Verses 1-59
Chapter 12
12:1-12 In the
meantime, when the people had been gathered together in their thousands,
so that they trampled on each other, Jesus began to say first of all to
his disciples, "Be on your guard against the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy. There is nothing covered up which will not be
unveiled, and there is nothing secret which shall not be known. All,
therefore, that you have spoken in the dark shall be heard in the light;
and what you have spoken into someone's ear in the inner room will be
proclaimed on the housetops. I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of
those who kill the body and who after that are not able to do anything
further. I will warn you whom you are to fear--fear him who after he has
killed you has authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear
him! Are not five sparrows sold for 1/2 pence ? And yet not one of them
is forgotten before God. But as for you--even the hairs of your head are
all numbered. Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many
sparrows. I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, him will
the Son of Man acknowledge before the angels of God; but he who denies
me before men will be denied before the angels of God. If anyone speaks a
word against the Son of Man it will be forgiven him; but he who speaks
irreverently of the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When they bring
you before synagogues and rulers and those set in authority, do not
worry how you will defend yourself or about what defence you will make,
or about what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that
same hour what you ought to say."
When we read this passage we are reminded again of the Jewish definition of preaching--charaz (Hebrew #2737),
which means stringing pearls. This passage, too, is a collection of
pearls strung together without the close connection which modern
preaching demands. But in it there are certain dominant ideas.
(i) It tells us of the forbidden sin, which is hypocrisy. The
word hypocrite began by meaning someone who answers; and hypocrisy
originally meant answering. First the words were used of the ordinary
flow of question and answer in any talk or in any dialogue; then they
began to be connected with question and answer in a play. From that they
went on to be connected with acting apart. The hypocrite is never
genuine; he is always play-acting. The basis of hypocrisy is
insincerity. God would rather have a blunt, honest sinner, than someone
who puts on an act of goodness.
(ii) It tells of the correct attitude to life, which is an
attitude of fearlessness. There are two reasons for fearlessness.
(a) Man's power over man is strictly limited to this life. A man
can destroy another man's life but not his soul. In the 1914-18 war
Punch had a famous cartoon in which it showed the German Emperor saying
to King Albert of Belgium, "So now you have lost everything"; and back
came Albert's answer, "But not my soul!" On the other hand, God's power
is such that it can blot out a man's very soul. It is, therefore, only
reasonable to fear God rather than to fear men. It was said of John
Knox, as his body was being lowered into the grave, "Here lies one who
feared God so much that he never feared the face of man."
(b) God's care is the most detailed of all. To God we are never
lost in the crowd. Matthew says, "Are not two sparrows sold for 1/4
pence ?" (Matthew 10:29.)
Here Luke says, "Are not five sparrows sold for 1/2 pence ?" If you
were prepared to spend 1/2 pence you got not four, but five sparrows.
One was flung into the bargain as having no value at all. Not even the
sparrow on which men set not a 1/4 pence value is forgotten before God.
The very hairs of our head are numbered. It has been computed that a
blonde person has about 145,000 hairs; a dark-haired person, 120,000;
and a person with red hair, 90,000! The Jews were so impressed with the
individual care of God that they said that every blade of grass had its
guardian angel. None of us needs to fear for each can say, "God cares
for me."
(iii) It tells us of the unforgivable sin, which is the sin
against the Holy Spirit. Both Matthew and Mark record that Jesus spoke
about this sin immediately after the scribes and Pharisees had
attributed his cures to the prince of devils instead of to God (Matthew 12:31-32; Mark 3:28-29).
These men could look at the very grace and power of God and call it the
work of the devil. To understand this we must remember that Jesus was
talking about the Holy Spirit as the Jews understood that conception,
not in the full Christian sense, about which his audience at that time
obviously knew nothing.
To a Jew, God's Spirit had two great functions. Through the
Spirit he told his truth to men, and it was by the action of the Spirit
in a man's mind and heart that he could recognize and grasp God's truth.
Now, if a man for long enough refuses to use a faculty he will lose it.
If we refuse to use any part of the body long enough it atrophies.
Darwin tells how when he was a young man he loved poetry and music; but
he so devoted himself to biology that he completely neglected them. The
consequence was that in later life poetry meant nothing to him and music
was only a noise, and he said that if he had his life to live over
again he would see to it that he would read poetry and listen to music
so that he would not lose the faculty of enjoying them.
Just so we can lose the faculty of recognizing God. By
repeatedly refusing God's word, by repeatedly taking our own way, by
repeatedly shutting our eyes to God and closing our ears to him, we can
come to a stage when we do not recognize him when we see him, when to us
evil becomes good and good becomes evil. That is what happened to the
scribes and Pharisees. They had so blinded and deafened themselves to
God that when he came they called him the devil.
Why is that the unforgivable sin? Because in such a state
repentance is impossible. If a man does not even realize that he is
sinning, if goodness no longer makes any appeal to him, he cannot
repent. God has not shut him out; by his repeated refusals he has shut
himself out. That means that the one man who can never have committed
the unforgivable sin is the man who fears that he has, for once a man
has committed it, he is so dead to God that he is conscious of no sin at
all.
(iv) It tells us of the rewarded loyalty. The reward of loyalty
is no material thing. It is that in heaven Jesus will say of us, "This
was my man. Well done!"
(v) It tells us of the help of the Holy Spirit. In the fourth
Gospel the favourite title of the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete.
Parakletos (Greek #3875)
means someone who stands by to help. It can be used of a witness, or an
advocate to plead our cause. In the day of trouble there need be no
fear, for no less a person than the Holy Spirit of God stands by to
help.
12:13-34 One of the
crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance
with me." He said to him, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an
arbitrator over you?" He said to them, "Watch and guard yourself against
the spirit which is always wanting more; for even if a man has an
abundance his life does not come from his possessions." He spoke a
parable to them. "The land," he said, "of a rich man bore good crops. He
kept thinking what he would do. 'What will I do,' he said, 'because I
have no room to gather in my crops?' So he said, 'This is what I will
do. I will pull down my barns and I will build bigger ones, and I will
gather there all my corn and all my good things; and I will say to my
soul, Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years. Take your
rest, eat, drink and enjoy yourself.' But God said to him, 'Fool! This
night your soul is demanded from you; and, the things you prepared--who
will get them all?' So is he who heaps up treasure for himself and is
not rich towards God."
Jesus said to his
disciples, "I therefore tell you, do not worry about your life--about
what you are to eat; nor about your body--about what you are to wear.
For your life is something more than food, and your body than clothing.
Look at the ravens. See how they do not sow or reap; they have no
storehouse or barn; but God feeds them. How much more valuable are you
than the birds? Which of you, by worrying about it, can add a few days
to his span of life? If, then, you cannot do the littlest thing why
worry about the other things? Look at the lilies. See how they grow.
They do not work; they do not spin; but, I tell you, not even Solomon in
all his glory was clothed like one of these. If God so clothe the grass
in the field, which is there to-day and which to-morrow is cast into
the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith? Do
not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink; do not be tossed
about in a storm of anxiety. The peoples of the world seek for all
these things. Your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom
and all these things will be added to you. Do not fear, little flock,
because it is your Father's will to give you the kingdom. Sell your
possessions and give alms. Make yourselves purses which never grow old, a
treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where a thief does not come
near and a moth does not destroy. For where your treasure is there your
heart will also be."
It was not uncommon for people in Palestine to take their
unsettled disputes to respected Rabbis; but Jesus refused to be mixed up
in anyone's disputes about money. But out of that request there came to
Jesus an opportunity to lay down what his followers' attitude to
material things should be. He had something to say both to those who had
an abundant supply of material possessions and to those who had not.
(i) To those who had an abundant supply of possessions Jesus
spoke this parable of the Rich Fool. Two things stand out about this
man.
(a) He never saw beyond himself. There is no parable which is so
full of the words, I, me, my and mine. A schoolboy was once asked what
parts of speech my and mine are. He answered, "Aggressive pronouns." The
rich fool was aggressively self-centred. It was said of a self-centred
young lady, "Edith lived in a little world, bounded on the north, south,
east and west by Edith." The famous criticism was made of a
self-centred person, "There is too much ego in his cosmos." When this
man had a superfluity of goods the one thing that never entered his head
was to give any away. His whole attitude was the very reverse of
Christianity. Instead of denying himself he aggressively affirmed
himself; instead of finding his happiness in giving he tried to conserve
it by keeping.
John Wesley's rule of life was to save all he could and give all
he could. When he was at Oxford he had an income of 30 British pounds a
year. He lived on 28 pounds and gave 2 pounds away. When his income
increased to 60 pounds, 90 pounds and 120 pounds per year, he still
lived on 28 pounds and gave the balance away. The Accountant-General for
Household Plate demanded a return from him. His reply was, "I have two
silver tea spoons at London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate
which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more, while so many
around me want bread."
The Romans had a proverb which said that money was like
sea-water; the more a man drank the thirstier he became. And so long as a
man's attitude is that of the rich fool his desire will always be to
get more--and that is the reverse of the Christian way.
(b) He never saw beyond this world. All his plans were made on
the basis of life here. There is a story of a conversation between a
young and ambitious lad and an older man who knew life. Said the young
man, "I will learn my trade." "And then?" said the older man. "I will
set up in business." "And then?" "I will make my fortune." "And then?"
"I suppose that I shall grow old and retire and live on my money." "And
then?" "Well, I suppose that some day I will die." "And then?" came the
last stabbing question.
The man who never remembers that there is another world is destined some day for the grimmest of grim shocks.
(ii) But Jesus had something to say to those who had few
possessions. In all this passage the thought which Jesus forbids is
anxious thought or worry. Jesus never ordered any man to live in a
shiftless, thriftless, reckless way. What he did tell a man was to do
his best and then leave the rest to God. The lilies Jesus spoke of were
the scarlet anemones. After one of the infrequent showers of summer
rain, the mountain side would be scarlet with them; they bloomed one day
and died. Wood was scarce in Palestine, and it was the dried grasses
and wild flowers that were used to feed the oven fire. "If," said Jesus,
"God looks after the birds and the flowers, how much more will he care
for you?"
Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God." We saw that God's
kingdom was a state on earth in which his will was as perfectly done as
it is in heaven. So Jesus is saying, "Bend all your life to obeying
God's will and rest content with that. So many people give all their
effort to heap up things which in their very nature cannot last. Work
for the things which last forever, things which you need not leave
behind when you leave this earth, but which you can take with you."
In Palestine wealth was often in the form of costly raiment; the
moths could get at the fine clothes and leave them ruined. But if a man
clothes his soul with the garments of honour and purity and goodness,
nothing on earth can injure them. If a man seeks the treasures of
heaven, his heart will be fixed on heaven; but if he seeks the treasures
of earth, his heart will be thirled to earth--and some day he must say
good-bye to them, for, as the grim Spanish proverb has it, "There are no
pockets in a shroud."
12:35-48 "Let your
loins be girt and your lamps burning. Be like men who are waiting for
their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that, when he comes
and knocks, they will open to him immediately. Happy are those servants
whom the master will come and find awake. This is the truth that I tell
you--he will gird himself; he will make them recline at table; and he
will come and serve them. Happy are they if he finds them so, even if he
comes in the second or third watch. Know this--that if the householder
knew at what time the thief would come he would have been awake and he
would not have allowed his home to be broken into. So you must show
yourselves ready, for the Son of Man comes at an hour you do not
expect."
Peter said, "Lord are
you speaking this parable to us or to everyone?" The Lord said, "Who,
then, is the faithful and wise steward, whom the master will set over
the administration of his house to give them their ration of food at the
right time? Happy is that servant whom the master will come and find
acting like this. I tell you truly that he will put him in charge of all
his possessions. But if that servant says in his heart, 'My master is
delayed in coming,' and if he begins to beat the men servants and the
maid servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that
servant will arrive on a day on which he is not expecting him and at an
hour which he does not know, and he will cut him in pieces and he will
place his part with the unfaithful. That servant who knew the will of
his master, and who failed to have things ready, and to act in
accordance with that will, will be beaten with many stripes. But he who
did not know, even if he did things that deserved stripes, will be
beaten with few stripes. To whom much is given, from him much will be
required; and men will demand much from him to whom much was entrusted."
This passage has two senses. In its narrower sense it refers to
the Second Coming of Jesus Christ; in its wider sense it refers to the
time when God's summons enters a man's life, a call to prepare to meet
our God.
There is praise for the servant who is ready. The long flowing
robes of the east were a hindrance to work; and when a man prepared to
work he gathered up his robes under his girdle to leave himself free for
activity. The eastern lamp was like a cotton wick floating in a
sauce-boat of oil. Always the wick had to be kept trimmed and the lamp
replenished or the light would go out.
No man can tell the day or the hour when eternity will invade
time and summons will come. How, then, would we like God to find us?
(i) We would like him to find us with our work completed. Life
for so many of us is filled with loose ends. There are things undone and
things half done; things put off and things not even attempted. Great
men have always the sense of a task that must be finished. Keats wrote,
"When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain."
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote,
"The morning drum-call on my eager ear
Thrills unforgotten yet; the morning dew
Lies yet undried along my field of noon.
But now I pause at whiles in what I do,
And count the bell, and tremble lest I hear
(My work untrimmed) the sunset gun too soon."
Jesus himself said, "I have accomplished the work which thou gavest me to do" (John 17:4). No man should ever lightly leave undone a task he ought to have finished, before night falls.
(ii) We would like God to find us at peace with our fellowmen.
It would be a haunting thing to pass from this world at bitterness with a
fellow. No man should let the sun go down on his anger (Ephesians 4:26), least of all the last sun of all and he never knows which sun that will be.
(iii) We should like God to find us at peace with himself. It
will make all the difference at the last whether we feel that we are
going out to a stranger or an enemy, or going to fall asleep in the arms
of God.
In the second section of this passage Jesus draws a picture of
the wise and the unwise steward. In the east the steward had almost
unlimited power. He was himself a slave, yet he had control of all the
other slaves. A trusted steward ran his master's house for him and
administered his estate. The unwise steward made two mistakes.
(i) He said, I will do what I like while my master is away; he
forgot that the day of reckoning must come. We have a habit of dividing
life into compartments. There is a part in which we remember that God is
present; and there is a part in which we never think of him at all. We
tend to draw a line between sacred and secular; but if we really know
what Christianity means we will know that there is no part of life when
the master is away. We are working and living forever in our great
task-master's eye.
(ii) He said, I have plenty of time to put things right before
the master comes; there is nothing so fatal as to feel that we have
plenty of time. Jesus said, "We must work the works of him who sent me
while it is day; night comes when no one can work" (John 9:4).
Denis Mackail tells how, when Sir James Barrie was old, he would never
make arrangements or give invitations for a distant date. "Short notice
now!" he would say. One of the most dangerous days in a man's life is
when he discovers the word "tomorrow."
The passage finishes with the warning that knowledge and
privilege always bring responsibility. Sin is doubly sinful to the man
who knew better; failure is doubly blameworthy in the man who had every
chance to do well.
12:49-53 Jesus said,
"I came to cast fire upon the earth. And what do I wish? Would that it
were already kindled! There is an experience through which I must pass;
and now I am under tension until it is accomplished! Do you think I came
to give peace in the earth? Not that, I tell you, but division! From
now on in one house there will be five people divided--three against
two, and two against three. They will be divided, father against son,
and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against
mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law."
To those who were learning to regard Jesus as the Messiah, the
anointed one of God, these words would come as a bleak shock. They
regarded the Messiah as conqueror and king, and the Messianic age as a
golden time.
(i) In Jewish thought fire is almost always the symbol of
judgment. So, then, Jesus regarded the coming of his kingdom as a time
of judgment. The Jews firmly believed that God would judge other nations
by one standard and themselves by another; that the very fact that a
man was a Jew would be enough to absolve him. However much we may wish
to eliminate the element of judgment from the message of Jesus it
remains stubbornly and unalterably there.
(ii) The King James Version and the Revised Standard translate Luke 12:50. "I have a baptism to be baptised with." The Greek verb baptizein (Greek #907)
means to dip. In the passive it means to be submerged. Often it is used
metaphorically. For instance, it is used of a ship sunk beneath the
waves. It can be used of a man submerged in drink and therefore
dead-drunk. It can be used of a scholar submerged (or sunk, as we say)
by an examiner's questions. Above all it is used of a man submerged in
some grim and terrible experience--someone who can say, "All the waves
and billows are gone over me."
That is the way in which Jesus uses it here. "I have," he said,
"a terrible experience through which I must pass; and life is full of
tension until I pass through it and emerge triumphantly from it." The
cross was ever before his eyes. How different from the Jewish idea of
God's King! Jesus came, not with avenging armies and flying banners, but
to give his life a ransom for many.
There was a Knight of Bethlehem,
Whose wealth was tears and sorrows,
His men-at-arms were little lambs,
His trumpeters were sparrows.
His castle was a wooden Cross
On which he hung so high;
His helmet was a crown of thorns,
Whose crest did touch the sky.
(iii) His coming would inevitably mean division; in point of
fact it did. That was one of the great reasons why the Romans hated
Christianity--it tore families in two. Over and over again a man had to
decide whether he loved better his kith and kin or Christ. The essence
of Christianity is that loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over
the dearest loyalties of this earth. A man must be prepared to count all
things but loss for the excellence of Jesus Christ.
12:54-59 Jesus said to
the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you
say, 'Rain is coming.' And so it happens. When you feel the south wind
blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat.' And so it happens.
Hypocrites! you can read the signs of the face of the earth and the sky.
How can you not read the signs of this time? Why do you not for
yourselves judge what is right? When you are going with your adversary
to the magistrate, make an effort to come to an agreement with him on
the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge will hand you over
to the officer, and the officer will throw you into prison. I tell you,
you will not come out from there until you have paid the last
farthing."
The Jew's of Palestine were weatherwise. When they saw the
clouds forming in the west, over the Mediterranean Sea, they knew rain
was on the way. When the south wind blew from the desert they knew the
sirocco-like wind was coming. But those who were so wise to read the
signs of the sky could not, or would not, read the signs of the times.
If they had, they would have seen that the kingdom of God was on the
way.
Jesus used a very vivid illustration. He said, "When you are
threatened with a law-suit, come to an agreement with your adversary
before the matter comes to court, for if you do not you will have
imprisonment to endure and a fine to pay." The assumption is that the
defendant has a bad case which will inevitably go against him. "Every
man," Jesus implied, "has a bad case in the presence of God; and if he
is wise, he will make his peace with God while yet there is time."
Jesus and all his great servants have always been obsessed with
the urgency of time. Andrew Marvell spoke of ever hearing "time's winged
chariot hurrying near." There are some things a man cannot afford to
put off; above all, making his peace with God.
We read in the last verse of paying to the last farthing. We
have already come across several references to money; and it will be
useful if we collect the information about Jewish coinage in the time of
Jesus. In order of value the principal coins were as follows:
The Lepton; lepton (Greek #3016) means the thin one; it was the smallest coin, and was worth about one thirty-second of 1 pence. It was the widow's mite (Mark 12:42) and is the coin mentioned here.
The Quadrans (Greek #2835) was worth two lepta and therefore worth about one-sixteenth of 1 pence. It is mentioned in Matthew 5:26.
The Assarion (Greek #787) was worth a little less than 1/2 pence. It is mentioned in Matthew 10:29 and Luke 12:6.
The Denarius (Greek #1220) was worth about 3 pence. It was a day's pay for a working man (Matthew 20:2); and was the coin that the Good Samaritan left with the innkeeper (Luke 10:25).
The Drachma (Greek #1406) was a silver coin worth about 4 pence. It was the coin which the woman lost and searched for (Luke 15:8).
The Didrachma (Greek #1323)
or Half-shekel was worth about 7 pence. It was the amount of the Temple
Tax which everyone had to pay. It was for thirty didrachmae--about 2
British pounds--that Judas betrayed Jesus.
The Shekel (Greek #4715) was worth about 15 pence, and was the coin found in the fish's mouth (Matthew 17:27).
The Mina (Greek #3414) is the coin mentioned in the parable of the Pounds (Luke 19:11-27). It was equal to 100 drachmae; and was, therefore, worth about 4 British pounds.
The Talent (Greek #5007) was not so much a coin but a weight of silver worth 240 British pounds. It is mentioned in Matthew 18:24 and in the parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30).
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)