God is saying, “Will you trust me, even though nothing seems to be happening? Although you can’t see it yet, I am working and, if you believe, you will see your place in my great big picture.”

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – FROM GRIEF TO JOY

October 27, 2019Bible Studyfuneral, only son, widowLuella Campbell

FROM GRIEF TO JOY

“Not long after that Jesus went to the village Nain, His disciples were with Him along with quite a large crowd. As they approached the village gate, they met a funeral procession – a woman’s only son was being carried out for burial. And the mother was a widow. When Jesus saw her, His heart broke. He said to her, ‘Don’t cry,’ Then He went over and touched the coffin. The pallbearers stopped. He said, ‘Young man, I tell you: Get up.’ The dead son sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother.” Luke 7:11-15.

Now that really takes the cake!

It was amazing enough that Jesus healed sick people, opened deaf ears and blind eyes, and got rid of demons, but talking to a dead man and expecting him to hear and respond! That was outside the realm of these people’s experience. Just imagine how the tongues wagged after the crowd had seen that! His popularity must have soared a thousand present.

Anyone reading this story for the first time might be struck by the matter-of-fact-ness of what happened. It was told with such simplicity that Jesus might have been walking through an orchard picking apples. There is nothing mystical or magical about what He did. He stopped the funeral procession, spoke to the dead body and the young man heard and responded. Just like that!

What prompted Jesus to do something like that? Was He showing off His power to convince people who He was? There is nothing in the record to suggest that. Luke tells us clearly why He did it – His compassion for the grieving mother moved Him to action.

She was a widow and, with her son gone, she had become destitute. What would become of her without a breadwinner? Unlike modern times, she could not get a job to support herself. She was dependent on the goodwill of the people around her and it was a precarious living, to say the least. She was not supposed to outlive her son.

Jesus responded, not only to her grief but also to her plight. He understood her predicament and stepped in to undo the tragedy that had robbed her of her livelihood. Imagine how He felt when He walked away from that scene with the memory of a mother’s joy at being reunited with her son!

“They all realised they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them. They were quietly worshipful – and then noisily grateful, calling out among themselves, ‘God is back, looking to the needs of His people!’ The news of Jesus spread all through the country.” Luke 7:16, 17.

At least these people didn’t call Jesus a devil and attribute His work to Beelzebub! The crowd was stunned into silence and then stirred into praise. ‘God is here,’ they marvelled, recognising that only God could do what Jesus was doing. Where were the Pharisees? Apparently dumbstruck or absent. No-one raised an objection; no-one accused Him of anything. They accepted what their eyes had just seen as the work of God.

Wherever He went, Jesus put His Father’s glory on display and showed His people what His kingdom was like so that He could invite them to share in a life that was infinitely attractive and compelling. This is how God wanted it to be, and this is how it would be when the enemies of His kingdom were finally overthrown and everything restored to His original design.

As children of God and citizens of God’s kingdom, it is our task to contribute to the restoration of His rule on earth. It is not enough to pray, ‘Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ Jesus has entrusted to us the role of continuing what He began, bringing heaven to earth by restoring what is broken wherever and whenever we can.

Are you doing that?

He Noticed

August 17, 2015Bible Studylarge amounts, rich, temple treasury, two copper coins, widowLuella Campbell

HE NOTICED

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth a few cents. Calling His disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They gave out of their wealth but she, out of her poverty, put in everything – all she had to live on.’ Mark 12: 41-44).

Why did Jesus sit and watch people putting their offerings into the temple treasury? Didn’t He teach His disciples that the left hand should not know what the right hand was doing? Yes, He did. He was looking at hearts and motive.

Did you notice how the wealthy people “threw” their money into the receptacles? These were trumpet-shaped clay jars, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom to prevent theft. When the coins were thrown into the container it made a ringing sound. Of course the wealthy ones exaggerated the sound to be noticed – and admired for their generosity. Guess who were at the top of the parade? The hypocrites!

Be careful not to practise your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full (Matt. 6: 1-2).

Jesus sat and watched because He was a keen student of people – and He had a group of men who needed teaching. So, as He watched, He saw an endless stream of wealthy people tossing their coins into the treasury. Some threw them in with force and looked around to see who was watching. Jesus noticed them. Some dropped their money in as though it was a routine thing to do. Jesus saw them too.

Then an elderly women, thin and poorly dressed, sidled up to the jar and, with eyes downcast, opened her hand and dropped in two tiny coins that made no sound as they fell into the jar. Then she silently melted into the crowd and disappeared from view.

“Did you see that?” Jesus announced excitedly to His disciples. “That little old lady who has just dropped her offering into the box?” With wonderment in His voice, He exclaimed, “She gave away every last cent of her livelihood. Now that’s generosity! All the others gave a little of their much. She gave much of her little. That’s the difference!” And He noticed.

So what’s it all about? Does God expect us to give everything we have to feed others and to go without ourselves? Was His instruction to the rich young ruler for everyone? “Give everything you have to the poor . . . “ No, not at all. God is realistic. He knows that we have families to feed and financial commitments to meet.

But there is something important that we as believers in Jesus need to understand. We are stewards, not owners of what we have. Moses reminded the Israelites:

But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms His covenant which He swore to your ancestors, as it is today (Deut. 8: 18).

We think that we are the source and the owners of our money and possessions and that it is all ours. Not true! God owns it all, and He has the right to tell us how to use it. Unlike the world system which pays interest, God works with percentages, and increases by multiplication. Look at the natural world. Money is like seed. When you eat it, it disappears until there is none left. When you plant it, there will be a harvest for the next year. Sow 20% of your seed and there will be an abundant harvest to feed your family and enough to sow again for the following year.

He instructed His people to give 20% of their income away to meet the needs of others, and live on 80% without guilt because this was their duty. Why their duty? Since God was generous to them by providing resources to meet their needs, they were obliged to be generous to those who had no means to provide for themselves. This was not about how benevolent they were towards others. This was about how grateful they were for God’s generosity to them.

Judging by the way many churches struggle financially, especially during an economic downturn, God’s people are horribly ungrateful, pathetically ignorant or woefully unbelieving. You see, it takes a partnership of obedience and trust in the trustworthiness of God and His promises to live in and above a world system that orbits around money. Either God’s promises are true or He is a liar and not worthy of our worship.

This little widow woman obviously trusted Him in the midst of a world of religious hypocrites. She knew that God would care for her – so she gave what she could – everything she had because her coins added up to the least she was permitted to give.

What we do with our money is, in the end, the measure of our obedience and faith in God.

So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? (Luke 16: 11).

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From Grief To Joy

October 30, 2013Bible Studyalive, funeral, son, widowLuella Campbell

FROM GRIEF TO JOY

“Not long after that Jesus went to the village Nain, His disciples were with Him along with quite a large crowd. As they approached the village gate, they met a funeral procession — a woman’s only son was being carried out for burial. And the mother was a widow. When Jesus saw her, His heart broke. He said to her, ‘Don’t cry,’ Then He went over and touched the coffin. The pallbearers stopped. He said, ‘Young man, I tell you: Get up.’ The dead son sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother.” Luke 7:11-15 (The Message).

Now that really takes the cake!

What prompted Jesus to do something like that? Was He showing off His power to convince people who He was? There is nothing in the record to suggest that. Luke tells us clearly why He did it — His compassion for the grieving mother moved Him to action.

“They all realised they were in a place of holy mystery, that God was at work among them. They were quietly worshipful — and then noisily grateful, calling out among themselves, ‘God is back, looking to the needs of His people!’ The news of Jesus spread all through the country.” Luke 7:16, 17 (The Message).

Wherever He went, Jesus was putting His Father’s glory on display and showing His people what His kingdom was like so that He could invite them to share in a life that was infinitely attractive and compelling. This is how God wanted it to be, and this is how it would be when the enemies of His kingdom were finally overthrown and everything restored to His original design.