Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 9.

I recently learned that many of those who study the Gospels divide Jesus’ ministry (and thus each of the Gospels) into three phases.  It seems to me that the middle phase begins when Jesus sends the Apostles out to preach His message and perform miracles in His name.  Certainly that marks the transition from His Early Ministry to the Middle phase.  It is in the middle phase of His ministry that Jesus began openly stating that He was the Messiah, at least to His disciples.  In addition, it is here in the middle phase of His ministry where Jesus highlights the cost of following Him.  I was going to expand on that, but then I saw His exchange with John about the man who was casting out demons in Jesus name, but was not one of His disciples.  When John told Jesus that they had told the man to stop because He was not one of them, Jesus told that him that they should not stop the man because whoever was not against them was for them.  Now this seems to contradict what He said in Matthew 12 verse 30, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. ”  In Matthew, Jesus was referring to those who attributed His acts of kindness to malice, while here Jesus is referring to those who seek do use Jesus’ prestige to accomplish good.  So, we should not attempt to stop those who seek to do good in Jesus’ name, even if they do not appear to follow His teachings in any other way.  I have seen many examples of where those who sought good goals for secular reasons found the Lord because Christians embraced them when they came to work with Christian groups which were already working towards those goals.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 9.

This passage contains some interesting juxtapositions.  Luke goes from recounting how Jesus attempted to settle His disciples argument about who would be the greatest by telling them that the least among them would be the greatest to Jesus telling John not to stop outsiders from casting out demons in His name.  Then Luke goes on to recount how James and John wanted to call down lightning on the Samaritans who rejected Jesus.  So, let’s walk through the connections between these events.

Jesus introduced the idea of the least among us being the greatest by telling His disciples (and us) that whoever welcomed a child in His name welcomed Him, and whoever welcomed Him welcomed the One who sent Him.  When we take that with John telling Jesus that they had tried to stop an outsider from casting out demons in Jesus’ name, I take it to mean that the disciples thought they were greater than this outsider.  The outsider was doing good in Jesus’ name, so by trying to stop him, they were failing to welcome him, and thus, had failed to welcome Jesus.  Then when James and John wanted to call lightning down on the Samaritans they once more demonstrated that they had failed to understand Jesus’ teaching about how we should deal with those outside our group.  It also combines with John being the spokesman for trying to stop the outsider from casting out demons in Jesus’ name to cement the understanding that James and John were the hotheads among Jesus’ disciples.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 9.

Jesus told His disciples that if we want to be His disciples we need to be willing to deny ourselves and accept whatever suffering comes our way from proclaiming Jesus’ name.  He continues that gaining everything we might possibly desire has no value if we lose ourselves in the process.  He finishes this piece of His teaching by telling us that if we are ashamed to stand up and acknowledge our allegiance to Him in public, He will not acknowledge us before God.   Am I willing to suffer, or even die, in order to serve God?  Actually, probably a more difficult question, am I willing to be inconvenienced in order to serve God?

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Luke 9.

When Jesus predicted His death and resurrection the first time He also warned us that anyone who wants to be His follower must be willing to face death as well. Then when He predicted His death for the second time a short time later, He tells us that in order to be great among His followers we need to serve others.  I think this connection tells us something about the degree of sacrifice to which we should be willing to go in order to serve others.  In the first instance, Jesus tells us that if we fail to do as we know He wills because of fear, we will suffer that which we fear, but if we face our fears and do as God wills, even to the point of experiencing death, the joy we receive will be more than worth it, and God will reward us with eternal life.  A similar thing holds true when we serve others.  If we humbly serve others without thought to fulfilling our own desires, the honor and joy which God will bestow upon us will exceed anything pursuing our own desires could have obtained.

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

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 9

Once again we have a passage where the connection between Jesus and John the Baptist is highlighted.  In this passage there are two separate connections made between Jesus’ teachings and what John the Baptist had taught.   First, we have Herod Antipas wondering who Jesus was because he had already beheaded John the Baptist.  Then, when Jesus asked His disciples who people thought He was, they replied that some people thought He was John the Baptist raised from the dead.  Once again, I am convinced that Luke believed that his readers were aware of John the Baptist as being part of a larger movement, a movement which I believe was viewed as the most genuine iteration of Judaism at that time.  Further, I believe that Luke made this connection because Christianity was starting to be viewed as a new religion rather than as a sect of Judaism.  I believe that Luke was trying to show that Christianity was firmly rooted in Judaism.

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

Today, I am reading and commenting on Luke 9

The one problem I have with the current read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan I am using for this blog is that when I get to Luke it is the third time in a short period where I am reading a slight variation on the same story.  I really ran into that problem today.  However, Today’s passage does contain some insights on what it means to follow Jesus.

We have two sections of today’s passage which shed light on what following Jesus involves.  At the end of the passage, Luke tells us of three men who considered following Jesus.  We do not know whether they ultimately did follow Him or not, but Jesus’ interaction with them shows us that following Him involves being willing to give up our loyalties and commitments to anything else.  Earlier in the passage, when Jesus first told His disciples about His death, He told them that each day they would need to decide to be willing to face suffering and death for Him.  Each and every day we need to choose to do that which will please God, recognizing that doing so may lead us to lose that which we desire.  It does us no good to get everything we desire if we lose ourselves in the process.  Each day we must ask ourselves if we are willing to pay the price to follow Jesus, and each day we must commit ourselves to paying that price.