01 November

Bible in 365 Days

Luke 19-20

Luke 19

Zacchaeus was the last convert but one in the ministry of Jesus. Our Lord's method with him is very revealing. He asked for his hospitality, and after receiving it held an unrecorded conversation with him which resulted in the complete revolution of the man's outlook and his activity. It was in this connection that our Lord uttered that supreme word of His ministry, "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

In close connection He uttered the parable of the pounds. This, by the way, must not be confused with the parable of the talents. In the latter the gifts varied in amount. In this the value was identical. Not all had the same number of talents. All have the pound for trading. The people following Him to Jerusalem "supposed that the Kingdom of God was immediately to appear." In the parable He gave them the program of events. He was going to a far country to receive His Kingdom. During His absence His servants were to trade with His capital for His profit. At His return He would deal with those who had thus been responsible.

Going to Jerusalem, He entered the Temple. As He approached it, all the disciples broke into song. The song is remarkable as an answer to the song of the angels which had announced the birth of Jesus. They then sang, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth." These now significantly sang, "Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest." Surely it was an inspired song, with a fuller meaning than perhaps the singers understood. He was going to the death by which He would make a peace in heaven which would issue in peace on earth. Peace with God must precede peace among men.

Jerusalem had failed to learn the things belonging to peace, and this called forth Jesus' tears.

Luke 20

This chapter records the remarkable happenings gathered around our Lord's entrance into the Temple. By a parable He revealed the awful sin and failure of the Hebrew nation, culminating in His own rejection, showing, moreover, that that sin must result ultimately in the breaking into pieces of the sinning people.

The closing conflicts between the rulers and Jesus constitute the saddest revelation of the depravity of the human heart. Jesus' teaching had driven them into a corner from which there was no escape. They would have laid hands on Him forthwith had they not feared the people. So they sent spies to endeavor to take hold of His speech. Here, as in all cases, man's sin serves only as a dark background to throw into brighter relief the glory of the Savior. All the rulers' attempts were futile. He answered with infinite wisdom and terrific force all the quibbles they raised, and then uttered in the hearing of all the people the solemn warning and the scathing denunciation of the scribes. These answers of His were not the sharp retorts of sarcasm, but the final utterances of a wisdom which revealed the ignorance of the questions.