Life Project Blog

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Luke 18:9-14

Luke sets this parable up in an interesting way, because he mentions no particular scene change, and has Jesus talking to people who are “confident in their own righteousness”; has he turned back to those Pharisees and teachers of the law, or has another group come along? Recall that we are on the road heading for Jerusalem…

Whoever it was, He tells a short parable that goes right at the attitudes of their day, that some people are “better” than others because they have achieved righteousness through their observance of a form of worship.  The Pharisee in the parable is praying a prayer of thanksgiving in which he is thanking God for making him better than other people. Honestly, I cannot imagine such a thing as this; such audacity…

But this is a parable after all.

The tax collector humbles himself, acknowledges his sin and asks for God’s mercy, as well he should, as well as we all should. It is the tax collector who is “justified” before God, not the righteous Pharisee, for the tax collector humbled himself and put his trust in God, while the Pharisee exalted himself and trusted his own ability to keep the law.

All God wants from us is that we humble ourselves and trust Him. When we do so, His grace is sufficient for salvation. Yet should we exalt ourselves and consider ourselves better than others for our ability to keep the law, we will be condemned by the law and our own excessive pride. Quite frankly, to thank God for making us “better” than everyone else is to bear false witness right to God’s face.

Yikes!

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”

And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.  And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Like 18:1-8

The scene has not changed from the last passage (Luke 17:20-37), Jesus has just said “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.” Then He tells this parable to clarify things.

It is not a difficult parable to understand: God hears our prayers and comes to the aid of His persistent children in this life. Jesus assures the disciples that there will be justice; this is easy to see. The “kicker” is at the very end:

when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?

Do you remember their question (17:37), “Where Lord?” Remember His answer (17:37)?

There is a considerable controversy over when and where He will return. There are books, videos, presentations, even blogs that are filled with speculation, but none of this builds faith; it is a distraction. How many come to Christ because they are afraid He will return next week, and they need to get their house in order? How many non-Christians read those end of the world books? How many Christians draw closer to God while arguing about the Second Coming and End Times?

The disciples had much more important things to worry about, and so do we. We and they have been tasked with taking His love to a dark world that so desperately needs it, and we cannot do this while arguing about the end of the world, particularly when Jesus’ entire guidance on the subject is that it will be a surprise and we must be ready whenever it happens.

Don’t worry; God will do His part− we need to worry about doing our parts.

Oh my, there’s another parable coming up in the next passage…

Luke 16:1-18

Jesus continues with the parables, this time the Parable of the Dishonest Manager. A rich guy received accusations that his asset manager was wasting (or dispersing) his assets. He calls the manager in and tells him he is fired and asks for an explanation. The man, realizing he was losing his job, came up with a plan; he would call in his master’s debtors and discount their balances for immediate payment. This would be good for the master because he would have those accounts paid up immediately. It would be good for the debtors because they would pay a discounted rate and have the debt off their backs, and it would be good for the manager because he will have made new friends, and he is about to be looking for a new job.

I’ve heard preachers call this “dishonest” dealing on the manager’s part, but I must disagree; it is a common business practice that turns bad debt into a win-win. What good is a note receivable to a business person if it isn’t collectable? We have come to call such uncollectables “toxic debt” in recent years, because it’s a loss that looks like a gain. What the manager did was to turn the “bad paper” into the equivalent of cash for the master for the benefit of all concerned, and I have often wondered if he had done so sooner if he might have kept his job. You should note that the master commended him for this… but he was still fired. Might he have been given another chance had he done this sooner?

Wait! Hold on! He needed the Master’s approval to discount those notes, so while that may have been a shrewd business move, he did it behind the master’s back.

Yep, that is a big deal.

Of course, none of this is really the point Jesus was making; He was talking about our hearts to people who were lovers of money.

In 16:8 ff. Jesus is actually saying that the manager’s move was a good one, but for all the wrong reasons. We should use worldly assets shrewdly for the kingdom, money and possessions to make friends so that we might share the light of Christ with them, as opposed to keeping all for ourselves.

You see, it’s a matter of the heart. God has entrusted us with certain things in this life. We are to handle these things for God’s benefit, rather than for our own, yet if we cannot be trusted to this, what will God think of us after all, He is the “master” in this parable.

The Pharisees sneered at this. Jesus pointed out that they might fool most people, but they can never fool God who sees all, including the condition of the heart. He continues in the next few verses with a warning: They will not be able to force their way into the Kingdom by manipulation of the law and indirectly at least, He comes to another area in which the condition of the heart is exposed: Divorce. The system of that day had so manipulated the law concerning divorce that great injustice was being done to many people.

To put it another way, the Pharisees and teachers of the law had enabled wealthy men to abuse their wives and to get away with it by dedicating their assts to the Temple. In an extreme case, a wealthy older man could divorce his wife of many years, get a younger model and dedicate his fortune to the Temple, making everything all neat and proper, and leave both women destitute upon his death, to the profit of the religious establishment.

Ah yes, that was the corruption He was talking about, and there’s another parable right after this one…