Reflective Bible Study

Have you ever read a passage and had it change your perspective on the world?

Well today’s passage is a passage that has done this for me – specifically with the big idea that I want to draw from it. However, as we dig into this idea, remember that we must not let our preconceived ideas cloud the angle that this phrase takes.

In the broader story of this passage, Jesus has pushed back on the Sadducees’ question challenging the validity of the resurrection, and this event is found in Matthew, Mark, and Luke – but Luke includes a phrase that the other two gospels leave out: “. . . for to him all are alive” (v. 38b)

Prior to studying out this passage and looking at all three gospel accounts, I had never noticed this phrase before – and I have never heard someone preach on it either.

On the surface, this phrase appears to support the idea that there is immediate life following death – and not just for Christians following Jesus’ death and resurrection, but for God’s people throughout history – “for to him all are alive.” On the surface, this phrase undermines the foundation for the resurrection that Jesus was defending, because if everyone is alive to God, there isn’t any need to “resurrect” them.

Luke’s phrase bothers me. Is he placing words in Jesus’ mouth, or have Matthew and Mark failed to include all of Jesus’ key point?

Let’s look at the context of Jesus’ main point. All three gospels have Jesus supporting the resurrection by pointing out that several key people from Jewish history are “alive” to God, even though they have long decayed. The first thing Jesus does is shift our focus. Our focus wants to default to our view of the world, but Jesus wants us to look instead from God’s point of view – but what makes it especially difficult in this case is that God is outside of time, while we have only known a life within time. Jesus is saying that in God’s eyes, these historical figures are alive.

It is as though God is standing outside of a long storyline, and He can step in and view any “chapter” in history and see the people in that chapter as alive, while also being able to move through the timeline to see other events that happen much later.

To help illustrate God’s perspective further, imagine you are watching a movie, and about 15 minutes in, one of the main character’s friends dies. For the rest of the movie, this friend will be dead, but at any point if we restart or rewind the movie to near the beginning, the friend will again appear alive.

Let’s take our movie illustration further and say that this is an older movie, and both the actor who played the friend and the actor who played the main character have died. At any point, we can play the movie and see these actors as though they are alive – but what we are really viewing is a single point in their past that was recorded.

Then let’s move out further, into God’s perspective. He can see the timeline of history, and can fast forward or rewind to any point in it. At whatever point He focuses on, the people who are in that story are alive, but if He fast forwards several generations (i.e. chapters), they might not be alive any more.

This is a very different perspective than what we are use to thinking, but Jesus likes shifting our perspective, because God’s ways and thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and life rarely makes sense when only looking at it from our “human” perspective.

P.S. While writing, I kept going, but instead of giving you an extra long post (2-3x longer than average), I decided to break it up and give key points along the way. In a future post, we’ll continue where we left off and dig deeper into what this unassuming but tricky phrase could mean.

If you have ever been in a church were those in the congregation talk back to the speaker, you may understand something that happens in this passage more than those who attend congregations where there is no dialog.

In a crowd where people are likely to speak up, whether it is simply to say “amen” in agreement, or if it is challenging something the pastor or presenter said, there is a completely different feeling in the room itself. I have preached in both types of places, and while each has its strengths, I prefer the more vocal crowds.

However, one challenging thing in vocal crowds is that there can be one person who speaks up and who can possibly derail the moment. We actually can see an example of this in Luke’s gospel during one of the times Jesus was speaking to the crowd.

Right when it seems like Jesus was about to hit on a key point about how to avoid being repeatedly trapped by an evil spirit and its friends, we read, “While Jesus was still talking, a woman in the crowd spoke up, ‘The woman who gave birth to you and nursed you is blessed!’” (v. 27)

Now this woman was giving Jesus and His mother a compliment. That is something that was very nice to do – but I really wonder what Jesus would have said next had it not been for this interruption.

Sometimes interruptions are inevitable, but how does Jesus respond to this statement? He replies: “That’s true, but the people who are really blessed are the ones who hear and obey God’s message!” (v. 28)

Perhaps this blends what Jesus was going to say, or perhaps it is simply a response to the distraction.

Whatever would have been said was derailed, but I wonder if Jesus jumped straight to His main point: We are blessed when we hear and obey God’s message. Perhaps Jesus was finished with the warning portion and this interruption served as a great transition that also emphasized the key idea He wanted to get across.

But the big thing I see with this interruption is that Jesus does not seem fazed or irritated. Instead, He simply goes along with the compliment, but wraps it into His big thought.

We can learn from this too. When life throws unexpected things at us, we may be tempted to get angry or upset, but either of these emotions don’t help solve the situation. Instead, we should accept the facts of what happened, and then continue moving forward despite how far we were set back.

I am fascinated by the places where Matthew and the other gospels point out prophecies that Jesus’ life fulfilled. Matthew seems to place a greater emphasis on the prophecies that Jesus fulfills than some of the other gospel writers do, but that doesn’t mean that he is the only writer that focused in on this.

However, in this passage, Matthew brings our attention onto a prophecy that I am a little surprised that other writers excluded. In transitioning and opening the next portions of Jesus’ life and ministry, Matthew tells us, “Jesus left Nazareth and went to live in the city of Capernaum. It was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali. In that way, what the prophet Isaiah had said came true.” (v. 13-14)

What fascinates and amazes me the most is not that Jesus knew all these prophecies, or even that He was able to fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies, but instead that the religious experts didn’t fully grasp the extent of the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Of all the people living at that time, the religious leaders would have been the most knowledgeable regarding the prophecies of the Messiah.

Perhaps God closed their eyes or minds to some of these prophecies, or perhaps He didn’t have to. Maybe centuries of Rabbis had slowly discounted some of the areas in the Old Testament in favor of focusing on others. Perhaps over time, playing favorites with scripture had caused them to forget much of what was written in the less popular parts.

Or maybe, there were religious leaders who did pay attention and who did understand, but as time went on, they grew to be more suspicious of what Jesus was doing. Perhaps they felt that Jesus was just a man who was trying to become the Messiah.

Only when we get to heaven can we really find out for sure. Until then, while it is fun to imagine what happened, it is best to keep our imagination in check.

But what this does tell us about Jesus and God is that He is a God who pays attention to the details. Whether God directed Jesus to move His ministry there, or whether Jesus chose that area for other reasons, everything that was predicted to happen, and everything that Jesus chose to do was all very detailed and deliberate.

This helps us trust God, because if He was that detailed back then and if we claim the promise that God does not change, we can know that He is paying attention to the details in our lives today, and He is putting the pieces in place to lead us into a saving relationship with Jesus.

In this journal entry, we’ll be looking at Luke’s version of Jesus’ “model” prayer. The disciples find Jesus praying, and they ask Him to teach them. When we look at the themes from this prayer, we find some very interesting ideas:

First, Jesus’ model prayer is very simple. Matthew’s version of the prayer is the famous one, while Luke’s version is much less glamorous. The primary focus, which is found in the opening, is all about giving honor and respect to God – simply because of who He is. The focus is not on asking for anything for ourselves or thanking Him for blessings.

Secondly, after setting our focus on God, we bring three requests to God. Here is where the theme of the prayer gets interesting. We ask for food to sustain us for another day, we ask for conditional forgiveness as we choose to forgive others, and we ask for protection from temptation. Looking at the theme of each request, we see a pattern:

• Asking for food each day is a physical request that shows we are physically dependant on God.

• Asking for forgiveness as we forgive others is a social request that asks us to lean on God for the strength to forgive and release those who have wronged us.

• Asking for protection from temptation is a spiritual request that asks us to depend on God for help through the trials of life.

After setting the stage and acknowledging who God is, we spend the remainder of the prayer (remember this is Luke’s simplified version) bringing God our physical, social, and spiritual needs and in each request, we are acknowledging that we need His help.

This four part model prayer (the opening plus the three requests) is the way Jesus directs us to come before God, and this is the big idea behind this journal entry: Our prayers don’t have to be long or complicated, but they should include our acknowledging who God is, and on our continued dependence on Him.