In this episode, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke continue their study of the Gospel of Luke, focusing on Chapter 11. They dive into the critique Jesus offers to the religious leaders of his time, highlighting their hypocrisy and the consequences of their actions. The conversation explores the significance of Jesus’ words and the escalating tension between Jesus and the religious authorities. Join them as they uncover the deeper meaning behind this passage and discuss its relevance in today’s context.
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Transcript
00:00:00:54 – 00:00:21:16
Clint Loveall
Hello, everybody. Thanks for sharing some time with us. Thanks for closing out the week with us as we continue through the Gospel of Luke this week in Chapter 11. Try to get through that chapter today. We’re in verse 47. Just a quick reminder, it’s been a day or two since we were able to meet. Thanks for being back with us.
00:00:21:21 – 00:00:49:23
Clint Loveall
We started a section kind of called the Whoas, and Matthew has a version of this. Luke has his own version. We made it partway through. Remember that Jesus here is criticizing Pharisees. Then he turns that critique toward lawyers is the word in translation. But religious experts. And this has to do with leadership. This has to do with their own hypocrisy.
00:00:49:28 – 00:01:16:27
Clint Loveall
Today we pick up that conversation about halfway through verse 447, the longest, the most drawn out, and the most explanation given of any of the walls in this section. So let me read through this one and we’ll offer some thoughts on it. Woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you build their tombs.
00:01:16:31 – 00:01:36:33
Clint Loveall
Therefore, also the wisdom of God said, I will send them the prophets and the apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets. Shed since the foundation of the world, from the blood of able to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.
00:01:36:37 – 00:02:08:31
Clint Loveall
Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. So this is a dramatically presented critique of the fact that not only do these Jewish leaders in many cases not hear the words of Jesus there, they are violent against those who challenged them, that they have killed the prophets, they’ve killed the witnesses. Not only do they not listen to those people, they actively harm them.
00:02:08:31 – 00:02:39:16
Clint Loveall
They seek to do them ill. And Jesus here is is laying the collective guilt of this pattern through seen throughout Israel, really at the feet of this latest generation to do it primarily because in Jesus we have the ultimate announcement of the kingdom of reign of God. And and Luke is making sure we understand there is death on the horizon, that there’s some foreshadow going here.
00:02:39:21 – 00:03:02:13
Clint Loveall
I don’t know, Michael, how devotional this is. I mean, I think at some point this is a good call for us to be humble in what we think we know. It certainly is an instance where Jesus has a problem with people who are religious, in fact, so religious, they think they have all the answers. Some hard words here to to understand, I think.
00:03:02:25 – 00:03:25:57
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, no doubt. And I think really, if we are looking here for our daily bread, spiritually speaking, we’re likely not to look here in these texts. Clint. But I think if we are willing to subjected to some real questions, there’s some really interesting things happening here. I think that one of the things that Jesus is doing by his argument is he is starting the argument with the whole.
00:03:25:57 – 00:03:48:07
Michael Gewecke
In other words, all of the generations that came before and then sort of like a funnel. He’s pointing all of that at the singular generation in which he now has come. And theologically, we would understand this to be revelation that that God has supremely revealed himself in Jesus. All of these traces can be seen in previous times. Right.
00:03:48:07 – 00:04:15:00
Michael Gewecke
But in Jesus’s day, the generation that received him was able to see God himself taking on human flesh. The perfect revelation. So when when Jesus starts with all of the generations before, it’s this big clumping to say, look at how all of those before us have responded to these prophets. And to your point, Clint, it’s been violent, it’s included bloodshed, they’ve rejected the prophets.
00:04:15:00 – 00:04:33:39
Michael Gewecke
And by the way, you don’t have to be an Old Testament scholar to know that it is true that many of the Old Testament prophets, not only did they speak the Word of God, they were in fact met with significant retribution from the people. So. So Jesus isn’t making anything up here, and I don’t even know that he’s being hyperbolic.
00:04:33:39 – 00:05:07:28
Michael Gewecke
He’s just stating what is a theme of the Old Testament. And then from that point, Jesus makes the case that the generation who receives the supreme revelation of God, which is of course we know himself, then they will be charged. And it is ultimately the lawyers or it’s the people who should see the religious experts who should have the eyesight to see Jesus for who he is, who should have the understanding of all of these themes that have happened already in the previous generations.
00:05:07:33 – 00:05:34:54
Michael Gewecke
But Jesus is accusing them and saying, you don’t have the insight or the wisdom to know what’s happening right in front of you. The revealed God is standing here and you’re going to do the same exact thing that the generations before did. So I think that’s interesting. And then very, very briefly, I think your point is also well-taken and needs mentioned and emphasized that Luke is a a deeply skilled, thoughtful writer.
00:05:34:58 – 00:06:08:02
Michael Gewecke
And in the gospel of Luke, we should not be surprised when we see it. We see a classic example of it today, a teaching of Jesus. Both can portray what Jesus wanted to teach, as I was just talking about, but it can also illustrate and exemplify using foreshadowing of what will happen and so you’re exactly right to point out this idea that we have here in verse 51, blood available to the blood of Zachariah Parish between the altar and the sanctuary.
00:06:08:13 – 00:06:33:18
Michael Gewecke
All of these are themes, even altar, even sanctuary. These are themes that will appear in Jesus’s crucifixion and his own death. The blood of the people will literally be Jesus’s blood. And so that Luke is doing some really beautiful things here to actually. And so even if this might not strike us devotional, there’s a lot here if we’re able to see it.
00:06:33:23 – 00:06:58:04
Clint Loveall
Sure. And then, you know, there’s this criticism. You build the tombs of the prophets. In other words, you lift up their names, you appeal to them. But it was your people. It was your people who killed them. It was your people who wouldn’t listen to them. It was your people who refused the truth of their words. And and we understand and they will do that again.
00:06:58:04 – 00:07:41:00
Clint Loveall
You will do that again in the time to come when Jesus is arrested and crucified. And so there’s a deep foreshadowing here, I think, that both goes back testifying to what Israel has done, but connecting it to what Israel, at least portion of Israel will continue to do as they reject the very messiah, the son of God. And so, yeah, yeah, not not great devotional reading, I grant you that, but an important theme in the gospel and certainly important to Luke, which then brings us to the final whoa of this section verse 52 Woe to you lawyers again.
00:07:41:00 – 00:08:16:10
Clint Loveall
Remember that that’s religious experts for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you hindered those who were entering. I think in some way, Michael, this is the most damning criticism. It is one thing to miss the boat for yourself, right? It is another to keep others from the truth. So not only do these Pharisees, not only do these scribes and religious experts, not only do they not see the obvious truth of Jesus, but they hinder others from seeing it.
00:08:16:15 – 00:08:44:25
Clint Loveall
They actively keep others from the very thing that God is doing to bring to bring about His kingdom and that makes the bad thing that they do to a multitude worse, because it not only affects themselves, it now spills on to others. And I think in some ways this is the harshest critique given in this section, which is pretty harsh on the whole.
00:08:44:40 – 00:09:12:04
Michael Gewecke
Now, one commentator makes the case that this key reference here could be attributed to the idea of Scripture that scriptures, the key, the understanding of all those profits that we were just talking about. And, you know, that may not be the whole truth, but there’s certainly a really interesting aspect of this historically, because even the Christian church has had just mountaintops and valleys as our relationship to scripture has changed.
00:09:12:09 – 00:09:35:10
Michael Gewecke
There have been times where the church, sometimes through no fault of its own illiteracy or these kinds of things, but that there were other times where the church actively restricted making scripture available to people in their own language and their own ability, the excuse me, ability to understand. And in those circumstances, the church stands under the same judgment as Jesus.
00:09:35:13 – 00:09:56:03
Michael Gewecke
When we keep people from the tools designed and delivered for the sake of revealing God’s intention for the world and the people who are put in positions of power, who are by definition called to be servants of those people not only fail to accomplish that task, but they use the power that that gives them to their own ends.
00:09:56:07 – 00:10:16:50
Michael Gewecke
That is not just some kind of basic hypocrisy in Jesus’s frame. It is unpardonable, sinful. It is the deepest and most horrific crime and so Jesus has very strong words for the people here who have been given this knowledge and are hindering those who should be given that knowledge.
00:10:16:55 – 00:10:48:39
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Again, I think this is one of the harsher critiques that Jesus gives the idea that not only are you turning a blind eye to what God is doing, you’re keeping others from seeing it. And that is certainly a heavy charge that Jesus lays at their feet. Then we get a summary at the end of the passage. Not, I think, not surprising if you know the gospel, if you know the culture, you don’t get to just say these things to these people and not expect repercussions.
00:10:48:39 – 00:11:23:51
Clint Loveall
So Luke tells us when Jesus went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile toward him and to cross examine him about many things lying in wait for him to catch him in something he might say. So Jesus clearly makes no friends here. And this for Luke, begins of a slow boil. As we move toward the cross, Jesus has now significantly offended described and the Pharisees, and they are now looking for a way to charge him.
00:11:23:51 – 00:11:57:04
Clint Loveall
They’re looking for a way to bring something up and catch him, trap him and bring some sort of punishment together. And this is going to escalate. I think in some ways, Michael, we see those themes early in the gospel. I think in this particular instance, Luke has chosen to kind of let them build a little slower, I think, to just turn up the tension a little bit at a time, which is a powerful way to tell this story.
00:11:57:09 – 00:12:25:03
Clint Loveall
I think in some of the other gospels we more quickly move toward. They sought to kill him. Now, we did have that moment where they wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff, but they is reactionary there. That’s a crowd. Now we see the primary architects of Jesus downfall are going to be the scribes and Pharisees, and now they have begun to undertake this adversarial and this animosity toward Jesus.
00:12:25:03 – 00:12:39:56
Clint Loveall
This relationship against him. And we’re going to see that increase. And I think Luke does a nice job here of not jumping all the way to They tried to kill him, but letting us come along for that journey a little bit and experience it.
00:12:40:01 – 00:13:27:12
Michael Gewecke
The gospel writers are all in their own ways, interested in answering the question, Why did Jesus die? And, you know, I think one of the temptations of our modern discipleship is we just take for granted that story. But Clint, for just a moment, I think your comments are so helpful. If we look here at the woes that Jesus has given to these scribes and Pharisees and we sit in the critique of them for a moment, if we feel the weight of them, we might understand something about how they become hostile to Jesus, how there’s this turning point in Jesus’s relationship where at first, you know, maybe there’s some wrong headed theology that needs addressed, or
00:13:27:12 – 00:14:02:31
Michael Gewecke
maybe Jesus is a traveling preacher and just needs to have some theological education. You know, whatever the case may be here, Luke is making it very clear that when Jesus identifies these particular woes, that he delivers to the Pharisees, who are largely looked up to in the culture of their day, the people who have been equipped with the study and learning of the Old Testament and whose job or their Bible and their job was to deliver that and to make it practical for the people of their own day.
00:14:02:36 – 00:14:48:37
Michael Gewecke
When those two individual groups were accused by Jesus of being hypocritical, of putting themselves above the people that they were called to serve, and when Jesus claims that they’re not following God, but they’re following themselves, the end result is anger and deep hostility. And that is the seedbed. That’s the basis of everything that will follow the answer to the question Why does Jesus die in the cross has been set into motion by this text here today, and that’s what makes studying the whole of the Scripture so important, because you might think, well, no, Jesus was crucified because he was a Jew or because he was a rabble rouser.
00:14:48:37 – 00:15:08:13
Michael Gewecke
No, Jesus was crucified for very specific reasons. And this is the kind of thing that we discover when we read the scriptures closely, is that he got crossways with the celebrities of his day, and he did so purposefully and with clear language and intention. And and that’s what’s going to push the story forward.
00:15:08:18 – 00:15:49:17
Clint Loveall
And I think we see that in the kind of metanarrative here. Michael You mean Jesus offers these six, you know, ranging from serious to blistering critiques of the practice of false religion and rather than be convicted by it, rather than listen to it and, and self-examination, it’s an answer of self-righteousness. They, they, they don’t respond by listening, thereby proving the very critique that Jesus has offered against them.
00:15:49:18 – 00:16:12:43
Clint Loveall
They don’t say, oh, we have there’s something here we can learn. They say, we have to get this guy. We have to stand against him. We can’t let him talk like this. And and this refusal to hear this hardness of heart, which is a phrase the Bible we use sometimes is the origin of of what’s coming. It’s where it lives.
00:16:12:43 – 00:16:41:48
Clint Loveall
It’s where it begins to breathe and grow. Jesus trying to confront the religious people of his day, the self-righteous religious with truth. And in unwillingness to have any part of it, and a violent reaction to it. And I think, you know, if you if you step back and look at this from, you know, a mile away, you see the exact thing playing out, they’re proving Jesus point.
00:16:41:52 – 00:16:51:56
Clint Loveall
They are they are living out exactly what Jesus has accused them of. And Luke does a beautiful job here of delivering us to that conclusion.
00:16:52:01 – 00:17:17:54
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, that is maybe the difficult devotional end of the text. I mean, that the wall was themselves to the Pharisees and the teachers. They may not feel like they directly applied to us, but the people who find themselves listening to a podcast like this, we all share this temptation to put our hope and trust in something other than Jesus.
00:17:17:54 – 00:17:53:38
Michael Gewecke
We will inevitably, because we’re human and broke and our temptation will be to put our hope and trust in our own work, our own diligence, our own contribution. And in many ways, the gospel should drive us out of ourselves to do well. Works of good because of the grace that’s been given to us. But friends, if we encounter Jesus Christ, the revelation of Jesus and we are moved in that encounter or to hostility because of the critique that He offers against our hypocrisy, then that’s an invitation for us to go deeper.
00:17:53:38 – 00:18:15:39
Michael Gewecke
I think it’s an invitation for us to confess there is a bent within us to turn inward. As Luther would say, there’s this there’s this temptation for us to make it about us. And if we encounter Jesus and we cannot hear in his critique an invitation to receive grace, then we like these teachers of the law. We’ll find ourselves hostile to faith itself.
00:18:15:39 – 00:18:18:02
Michael Gewecke
And that is a dangerous place to be.
00:18:18:07 – 00:18:39:43
Clint Loveall
It is. And Luke delivers us there at the end of this chapter. If if you’ve been with us throughout Chapter 11, you know that there’s been some difficult stuff. We’re not done with difficult stuff. But I would say if you can join us next week, I think that at least on the front end of Chapter 12, we do get into some stuff that I would consider more devotional, more accessible.
00:18:39:43 – 00:19:06:09
Clint Loveall
I think there are going to be some parables that we really have, some good spiritual lessons to to unpack. And so I don’t know that Chapter 11 of the Gospel of Luke is anyone’s favorite. Luke in chapter, Maybe there are people out there who love it. I think for most of us, we will find that as we get into some more familiar territory next week, we may find that we are dealing with things we consider more applicable.
00:19:06:09 – 00:19:24:09
Clint Loveall
So if you can be with us, I hope that will be helpful. Hope maybe something in this has been helpful and we appreciate you being with us. That’s our thing.