Reflective Bible Study

As we continue our journey through Luke’s gospel, we arrive at an event that includes three things I suspect Jesus loved to do. The first was healing someone. The second was healing someone on the Sabbath, which was considered as work by most of the religious leaders at that time in history. The third was teaching people and giving them a bigger picture of God.

With this in mind, let’s dive into our passage and discover some big things we can learn from what happened. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 14, and we will read it from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us:

¹ One Sabbath day Jesus went to eat dinner in the home of a leader of the Pharisees, and the people were watching him closely. ² There was a man there whose arms and legs were swollen. ³ Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in religious law, “Is it permitted in the law to heal people on the Sabbath day, or not?” ⁴ When they refused to answer, Jesus touched the sick man and healed him and sent him away. ⁵ Then he turned to them and said, “Which of you doesn’t work on the Sabbath? If your son or your cow falls into a pit, don’t you rush to get him out?” ⁶ Again they could not answer.

Let’s pause briefly because I want to draw our attention onto one big piece of this miracle. Everything in this event suggests that this disabled man was there because these religious leaders wanted to catch Jesus doing something they considered work on the Sabbath. From what Jesus does, I suspect He saw this as well.

Before even acknowledging the disabled man, Jesus asked the question to those who would clearly know the answer whether healing is permitted on the Sabbath or not. The first phrase of verse 4 is powerful. After Jesus asks the question, Luke records, “When they refused to answer”. This silence was not because these leaders did not have an answer. Instead, this silence was because they did not care what the answer was. They were too focused on their present definition over what the law actually said.

However, Jesus challenges them by reframing what the Sabbath was meant to be. Ultimately, the Sabbath is meant for doing things that glorify God and things that help others. A slight oversimplification for the Sabbath is a day meant for glorifying God, helping others, and resting from work.

However, after Jesus heals the man, gives them context for why this is clearly acceptable behavior and that they would do similar “work” in certain circumstances, their meal continues. Continuing reading in verse 7:

⁷ When Jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner were trying to sit in the seats of honor near the head of the table, he gave them this advice: ⁸ “When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? ⁹ The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table!

¹⁰ “Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. ¹¹ For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Pausing reading again, the phrase Jesus just finished sharing is powerful. Verse 11 tells us “those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted”.

This is powerful for us to pay attention to because this truth is as true today as it was in the first century. While it might not always seem to be the case, we are better off humbling ourselves while serving others because we can clearly see that those who become arrogant will ultimately be humbled. It isn’t a matter of if they will be humbled, it is a matter of when they will be humbled.

Ultimately, while it feels good to exalt ourselves, we can choose to continue exalting ourselves and then be humbled by others (which never feels good), or we can choose to humble ourselves and let others exalt us (which almost always feels good). However, it is worth mentioning that if we humble ourselves, letting others exalt us is good, but we must not fall into the temptation of then exalting ourselves after others have done so. This trap leads to being humbled.

The safest path forward is to take credit for all the mistakes and to praise others for all the successes.

Continuing our passage in verse 12:

¹² Then he [referring to Jesus] turned to his host. “When you put on a luncheon or a banquet,” he said, “don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. ¹³ Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. ¹⁴ Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you.”

Pausing again, I want to draw our attention to this powerful truth. Jesus challenged the host of this meal to not simply invite those who could return the favor, but to invite those who cannot return the favor. The way this is framed is not simply putting on a charity event for people who cannot repay.

Instead, the way this message is framed is including people who cannot repay you back in addition to all your friends. Part of me wonders if this was at least partially done in this event with what we began by reading and how we read about a disabled man being present at the start of this meal.

The big truth Jesus emphasizes is that God will repay us when we do things for people who cannot repay us. When we do things for others without repayment, God is more than happy to repay us in ways above and beyond what we can even imagine. God is a much better repayer than our friends ever could be.

Let’s jump back in and finish off our passage. Continuing in verse 15, Luke tells us:

¹⁵ Hearing this, a man sitting at the table with Jesus exclaimed, “What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the Kingdom of God!”

¹⁶ Jesus replied with this story: “A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. ¹⁷ When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all began making excuses. One said, ‘I have just bought a field and must inspect it. Please excuse me.’ ¹⁹ Another said, ‘I have just bought five pairs of oxen, and I want to try them out. Please excuse me.’ ²⁰ Another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

²¹ “The servant returned and told his master what they had said. His master was furious and said, ‘Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ ²² After the servant had done this, he reported, ‘There is still room for more.’ ²³ So his master said, ‘Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full. ²⁴ For none of those I first invited will get even the smallest taste of my banquet.’”

While there are many things I could draw our attention onto from this last illustration, the one big idea I want to touch on before wrapping up our time together in this episode is this: when the master invited all the poor, crippled, blind, and lame, this is a clear example of the truth we saw earlier. This master, who happens to represent God, is inviting people who have no way to pay him back.

Everything in this event draws our attention onto the truth that when we help other people who cannot repay us or help us in return, we are helping God and God is more than willing to repay us when Jesus returns. God modeled this type of generosity for us through Jesus, and when we show Jesus’ love and character to others, we will focus on helping those who cannot help us back because this is what Jesus ultimately did for us. Nothing we do can ever repay the debt God willingly forgave us from when we turn to Jesus and let His sacrifice cover our sins!

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 help others who cannot repay you like God has blessed each of us more than we could ever repay Him. Choose to show God’s love to others by helping and being a blessing to people who cannot repay us back!

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to strengthen your personal relationship with God and to keep your connection with Him strong. Through a personal relationship with Jesus, mixed with prayer and Bible study, we let the Holy Spirit into our lives and the Holy Spirit will help us be the blessing to others that God created us to be!

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 deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

Picking up where we left off in our last two episodes, we turn our attention again to Judas Iscariot the betrayer. One thing that fascinates me about the portion of Jesus’ life leading up to His crucifixion is that the Old Testament is incredibly clear about the Messiah being betrayed for those who are willing to pay attention. In the passages we looked at in our last episode, while some people could make a case that those psalms don’t clearly point to a betrayer, the passage we are focusing in on for this episode leaves very little doubt or ambiguity regarding the Messiah being betrayed.

With that said, let’s dive into our Old Testament prophecy for this podcast episode, and uncover what it teaches us about the betrayer. Our passage is found in the book of Zechariah, chapter 11, and we will read it using the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 4, Zechariah writes:

⁴ Thus says the Lord my God, “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter. ⁵ Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s power and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and I will not deliver them from their power.”

⁷ So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock. ⁸ Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me. ⁹ Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” ¹⁰ I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord. ¹² I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. ¹³ Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord. ¹⁴ Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

In this Old Testament prophecy, while there are plenty of details that we could focus our attention in on, the key idea that relates to the betrayer is found within the description of the wages that were given. In verse 13, the thirty shekels of silver are described as the value the people had placed on God. In the context of this passage, I suspect that the personal nature of God and the mission-focused nature of the Messiah are connected and interchangeable. This is why we can connect Jesus, as God’s Messiah, to this Old Testament prophecy where God appears to talk to His people through the prophet Zechariah.

Jumping to the New Testament, into the book of Matthew, let’s look closely at how this prophecy is fulfilled.

Following Jesus receiving the gift of the expensive perfume poured on Him that Judas Iscariot thought was too extravagant of a gift, and following Jesus pushing back at Judas Iscariot for being vocal about this apparent waste, we read in Matthew, chapter 26, starting in verse 14:

¹⁴ Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. ¹⁶ From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.

I am both surprised and fascinated at this event because it is not Judas Iscariot setting the price to betray Jesus. Instead, it is the religious leaders setting this price, and I find it amazing that they would set a price equal to a price prophesied about in the Old Testament. I suspect that they had something different in mind when they did this, or perhaps they believed that this potential connection to the Old Testament was insignificant because Jesus already had failed to match their picture of the Messiah in a number of ways.

However, this prophecy gets even more amazing when we move to the next chapter in Matthew. After Jesus’ trial and condemnation before the religious leaders, Matthew, chapter 27, opens in verse 1 by telling us:

¹ Now when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to put Him to death; ² and they bound Him, and led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate the governor.

³ Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, ⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? See to that yourself!” ⁵ And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. ⁶ The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.” ⁷ And they conferred together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers. ⁸ For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. ⁹ Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the one whose price had been set by the sons of Israel; ¹⁰ and they gave them for the Potter’s Field, as the Lord directed me.”

While pulling the passages together for this episode, and studying the details in these passages, it surprised me, as it may have surprised you, that Matthew makes a mistake in his application of this prophecy. Many commentators have weighed in on the detail that Matthew attributes a prophecy to Jeremiah when it is more likely that He was actually quoting from Zechariah. Of the various theories regarding the discrepancy present, the one I suspect is most likely to be correct is that Matthew was recalling this prophecy from memory, and that his mind blended the words in Jeremiah about the potter with this prophecy that also contained a reference to the potter. Also worth noting is that nowhere else in His gospel does Matthew directly quote from Zechariah by name, which also gives weight to the other theory that many of the minor prophets were lumped together under the banner of being with Jeremiah.

However, regardless of Matthew’s mistake, oversight, or miss-attributed-by-today’s-standards quotation, the prophecy is amazing, because it both tags the Messiah being valued at the specific amount of thirty pieces, or shekels, of silver, and that this money would be thrown in the temple, ultimately reaching the potter. While Zechariah’s prophecy streamlines the event, leaving out some details in the transition of the money from the chief priests, to the betrayer, from the betrayer back to the chief priests, and then from the chief priests to the potter to purchase his field, the prophecy gives us a powerful overview of the money used for the Messiah’s betrayal.

Through this entire event, it is amazing to me that from those in the society who should have known better, because they were the ones who would have known the prophecies the best, they let Jesus’ betrayal match exactly what was prophesied down to the exact price they would pay for the betrayal. In an amazing way, this teaches us that we can trust God’s promises.

Everything in this event draws our attention onto God knowing the future and that His plans and predictions will come to pass regardless of those involved. While I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there was a priest who could see the event playing into prophecy’s hand, even if that priest had objected, nothing would change the consensus of the group away from God’s predicted outcome.

In a similarly predicted way, Jesus has promised to return. While His return may feel as though it has been delayed, a delayed trip doesn’t mean the trip has been cancelled. Instead, a delayed trip gives us the opportunity to share Jesus with more people as we look forward to the day He does return and welcome us home!

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 place your faith, trust, hope, and belief in Jesus while also looking forward to the day He returns.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God. Through a personal relationship with God, we are able to open our heart to His and keep His promises fresh in our minds.

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!