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

My thoughts are all over the place on today’s passage, just like they were last year.  Today’s passage starts with Jesus performing another healing on the Sabbath.  He uses this opportunity to teach us that it is never the wrong time to relieve someone else’s suffering.  He goes from there to teach that we should not assume positions of honor for ourselves.  Rather we should place ourselves into the positions of low honor, allowing others to lift us up to places of honor.  Then Jesus tells us that when we throw parties and fancy events we should not invite those who can repay us by returning the invitation.  Instead we should invite those who otherwise do not have the opportunity to attend such events.  We will be blessed by such things, and God will repay us for the expense (and probably with things which cannot be bought for any price).  Jesus then tells a story about another banquet.  One where the invited guests all made excuses for why they could not come, so the one throwing the banquet brought in guests who would otherwise have been unable to attend.

Later, Jesus tells us that we must understand the cost of following Him, that we may have to give up our family, our wealth, and even our lives in order to be faithful to Him.  Luke then tells us about Pharisees and teachers of the law complaining because Jesus welcomed sinners to be His followers and was willing to hang out with them (even when they had not yet changed their ways).  Jesus replies to this by telling us that we should have more enthusiasm for bringing the good news to those who have wondered away from God and become lost than in debating His teachings with other followers of Christ.  The final point I want to make concerns Jesus teaching about how we should relate to material wealth once more.  We cannot serve God if we care more about material goods than we do about the needs of others.

I hope you see the thread which runs through all of these tying them together.  I was hoping I could find a phrase which would sum it all up once I had written down each of the parts, but that never happened.

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