Reflective Bible Study

When we think of parables that Jesus shared, most of the parables that come to mind have a clear conclusion. In the case of most of Jesus’ parables, the key idea Jesus wanted to teach is included in the concluding lines of the parable.

However, what if Jesus shared a parable that didn’t have a conclusion? What if the end of the parable didn’t really resolve the tension the parable created? If Jesus did this, was this lack of an ending intentional, or was it forgotten before the gospel writers had a chance to write it down?

The parable we will be focusing in on is a parable that appears to lack an ending, and when we look a little closer at the parable itself, I believe this lack of an ending is very intentional on Jesus’ part. Without an ending, this parable becomes timeless and we are freed to create our own ending with the parable’s context.

Let’s read the parable Jesus shared, before discussing what we can learn from it. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 13, and we will read from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 6, Luke tells us:

⁶ Then he [Jesus] told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. ⁷ So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

⁸ “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

And with that response from the man taking care of the vineyard, the parable ends. We are left to wonder if the fig tree became fruitful after being focused on for an additional year.

Leading up to this parable, Jesus had been confronted with some bad news. Some of those in the crowd told Jesus about Herod killing a group of Galileans and mixing their blood with their sacrifices. When Jesus heard this, He sensed a teaching opportunity, and He shifts His focus onto asking the question about how to understand bad things that had happened to seemingly good people. In this scenario, were those who were killed worse sinners because they suffered in this way?

Or in the case of a natural disaster, are those who die being punished by God because of some sin?

Jesus answers His own question by saying that the way a person dies does not indicate whether their life was lived well, or whether they will ultimately be approved by God. Dying because of sin in the world does not equal being punished by God.

However, Jesus challenges those present to repent as a way to avoid perishing, and the focus on repentance leads into our parable.

In the parable, the ultimate goal the vineyard owner had was for His fig tree to be fruitful. If the current tree wasn’t productive, then the space would be freed up and a new tree planted in its place.

From this context, repenting from sin could be compared to being fruitful. While it doesn’t seem like a logical match since repentance focuses on a single point in time while fruitfulness spans a period of time, in order to be the fruitful people of God that He wants us to be, we must begin the process by repenting.

In this parable, repentance becomes the hinge moment that turns a tree that is condemned to be cut down into a tree that is fruitful. The verses leading up to this parable challenge us to pay attention to our own lives, and this parable focuses on our past leading up to this point in time.

What then are we to do with the lack of an ending in this parable?

When I read this parable, I am reminded that the tree in the vineyard represents me. In the same way, the tree in the vineyard represents you. We don’t know when our time in this world will be over, but we do know that while we are here, God has called us to be fruitful. Fruitfulness begins by repenting and by focusing on our own relationship with God.

This parable is prompted by people looking at the lives and deaths of others. While death is not a pleasant subject for many people, it is something that is all too common in the world today. This parable does not imply for a moment that when someone dies, God had cut them down because they were not being fruitful. Instead, there are many reasons why death happens, and they all center around sin being present in this world.

It is easy to get caught up looking at the lives and deaths of other people, but the most important thing for you and I to pay attention to is what we are doing with our own lives. Our decision to repent leads us from death into life, and it is the most important decision we can make when transitioning from being fruitless to being fruitful. Looking at other people does not help us be fruitful if their lives do not inspire us to move forward in faith within our own lives.

The only reason we should look to other people is to be inspired when they succeed and when they demonstrate great faith. When others repent and let God use them, we can look to them and be inspired that God wants to do the exact same thing in our lives too!

However, we must always move towards applying God’s challenges and the inspiration others bring into our own lives. We must repent, we must be fruitful, or we risk our lives ending because of sin without having made the decision to stand with Jesus.

This parable doesn’t have an ending because our lives are still being lived. God has still given us a chance to repent, to turn to Him, to be fruitful, and to inspire others with our lives. It is up to us to step into being the people He created us to be as we move together towards eternity!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, keep seeking God first in your life and let Him lead and guide you towards repenting and being fruitful in whatever you do. Let God transform you into being a representative for Him to those He brings into your life.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to continue growing closer to God each and every day. Let the truth in God’s Word be your guide in life and trust it above the waves and preferences of culture. The Bible has lasted for thousands of years longer than any single culture or theory, and it can be trusted to lead us into eternity!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue moving through John’s gospel, and the events John shares with us about Jesus’ ministry, we come to a miracle that is unique to John’s gospel, and one that seems to prompt more questions about Jesus than answers. When reading the gospels, the miracle John includes here, while it is unique, is not a very unique miracle when compared with all the different types of miracles Jesus performed.

However, I wonder if John is building up Jesus’ miracle working ability by including one notable miracle of each type in his gospel, rather than lots of different but similar miracles. If this is the case, then John must see something in this miracle that is worth us paying attention to.

With that said, let’s read about what happened, and discover what we can learn from this event. Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 5, and we will read it from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, John tells us that:

¹ After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Hebrew, which has five colonnades. ³ Within these lay a large number of the sick—blind, lame, and paralyzed [then some Bible manuscripts add that these people were] [—waiting for the moving of the water, ⁴ because an angel would go down into the pool from time to time and stir up the water. Then the first one who got in after the water was stirred up recovered from whatever ailment he had].

⁵ One man was there who had been sick for 38 years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there and knew he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷ “Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”

⁸ “Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk!” ^9a Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk.

Let’s pause reading for a moment, because I want to draw our attention onto some things that stood out to me as we read this event.

The first detail that stood out to me is Jesus walking by this pool that was surrounded by a large number of sick and disabled people. This details stands out in my mind because we only see Jesus interact with one man, someone who may have been there the longest of any other. From the way this event is framed, we are left to conclude that this man had been abandoned at this pool and left alone. It seems logical to believe that there were people who took compassion on him and gave him food to eat and water to drink, but there was no one present to help him into the water when the time was ideal.

This is significant, because I would have expected Jesus to have interacted with more than one sick or ill person. In other gospels, we read about Jesus entering cities or towns and healing everyone in that place. This event leads us to a big question, “Why heal only this man?” or perhaps we could ask it a different way, “Why only record Jesus healing this man?”

One possible answer is the next detail that stood out to me in this passage. When seeing this man and realizing he had been at that pool for a very long time, Jesus first asks that man if he wants to get well. This is significant because not everyone would want to be healed.

While it sounds crazy to think about, some people in that situation could grow comfortable in their less-than-ideal circumstances, and being healed would mean stepping back into society, needing to find work, and rebuilding a life. When faced with certain, less-than-ideal situations verses the fear of a difficult unknown that could ultimately be better, a certain percentage of people are likely to choose to stay in the less than ideal, but familiar situation.

Jesus does not want to heal someone who does not want to be healed. That would be cruel. It’s the same way with heaven. God would be cruel if He forced eternity in heaven, or eternal life, onto someone who truly didn’t want it.

When the man replies about not being able to get to the pool, this tells us two things. First, it tells us that the man wants to be healed, which is a direct answer to Jesus’ question, and second, this tells us that those present at this pool had placed their faith in the pool for their healing. This second detail is interesting because while God may be behind the pool’s miraculous properties, I wonder how much glory went to God from those who were healed there.

Perhaps, if this had been going on for some time, God received glory early on, but later, after many people had been headed, the pool may have been the greater recipient of praise. This man’s faith was less on God or Jesus and more focused on the pool.

However, when Jesus tells the man to get up, pick up his mat, and walk, the man doesn’t hesitate taking Jesus at His word. The old focus on the pool wasn’t working out so well, so this man decides to shift his focus and faith onto Jesus and Jesus’ promise.

If we were to stop reading here, this miracle would be amazing in itself. However, what comes next is even more amazing. Continuing reading in the second portion of verse 9, John tells us:

^9b Now that day was the Sabbath, ¹⁰ so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath! It’s illegal for you to pick up your mat.”

¹¹ He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

¹² “Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked. ¹³ But the man who was cured did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴ After this, Jesus found him in the temple complex and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.” ¹⁵ The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

In this event, we discover after the miracle that this was done on the Sabbath day. This is significant because the religious leaders had set up a complex series of rules about what was allowed and not allowed on the Sabbath day in order to keep people from even coming close to breaking God’s Sabbath commandment.

These religious leaders realized that breaking the Sabbath was the catalyst that ultimately led to their ancestors being exiled out of the Promised Land, and when God brought them back, they promptly set up a strict set of rules to keep people from coming close to breaking this commandment again.

However their rules had overshadowed God’s law, and they failed to offer grace when people broke their rules while not truly breaking one of God’s laws. They had lost the reason for their rules and had become prideful that they were the rule makers and rule enforcers.

It is humoring to me that the man does not know who healed him until after being challenged about carrying his mat. If Jesus had not met up with him later, this man would have never known until much later who had healed him.

In this event, while there is more we could focus in on, let’s conclude this podcast looking at one big idea that we see present in this miracle. When God is our last hope, it is easy to look to Him. However, when God is not our first hope, we might not experience many miracles in our lives. When this man gave up hope in reaching the pool, which is something the other people present may not have been ready to do, he was ready to experience the healing Jesus offered him. When we give up hope in the things of this world, and focus our faith on Jesus and what He accomplished for us, we are ready to receive miracles in our lives as well!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying, continue to intentionally seek God first in your life and look to God first, rather than use Him as your last resort. While God sometimes works miraculously, other times God draws our attention to the answer without using anything miraculous. Choose to have faith in God and look to Him first when challenges, problems, or trials come into your life for the strength and guidance to face whatever you are facing.

Also, as I always challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. While other people have ideas they want you to focus on, filter what you see, read, and hear through the pages of God’s word to discern its eternal value. Let the Bible teach you what is truly valuable within God’s eyes.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Immediately after the parable we looked at in our last episode, one of Jesus’ disciples has a question about what Jesus shared, and specifically who the parable was for. In response, Jesus shares another parable that references, but also expands on the theme of the previous parable.

Let’s read what Jesus shared, and to give us context for this follow-up parable, I’ll reread the parable from our last episode to help lead us into this one. Our passage is found in Luke, chapter 12, and we will read it from the New Century Version. Starting in verse 35, Jesus shared that:

³⁵ “Be dressed, ready for service, and have your lamps shining. ³⁶ Be like servants who are waiting for their master to come home from a wedding party. When he comes and knocks, the servants immediately open the door for him. ³⁷ They will be blessed when their master comes home, because he sees that they were watching for him. I tell you the truth, the master will dress himself to serve and tell the servants to sit at the table, and he will serve them. ³⁸ Those servants will be blessed when he comes in and finds them still waiting, even if it is midnight or later.

³⁹ “Remember this: If the owner of the house knew what time a thief was coming, he would not allow the thief to enter his house. ⁴⁰ So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at a time when you don’t expect him!”

That was last episode’s passage and parable. Continuing in verse 41:

⁴¹ Peter said, “Lord, did you tell this story to us or to all people?”

⁴² The Lord said, “Who is the wise and trusted servant that the master trusts to give the other servants their food at the right time? ⁴³ When the master comes and finds the servant doing his work, the servant will be blessed. ⁴⁴ I tell you the truth, the master will choose that servant to take care of everything he owns. ⁴⁵ But suppose the servant thinks to himself, ‘My master will not come back soon,’ and he begins to beat the other servants, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. ⁴⁶ The master will come when that servant is not ready and is not expecting him. Then the master will cut him in pieces and send him away to be with the others who don’t obey.

⁴⁷ “The servant who knows what his master wants but is not ready, or who does not do what the master wants, will be beaten with many blows! ⁴⁸ But the servant who does not know what his master wants and does things that should be punished will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded. And from the one trusted with much, much more will be expected.

When reading this parable, I am always a little amazed at how it appears as though Jesus answers, but doesn’t really answer Peter’s question. Peter basically asked Jesus if this parable was for the group of disciples, or if it was for all people, and Jesus doesn’t really give a clear answer.

However, Jesus’ parable-answer is challenging, and it does give us an answer, specifically a third option that was not included in Peter’s original question. Peter’s question had two groups specified, specifically the disciples, or everyone, and Jesus wants us to focus on a different group.

In His response, Jesus takes the conversation in a different direction. Instead of answering Peter’s one or the other groups, Jesus describes that the servants who are wise and the ones Jesus trusts are the ones that are doing His work. While it sounds obvious, this brings a third group into view. Not everyone is wise or to be trusted to do God’s work, and while it may be hard to believe, not all the disciples fit this category either.

While it is easy to look out at the world today and see people who are not wise or trustworthy, looking at Jesus’ core group of disciples prompts us to see an interesting challenge. We would hope that those who were closest to Jesus were wise and trustworthy in God’s eyes, and even knowing about Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, doesn’t change much. Instead, knowing that Judas was in this closest group presents a different idea.

Judas Iscariot’s presence in the group of disciples, when mixed with this parable, shows how someone can actually lose their salvation. While it isn’t something that we like thinking about, someone who is wise and trustworthy might not always choose to be wise and trustworthy, and someone who has not been trustworthy in the past might change as well.

This passage prompts us to understand God’s blessings as progressive in nature. When God sends a challenge, a task, or a situation our way, He is looking for how we will respond. One might call this a test, but for some people, this brings back negative memories of difficult times in school. Instead, let’s call this a chance to glorify God and a chance to help others.

The wise and trusted servant is one who God can repeatedly give responsibilities, and that servant will diligently carry out the tasks. Every successful task will prompt greater trust from God and greater responsibilities in the future.

This parable, and Jesus’ response to Peter’s question, broaden the group of God’s trusted servants to include more than just the disciples, but to include all those believers who determine to be trustworthy and obedient.

However, in Jesus’ response, we see the focus being shifted off of looking at a group of people, and being focused on a group of one. This response subtly shifts the focus off of looking at other people, and it challenges each of us to be diligent, wise, and trustworthy. While there are punishments included for not being trustworthy, I think it is not wise to focus on these punishments because they lead to serving out of fear and not out of love.

Instead, let’s be motivated by the rewards God has promised us, and diligently serve God because of what he has done for us, because of how He has blessed us, and because of the future He has promised to give us when we love, trust, and serve Him!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, continue to seek God first and place Him first in your life. Choose to be a trustworthy, obedient servant who serves simply because it is a better choice. Don’t take for granted God’s absence or silence as a license for rejecting Him. That will only end up breaking trust. Instead, choose to reveal your character by being trustworthy even when no one is present or watching.

Also, keep praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Look to the Bible for guidance and truth, and let the Bible be your guide even when things seem crazy in this world today.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Following Jesus’ trip through Samaria and His encounter and conversation with a Samaritan woman, Jesus heads to Galilee, and specifically to Cana. While there, Jesus has the opportunity to help someone else while also challenging that individual’s faith.

Let’s read about what happened. Our passage is found in John’s gospel, chapter 4, and we will read from the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 46, John tells us that:

⁴⁶ Jesus went again to visit Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. One of the king’s important officers lived in the city of Capernaum, and his son was sick. ⁴⁷ When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum and heal his son, because his son was almost dead. ⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, “You people must see signs and miracles before you will believe in me.”

⁴⁹ The officer said, “Sir, come before my child dies.”

⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Go. Your son will live.”

The man believed what Jesus told him and went home. ⁵¹ On the way the man’s servants came and met him and told him, “Your son is alive.”

⁵² The man asked, “What time did my son begin to get well?”

They answered, “Yesterday at one o’clock the fever left him.”

⁵³ The father knew that one o’clock was the exact time that Jesus had said, “Your son will live.” So the man and all the people who lived in his house believed in Jesus.

⁵⁴ That was the second miracle Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

While reading this event just now, I find it interesting what the man’s request is to Jesus, how Jesus responds, how the man replies to Jesus’ response, and what ultimately happens.

First, the man comes from the nearby town of Capernaum to ask Jesus to come and heal his son. This official wants Jesus to physically travel with Him to Capernaum so that Jesus can personally heal his son.

In response, Jesus makes an insensitive remark towards this official and to whatever stereotype we might want to group this official into. It is likely Jesus was speaking towards this entire generation, including everyone within earshot. It is also likely that Jesus was speaking to every single person in sinful humanity. The temptation for every single person at every point in history is that we must see a sign before we belief in Jesus.

However, like I probably would have done if I was in this official’s place, this official ignores Jesus’ insensitive response and asks for help a second time.

Jesus then tells the official that his son will live. The official’s big worry was that his son’s illness would end his son’s life, and Jesus reassures him that this illness will not end in his son’s death.

The official then leaves without Jesus, taking Jesus at His word, and ultimately discovers after meeting the messengers that were coming to find him, that at the exact point when Jesus told him that his son would live, his son’s fever left and that his son was recovering.

This event is amazing in my mind because of how everything takes place. While there likely were different ways Jesus could have said what He said about people needing to see in order to believe, and perhaps some of the other ways would have been more sensitive, I wonder if this was a challenge directly to this father who earnestly wanted help for his son. I suspect that this father only knew of miracles where Jesus had laid His hands on people to heal them, and if this is the case, I wonder if that was as far as this man’s faith in Jesus had grown.

However, Jesus pushes this man’s faith by pressing him to believe Jesus’ words without seeing them directly come to pass. With what happens, the man must believe Jesus and begin to head home before finding out whether Jesus’ promise would happen. In some ways, having faith stretched in this way is one of the most emotionally challenging things for us, because there is a period of unknown and a period of time when doubt like to crowd in.

From the point when this father leaves Jesus and up to learning the news about his son, I’m certain that Satan threw as much doubt his way to try to discourage him that his trip to Jesus was a failed trip where Jesus insulted him rather than helped him.

However, any doubts Satan threw this man’s way were lies and at the moment the servants met the man on his way home, all the doubts running through this man’s mind were exposed as lies in the face of the truth.

To contrast this miracle, we have a miracle in Matthew and Luke about a centurion who has almost the exact opposite conversation with Jesus. In that miracle, Jesus offers to come and lay His hands on the centurion’s servant to heal him, and the centurion pushes back saying that all he needs is Jesus’ word that his servant would be healed. These two miracles are the perfect opposites in many ways because each man requesting the miracle had Jesus respond in a way that he was not expecting.

This mirrors what we may face in our own lives.

When looking at Jesus’ miracles, sometimes Jesus personally goes to touch the person, while other times, Jesus says the word and we are called to have faith in Jesus’ promise. This is powerful for us to keep in mind, because when we pray and ask Jesus for help with something, sometimes we will directly see Jesus’ answer to our prayers, while other times the answer might be a long time in coming.

Know that just like the official in our passage had a period of time between leaving Jesus with a promise, and then receiving confirmation that his request had been answered, we also will have a period of time between our request and seeing confirmation of a response. We can claim Jesus’ promises in our own lives, but often there is a period of time after we have claimed God’s promise before we see confirmation of His response.

The challenges every one of us face when in this waiting period are to trust God during this period of unknown, to push back against the doubts Satan pushes at us, and to press forward knowing that God will reveal His answer to our prayer when the time is right for us. While all this takes trust, we can look to all of Jesus’ promises in the Bible and realize that no word from God will ever fail. If God has promised something, it will come to pass. We might not know when or how, but we can trust that God’s promises are solid and trustworthy because He has never failed those who place their trust in Him!

Just remember that when we trust God, we trust that He knows best and we understand that His perspective and goal for our lives are bigger than we can comprehend, and His desire for us extends beyond what we can even being to imagine.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to trust His promises and His perspective over what Satan tries to doubt us into believing. Satan’s doubts are lies, and we can trust God because God’s promises will never fail us from eternity’s perspective. With God, we will outlast sin, Satan, and whatever challenge that is prompting us to doubt.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to keep your personal connection with God strong. While pastors or podcasters can give you ideas to think about, never let your relationship with God rest on someone else. Always take what you learn, see, or hear and test it personally against God’s Word. Discover in the Bible the truth about a God who gives everything to redeem humanity from sin and a God who wants you saved out of sin for eternity!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or doubt yourself out of where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!