Today’s passage: Luke 16:14-18

Helpful thoughts:

• The inspired scripture reveals to us the hearts of the Pharisees.  God knows their hearts (And ours).  Their master was money.
  • Because money was their master and they were controlled by their greed, they actively ridiculed God to His face.
• These men who were slaves to a worldly master, had changed the practices of religion in the name of worship toward God.  But man’s view of religion changes nothing of the truth of God’s holy Word!
  • These religious leaders were not observing themselves according to what God had said in His Word.  They were justifying themselves through their own logic and assumptions first and then bending and twisting the Word of God to conform to their desires.
  • “We must not bring the Word of God into the culture.  We must instead bring the culture to the Word of God.” – John MacArthur
  • It is “easier” to bring your ideas to the Bible, read it lazily, and walk away feeling affirmed than it is to let the Spirit use the Bible to take your ideas and radically change them for your growth and sanctification.  Continual surrender (Dying daily to self) takes effort…”forcing” our way.
• Jesus’ teaching about marriage and divorce is being used to illustrate his point.  The Pharisees had manipulated the words of the Law in the OT to allow themselves to divorce their wives in order to (in their mind) “upgrade” to another.  They were being selfish and sinful while calling their actions righteous.

Questions to consider:

1. How does verse 17 give us confidence in the inspiration and the preservation of God’s Word?  When we read our Bibles, who are we hearing from?  If God is the author, how should we approach the scriptures?  How should we respond to the truth found within?
2. If we are ever reading the Bible to see if it’s OK to do something we feel is probably wrong, what might we need to ask ourselves?  If we have been taught that something is right or wrong and the Bible says otherwise, who should we listen to and obey?
3. What do we see in this passage that goes beyond the external actions of people?  What did God know about these Pharisees?  Why do we do what we do?  What informs and shapes our desires to agree with God?  How can you continue to fight for that change and growth?

Today’s passage: Luke 16:1-13

Helpful thoughts:

• This parable was spoken to the disciples.  This is not a parable of evangelism but instead it teaches how believers ought to live and how believers won’t live.
• In his final act as an employee of the rich man, the manager cost his employer even more money in order to benefit himself.  This was not a benevolent act in any way.  He showed mercy to the debtors only to provide himself with obligated acquaintances after his work was done.  He set himself up to be provided for after his firing had taken effect.
  • The commendation in verse 8 is not a good one.
  • People of this world are shrewd with each other in order to meet their immediate needs/wants in a way that costs them eternally.  The sons of light (God’s children) are the opposite.  They are not shrewd for the here and now because their eyes and hearts are hoping in the age to come.
• Christ commands us to use the money of this world (Unrighteous wealth) to “make friends” who will welcome us into eternity.  This is evangelism! Our money must be used for the furtherance of the Gospel!

Questions to consider:

1. Who is your master?  Is Jesus your lord and therefore over the finances at your disposal, or is money ruling your heart? (Verse 13)
2. If money doesn’t make us “rich” (Verse 11), then what does it mean to truly be “rich”?
3. How does eternity and the promise of being a joint-heir with Christ helps us to see money differently in this life? (Romans 8:17)

Today’s passage: Luke 15:11-32

Helpful thoughts:

• This parable is often read and taught alone.  But, it’s helpful to remember that it is the third illustration along with the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin.
• When the Prodigal Son “came to himself” he saw himself in truth, the way God saw him.  This is a gift of God’s grace.
• The Prodigal Son didn’t earn a party and all the presents.  His father chose to give them because he chose to forgive and love his son.
• The Prodigal Son had been brought to life and was found.  The older son believed he had kept every one of his father’s commands and was worthy of being praised (Verse 29).  He had not “come to himself”.
  • Being with the father and sharing in the inheritance wasn’t enough for the older brother (Verse 31).

Questions to consider:

1. People who grew up in Christian homes but are not following the Lord can sometimes be referred to (Or even refer to themselves) as “prodigals”.  But, in truth, who must see themselves as “prodigals” and become aware of their need before they will turn to the Father in humility and ask for mercy?  Who are the Pharisees in this parable?  Who are the born again Christians?
2. What specifically did the older brother want to celebrate in verse 29?  Who did he want to celebrate with?
3. Who will we all be boasting in when we see the glory of God in eternity (Ephesians 2:8-9)?  Why is legalism so evil?  How does it flip the focus of praise in the opposite direction of where it should go?  How does it destroy churches?

Today’s passage: Luke 15:1-10

Helpful thoughts:

• The Pharisees should have been rejoicing.  Jesus was willing to eat with them too.
• Instead, the Pharisees were thrilled with their own manufactured false self-righteousness.  They thought themselves superior to others who couldn’t “keep up”.
  • Though they viewed shepherds and poor women as second class citizens, they still would have been happier to hear about them finding a sheep and a coin than they were to hear of a sinner’s repentance.
• When sinners repent, there is real joy in Heaven!

Questions to consider:

1. Are there ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance?  Outside of Jesus, is there one?  What was the point of Jesus’ illustration?
2. Who “sought diligently” your repentance?  Are you thankful for their obedience to pray for and to share Christ with you?  Who might be a “lost sheep” or “lost coin” that you know and could be praying for and seeking diligently?
3. How does hearing of the joy of Heaven encourage you in evangelism?

Today’s passage: Luke 14:25-35

Helpful thoughts:

• There is no mistaking what the cross represents.  When Christ died we died.  All selfish ambition and self-preservation are contrary to what we have been called to do and be.  We are new creations in Christ Jesus.  We have a new master. (Romans 6)
• If my mother, father, wife/husband, children, siblings, friends, co-workers, or bosses tell me to leave Christ and follow them instead, I must follow Christ.  “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
• Christians are ambassadors.  Christ did not save us to keep to ourselves.  He gives us (Within the church) to each other and He gives the church to the world.  We love because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Questions to consider:

1. What people or what fears are the most likely to give you pause or “prevent” you from following Christ?  Why was it right to put quotation marks around “prevent”?  Who deserves our whole obedience?  Who has purchased our freedom from the bondage of sin?
2. What things would you do first and what things would you do more if/when you had victory over those fears?
3. In what ways are you adding to the good kind of “saltiness” of our church?   (Not just “official” ministries…but as an ambassador of Christ to our community)

Today’s passage: Luke 14:1-24

Helpful thoughts:

• When the Pharisees ate together in these settings, they would only invite their equals or people who would elevate their status.  There was a reason for Jesus and a man with “dropsy” to be invited on this particular day, and it wasn’t benevolence.
  • “They were watching him carefully” because they they wanted to catch Jesus touching the unclean man and healing on the Sabbath.
• Jesus “took” the man and healed him.  Jesus left no doubt in his compassion.  He didn’t secretly touch the man on the shoulder or heal from a distance (Which he surely could have done).  He grabbed the man up with vigor and lovingly healed him as the Pharisees watched in silence in order to protect their own selves.
  • The unclean man didn’t make Jesus unclean.  Jesus made this man clean.
• When one of the Pharisees declared, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”, he was actively disagreeing with Jesus and defending the honor of the Pharisees’ way of life.
  • Jesus’ response makes clear that if the Pharisees lived for the honor they were receiving in their banquets and among men, it was all the honor they would ever receive.

Questions to consider:

1. What should the church look like?  What “kinds” of people should we be excited to serve and to see coming?  How might our varying levels of excitement be an indicator of our own struggle to be respecters of persons?
2. In a culture where helping “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” can enhance our reputation, how can we know we are growing in the application of Jesus’ teaching?
3. When the invitees chose not to come to the banquet, who was the master upset with?  What role did the servant play?  What was the servant responsible to do?  Who was to be held responsible for the response to the invitation?  How should this inform our evangelism still today in the “highways and hedges”?

Today’s passage: Luke 13:22-35

Helpful thoughts:

• The question asked in verse 23 was a good one.  The disciples were seeing many people who cheered the miracles, but not as many who were being converted and therefore being saved from the wrath of God.
  • The door is narrow. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6
• Many of these Jews believed they were already “in” simply because they were Jews.  Jesus tells them something very different.  Many of them would be outside looking in with despair, while others from the rest of the world would enter.
• Jesus was not in Judea when the Pharisees came to “warn” Him.  They were trying to get Him to go back to Judea, where they had jurisdiction.  It wasn’t Herod who was trying to kill Jesus…
• In verse 35, Jesus is referring to the second coming (“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”).

Questions to consider:

1. Is everyone going to Heaven?  What does it mean to enter through the narrow door? How does a person become “saved”? (twowaystolive.com)
2. What does it mean when we call someone a “good person”?  What must I realize about myself before I see the gospel as truly wonderful news? (Verse 27)
3. Even though Israel as a nation had continually rejected God, how did He view them? (Verse 34)  What things do we learn about God in this passage?