Reflective Bible Study

As we continue our year podcasting through Luke’s gospel, we come to a place where Luke describes Jesus teaching His disciples to pray. While Matthew’s gospel gets the majority of attention when looking at this event, the prayer Luke describes is surprisingly simple, while also being incredibly profound.

Let’s read what Luke wrote down, and discover what Jesus wanted the disciples to know about prayer. Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 11, and we will read from the Good News Translation. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us that:

¹ One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

² Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this:
‘Father:
    May your holy name be honored;
    may your Kingdom come.
³ Give us day by day the food we need.
⁴ Forgive us our sins,
    for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.
    And do not bring us to hard testing.’”

While our passage continues, let’s pause here briefly. With this last request about not bringing us to hard testing, it appears as though the prayer ends. There is no “amen” or any other concluding phrase. This makes me wonder if the last portion of the prayer was lost, or if Jesus is sharing a simple example we can use as a framework for prayer.

Spread throughout the gospels are times when Jesus spent extended periods of time in prayer. Sometimes these prayers lasted for minutes, others hours, and a few even all night long. The example Jesus gives us likely wouldn’t even take us a minute to pray. This tells me that God probably values short, to the point, prayers over long prayers with lots of repetition.

When we look at this prayer Jesus told the disciples, we see four key parts. While some people can easily make acronyms and fancy models for prayer, I won’t attempt to do this. Instead, I will simply share the four big pieces I see in this prayer and how these pieces fit together in a powerful way.

The first portion of the prayer acknowledges God as our Father, and then we give Him glory, honor, and praise. Verse 2 states: “Father: May your holy name be honored; may your Kingdom come.” To summarize this first verse: Our prayer opens with acknowledging God for who He is and looking forward to the arrival of His Kingdom.

The next part of this prayer acknowledges God’s blessings and our requests for our present circumstances. We request our immediate needs focusing on God’s providing for the present moment of time we are living in. This is stated in verse 3 when Jesus says, “Give us day by day the food we need.” Not only do we ask God to be with us each day as we move forward through life, we ask Him to be actively giving us what we need every “present” moment of our lives.

The third part of this prayer focuses on forgiveness in the present, because of forgiveness in the past. We ask God to continue forgiving us because we are forgiving those who have done us wrong. Jesus states this by saying in the first part of verse 4, “Forgive us our sins, for we forgive everyone who does us wrong.” We want God to forgive us and we acknowledge Jesus’ promise that we are forgiven when we choose to forgive others.

The last part of this prayer focuses on protection for our future. While it sounds obvious that we wouldn’t want God to bring hard test or trials into our lives, this statement is a reminder for us that God protects our future. Jesus finishes this prayer at the end of verse 4 by saying “And do not bring us to hard testing”. We want God to protect us from things we cannot bear, and in a subtle way, we are reminding ourselves that God protects us and that anything that comes our way has been allowed into our lives because God knows He can turn it into a positive when we’ve learned from it.

This is Jesus’ model prayer.

In this prayer, we have two parallel progressive themes. The first big progressive theme is that this prayer begins by honoring God, before then asking God to provide for our present, forgive our past, and protect our future!

The second progressive summary still begins by honoring God, but then it asks God to provide for our physical, spiritual, and emotional needs. Our physical needs are represented by our food each day, our spiritual needs are represented by forgiveness, and our emotional needs are represented by our request for protection from the big tests of life.

If we keep all this in mind for our prayer time with God, I believe He will honor our prayers and answer them with our best interests in mind.

However, Jesus still has something else to teach us about prayer. Continuing in verse 5, Luke tells us:

⁵ [And] Jesus said to his disciples, “Suppose one of you should go to a friend’s house at midnight and say, ‘Friend, let me borrow three loaves of bread. ⁶ A friend of mine who is on a trip has just come to my house, and I don’t have any food for him!’ ⁷ And suppose your friend should answer from inside, ‘Don’t bother me! The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ ⁸ Well, what then? I tell you that even if he will not get up and give you the bread because you are his friend, yet he will get up and give you everything you need because you are not ashamed to keep on asking. ⁹ And so I say to you: Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For those who ask will receive, and those who seek will find, and the door will be opened to anyone who knocks. ¹¹ Would any of you who are fathers give your son a snake when he asks for fish? ¹² Or would you give him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? ¹³ As bad as you are, you know how to give good things to your children. How much more, then, will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

In this additional teaching on prayer, Jesus challenges the disciples to pray purposefully and continually until we see God fully grant our request. However, we shouldn’t stop praying when God has started answering our prayers. Instead, we are challenged to shift our prayers from asking for our request to thanking God for answering our prayer.

The last big detail we have time for in this episode is where we should focus our prayer requests. When we ask God for His help, and for things that we need in our walk with Him, He knows exactly what we are asking for and He knows what the best thing we need is. God is more than willing to give us the best gift we need in any and every circumstance. However, it is worth pointing out that God has a much bigger perspective than we do, and this is why His best gifts might not always feel like the best gifts.

God knows exactly what we need, and God knows exactly the way to answer our prayers that leads us, and the most possible people, into a saving relationship with Jesus that ultimately leads into eternal life.

The best gift that God can give us is a gift that He is more than willing to give to us when we ask for it. This gift is His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the best gift God can give us, because the Holy Spirit is the ultimate guide for our lives, and the Holy Spirit is more than willing to bless us with everything we need to lead us into eternity with God when we let Him into our hearts and lives!

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 ask Him for His gift of the Holy Spirit. God is more than willing to answer this request and this request is one we should persist in when praying. Also, when praying, always acknowledge God for who He is, and ask Him to provide for your present, forgive your past, and protect your future!

As I also always challenge you to do, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn and grow closer to God each day. Prayer and study are among the best ways to grow a personal relationship with God and a personal relationship with God is what leads to eternal life. Above everything else, don’t let anyone get between you and your relationship with God!

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!

As we approach the halfway point in our year moving through prophecies and connections between Jesus’ ministry and the Old Testament, we arrive at a fascinating prophecy that marks a shift in the prophecies that point towards Jesus. As we will soon read, tucked within a prophecy about one of Israel’s neighboring nations being judged and punished, we discover a little bit of space being dedicated to pointing forward to the coming Messiah.

With this said, let’s read this prophecy, and unpack what we can learn from what is shared about the Messiah.

Our passage and Old Testament prophecy are found in the book of Zechariah, chapter 9, and we will read using the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 1, Zechariah writes:

¹ The burden of the word of the Lord is against the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the Lord),

² And Hamath also, which borders on it;
Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise.
³ For Tyre built herself a fortress
And piled up silver like dust,
And gold like the mire of the streets.
⁴ Behold, the Lord will dispossess her
And cast her wealth into the sea;
And she will be consumed with fire.
⁵ Ashkelon will see it and be afraid.
Gaza too will writhe in great pain;
Also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded.
Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza,
And Ashkelon will not be inhabited.
⁶ And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod,
And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.
⁷ And I will remove their blood from their mouth
And their detestable things from between their teeth.
Then they also will be a remnant for our God,
And be like a clan in Judah,
And Ekron like a Jebusite.
⁸ But I will camp around My house because of an army,
Because of him who passes by and returns;
And no oppressor will pass over them anymore,
For now I have seen with My eyes.
⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
¹⁰ I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
And the horse from Jerusalem;
And the bow of war will be cut off.
And He will speak peace to the nations;
And His dominion will be from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.

In this set of verses, not only do we find a fascinating picture of Jerusalem’s king riding into the city victorious on the back of a donkey, we also get a picture hinted at that God will ultimately purify and accept certain groups of gentiles that many people might think God wouldn’t be interested in.

Primary among these newly accepted groups is the Philistines. There is no shortage of stories in the Old Testament where the Philistines show up and oppose Israel and Judah, appearing first within the stories of Abraham, and moving forward from prior to Israel even entering the promised land, through the judges and the united kingdom, up until the exile and Babylon conquering all of the nations in the region. As I say this, I don’t recall the Philistines showing up in a significant way after this point, but throughout Israelite history prior to Babylon, we find many places where this nation appears.

It is interesting in my mind that immediately after describing how God will purify the Phillistines and make them like one of the clans of Judah, we find God promising protection and pointing forward to a powerful symbol of the King of His kingdom riding into His city on a young donkey.

Moving forward into the New Testament, one of the most well documented events in Jesus’ life is His entrance into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey at the start of the week leading forward to His crucifixion. One place this event is recorded is in Mark’s gospel, chapter 11, which begins by saying:

¹ As they approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples, ² and said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here. ³ If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ you say, ‘The Lord has need of it’; and immediately he will send it back here.” ⁴ They went away and found a colt tied at the door, outside in the street; and they untied it. ⁵ Some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” ⁶ They spoke to them just as Jesus had told them, and they gave them permission. ⁷ They brought the colt to Jesus and put their coats on it; and He sat on it. ⁸ And many spread their coats in the road, and others spread leafy branches which they had cut from the fields. ⁹ Those who went in front and those who followed were shouting:

“Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord;
¹⁰ Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David;
Hosanna in the highest!”

In this amazing event, Jesus directs His disciples to go and borrow a young colt for Him to ride on. In a somewhat random thought I just had, if there were no bystanders present to confront the disciples taking the colt, what happened would have looked no different from a theft. It is also interesting in my mind that nothing in these disciples’ instructions to the owners of this colt is any mention that Jesus would be the one using it.

I don’t know if the owner of this colt, or the group of bystanders present, would have been sympathetic towards Jesus’ plans to ride on this young donkey. In this slightly cryptic set of instructions, Jesus basically tells the disciples to say that God needs to borrow the animal, and when God was finished, He would return it to the owner.

Not only was Jesus’ instructions to His disciples a small-scale prophecy, that was fulfilled when they went to borrow the colt, but the colt they ultimately borrowed was one specially set aside in the story of eternity as being the one designated to hold the King of the universe.

It is also amazing in my mind to take one more step back when looking at the fulfillment of this prophecy to realize that when Jesus made the way of salvation open to humanity, the way was made open not just for God’s people in an exclusive sense, but the way was made open for people from every nation to be invited into and adopted into God’s family. On the surface, of Israel’s neighboring nations, God makes the promise that He is willing to forgive, purify, and adopt the nation best known for being against His people.

Forgiveness is a key piece of God’s character, and we can take this prophecy as a promise that even though our past is filled with the stains of sin, mistakes, and regret, God is more than willing to adopt us into His family, and He is willing to purify us and make us one of His children. God loves you and He loves me, and Jesus made possible the way for God to show His love for each of us through what Jesus accomplished on the cross.

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 place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. Thank Jesus for what He made possible through His death and humbly come before God asking for His help cleaning and purifying your life as He is willing to adopt you into His family.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to discover just how much God loves each of us. Discover in the pages of the Bible a God who is more in love with you than you might first realize, and a God who is more interested in redeeming you than you might be interested in being redeemed.

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!

As we continue moving through Luke’s gospel, we come to a point where we are introduced to two very different individuals, and from the way Luke’s gospel describes this event, I am fascinated by some of the details we see when looking closely at what happened.

First off, this event focuses on two different women, and nothing in this passage is hinted at these two women being married. One of these women is described as having a home, which strongly implies that she was old enough to have an established life, and this is without Luke’s gospel sharing any evidence of a husband.

While it is possible she had a husband who traveled a great deal and who wasn’t present for this event, it is also just as possible that she was divorced or simply had chosen not to marry. There may be other possible explanations, but all the explanations we can think of are really distractions from the big contrast Luke wants us to see as he describes what happened when Jesus meets these two women.

Our passage is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 10, and we will read it from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 38, Luke tells us that:

³⁸ As they were traveling along, Jesus went into a village. A woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹ She had a sister named Mary. Mary sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to him talk.

⁴⁰ But Martha was upset about all the work she had to do. So she asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work all by myself? Tell her to help me.”

⁴¹ The Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha! You worry and fuss about a lot of things. ⁴² There’s only one thing you need. Mary has made the right choice, and that one thing will not be taken away from her.”

In just five short verses, we are introduced to two very different women, and two very different responses to interacting with Jesus.

It is easy to condemn Martha for worrying and fussing while focusing on the details of being a good hostess. It is also easy for us to sympathize with Martha’s irritation over Mary’s lack of help or Mary’s decision to sit listening to Jesus. However, the biggest theme of this passage can get lost in the details if we are not careful.

It is worth noting that Jesus does not condemn Martha for serving or being a detail-driven hostess. While Jesus does call Martha out for where she has placed her focus, this only happens after Martha had become upset about what Mary was doing when compared with what Martha wanted Mary to be doing. In other words, Martha’s expectation for Mary was upsetting her when Mary wasn’t doing what she expected her to do.

This detail is huge, because it points us to a number of big spiritual truths.

First, we can see that our expectations for ourselves have an impact on our spiritual lives. In Martha’s case, the expectation she had placed on herself was that of being the perfect hostess. She wanted every detail accounted for because she knew how special Jesus was and what a big deal it was that He decided to spend time in her home.

Continuing in Martha’s example, we discover that when we don’t meet our expectations for ourselves, we often try to get others to help us meet our expectations. When Martha began falling behind with the details, she tried to get Mary to come and help her catch back up. While the details Martha was fussing and worrying about might have been very temporary things, the way she frames her frustration and request appeared to be more demanding than the situation might have warranted. I don’t believe Martha was in the wrong for asking for help, but she ultimately was called out for the way she demanded help from her sister.

This leads us to another truth: when others choose not to help us achieve our own expectations for ourselves, we can become bitter and angry towards them when they technically have done nothing wrong except for failing to abide by our expectations for them. In Martha’s example, Mary had done nothing wrong except that she chose not to help Martha achieve her expectations for herself. If Mary had gotten up to help Martha, then at the end of Jesus’ stay with them, Martha may have had the feeling of satisfaction, but Mary would definitely have had the feeling of regret and a missed opportunity.

Ultimately, what Jesus tells Martha is a message to all of us. While we may worry or fuss about a lot of things, it is more important that we connect with Jesus personally, and that we don’t try to dictate how other people connect with God. Every person will connect with God in their own way, and for a relationship with God to be truly personal, it must not depend on or include other individuals standing between us and God.

In Martha’s case, her expectation for herself stood between her and her relationship with Jesus, and when she was falling behind achieving her expectation, she expected Mary to help her rather than letting Mary focus on her own connection with Jesus. Jesus pushed back Martha’s upset remarks because Jesus knows that Mary’s simple choice to sit and listen is infinitely more valuable to her connection with Jesus than all the serving and hosting she could do!

In our own lives, we should intentionally spend time sitting and listening to Jesus to stay connected with Him. While serving Him is always a good thing in the big picture, we must never lose our connection with God while being focused on serving Him. In our lives each day, let’s take time to be with Jesus while we also spend time serving Him!

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. Choose to take time to spend with Him and simply be with Him. We can serve God in our lives, but if we serve God to the point of becoming disconnected from Him, we will ultimately lose the life He has called us to be a part of. We can become disconnected from God even while doing great things for Him, and the longer we are disconnected from God, the farther we can drift from Him.

This is one reason why I regularly challenge you to pray and study the Bible for yourself. Through prayer and Bible study, we can keep our connection with God strong, and when we prayerfully open the Bible to study, we are opening our minds to God’s leading and listening for what the Holy Spirit wants to teach us in God’s word. Prayer and Bible study are two of the best ways of staying connected with God!

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!

Before we transition to focusing on prophecies that are connected more directly with Jesus’ road to the cross, there is one prophecy I must include because it frames how Jesus’ ministry was ultimately received by those in the first century. However, while it is tempting to look at this prophecy and say it was only applicable to those in the first century, as we will soon discover, the way this prophecy was written makes it applicable both looking forward and looking back. In other words, this prophecy is just as relevant looking back on the past as it is looking forward to the future, though I will say that looking forward would hopefully teach us something we could use to escape the negative angle of the prophet’s words.

As I shared in the introduction, this prophecy is found in the Old Testament book of Isaiah, in chapter 6, and we will read it using the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 8, Isaiah writes:

⁸ Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” ⁹ He said, “Go, and tell this people:

‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive;
Keep on looking, but do not understand.’
¹⁰ “Render the hearts of this people insensitive,
Their ears dull,
And their eyes dim,
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
Understand with their hearts,
And return and be healed.”

In this short message that Isaiah volunteered to deliver, we discover a very challenging message being sent to God’s people. Through Isaiah, God challenges His people to keep looking and listening, but know that their looking and listening won’t result in perceiving or understanding. It is as though God is actively turning the eyes, ears, hearts, and other senses of His people away from Him.

However, there is another interesting angle to this prophecy. This alternate angle is found when asking where the action is present in this prescription. Looking and listening are good first steps for gaining understanding, but nowhere on the surface of this passage do we discover any application of the understanding that is being seen and heard. This prophecy describes a people who have a hollow faith; a people who are simply going through the motions, but who are not interested in going beyond a surface set of rituals.

We can see the truth of this second angle in how the prophecy ends. This prophecy ends with the implication that if those being described really saw, heard, and understood the message, they would return and be healed.

In short, this prophecy is describing a scenario where a group of people think they can see, hear, and understand, but they have written off actually applying what they believe is being shared. Because they have written off any level of application, they choose not to return, which ultimately results in them losing out on healing, greater perception, and deeper understanding.

I suspect that Isaiah gave this message fully understanding and believing that the people in his generation were the ones who needed to hear this message the most.

However, when moving to the New Testament, we discover that Jesus pulls this Old Testament prophecy into that generation when answering a question from the disciples. In Matthew, chapter 13, which interestingly enough is a chapter full of parables, we find Jesus’ disciples come to Jesus and ask Him a question about His teaching in parables. In verse 10, Matthew writes:

¹⁰ And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” ¹¹ Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. ¹² For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. ¹³ Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. ¹⁴ In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
¹⁵ For the heart of this people has become dull,
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’

¹⁶ But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. ¹⁷ For truly I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

From the way Jesus frames Isaiah’s prophecy, we see a glimmer of hope. While some people might look at Isaiah’s prophecy and conclude that there is no hope for those who God actively chooses to give dim eyes and dull ears, Jesus frames the blindness and deafness of this prophecy not to God, but to those specific individuals. Jesus also draws attention onto this prophecy being for a specific, likely self-selected, group of people, and not for humanity at large. This means that it is entirely up to us whether we will be included in the group who misses out on healing and blessings, or whether we avoid that group in favor of being healed and blessed.

Jesus finishes off His answer to the disciples by describing how many people throughout history wanted to witness what the first century disciples of Jesus were able to witness.

However, while we are living over 2,000 years removed from when Jesus walked the earth in the first century, and while it is easy to wish we could have been alive back then, I am certain that God has placed you in history at this exact moment for a reason. While we might not know all the reasons for why God does what He does, Isaiah’s prophecy includes a powerful promise.

The promise found in Isaiah’s prophecy, which is also echoed in Jesus’ interpretation of this prophecy, is that when we apply the teaching of Jesus that we can understand, while also actively seeking to learn more, we will be blessed with more knowledge and wisdom. Those who actively discount Jesus’ message, Jesus’ teaching, and God’s truth found in the Bible, believing that they know and understand better, are the ones who will ultimately be found to have dim eyes and dull ears.

With the choice being ours to make, let’s together seek to hear, understand, and apply the truth God shares in the Bible, and seek to discover why God’s way is best by living out His plan for our lives rather than judging and discounting it from the sidelines. By living out God’s plan for our lives today, together we will grow into being the people God created us to be, and we will ultimately be welcomed into God’s kingdom, specifically into the New Heaven and New Earth, when Jesus returns.

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 ally and align your life with His. Accept the gift that Jesus made available for us, and choose to let this gift, and God’s truth, change your life. Intentionally apply God’s truth into your life to gain more knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, rather than letting your eyes become dim and your ears dull.

Also, as I regularly challenge you in one way or another, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself, in order to grow your personal relationship with God. Through a personal relationship with God, He will open your eyes, strengthen your ears, and teach you His truth that is relevant for your life today. Through regular prayer and Bible study, we are able to open our hearts and minds to God’s Holy Spirit and let Him lead and guide us forward in life.

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!