Issachar_Luke11 - The Visual Bible Explorer Series

Chapter 11 Luke 11

Jesus Teaches on Prayer (vv. 1-13)

           One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” ^a² Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this:
          ‘Father: ^b                 May your holy name be honoured; ^c                 may your Kingdom come. ^d          ³ Give us day by day the food ^e we need.
          ⁴ Forgive us our sins,
                 for we forgive everyone f who does us wrong.
             And do not bring us to hard testing.’ ” ^g⁵ And Jesus said to his disciples, “Suppose one of you should go to a friend’s house at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, let me borrow three loaves of bread. ^{h 6} A friend of mine who is on a trip has just come to my house, and I don’t have any food for him!’ ⁷ And suppose your friend should answer from inside, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. ⁱ I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ Well, what then? I tell you that even if he will not get up and give you the bread because you are his friend, yet he will get up and give you everything you need because you are not ashamed to keep on asking. ^{j 9} And so I say to you: Ask, ^k and you will receive; seek, ^k and you will find; knock, ^k and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks will receive, and he who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to anyone who knocks.
          ¹¹ Would any of you who are fathers give your son a snake when he asks for fish? ¹² Or would you give him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? ¹³ As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Interesting Stuff:

^a Here again we see Jesus withdrawing to pray by himself. This had not gone unnoticed by his disciples. Impressed by something about the way Jesus prayed, one of his disciples asked him to teach them to pray. Religious leaders of the day often taught their followers how to pray. This disciple wanted a practice that would distinguish them as Jesus’ disciples, just as John had done that for his followers.
^b Jesus had just explained to his disciples (10:22) that no one knows God except the Son and those whom he as the Son chooses to reveal Him. He now teaches his disciples that they were to regard God as their Father, and that was how they were to approach Him in prayer.
The Greek word used for ‘father’ here corresponds to the Aramaic word Abba, the term a child would use in addressing his father. Our modern equivalent would be ‘Daddy’ or ‘Papa’. Although the OT does have reference to God as the Father of Israel (Dt 32:6; Isa. 63:16), calling God ‘Father’ in this direct and intimate way was something a Jew did not do. Not everyone is a child of God; only those who are Jesus’ disciples have been adopted into God’s family by His grace and can call Him ‘Father’.
^c Most translations use the word ‘hallowed’, which means ‘made holy’ or ‘honoured’. For the Jews, a ‘name’ was more than just a label. It summed up the essence of a person, his character and all that he is. God’s name refers to all that God is and has revealed of Himself. The prayer is for God to act in such a way as to lead people to honour and worship Him instead of blaspheming or sinning against Him. God’s glory is thus the first theme of the prayer.
^dGod’s people are called to pray that God’s Kingdom, the constant subject of Jesus’ teaching, will be established. In one sense, God’s Kingdom is already established here and now in the hearts of people who turn in repentance to God and accept His will for their lives. But in another sense, it will not come until God’s will is perfectly done throughout the world.
^e Most translations use the word ‘bread’ for ‘food’. The meaning of the term ‘daily’, or as translated here ‘day to day’, is not clear. The general accepted meaning is that we are called to look to God constantly (the tense is ‘keep giving’) and trust Him for sufficient food each day.
^f Jesus is not saying here that our sins can only be forgiven if we forgive those who sin against us. The NT is clear that forgiveness comes from the grace of God, not from human merit. The sense here is that we can ask God to forgive us because we too forgive everyone who has sinned against us. Jesus is talking here about daily forgiveness which is necessary to restore our broken communion with God each time we sin.
^g Many translations have ‘lead us not into temptation’. The idea here is not that God tempts us. Scripture is very clear (see Jas 1:13) that God does not tempt anyone. The sense is to pray that God would keep His people from further testing.
^h The setting was a small village where there were no shops. A household would bake its bread each morning. Probably the man had used up his supply and he had none for his unexpected guest. The man must feed his friend because hospitality was a sacred duty. Three small loaves was what was sufficient for one person.
ⁱ The man must be poor, living in a one-roomed house. The whole family would sleep on a raised platform at one end of the house, and their animals, if they had any, on the floor. He could thus not get up without disturbing the whole family.
^jAlthough the man would not help based on his friendship, he did in the end because of his friend’s boldness and shameless persistence.
^kAll these three verbs, ‘ask’, ‘seek’ and ‘knock’, are in the continuous tense, meaning that they are not a one-time action, but actions that persist. We must not play at prayer, but we must show boldness and persistence. The whole context is that God is eager to give, but if what we want is not enough to make us bold and persistent in our asking, then our prayers would not be answered.

Questions:

After Jesus had finished praying, what did one of his disciples ask him to do (v. 1)?

2. How did Jesus ask them to address God in their prayers (v. 2)?

What were they to say in their prayers to God (vv. 2-4)?

3. Relate the parable of the friend who came at midnight (vv. 5-8).

What lesson on prayer was Jesus teaching through this parable?

4. What did Jesus say would happen to someone who asks, seeks and knocks (vv. 9-10)?

5. According to Jesus, why would God want to answer our prayers (vv. 11-13)?

6. Summarise the lessons that Jesus was teaching on prayer.

7. Mention the occasions when

a. Jesus spent all night in prayer alone (6:12)

b. Jesus was in agony in prayer (22:39-44)

Summary of Section:

After Jesus had finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, just as John the Baptist taught his disciples.
Jesus taught them what has traditionally come to be called ‘The Lord’s Prayer’. He said that when they pray, they were to say the following:
Father:
May your holy name be honoured;
may your Kingdom come.
Give us day by day the food we need.
Forgive us our sins,
for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.
And do not bring us to hard testing.
Jesus told the parable of the persistent friend to his disciples:
a) He asked them to imagine that one of them goes to a friend’s house at midnight to borrow three loaves of bread because he has a friend visiting and does not have any food for him.
b) The friend has already locked the door and is in bed with his children and does not want to open the door.
c) However, because he keeps on asking without being ashamed, the friend will get up and give him what he needs not because he is his friend but because he is persistent in asking.
Jesus concluded the parable by telling his disciples to ask, to seek and to knock. If they ask, they will receive, if they seek, they will find and if they knock, the door will be opened to them.
He gave two examples of whether earthly fathers would give their son a snake if he asks for a fish, or a scorpion if he asks for an egg.
He said that if they being earthly fathers, who are bad compared to God, could give good things to their children, how much more would their heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.

Nuggets of Wisdom

What has traditionally been called the Lord’s Prayer (vv. 2-4) is shorter here than in Mt 6:9-13. Christians have used the Lord’s Prayer both as a prayer by itself and as a model on which they base other prayers.
This prayer is essentially meant to be a corporate prayer because all the pronouns Jesus used in the prayer are plural. The first part of the prayer centres on God and the second part on man and his relationship with God and the community of God’s people.
After the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus continued to teach his disciples that their Father is a gracious God who would never answer their prayers with harmful gifts but with good ones.
All the three verbs ‘ask’, ‘seek’, ‘knock’ are to do with prayer. They are in the continuous sense, meaning that we are to keep doing them. We are not to think that God is unwilling to give. He is always ready to give good gifts to His children but it is important that we do our part by asking.
Jesus, however, is not saying that we shall always get what we ask for. A ‘No’ or a ‘Wait’ are just as definite an answer as a ‘Yes’. He is saying that true prayer is always heard by God and He will answer in ways that will be the best for us.

Jesus and Beelzebul (vv. 14-28)

¹⁴ Jesus was driving out a demon that could not talk;^l and when the demon went out, the man began to talk. The crowds were amazed, ^{m 15} but some of the people said, “It is Beelzebul, ⁿ the chief of the demons, who gives him the power to drive them out.”
¹⁶ Others wanted to trap Jesus, so they asked him to perform a miracle to show that God approved of him. ¹⁷ But Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he said to them, “Any country that divides itself into groups which fight each other will not last very long; a family divided against itself falls apart. ^{o 18} So if Satan’s kingdom has groups fighting each other, how can it last? You say that I drive out demons because Beelzebul gives me the power to do so. ¹⁹ If this is how I drive them out, how do your followers drive them out? Your own followers prove that you are wrong! 20 No, it is rather by means of God’s power that I drive out demons, and this proves that the Kingdom of God has already come to you. ^p²¹ “When a strong man, ^q with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. ²² But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.
²³ “Anyone who is not for me is really against me; anyone who does not help me gather is really scattering. ^r²⁴ “When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest. ^s If it can’t find one, it says to itself, ‘I will go back to my house.’ ²⁵ So it goes back and finds the house clean and all fixed up. ²⁶ Then it goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there. ^t So when it is all over, that person is in worse shape than he was at the beginning.”
²⁷ When Jesus had said this, a woman spoke up from the crowd and said to him, “How happy is the woman who bore you and nursed you!” ²⁸ But Jesus answered, “Rather, how happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” ^u

Interesting Stuff:

^l This demon caused the person it possessed not to be able to talk.
^m Once more the crowds were amazed at Jesus’ power over demons but their amazement did not mean that they believed. Some of them attributed his power to Satan while others opposed him outright and taunted him to give them a more dramatic sign in order to trap him.
ⁿ Where the term ‘Beelzebul’ comes from is not certain. In the NT, Beelzebul is recognised as the prince of demons and identified as Satan himself.
^o Jesus’ argument is that if Satan gave power to him who opposed Satan in every way, then Satan would be supporting an attack on himself!
^p Jesus turned the tables on his accusers and pointed out to them that if he was using Satanic powers, then their own followers who exorcised demons would be doing the same as well. But they claimed to be doing so by the power of God and so Jesus was claiming the same. His driving out demons was a messianic sign that the Kingdom of God had arrived in the person of Jesus. The presence of God’s Kingdom was to be seen in the power Jesus had to expel the forces of evil. They had no need for any more signs. The healing of the mute man was a sign but they would not recognise it.
^q Jesus hammered home his point with a little parable of Satan as the ‘strong man’ guarding his possessions, i.e., the man under his power. But when Jesus, the stronger man, overcomes him, as Jesus had done in casting out the demon, his power is broken over his possessions.
^r No one can be neutral in this. When a person sees what the Kingdom of God means, he must either be for it or against it. The person who does not side with Jesus in the battle against evil is against him. The image of ‘gathering’ and ‘scattering’ is that of gathering or scattering a flock of animals.
^s Desert places were popularly regarded as the haunts of evil spirits.
^t The house had been cleaned up but left unoccupied. When a person gets rid of an evil spirit but puts nothing in its place, he is in danger of more evil coming into his life. A victory over evil must mean that the evil must be replaced by the presence of God in the person’s life.
^u Jesus did not reject the woman’s spontaneous blessing of his mother who had the privilege of bearing a son as great as him. But he pointed them to something more important – that those who are blessed would be those who have the right attitude towards God’s Word, who hear it and who obey it.

Questions:

How did the crowds respond to Jesus when he cast out the demon who could not talk (vv. 14-16)?

2. How did Jesus answer their accusations against him (vv. 17-19)?

3. What was Jesus’ proof that the Kingdom of God had already come to them (v. 20)?

4. Relate the parable of the strong man and explain the meaning behind it (vv. 21-23).

5. What was Jesus’ point in telling the story of the return of the evil spirit together with other spirits to the man who had been previously possessed (vv. 24-26)?

6. According to Jesus, who are the people who are happy or blessed (v. 28)?

Summary of Section:

Jesus drove out a mute demon from a man and as a result the man was able to talk.
The crowds were amazed but there were some who accused Jesus of using the power of Beelzebul, the chief of the demons, to drive out demons.
Others wanted to trap him and so they asked him to do a miracle to prove that he had God’s approval for what he was doing.
Jesus knew what they were thinking and did not fall into their trap. Instead he told them the following parable:
a) He said that any country that divides itself into groups that fight one another will not last very long, and a family that is divided against itself will fall apart.
b) In the same way, he could not be using Satan’s power because if Satan’s kingdom is divided against itself, it will not last.
He told them that if it were true that he drove demons out by the power of Beelzebul, then their own exorcists must be doing the same. What they were doing proved that it could not be so.
He then told them that if he was exorcising by the power of God, then his action was a sign that God’s Kingdom had come into their midst.
He told them another parable:
a) When a strong man with all his weapons ready guards his own house, all his belongings are safe.
b) But when a stronger man attacks and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the strong man depends on and divides up what he stole.
c) The point of the parable is that Jesus was the stronger man who by driving the demon out of the man had attacked and defeated the strong man Satan.
d) He concluded by saying that whoever was not for him would be against him. There was no middle ground.
Jesus continued with the parable of an evil spirit who goes out of a person and travels over dry country looking for a place to rest.
a) But when it could not find one, it decides to go back to its old house.
b) It arrives and finds the place clean and fixed up.
c) The spirit then goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself to go and live in that person.
d) The person ends up being in worse shape than before.
After saying this, a woman told him that the woman who bore and nursed Jesus must be blessed. But Jesus replied that it is more blessed to be the one who hears the word of God and obeys it.

Nuggets of Wisdom

Previously the responses of the crowds had been cast in positive terms as potential followers of Jesus. But as Jesus travelled nearer to Jerusalem, we see division arising among the people as predicted by Simeon (2:34-35).
Two challenges were issued here, both concerned with Jesus’ identity and authority. The crowd wondered whether he was a false prophet and whether his ministry had God’s approval. That he exercised power over the evil spirits was not doubted. However, they tried to discredit him and his ministry by saying that his source of power was not God but the devil.
Jesus pointed out to his accusers that his power over the evil spirits, and thus over Satan himself, showed that his source of power must be greater than Satan’s and that it must be from God Himself. His exorcisms must therefore be seen as the Kingdom of God at work. And if the Kingdom of God had come, then they could no longer be neutral. They must either decide for or against Jesus’ message.
When a man gets rid of an evil spirit but puts nothing in its place, he is in grave moral danger. His life must be filled with the presence of God, otherwise what is evil will return to fill the vacuum. Thus indirectly Jesus was challenging the people to welcome the Kingdom of God into their lives and be free from the kingdom of Satan which brings only destruction.
One woman in the crowd responded in praise to all she heard from Jesus by pronouncing a blessing upon the woman who was privileged to be his mother. Jesus’ response to her was not so much to say that Mary did not deserve that special status as his mother but that in God’s Kingdom, it is not status that is important but obedience to the word of God.

The Demand for a Miracle (vv. 29-36)

²⁹ As the people crowded around Jesus, he went on to say, “How evil are the people of this day! They ask for a miracle, but none will be given them except the miracle v of Jonah. ³⁰ In the same way that the prophet Jonah was a sign ^w for the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be a sign for the people of this day. ³¹On the Judgment Day the Queen of Sheba ^x will stand up and accuse the people of today, because she travelled all the way from her country to listen to King Solomon’s wise teaching; and there is something here, I tell you, greater y than Solomon. ³²On the Judgment Day the people of Nineveh will stand up and accuse you, because they turned from their sins when they heard Jonah preach; and I assure you that there is something here greater than Jonah!
³³ “No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a bowl instead, he puts it on the lampstand, so that people may see the light as they come in. ^{z 34} Your eyes are like a lamp ^a’ for the body. When your eyes are sound, ^b’ your whole body is full of light; but when your eyes are no good, your whole body will be in darkness. ^{c’ 35} Make certain, then, that the light in you is not darkness. ^{d’ 36} If your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be bright all over, as when a lamp shines on you with its brightness.”

Interesting Stuff:

^v Most versions translate the word ‘miracle’ as ‘sign’. The Jews were looking for some kind of miraculous activity but Jesus refused to show them anything because they had the wrong motives.
^w There are two possible interpretations regarding the ’sign of Jonah’: (i) For the Ninevites, the sign was the divine rescue of a man from the belly of a fish after three days. For the people of Jesus’ day, the sign would be the divine raising of the Son of Man after being dead for three days. (ii) Just as Jonah proclaimed repentance to the people prior to their judgment, so does Jesus. The sign could refer to the calling of the people to repentance.
^x Although the Queen of Sheba (see 2 Ch 9:1-12) was a foreigner, she was prepared to make a long and difficult journey just to hear the wisdom of Solomon. (Sheba was in southern Arabia.) She tested him and acknowledged that he was indeed placed as king of Israel by God. Yet the men of Jesus’ generation, having similarly tested Jesus, would not acknowledge who he was even though he was greater than Solomon.
^y ‘Something greater’ seems to stand for all that is involved in the coming of Jesus and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Jesus was arguing from the lesser to the greater. If the Queen of Sheba responded positively to the wisdom of Solomon and the Ninevites to the preaching of Jonah, how much more should the people of Jesus’ day respond to the ministry of Jesus who is infinitely greater than Solomon or Jonah. This was an action of God far mightier than anything He had done in Solomon or Jonah.
^z Jesus and his message of the Kingdom of God was like a light which illuminates those who enter a house. His refusal to give the Jews a sign did not mean that he wished to hide the light of the Gospel. There was nothing hidden about this light. They were the ones who could not see clearly.
^a’The eye acts like a lamp to the body in the sense that it receives light from the outside and illuminates the body with this light.
^b’ If the eye is healthy and lets in light, i.e., if the person is single-mindedly receptive to the light of the gospel and to Christ, then his whole being would be filled with light.
^c’ But when the eye is not sound (the Greek word can mean ‘evil’), i.e., the person is resistant to the message of the gospel, then he would be full of darkness.
^d’Jesus warned that they must make sure that their inner attitudes towards God must be right so that it would not hinder the light of the gospel from shining into their lives.

Questions:

Why did Jesus call the people of his day evil (v. 29)?

2. Who did Jesus point to as the only sign that would be given (vv. 29-30)?

3. Why did Jesus say that the Queen of Sheba and the Ninevites would stand up and accuse the people of his day (vv. 31-32)?

4. What is the function of a lamp (v. 33)?

5. In what ways are the eyes like a lamp according to Jesus (vv. 34-35)?

Summary of Section:

Jesus told the crowd that the people of that day were evil and wanted a miracle but he would not give them any except for the sign of Jonah.
In the same way that Jonah was a sign for the people of Nineveh, so Jesus, as the Son of Man, was a sign for the people of that day.
He said that on the Judgment Day, the Queen of Sheba and the people of Nineveh would rise up and accuse these people because they had Jesus who was greater than Solomon and Jonah, and yet they would not repent or turn to God.
Jesus then talked about the importance of a lamp. He said that no one lights a lamp and hides it or puts it under a bowl. Instead a person would put it on a lampstand so that people may see the light as they come in.
He drew the similarity between the eye and the lamp, saying that the eyes are like a lamp for the body. When the eyes are sound, the body is full of light, but when they are not, the whole body is in darkness.
He then exhorted his hearers to make certain that their body was full of light and then they would be bright all over.

Nuggets of Wisdom

After having dealt with those who slandered him by attributing his ability to exorcise demons to Satan, Jesus now responded to those who sought to test him by demanding a sign from heaven.
The Queen of Sheba came to test Solomon and when she found out that his wisdom was from God, she acknowledged his divine appointment to the throne and entered into an alliance with him. However, the people’s testing of Jesus had not led them to a similar recognition even though Jesus is greater than Solomon. The reference to the Ninevites is the same in that they also recognised that Jonah was sent by God although here their response was repentance.
Jesus used the examples of both the Queen of Sheba and the Ninevites to warn the Israelites that though they were both outsiders, they would be extended God’s favour and they would participate in the resurrection and judgment of Israel on the Judgment Day.
Jesus then proceeded to warn the people to make sure that their body is full of light, the light of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus Rebukes the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees (vv. 37-54)

³⁷ When Jesus finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and sat down to eat. ³⁸ The Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus had not washed before eating. ^e’ ³⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of your cup and plate, but inside you are full of violence ^f’ and evil. ⁴⁰Fools! Did not God, who made the outside, also make the inside? ⁴¹ But give what is in your cups and plates to the poor, and everything will be ritually clean for you. ^g’⁴² “How terrible for you Pharisees! ^h’ You give to God one tenth of the seasoning herbs, ^i’ such as mint and rue and all the other herbs, but you neglect justice and love for God. These you should practise, without neglecting the others.
⁴³ “How terrible for you Pharisees! You love the reserved seats in the synagogues ^j’and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. ^k’ ⁴⁴ How terrible for you! You are like unmarked graves ^l’ which people walk on without knowing it.”
⁴⁵ One of the teachers of the Law said to him, “Teacher, when you say this, you insult us too!”
⁴⁶ Jesus answered, “How terrible also for you teachers of the Law! You put onto people’s backs loads which are hard to carry, ^m’ but you yourselves will not stretch out a finger to help them carry those loads. ⁴⁷ How terrible for you! You make fine tombs for the prophets ^n’ – the very prophets your ancestors murdered. ⁴⁸ You yourselves admit, then, that you approve of what your ancestors did; they murdered the prophets, and you build their tombs. ⁴⁹ For this reason the Wisdom of God^o’ said, ‘I will send them prophets and messengers; they will kill some of them and persecute others.’ ⁵⁰ So the people of this time will be punished for the murder of all the prophets killed since the creation of the world, ⁵¹ from the murder of Abel ^p’ to the murder of Zechariah, ^q’who was killed between the altar and the Holy Place. Yes, I tell you, the people of this time will be punished for them all!
⁵² “How terrible for you teachers of the Law! You have kept the key that opens the door to the house of knowledge; ^r’you yourselves will not go in, and you stop those who are trying to go in!”
⁵³ When Jesus left that place, the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees began to criticise him bitterly and ask him questions about many things, ⁵⁴ trying to lay traps for him and catch him saying something wrong.

Interesting Stuff:

^e’ This was nothing to do with hygiene but with ceremonial purity. Before eating anything, the religious Jews would pour water over their hands to remove any defilement contracted by their contact with a sinful world. The quantity of water and the manner of washing were all written in detail. The Pharisee had expected that Jesus, being a religious teacher, would abide by this accepted practice.
^f’ Some versions translate this word as ‘greed’, not ‘violence’.
^g’ If the Pharisees overcame their greed, i.e., their inward uncleanness, then they would be fully clean, and ritual washing would not be necessary anymore.
^h’ Then Jesus proceeded to other Pharisaic practices which emphasised the keeping of outward forms only. Most translations have the word ‘woe’ for ‘terrible’.
‘Woe’ is an expression of regret, not of vindictiveness. Jesus directed three woes to the Pharisees in general, and three to the scribes. The first woe was directed at the Pharisees for their tithing practices that were all outward forms only.
^i’ Tithing of one-tenth of their crops was commanded by the Law (Dt 14:22) but not this kind of detailed tithing of all the garden herbs. They were going beyond what was required and had made tithing which was to be a joyful offering out of love to God a burden and a mockery. Jesus was not saying that this was wrong but in their zeal for the trivial things, they had forgotten what was more important – justice and love for God.
^j’ These were the seats in the front, facing the congregation. Anyone sitting there was seen as a man of importance.
^k’ These were elaborate greetings in public places which marked the recipients as men to whom honour should be shown.
^l’ Graves were mere holes in the earth, natural caves or artificial tombs dug out of the rock. Flat stones were placed on the graves as markers to warn passers-by so that they would not accidentally defile themselves. These stones were whitewashed annually (see Mt 23:27) so that no one would accidentally touch them especially at night. Jesus compared the Pharisees who thought so highly of themselves to unmarked graves, implying that people who followed their teachings and their ways would become morally corrupt just as touching a grave would result in ceremonial uncleanness.
^m’ Instead of explaining God’s Law in such a way that it helped people, the teachers of the Law had added so many rules and regulations to the Mosaic Law (refer to ‘Traditions of the Elders’, p. x) that it had become a wearisome burden. They did not bother to help the people keep them while they invented ways to go around the rules themselves.
^n’ They claimed that they were honouring the prophets killed by their ancestors by building splendid tombs for them. In reality, Jesus said that their very act symbolised approval of their ancestors’ crimes.
^o’ Jesus probably meant that God in His sovereign wisdom sent His prophets even though He knew that they would be rejected and killed. Because the people of Jesus’ generation also rejected God’s purposes, they stood together with those who had murdered these prophets, and they would be punished for their deaths.
^p’ See Ge 4:8. Abel’s death at the hands of his brother, Cain, was the first recorded death in the OT.
^q’ Zechariah’s death was the last death of a prophet mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Ch 24:20-22). The book of Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible. This expression is something like our ‘from Genesis to Revelation’. Jesus was summing up the history of the deaths of God’s faithful people in the OT.
^r’ The teachers of the Law were supposed to explain the meaning of the Law and thus to be teachers of the people. But in fact, they had taken away the key that unlocks the meaning of Scripture and brings people to a knowledge of God. They had turned Scripture into a book of hard-to-understand rules and riddles that only they could understand. And they were so pleased and preoccupied with the mysteries they had manufactured that they missed the wonderful things God was saying. They neither entered themselves nor did they allow others to enter into that knowledge of God.

Questions:

1. Why was the Pharisee surprised that Jesus had not washed before eating (v. 38)?

2. How did Jesus respond to him (vv. 39-41)?

3. What else did Jesus accuse the Pharisees of doing (vv. 42-44)?

4. How did Jesus answer the teacher of the Law who complained that Jesus was insulting them as well (vv. 45-52)?

5. How did the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees react to Jesus (vv. 53-54)?

Summary of Section:

When Jesus had finished speaking, he was invited by a Pharisee to eat with him. The Pharisee was surprised to see that Jesus did not wash his hands before eating.
Jesus told him that they, the Pharisees, were only concerned with ritual cleanliness, like the washing of cups and plates but not with the cleanness of their hearts. Inside they were full of violence and evil.
He told them that God who made their outside also made their inside. He told them that if they learned to clean up their hearts and to give from their hearts, everything would be clean for them.
He then continued to make three laments about the Pharisees:
a) Woe to them because they gave to God one-tenth of their herbs but they neglected justice and love for God.
b) Woe to them because they loved the reserved seats in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces.
c) Woe to them because they were like unmarked graves which people walked on without knowing it and got defiled.
One of the teachers of the Law was offended and told Jesus that by what he said to the Pharisees, he was insulting them as well.
Jesus then made three laments over the teachers of the Law as well:
a) Woe to them because they put onto the people’s backs burdens which were hard to carry but they did not lift a finger to help them carry the burdens.
b) Woe to them because they made fine tombs for the prophets who had been murdered by their ancestors. They would be punished for the murder of the prophets killed since the creation of the world from the murder of Abel to that of Zechariah.
c) Woe to them because they had kept the key that opens the door to the house of knowledge and stopped those who were trying to go in while they themselves did not want to go in.
When Jesus left, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law began to criticise him bitterly and asked him many questions to trap him and catch him saying something wrong.

Nuggets of Wisdom

Sharing conversations over a meal was a characteristic activity for Jesus. Here Jesus accepted an invitation from a Pharisee. Conflict, however, arose as his behaviour crossed the line of what was acceptable to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who were also present.
Central to the conflict is how one understands the nature of God and what He desires as a right and faithful response of His people. Jesus’ message was revolutionary because he confronted the practices of the Pharisees and the legal experts of the Law as evil. What he was opposing was not God’s Law itself but some of the ways these people had been practising the Law.
Woe’ here is an expression of regret, not of judgment or vindictiveness. Jesus was grieving over the hardness of heart of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. Jesus did not oppose the strict attention to the religious duties but the neglect of caring for the needs and the rights of the people, especially the poor and the oppressed.
They were the acknowledged religious leaders of the Jewish people and on them rested the responsibility of leading the people to God. However, by hardening their hearts, they remained spiritually dead and consequently misled the masses and prevented them from finding redemption in Jesus.
The Pharisees and teachers of the Law were now responding with increasing animosity, trying to cast him in a negative light. No longer would they simply scrutinise his practices in light of the Law. From now on they would actively seek to trap him. All along his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus would be encountering increasing opposition among those who did not believe his message.