Reflective Bible Study

Have you ever wished for life to be like some point in the past?

Perhaps you remember “the good old days” and you’d like life to return to that simpler time, or perhaps you wished you could have been alive when Jesus was walking around on earth?

In this passage, we find a truth, just under the surface of what is said, that directly relates to these longings and questions.

In His response to the question about the resurrection, Jesus says in verses 37-38, “But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive.”

In His response, Jesus mentions someone who lived long ago (Moses), who referenced people who lived even longer before (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), and He makes the statement that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The strong implication here is to stop looking for God in the past, and start looking for Him in the present.

The Sadducees were focused and looking at how God moved and how He worked in the past, while at the same time ignoring and/or choosing to miss out on what He is choosing to do in the present. In Jesus’ response, which also deals with the issue of the resurrection, He also challenges these spiritual leaders on where they have placed their focus. Yes, God has worked in the past, but that doesn’t stop Him from working miracles today.

This truth is just as important for us living in the 21st century as it was for the Sadducees in the 1st century: God worked powerfully for 4,000ish years in the Old and New Testaments. It doesn’t make any sense for Him to stop there. If God worked then, and He doesn’t change, we should expect that He is still working today!

What are some ways that God has worked (or is currently working) in your life this decade?

While Jesus was a master storyteller and illustrator, everything He shared that the gospel writers include contains spiritual truth that we can learn from. Often times, the spiritual meaning is given in the context of the illustration, but other times, the spiritual meaning is not included. Perhaps the gospel writer believed the spiritual truth to be obvious to the reader, or maybe the writer didn’t understand the truth himself. Maybe there were multiple truths present and the gospel writer didn’t want to exclude a truth by sharing only his thoughts.

Early on in Luke’s gospel, he records a miscellaneous set of Jesus’ illustrations without giving much in the way of context. Luke tells us that Jesus used the following illustrations: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new coat to patch an old coat. Otherwise, the new cloth will tear the old. Besides, the patch from the new will not match the old. People don’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new wine will make the skins burst. The wine will run out, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is to be poured into fresh skins. No one who has been drinking old wine wants new wine. He says, ‘The old wine is better!’” (v. 36-39)

Luke doesn’t share context for these illustrations, and because of this, we are left looking at the other gospel writers to give us clues into Jesus’ words. Mark and Matthew don’t share much additional context except that Jesus shared these thoughts while talking about fasting and how His followers wouldn’t fast while He was with them.

This leaves us to wonder if the spiritual truth Jesus is sharing in these illustrations only relates to fasting, or if it is a broader truth or principle. From the way that all three gospels share these illustrations, I’m prompted to believe that Jesus is sharing a broader principle.

Understanding that Jesus is sharing a broader principle, if we take these illustrations and look for an overall theme in them, we come across the principle that old solutions don’t always help new problems. It is the same way in reverse: New solutions don’t always help old problems either.

This principle is equally powerful and relevant in our physical lives as it is in our spiritual lives. While sometimes new information can help us better understand solutions that have worked in the past, not many principles of life remain unsolved. While hundreds of new diets appear each year offering to help people with their weight, the old solution of fresh air, exercise, moderation, and eating fresher foods is the most effective way to help people shave off pounds and keep them off for life. This is an old problem and it is an old solution.

A new problem might be how to fix a bug in a piece of software in a modern programming language. While old principles can help direct one to an answer, the solution to this problem cannot help but be new because it hasn’t been seen before. Fifty years ago, people didn’t have programming challenges in the same way that we do today.

Some people fixate themselves on only using old methods and ways, and this cripples them from moving forward in life. Others purposely ignore the old and bounce from the newest thing to the next newest thing, and they cannot get traction because their lives look like a ball in a pinball machine. Both types of people miss out on what the other group knows and can teach them.

When I read these illustrations, I cannot help but see the principle that our solutions must match our problems. Old solutions don’t always help new problems, while new solutions rarely fix old problems either. Only by staying open to both the old and the new can I hope to gain lasting traction when growing with God and moving forward in life.

While reading about Peter’s encounter with the temple tax collectors, a question entered my mind that completely changed how I saw this event, and this new angle shows an amazing picture of God’s love for all of us as His children.

When Jesus gives Peter instructions in the last verse, we begin to see something incredible. After explaining how the king’s children are exempt from paying taxes, Jesus continues by saying, “But we don’t want to upset these tax collectors. So go to the lake and fish. After you catch the first fish, open its mouth and you will find a coin. Take that coin and give it to the tax collectors for you and me.” (v. 27)

This set of instructions is surprisingly simple, yet detailed. Peter is to go fishing and the first fish he catches will have a coin in its mouth that is valuable enough to pay the temple tax for two people.

The question that entered my mind while reading this is “Who ultimately paid the temple tax?” While Peter made the final delivery to the tax collectors, the coin that was taken did not come from the disciples own reserves of money. Peter didn’t ask Judas Iscariot for a coin from their donations to use for this tax.

Instead, for this to have happened exactly like Jesus had instructed, a coin had to have fallen out of a boat, and then a fish would have had to catch it on its descent towards the bottom of the lake. I wonder whether the fish thought the coin was smaller or whether its eyes were bigger than its throat, but in either case the coin was big enough for the fish’s mouth but too big for it to swallow.

Then, for this scenario to work, the fish wouldn’t spit out the coin, but instead swim over to where Peter was fishing and also try to eat what Peter was using as bait – at the exact time Peter was down fishing following receiving these instructions from Jesus.

There are too many unlikely-to-happen details in this event to really come up with a good statistic of the chances of this happening. This was an impossible-to-predict event.

The other option we have is that on the way up, an angel added a coin to the mouth of the fish that Peter had caught. While not as glamorous, this is actually more plausible than the other options.

However this event unfolded, the inescapable conclusion we come to is that God was the only one who could have orchestrated this event! This means that God paid our temple tax, and He did this through Jesus’ death on the cross for sins that He did not commit. This short fish story contains the entire gospel message, and it shares how much God values each of us!

The parable of the dishonest manager is one that has challenged my thinking on multiple occasions. When reading this parable, I sometimes wonder why Jesus would have used this angle to teach, or perhaps, whether we are missing the rest of the story.

However, after looking closer at this passage, I believe this parable may be less about the details, and more about the key truth Jesus pulls out from it: “Whoever can be trusted with a little can also be trusted with a lot, and whoever is dishonest with a little is dishonest with a lot.” (v. 10)

Ironically, when we look at the parable through the lens of this one verse, the whole scene becomes clearer. The master accuses the manager of cheating him, and wants a full report of where the money/wealth is. We don’t know if this was a strong speculation or if the master caught the manager cheating, but it was serious enough of an offense that this one incident was to cost the manager his job. Even though it was serious, this is Jesus describing being dishonest with a little.

Then, instead of coming clean and straightening out the single offense, the manager pulls all the rest of those indebted to the master and dishonestly discounts all their bills as well. In this reaction, Jesus is describing being dishonest with a lot.

Jesus key point is that our character and our focus remain the same as the size of our influence/status/wealth changes. Those who are trustworthy are trustworthy with both the small and big things, while those who are dishonest will be dishonest with little or lots.

Also, included in this parable and idea is the following truth: our character grows. The more time we spend being either dishonest or trustworthy, the more ingrained these characteristics will be on our character and the more they will spread throughout all areas of our life. Consistent trustworthiness in one area over time will strengthen how trustworthy we can be the other areas in our life, just as being consistently dishonest in one area of our life will eventually erode all the other “honest” areas of our life. What matters is where we place our focus and how we are choosing to shape our character.

Are you intentionally choosing to grow trustworthiness in your character, or are you allowing dishonesty to spread?