Chapter 13

The Galileans Pilate killed, and those the tower of Siloam fell on?  Not worse than others, these things were not God's punishment on them.  These things should remind us that life is short and unpredictable, and that we need to redeem the time!

2021 - A good passage.  I see it also being about the mistake of thinking the handicapped, the lame, those afflicted by diseases are getting what they deserve because of their sins.  Back to the "why is this man blind -  his fault or his parents".  Here, again, Jesus is saying it does not work that way.  Things just happen.  Life is fleeting and fickle.  The random is a warning to all, not a thunderbolt from the blue in retribution to that person.  Their plight also applies to us!  We cannot look at a paraplegic and wonder what he did to deserve that.  We should look and understand that our time is short, and that what we are able to do, we should do for God and the kingdom. 

2022 - This:

15 Then the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?" [Luk 13:15-16 ESV].  Here is yet another example of Jesus "working" on the day when work was prohibited.  There is surely something fundamental about the lesson we should learn from this, because it is here over and over and over.  But how to properly phrase the lesson?  In this case, Jesus presented something that his critics were themselves doing without ever thinking of it as a sin.  It was something menial, something trivial, and it was for the benefit of an animal, not a person.  One other place Jesus notes that if their donkey is stuck in a hole on a Sunday they go get it out that day, even though it is Sunday.  In the first case, the donkey shouldn't be thirsty all day every Sunday, should not be denied that which it needs to be whole just because it is Sunday.  In the other case, why should the donkey suffer all day because of the day of the week it unfortunately fell in the hole.  Why didn't it fall in on one of the other six days?  Being thirsty is how we're made.  We ought to be able to get water.  Accidents do not wait until a weekday to come upon us.  We can do what is needful on the Sabbath.  But going out and gathering sticks for the fire and to cook, when we have plenty of food and it is not cold...that is choosing to violate the Sabbath for our own convenience and not out of need.  God does not make rules intended to harm us, nor rules that inadvertently harm us. 

Are all the lessons where Jesus "breaks the Law" as the Pharisees understood it about the Sabbath?  Does he overrule any others?  I can't think of any really...I should see that as a warning not to stray too far from the details of this lesson.  It does not mean I can break any rule any time so long as I'm doing something good.  This has been causing me a lot of difficulty as I read the examples in Matthew and Mark...trying to understand exactly what the application is for us.  Maybe these stories are more about what the Pharisees had let the Sabbath become than about how it is ok to break the rules for a good cause?  Maybe they are about the heartless, zero tolerance application of the Law - to all but themselves - that the elite required of the masses?   Maybe it is just about the hypocrisy of picking out a favorite restriction - that causes you no problems - and making that a central necessity to being Christian?  All these things "showed", but God is not concerned with the outside, he is concerned with the heart.  Jesus' heart was to help this poor woman who'd been suffering for 18 years, 7 days a week.  Jesus' heart was not to break the Sabbath.  That was no part of his intention.  Our hearts should be the sanctification of ourselves, our brothers, and our sisters in Christ, not on whether they let their tattoos show in church. 

Luke 13:6-9  - The parable of the fig tree that needs fertilizing.  Don't cut me down yet, but give me help, and maybe I can do better next year.  But if I don't, after receiving blessing I don't deserve, then cut me down.  Surely we all get blessing that we have not earned, and it is up to us to recognize the one who blesses, and bear fruit for him, or face the consequences.  Good one for FB, and a parable rarely quoted.  2020 - Perhaps this is about "good church attenders", Sunday Christians...Did I post this one before???  2021 - SB doesn't really add much to this one.  I do seem to be on the right track that for a time, God will bless an unproductive soul - fertilize with blessings and undeserved good - but there is a limit to that.  Perhaps those fallen away are sometimes blessed to bring them back to production, but there is a limit.  Perhaps this is about those who have heard the gospel, but not responded to it, not accepted it.  Yet before God turns such people over to their own ends, to the desert that life will be without help from and dependence on God, He gives blessings freely.  One must recognize that these blessings are from God.  The saved should point out these blessings as a door to witnessing to these who have heard but not responded.  And warning should be included!  Blessings on the lost do not go on forever.  I think this finally is what the parable is about. 

2024 - Read some commentaries on this parable.  As usual, it is far more complex than it first appears.  Two possibilities.  The fig tree represents individuals who, upon receiving the blessings of God in their lives and yet still refusing to accept him, must one day be cut off, and that severely.  These are the rejectors of the gospel.  That seems really good.  But...then this is also in the commentaries.  The fig tree is Israel.  Israel has been given many many chances to come to God, to comply with the Old Covenant that they said they accepted and would agree with.  But there was Assyria and then there was Babylon, and now a third time God has "put them back together" and given them a chance to hold up their end of the covenant.  But they have failed again, and God is ready to dispose of them completely.  But the gardener, Jesus, wants to try one more time to bring them back, and if they don't come back after his extraordinary efforts, then destroy the fig tree and plant something else.  Think "blindness" for the Jews and the gospel is indeed come to the Gentiles.  Not too long after the ascension, we have 70 AD, the fall of Jerusalem, and what have they known since?  Not many blessings.  Not many have accepted the gospel.  No country to call their own for century on century.  The Holocaust.  October 6th.  Is this not a fig tree unblessed?

Then look how the Chapter ends:  35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'" [Luk 13:35 ESV].  The fig tree again, in direct language rather than figurative.  Forsaken because they would not repent.

Beginning in vs 10, a story about a woman with a disabling spirit.  This is something else the demons do.  It had her doubled over so she couldn't straighten up.  It physically disabled her, limited and restricted her body from its function.  Jesus healed her, and the ruler of the synagogue was offended because it was done on the Sabbath, and even tells people to suffer one more day, and then come on Monday for their healing.  Jesus says that even the Pharisees untie their livestock and lead it to water on the Sabbath, and shouldn't this woman also be "untied", released from her bond, on the Sabbath?  2021 - This idea that healing on the Sabbath was a violation of the Mosaic was ubiquitous.  Jesus heals on the Sabbath several times, and is reprimanded by the elite each and every time.  They all see it this way.  And where ever he is, when they reprimand him for doing good on the Sabbath, Jesus says the same thing - "You hypocrites!"

(I would like to study the demons of the NT.  What they do, how they treat people, how they think.  Some try to drown or burn their hosts.  This one makes the hosts life very difficult physically.  Why would they do these things?  Are they preventing worship, or just jealous and malignant?)

2021 - 18, 19, what is the kingdom like.  In 18, the mustard seed planted that becomes home to the birds.  There was already a nice garden.  But the addition of the tree made it even more pleasant.  It became a home for those in need?  Seems a bit stretched.  In 19, the hidden leaven leavens it all.  Leaven is usually symbolic of sin, but here it seems the opposite.  It seems to say that introducing the gospel to a place where it is not leads ultimately to it spreading through that place.  It multiplies once introduced.  MSB says the mustard see is about Gentiles getting to come and nest in the garden.  MSB agrees that the leaven is used differently here - not a symbol for evil permeating all three loaves, but of the gospel spreading throughout.  He uses the context saying the gospel spreads.  Jesus is not talking about how evil spreads, but giving an analogy about the kingdom.  I agree with that certainly.

vs 22 tells us that Jesus was going through various towns but was on his way to Jerusalem.  Here is indeed a hard saying:

24 "Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. [Luk 13:24 ESV]

Seekers will not find this door.  Many seekers.  It is difficult to see justice in this. 

MSB notes that the verse starts with "strive" and that it is not works that gets us into heaven, but grace alone.  Faith alone.  Perhaps Jesus is contrasting the way of Judaism at that time, under the Pharisees, where it was a huge burden to keep all the laws and sacrifices.  They were taught that keeping the law - without regard to its intent or its purpose - was what got them into heaven.  Jesus says those who try to enter that way will be turned away, and those who claim they should enter because they faithfully kept this law will be turned away.  Those who work to earn heaven are fundamentally flawed, and will be turned away no matter how hard they worked.  This is NOT about those who truly seek the kingdom, but about those who want to work their way in.  Those who want their good deeds to sneak by their bad deeds just enough to get in. 

2020 - I wonder how many of the sayings I have called "hard" tie back to this very same principle.  That working hard as a means to heaven is a waste of energy because that isn't what gets you in.  Working hard - doing works - as James says - as a demonstration of faith, as motivated by faith and love,  is an effect, not a cause.

2022 - Vs 24-28 are about a scene of judgment.  Which one?

25 When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.' 26 Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.' 27 But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!' 28 In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. [Luk 13:25-28 ESV]

There are lost people in view here.  People outside who want to get it.

Shut the door.  A time after which no one may be saved.  The time for choices is over.  That will be true at both Sheep and Goat and GWT.  We know specifically at the sheep and goat that people won't understand what they did wrong.  "When did we not visit you in prison?". 

Are they saying "We went to church every Sunday, we listened and tried to live what was taught", and the answer is "But your heart was not in it"?  This exchange also shows that the time for choices is over.  This is final judgment.  You get into that whole thing about who the lost are in the battle at the end of the Millennial, and where did they come from.  They have to have been born during the Millennial as I read it.  They will have been born for no purpose other than to oppose God and fulfill the prophecy of the final battle.  I say this because at the sheep and goat, pre-Millennial, ALL the lost will go to hell, starting the Millennial with a whole world saved.  Else, that judgment is only partial.  Only those in and around Jerusalem are judged, and not the rest of the planet.  I don't see how that can be.

So that makes this about the GWT.  At that one, both lost and saved from all history - but not saved from the church age - will be judged.  The time for choices is over.  And some there can literally say vs 26.  They heard Jesus teach personally, but were not converted.  This just about has to be GWT. 

It cannot be the bema, because only the raptured will be at that one.

(But see below, "The chapter ends this way:" for another possibility.)

2025 - All these parables, these sayings, these metaphors of the kingdom are about the kingdom Jesus was there to proclaim.  Look at all these:

17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." [Mat 4:17 ESV].  It was right there.  It was starting that day.  It was not something that would be ushered in at the end of tgt.  That is a different, physical, Jesus on earth kingdom, but that's not the one he came to tell us about the first time!

Then:

11 I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, 12 while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." [Mat 8:11-12 ESV]. Gentile souls in heaven with the patriarchs, while the Jews await final judgment.

Or this?  How can it be any more clear:

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. [Mat 21:43 ESV]

The kingdom was right then, not still future even to us.  It is here now!

15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." [Mar 1:15 ESV]

15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." [Mar 1:15 ESV]

16 "The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. [Luk 16:16 ESV].  "Forces" in that they make up all kinds of alternative ways to get in?  They make their own rules and declare themselves citizens?

36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." [Jhn 18:36 ESV].  An ever present, invisible kingdom, with a very narrow door, and a very specific way in.

Some Pharisees warn Jesus that Herod wants to kill him, and that he should therefore not come near Jerusalem.  This seems odd.  Perhaps they themselves wanted to keep Jesus away so their apple carts would stay aright.  2021 - MSB agrees.  They likely wanted Jesus to move on to Jerusalem and so not bring Herod's attention to this place.  Jesus talks about three days.  MSB says this was common idiom and rarely referred to a literal three days.  The point Jesus is making is that he is on his own schedule, and not Herod's or any other King's.  It is only a figure of speech.  The thing about prophets being killed only in Jerusalem is similar.  It was likely a well known saying referencing the fact that it was mostly Jews who killed their own prophets, and not foreigners.  Jesus was probably still in Galilee - where it would be foreigners that killed him, and this was not the way of things.  We don't really know exactly what town he was in at this time.

2022 - This verse:

33 Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.' [Luk 13:33 ESV].  Here, Jesus names himself a prophet, and predicts that he will suffer the same fate as a prophet.

The chapter ends this way:

35 Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'" [Luk 13:35 ESV]

How can you read this and not see that the covenant with Israel was being set aside, that they as a nation are being  locked out, forcibly excluded, from what is to come, until that set time in the future, during trib and great trib, when their eyes and ears will finally be reopened.  They had gone too far, and they were and are receiving the justice of God even here on earth.  And surely their history has been bleak.

2021 - Oh my...given the above, and seizing on the exclusion of the Jews from the dawning age of the Gentiles, can we look back at that locked door, where no one is recognized, as applying to Israel uniquely?  That door is going to be shut and no one will get in.  That is not about the age of the Gentiles, that door is shut to the Jews.  I need to look up the other places that narrow door is mentioned - in other gospels and in Revelation 3 - and see if this would apply to them all.  Has this analogy been preached "wrongly" every time I ever heard it????

2025 - The 2021 note makes good sense.  Jesus was talking about the kingdom.  We know the kingdom is here, yet invisible now.  This is a Kingdom of the New Covenant, of the Gentiles.  Only those who find that narrow way, that single, unique, one way into the Kingdom through Jesus will get in to the present kingdom.  Many argue today that they are not "bad" people, that they give to charity and they do good where ever they go.  That should get them in...but it won't.  That doesn't matter at all.  Getting in because your good outweighs your bad is the broad way, the wide door, and God has slammed that shut in favor of the one way, narrow though it is.  I don't think this is about judgment, neither sheep and goat nor GWT.  It is about now, today, and the spread of and acceptance or rejection of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  People cringe when told that it is only through Christ.  They shout about that not being fair, that no just God would make it so hard - so narrow.  But it is plain as day in the NT.  One name under heaven, given among men, whereby you must be saved.

Like a returning patrol who doesn't know the password.  There is no way the sentries are going to let them into the camp, no matter what they claim to have done, no matter what they prove they have done, no matter the gifts that they bring or the stories they tell.  Only the password gets you passed the sentries and welcomed back into the camp.  This too is a narrow way, and we have no problem at all accepting it as fair.