Reflective Bible Study

All throughout Jesus’ ministry, people of all types and from all backgrounds came from near and far to see Him. However, one man stands apart from the rest, because while he wanted to see Jesus, instead of seeking Jesus out, he waited until Jesus was traveling through the city he lived in, and he figured out the route Jesus was taking through town.

After figuring all these things out, this man ran ahead and climbed up a tree just so he could see the celebrity Preacher who everyone was talking about. The gospel of Luke shares the story of Jesus’ encounter with the man named Zacchaeus, what happened when Jesus came to the tree that Zacchaeus had climbed, and how Jesus surprised this notorious tax collector.

Let’s read what happened, from Luke’s gospel, chapter 19, using the New Century Version. Starting in verse 1, Luke tells us that:

¹ Jesus was going through the city of Jericho. ² A man was there named Zacchaeus, who was a very important tax collector, and he was wealthy. ³ He wanted to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because he was too short to see above the crowd. ⁴ He ran ahead to a place where Jesus would come, and he climbed a sycamore tree so he could see him. ⁵ When Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down! I must stay at your house today.”

Let’s pause reading here to draw our attention onto a couple fascinating details in the first part of this event. Luke tells us that Zacchaeus simply wanted to see who Jesus was, and perhaps hear a glimpse of what Jesus was preaching about at that time. While trees are great when one needs to climb above the crowd and see past other people, trees are not great for people who want to hear the entire message of someone who is walking along a road while sharing a message.

All the time Jesus was slowly approaching the tree Zacchaeus had climbed, the anticipation of finally seeing Jesus and even hearing a little portion of Jesus’ teaching built. I suspect that in Zacchaeus’ mind, it would be amazing if Jesus happened to stop, or pause near enough to the tree, so that he could hear just a little more of Jesus’ message.

But while Zacchaeus may have wanted his tree climbing adventure to remain hidden, Jesus was not oblivious to what this tax collector was looking for. In reality, Jesus knew what Zacchaeus wanted and needed even better than Zacchaeus himself did.

Picking back up in verse 6, on hearing Jesus invite Himself to his home, Luke tells us that:

⁶ Zacchaeus came down quickly and welcomed him gladly. ⁷ All the people saw this and began to complain, “Jesus is staying with a sinner!”

I am always surprised when reading this, since this was not the first or last time Jesus would take the time to associate with sinners. However, it is interesting to note that this reaction is not a reaction by the religious elite, but of the crowd in general. The crowd likely had Pharisees, Sadducees, and others in it, but Luke simply describes the complaint coming from the crowd, with no specific spiritual hierarchy present. Even though there was a clear hierarchy present in the first century, Luke doesn’t draw our attention to it in this portion of this event.

However, with that said, the people in the first century are like us today. There are some people we cannot help but look up to, while there are other people we cannot help but look down on. There are people we want to associate with and people who we would rather not associate with.

Jesus’ counter-cultural attitude where He associated with everyone, regardless of their lifestyle or background, would be just as counter-cultural today as it was back then. While tax collectors are not the most likable people in our world today, it was much worse in the first century. I suspect that if this event were to happen today, Zacchaeus could represent any number of marginalized or looked down upon groups.

But Jesus didn’t go to Zacchaeus’ home just because Zacchaeus was hated by those living in Jericho. Jesus invited Himself over because He knew what was in Zacchaeus’ heart, and He wanted to give this tax collector a second chance.

While the crowd was complaining about Jesus’ time spent with a sinner, Luke tells us that Zacchaeus made a bold statement. In verse 8, we read:

⁸ But Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “I will give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anyone, I will pay back four times more.”

⁹ Jesus said to him, “Salvation has come to this house today, because this man also belongs to the family of Abraham. ¹⁰ The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them.”

Zacchaeus’ response has several interesting angles we can learn from. First, let’s do a little math. Zacchaeus begin’s his response by pledging half of his wealth to the poor. This is a big deal because in an instant, Zacchaeus loses half of his net worth. We could say that with this pledge, Zacchaeus is now at 50% of his former wealth.

Next, Zacchaeus promises to pay back 4 times over anyone who he had ever cheated. The only way for this statement to be possible without Zacchaeus becoming indebted to the entire city of Jericho would be if he had cheated less than twelve and a half percent of his wealth. While it is possible that Zacchaeus cheated to accumulate 10% or so of his net worth, that still leaves almost the entire fortune Zacchaeus had accumulated to business deals and transactions that were fair for all parties.

In Zacchaeus’ response, he challenges those present, and everyone else that he had ever dealt with using the word if. Zacchaeus says that “if” he had cheated anyone, he would pay them back four times more. By saying “if”, Zacchaeus challenges the stereotype that all tax collectors were cheats and extortionists because using the word “if” implies that he had conducted his business differently.

After hearing Zacchaeus respond, Jesus replied by saying in verse 9 that, “Salvation has come to this house today, because this man also belongs to the family of Abraham.”

We might be tempted to think that Zacchaeus just pledged to buy his way into heaven, but this is not true. While Zacchaeus’ statements and promises regarding a newfound generosity seem to prompt Jesus’ statement of approval and salvation, I believe there is something deeper at work here.

From looking at how Zacchaeus responded, it doesn’t appear as though he would shift how he conducted his tax collecting business. Before Jesus, Zacchaeus pushed away the stereotype of a cheat, and this shouldn’t change afterwards.

Instead, I believe it is the first part of Zacchaeus’ response that brought salvation into his home. When Zacchaeus blanket-pledges to give away half his wealth, this opens the door to another realization. Likely up to that point, Zacchaeus might have been known as a saver, and instead of being generous with the money he earned, he horded it away in case he would ever need it. Zacchaeus had lots of money, but it was at the expense of being generous.

The 180-degree turn in Zacchaeus’ life is that after meeting Jesus, the money seemed to matter less, and instead of building a hedge of protection with a large, nice looking balance sheet, Zacchaeus shifted his foundation onto Jesus. Echoing the truth that we cannot serve both God and money, Zacchaeus makes the leap from serving and saving money to serving God and giving money.

Zacchaeus’ shift towards having faith in God and redirecting the focus of his heart led to Jesus’ statement about Zacchaeus now being saved. Salvation is never bought through anything we can pay or do, but we can receive it when we place our faith, trust, hope, and belief in Jesus – which means that we trust in Jesus regardless of the size of our net worth.

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

Intentionally place your faith, hope, trust, and belief in Jesus. Look to Him first when facing struggles or difficulty, and lean on Him for help with the problems you face.

Also, pray and study the Bible for yourself to learn more about Jesus, and to grow closer to Him, because when we have given our hearts to His, money, stuff, and status become less important.

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 let money steal you away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

After Jesus was arrested, He was brought before the high priest and all the leading priests, elders, and religious teachers. This was a spiritual gathering of all the Jewish leaders, and the verdict of this case would go down in history as the Jewish religion officially rejecting Jesus.

However, in this trial, we discover some fascinating things. But before we dive into what we can discover, let’s read this passage together to uncover what happened. Our passage for this episode is from Mark’s gospel, chapter 14, and we will be reading from the New Century Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 53, Mark tells us that:

⁵³ The people who arrested Jesus led him to the house of the high priest, where all the leading priests, the elders, and the teachers of the law were gathered. ⁵⁴ Peter followed far behind and entered the courtyard of the high priest’s house. There he sat with the guards, warming himself by the fire.

⁵⁵ The leading priests and the whole Jewish council tried to find something that Jesus had done wrong so they could kill him. But the council could find no proof of anything. ⁵⁶ Many people came and told false things about him, but all said different things—none of them agreed.

⁵⁷ Then some people stood up and lied about Jesus, saying, ⁵⁸ “We heard this man say, ‘I will destroy this Temple that people made. And three days later, I will build another Temple not made by people.’” ⁵⁹ But even the things these people said did not agree.

⁶⁰ Then the high priest stood before them and asked Jesus, “Aren’t you going to answer? Don’t you have something to say about their charges against you?” ⁶¹ But Jesus said nothing; he did not answer.

The high priest asked Jesus another question: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the blessed God?”

⁶² Jesus answered, “I am. And in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God, the Powerful One, and coming on clouds in the sky.”

⁶³ When the high priest heard this, he tore his clothes and said, “We don’t need any more witnesses! ⁶⁴ You all heard him say these things against God. What do you think?”

They all said that Jesus was guilty and should die. ⁶⁵ Some of the people there began to spit at Jesus. They blindfolded him and beat him with their fists and said, “Prove you are a prophet!” Then the guards led Jesus away and beat him.

When reading this passage, I am both amazed and a little humored that while the entire event is weighted heavily against Jesus, up until the point Jesus spoke, all the arguments against Jesus were crumbling. All of the false witnesses that had been brought in to condemn Jesus couldn’t get their testimony straight enough or clear enough for it to be valid. The whole trial was falling apart because all the accusations against Jesus were clearly being revealed as false.

However, the success of this entire trial hinges on finding something valid, and the outcome of this trial, even though it had already been determined that Jesus was to be found guilty, is within Jesus’ hands.

When Jesus stayed silent, no accusation against Him comes up as valid. However, what of the statement Jesus made. Is this statement worthy of death?

In Jewish law and customs, blasphemy was defined as speaking evil of God or of tying sin to God in some way. If a sinner claimed to be God, this would be defined as blasphemy because that attaches sin to God. In a similar way, claiming God acted in a sinful way would also be blasphemy.

So with Jesus’ response, do we see blasphemy?

In verse 62, Mark tells us that Jesus answered, “I am. And in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of God, the Powerful One, and coming on clouds in the sky.”

First Jesus acknowledges and answers the direct question about whether He is the Christ, God’s blessed Son. Then Jesus makes a prediction about His return that places Him next to God. In this response, nothing in itself speaks of blasphemy. It is logical that the Christ, God’s Son would be seated next to Him when He comes as King.

However, is it blasphemy to think that Jesus is God’s Son? Yes, but only if one condition is met. Only if it could be proved that Jesus sinned could the claim be made that Jesus spoke blasphemy, because connecting sin to God is blasphemy. If every accusation of sin in Jesus’ history is proved false, or if something happened that would wipe the slate clean and declare that Jesus lived a righteous life, then Jesus’ claim of being God’s Son would have to stand as valid.

So then, we have a question: Can we know if Jesus definitively sinned or definitively did not sin?

In my own mind, the answer is clearly a yes. It is impossible to know if there was any slipup at some point in Jesus’ history, simply because we were not there, and because no one shadowed Jesus from the time of His birth all the way through to His death. As I say this, I imagine that Satan and the angels were able to watch Jesus this closely, however, we don’t have any record available to us of every minute of Jesus’ life. Because of this, we are left looking for a clear stamp of approval from God regarding Jesus’ life. Can we find such an approval?

Yes. This approval is found in Jesus’ resurrection. If Jesus stayed in the grave, that would have meant that something in His life contained sin, and if Jesus had remained in the grave, His statement here in this trial would amount to blasphemy.

However, because Jesus was resurrected after He experienced death, we know that His claim in this passage is true, otherwise God wouldn’t have brought Jesus back to life. The trial assumed Jesus had sinned at some point in His past, and they knew He regularly broke their traditions. Breaking a man-made tradition is not sin. Sin is only breaking one of God’s laws or one of His declarations.

While this trial proved in the religious leaders’ minds that Jesus was guilty, they were blind to the idea that Jesus came to face death. Being lifted up on the cross to die was the goal of Jesus’ mission to earth. Jesus didn’t come to rally the people together to overthrow Rome and He didn’t come to prove Himself to anyone. Jesus came to show the world God’s love and to take the punishment for our sins onto Himself. In every aspect of Jesus’ mission, He succeeded.

Jesus’ death solidified His victory, and it created the way that we can be victorious with Jesus when we place our faith in Him. There was no way for humanity to escape sin once it had infected the world, but Jesus came to make another way. Through Jesus’ death, and the resurrection stamp-of-approval that God gave in response, we know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the Life, and that He is worthy of our faith!

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

Always place God first in your life and place His will, His law, and His declarations ahead of any and every human tradition. In many cases, there will be no conflict, but if there is ever a disagreement between tradition and God’s truth, follow God’s truth ahead of tradition.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God. The best way to know His truth is by praying and studying His word, trusting that He will lead you into the truth He has for your life! Don’t let any person or single source other than the Bible dictate or filter truth to you. Let the Bible speak for itself.

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

As I read the gospels, some of the parables that Jesus shares make lots of sense in my mind. When reading, some parables seem to be very self-explanatory. However, other parables leave me with more questions than answers, and I’m left wondering about the parable’s purpose.

The parable we are focusing in on in this episode happens to be one of those parables that appears to make sense on the surface, but after reading it and thinking about it, I am left with more questions than answers, as well as with some things that just don’t make sense in my mind.

This parable can be found in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 20, and we will be reading it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 1, Matthew quotes Jesus saying:

¹ “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. ² He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

³ “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴ He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵ So they went.

“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. ⁶ About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’

⁷ “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’

⁸ “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’

⁹ “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰ So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹² ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’

¹³ “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. ¹⁵ Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’

¹⁶ “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

When I read this parable, I am amazed by several key ideas. First, I am amazed by the landowner, who chose to pay everyone he hired equally, regardless of the amount of work they were involved with. However, this appears on the surface to be completely unfair. While it is the easiest way to pay an unequal group of workers, it is completely unfair for the reasons that the earliest workers grumbled about. The standard we have placed regarding fairness is that those who worked longer, harder, and/or in worse conditions should receive a greater measure of pay than those who worked shorter, slacked off, and/or in mild conditions.

But let’s step into what this parable could symbolize. Since this is a parable that refers to “The kingdom of heaven”, we can first frame Jesus’ words as describing a parallel with how things happen in God’s kingdom. If we take the context for this parable to refer to a day of work representing a person’s lifespan, and working in the field as serving God, then we can begin to see a picture that says that God has chosen to reward us all equally, regardless of the amount of time we spent working for Him.

Along this train of thought, the only thing that really matters is that we are with God at the end of the workday. This means that while the parable doesn’t describe someone who started working in the morning, but who abandoned their task partway through the day, if there were such a person who God had hired, it is unlikely that deserting worker would receive pay. It would be illogical for an employer to actively seek out someone who left their shift early to pay them – unless the law demands it.

It would be even more illogical for God to search someone out who left working for Him to receive the reward for a full day’s worth of work. While the landowner in this parable is extra generous, it is with everyone who is present at the end of the workday, and what is ignored is the time they began to work.

If we focus in on what the reward could be for a day’s worth of pay, we could logically conclude that this would be eternal life. How this looks in practical purposes is that regardless of when we started working for God, and regardless of what we actually accomplished for Him, simply being present at the end of the workday is the only criteria for receiving the reward.

But here’s where the logic gets tricky. While God is amazingly generous because He rewards all His workers equally with eternal life, eternal life is not a reward that can be split, or rationed. God cannot give someone partial eternal life as a reward. Well I suppose He could say that our hand or heart could live forever, but not the rest of us. However, the hand and heart cannot survive without other key parts of our body, so partial eternal life is about the same as no eternal life when we think about it.

So God is on one hand trapped with His generosity based on what He has chosen to reward His workers with – since it cannot be divided while keeping its value.

This then draws my attention onto another tricky section of logic. If God’s reward cannot be split while keeping its valuable, then why to the workers who were present for the entire day’s shift get jealous? If the reward for a full day’s service to God is eternal life, and God chooses to reward those who served for less time than this, then this is simply an example of God’s generosity. If we really dig into it, none of us can honestly say that we served God every single hour of every single day of every single year of our lives. For everyone who has ever lived, there are times in our past where we did not serve.

This means that we all started our days late, but we are all rewarded equally. When the reward is eternal life, the only fair path for God to take is the one that the landowner took in this parable. The landowner paid everyone the same. It is hard for me to imagine people in heaven being jealous of one another because of the length of time they followed God, but I suppose it could happen.

But regardless of whether we are simply happy to be paid at all, or satisfied with our pay for a day’s work, the big lesson I see in Jesus’ teaching here is that we only feel cheated if we compare ourselves to others. Only when our eyes are focused on someone else can we get jealous. The only way this could happen in heaven between those who are there is if we take our eyes off of Jesus and the reward God gave us and begin to focus on one another instead.

I don’t see this happening in heaven, but the principle is very relevant for our lives today as we live for God. Let’s focus on what God has given to us and choose to ignore what He has chosen to give someone else. If we focus on someone else’s relationship with God, we only set ourselves up for disappointment.

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

Seek God first and choose to focus on your own, personal relationship with Him. Pay little or no attention to another person’s spiritual life, because either way we look, it sets us up for challenges. If our relationship is better, we may become prideful, while if our relationship is worse, then we may become jealous.

As we are focusing on our personal relationship with God, we should intentionally pray and study the Bible for ourselves, because only when we focus on strengthening our personal relationship with God will we be less tempted to focus on another person’s spiritual relationship.

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

After Jesus finishes His prayer in Gethsemane on the night He was arrested, we discover that Judas Iscariot arrives with the soldiers and mob to arrest Jesus. However, while one might think that an arrest like this would difficult, or unpredictable, we discover something profound when we look at the details of what happened.

While each gospel is a little different in the details that it shares, let’s use Luke’s gospel for our time together. Our passage is found in the gospel of Luke, chapter 22, and we will be reading from the New Living Translation. Starting in verse 47, Luke writes:

⁴⁷ But even as Jesus said this, a crowd approached, led by Judas, one of the twelve disciples. Judas walked over to Jesus to greet him with a kiss. ⁴⁸ But Jesus said, “Judas, would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?”

⁴⁹ When the other disciples saw what was about to happen, they exclaimed, “Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords!” ⁵⁰ And one of them struck at the high priest’s slave, slashing off his right ear.

⁵¹ But Jesus said, “No more of this.” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.

⁵² Then Jesus spoke to the leading priests, the captains of the Temple guard, and the elders who had come for him. “Am I some dangerous revolutionary,” he asked, “that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? ⁵³ Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there every day. But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns.”

In an amazing act of compassion, Jesus heals the only individual who was hurt during this whole arrest. Instead of responding in a negative or emotional way, Jesus is likely the most calm, collected, and in control person in the whole group of people. While the entire situation could have easily burst out of control, Jesus steps in as the leader, diffuses the violence that could have easily broken loose, and then heals the only one who was injured.

Luke tells us that the crowd of people included leading priests, captains of the temple guard, and elders. In other words, this delegation was entirely a spiritual one. The soldiers who were present were the ones tasked with protecting the temple, and with them were priests and elders. Luke describes a spiritual mob arresting Jesus because He was a threat to their religious tradition.

In Jesus’ response to the mob after healing the high priest’s slave, He asks them two rhetorical questions before giving them the true answer. Luke tells us the questions and answer in verses 52-53: “Am I some dangerous revolutionary,” [Jesus] asked, “that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there every day. But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns.”

Jesus openly challenges everyone present who came to arrest Him. Whether they were hoping to remain anonymous or if they didn’t really care if others recognized them, Jesus knew who each of them were, and Jesus knew that all, or almost all, of them had been in the temple when Jesus was teaching and healing every day during the week leading up to this night. No one in Jerusalem was blind to the hostility that the religious leaders had towards Jesus, and no one would have been surprised if Jesus had been arrested during His teaching and preaching in the temple.

However, Jesus gives the answer, even though the answer isn’t what those present might have first thought it to be. Jesus answers His questions by saying, “But this is your moment, the time when the power of darkness reigns.”

In Jesus’ response, we see an interesting contrast alluded to. Jesus describes the arrest as sin’s moment and as the moment when the power of darkness reigns. Both the time of these religious leaders and the time when the power of darkness reigns are described as a moment.

This response is incredibly powerful because it shows us that Jesus’ perspective models God’s perspective, and this perspective is one that looks through eternity’s lens. From the perspective of eternity, evil has only a moment of time in the spotlight. The only moment that sin has is the time it takes to show the universe how destructive it is, and then it is done away with.

We live in an interesting point in history where sin and evil have already been judged, but God is holding off on executing this judgment because He knows there are still more people who will enter this world who He can save for eternity. God doesn’t want to end earth’s history before every person who is willing to place Jesus first has done so.

While I don’t have any idea how much longer God will delay executing the judgment that was pronounced on the weekend Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected, I know that because God delayed executing this judgment, you and I have the opportunity to be saved. God has not forgotten this planet or its inhabitants.

Instead, God is watching closely and looking for anyone and everyone who is willing to place Jesus first. When everyone has made their decision for or against God, then God will wrap up history and return for His people. Jesus’ return is a day I’m eagerly waiting for, because I look forward to the new heaven and new earth that God has promised to recreate. I’m looking forward to the time when there will be no more pain, suffering, tragedy, or sin to spoil God’s perfection!

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

While it isn’t always easy to do, remember that when evil looks like it is winning, remember that it has already been judged and that its time in the spotlight is but a brief moment from eternity’s perspective. When evil looks like it has the upper hand, remember that Jesus has already won the victory and look forward with me to the moment when Jesus returns!

Also, be sure to always pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God. God wants a personal relationship with you and this is best grown on the foundation of personally praying and studying the Bible. Don’t let anyone get in the middle of your connection with God. God wants to know you personally!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!