Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 14-16.

It struck me that we often miss part of the point of the parable of the banquet which Jesus tells here.  Everyone I have seen or heard comment on it says that the banquet in this parable is the kingdom of heaven, and that those who were initially invited were too busy to enter when the time came.  That is not wrong, just incomplete.  In light of what I wrote yesterday, it strikes me that they too busy to do what God asked of them.  They passed up on their opportunities to serve God and thus missed the blessings of doing so, the “banquet”.  All too often we miss Jesus’ point that the blessing of serving God is serving God.  Or, to put that another way, the joy we get out of doing God’s will is greater, and more fulfilling, than anything else we could do with our time and energy.

When I first read today’s passage my first thought was about the final line of Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus: “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.”  This is another one of those things that we tend to overlook.  We get caught up in the main point of the parable and miss this point.  I really think that what Jesus is saying here ties in with what Paul wrote in Romans 1:18-20.  Specifically, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”  In the case of this parable which Jesus told, Jesus is speaking particularly about the lessons to offer care for those in need out of our resources, while Paul is talking more generally about belief in God and what how He commands us to act.  I wrote that last sentence and realized those two points are not as far apart as I thought the were when I began writing it.  Both Jesus and Paul are telling us that there are no arguments we can use to convince those who choose not to believe in God.  If they have chosen to reject the words God has spoken through His prophets, and the evidence He has made plain in the very nature of the universe, they will also reject any evidence we can provide them.  That does not mean that we do not try anyway.  We just need to remember that only the power of the Holy Spirit will change their minds.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.