Reflective Bible Study

As we continue moving through Luke’s gospel, and the week leading up to the crucifixion, we come to a prediction Jesus makes and a message Jesus gives His disciples when they ask Him about when His prediction will take place.

Let’s read what Jesus predicts and what we can learn from what Jesus taught His disciples. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 21, and we will read it from the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 5, Luke tells us:

⁵ And while some were talking about the temple, that it was adorned with beautiful stones and votive gifts, He [referring to Jesus] said, ⁶ “As for these things which you are looking at, the days will come in which there will not be left one stone upon another which will not be torn down.”

⁷ They questioned Him, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen? And what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” ⁸ And He said, “See to it that you are not misled; for many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am He,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not go after them. ⁹ When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”

¹⁰ Then He continued by saying to them, “Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, ¹¹ and there will be great earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.

¹² “But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name’s sake. ¹³ It will lead to an opportunity for your testimony. ¹⁴ So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves; ¹⁵ for I will give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute. ¹⁶ But you will be betrayed even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death, ¹⁷ and you will be hated by all because of My name. ¹⁸ Yet not a hair of your head will perish. ¹⁹ By your endurance you will gain your lives.

²⁰ “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is near. ²¹ Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter the city; ²² because these are days of vengeance, so that all things which are written will be fulfilled. ²³ Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land and wrath to this people; ²⁴ and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

In this lengthy challenge Jesus gives His followers, I am amazed by several details Jesus shares. In the first part of Jesus reply, we are warned not to follow people who come claiming to be Jesus while also claiming that the time of the end is near. We should be cautious of anyone claiming to have special revelation from God regarding when the world will end. We also should know that when we hear of wars, these things are leading up towards the end, but the end does not follow these rumors or wars immediately.

This suggests that before Jesus returns, there may be a time of peace, or a time when things are more peaceful than not. One might describe this as a lull in a storm, as a temporary rest before the ultimate end. While I don’t make predictions about this, I simply am sharing one way to understand how Luke frames verse 9, which says “When you hear of wars and disturbances, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end does not follow immediately.”

Jesus continues His reply talking about massive wars, major earthquakes, plaques, famines, and terrors and signs from heaven. This may also be what happens leading up to Jesus’ return.

However, in verses 12 through 15, I am challenged and encouraged by Jesus’ words. In this section of Jesus’ reply, He predicts that His people will be persecuted, and brought before kings and governors because of our belief. Jesus tells us that this is God’s directing, and it is an opportunity for us to share our testimony. While it is very tempting to prepare what to say beforehand, Jesus challenges us not to prepare but to trust that God will give us the words to say. The amazing promise in this passage is that when we let God speak through us, He will “give you utterance and wisdom which none of your opponents will be able to resist or refute.”

God’s words through us when we are being challenged and attacked will be much stronger than words we could ever prepare, and the arguments God will speak through us will be as effective as Jesus was at challenging the religious leaders. Jesus always avoided disaster because He let God speak through Him.

The last big promise I want to draw out of this passage is what Jesus shares in verse 19. Jesus tells His followers that when all the bad in the world is directed at His people, “By your endurance you will gain your lives.”

When we press forward, determined to endure to the end, we will ultimately gain our lives. Technically, we won’t be gaining our lives, because our lives are stained by sin and our lives deserve death. Instead, technically, when we endure to the end, we gain Jesus’ life, and Jesus’ life is eternal life. Jesus took the death we deserved onto Himself on the cross and He offers us His life when we place our belief, faith, hope, and trust in Him. Through what Jesus did, when we endure through persecution, we gain eternal life!

While Jesus shares many other details in this passage, some of what Jesus shares was more relevant to those living in past centuries than it is today, while it is also possible that history will repeat itself.

Since we don’t know what details the future holds, I challenge myself to live each day at a time, and to focus on enduring for God. Through endurance, pressing forward for God and with God, no matter comes my way, I know for certain that I will outlast sin and I will ultimately gain Jesus’ gift of life, eternal life, in the new heaven and new earth!

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 heart and in your life. Choose to trust God knows the future, trust God will speak through you when you are challenged for your faith, and trust that by enduring through all the bad that the world wants to throw our way, we will ultimately gain eternal life.

Also, while enduring the bad in this life, it is vital that each of us has a personal connection with God. Because of this, I always challenge each of us to pray and study the Bible for ourselves, because personal study leads to a personal relationship, and a personal relationship with God ultimately leads us through this life challenged by sin and into eternal life with God. If you have been coasting through your spiritual life leaning on other people, consider this a challenge to grow your personal relationship with God through personal prayer and personal study!

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 give up on where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Continuing where we left off last week looking at one of Jesus’ parables that He shared leading up to the night He was betrayed and arrested, let’s turn our attention onto what Jesus taught immediately following the conclusion of this parable. However, since this is our year focusing on prophecy and connection points between Jesus’ ministry and the Old Testament, let’s first begin by looking at the psalm Jesus quotes from while wrapping up the parable He challenged the religious leaders with.

This psalm is number 118, and let’s read it using the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 15, the psalmist writes:

¹⁵ The sound of joyful shouting and salvation is in the tents of the righteous;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
¹⁶ The right hand of the Lord is exalted;
The right hand of the Lord does valiantly.
¹⁷ I will not die, but live,
And tell of the works of the Lord.
¹⁸ The Lord has disciplined me severely,
But He has not given me over to death.

¹⁹ Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I shall enter through them, I shall give thanks to the Lord.
²⁰ This is the gate of the Lord;
The righteous will enter through it.
²¹ I shall give thanks to You, for You have answered me,
And You have become my salvation.

²² The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief corner stone.
²³ This is the Lord’s doing;
It is marvelous in our eyes.

Let’s jump out of reading this psalm here. Overall, this psalm gives praise to God for all the blessings He has given to His people. However, tucked within this psalm of praise is a message about some builders rejecting a cornerstone. While this might be a reference to something that took place in the Old Testament, a quick search while I was preparing for this episode did not turn up a specific event in Israel’s history that I could refer to.

While there may be a time I wasn’t able to find, what I find even more fascinating than the specific details surrounding this psalm and why this idea was written into this psalm, is how Jesus ultimately frames this idea when He draws attention to it in the New Testament. While this phrase is shared in several of the gospels, let’s read it from Matthew’s gospel. Let’s also step back and read the parable we began with to give this teaching the context that those listening to Jesus would have had.

So with this said, let’s read from Matthew’s gospel, chapter 21, and starting at the beginning of the parable in verse 33, Jesus says:

³³ “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. ³⁴ When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. ³⁵ The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. ³⁶ Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. ³⁷ But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ ³⁹ They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰ Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” ⁴¹ They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”

⁴² Jesus said to them, “Did you never read in the Scriptures,

‘The stone which the builders rejected,
This became the chief corner stone;
This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?

⁴³ Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it. ⁴⁴ And he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. ⁴⁶ When they sought to seize Him, they feared the people, because they considered Him to be a prophet.

As this event concludes, I find it fascinating that there are two ways Jesus frames understanding this psalm.

The first way of understanding it may have been the traditional way that those in the first century had understood this idea. This framing said that the Jewish nation, which was rejected by most every society at most points in history, ultimately will be made into the cornerstone of God’s kingdom.

On one hand, I believe this to be a true statement, with the only clarification or modification to what I shared earlier being that this cornerstone would be known as spiritual Israel, rather than the literal Jewish nation. While framing this idea as spiritual Israel allows for God-fearing Jews to be included, it also allows all of God’s people who started their life’s journey apart from God who come to God later in their lives. These people are welcomed in, and grafted into God’s family too.

However, I suspect that while these first century religious leaders may have believed this first angle for understanding this psalm, they rightly concluded that Jesus’ use of this psalm did not align with their frame.

Instead, Jesus takes the concept in this psalm, and subtly applies it to Himself. While it is very tempting to jump to the end of this conclusion and claim that Jesus is referring to Himself as the cornerstone, moving too quickly to this endpoint misses several powerful additional ideas Jesus shares in His conclusion.

Immediately following the conclusion of His parable and quoting this psalm, Jesus challenges the religious leaders by saying: “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people, producing the fruit of it.” (v. 43)

With this verse as the immediate context for Jesus’ challenge, the best, first frame for understanding Jesus’ quotation is that what God is building is the kingdom of God. With the context being on Jesus warning these religious leaders that their lack of returning to God the fruit He desired was going to cost them their place in the kingdom of God, it was no surprise to anyone present that these religious leaders were opposed to Jesus.

However, with the context of this quote being framed as God building His kingdom, where would be the best place to look for a cornerstone. Some people, including many of the Jewish leaders living in the first century, believe the cornerstone of God’s kingdom would be the scriptures. I can understand the logic involved with this conclusion. The scriptures are a gift from God and a great foundation for growing our spiritual lives. Also, God’s Word, and His law form one big foundational element in His kingdom.

But elsewhere in the gospels, specifically in John’s gospel, we read Jesus challenging some religious leaders with the truth that the scriptures actually point to Someone. According to Jesus’ framing of the scriptures, when we are actively using them to base our life on, we will be logically pointed towards the One they were written to point us towards. According to Jesus, scriptures themselves don’t contain eternal life; they simply point to the One who has the power to give eternal life. This conversation is found in John, chapter 5, verses 39 and 40.

With all this in mind, we can then conclude that according to Jesus, God’s kingdom is built on the truth of the One scripture points us to, and the One scripture points us to is God the Messiah, who many people believe to be Jesus Christ Himself.

It is amazing in my mind that Jesus’ parable concludes with the tenants killing the vineyard owner’s son, and the psalm Jesus quotes also talks about the builders rejecting the cornerstone. The first century Jewish leaders were the ones entrusted with building up God’s kingdom, but they ultimately miss, discount, and reject the Cornerstone that God provided to Humanity.

However, we can be thankful for this because through Jesus’ death, the way has been made for our salvation. Jesus finishes this teaching in verse 44 by saying that: “he who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust.”

While we don’t have time to unpack this portion of the verse as well as I would like, it is worth noting that every member of humanity must come to grips with Jesus. If we choose to fall to our knees before Jesus, we will be broken and ultimately rebuilt into being the people God created us to be. However, if we choose to hold back on being broken by Jesus, this Cornerstone will figuratively crush us and scatter us like dust.

Jesus is the cornerstone of God’s kingdom. With this as one of the biggest themes in the Bible, it is up to us how we respond to Jesus. Jesus challenges us to come humbly to Him, bringing with us the fruit God wants us to have, and letting Him transform us into being the people He created us to be.

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

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to let Jesus transform you through His love. Choose to place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus, the Cornerstone of God’s kingdom, and His sacrifice on the cross.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to Jesus each and every day. Through regular prayer and Bible study, discover how much Jesus loves us and what He was willing to go through because He wants each of us with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth.

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!