In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke continue their discussion on the Gospel of Luke. They explore the theme of division and judgment as portrayed in Luke’s Gospel. They emphasize the importance of understanding the context of these passages and caution against misinterpreting them as a call to create division. Instead, they highlight the need for humility and compassion in our interactions with others. Join them on this deep dive into the complexities of Jesus’ teachings.
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Transcript
00:00:01:01 – 00:00:19:37
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us on a Tuesday as we continue through the Gospel of Luke. Just a reminder, tomorrow is a day that I won’t be able to be here. And so we will be back on Thursday, but we won’t have our live version tomorrow. So I hope that’s not a problem. Hope you can join us.
00:00:19:42 – 00:00:52:37
Clint Loveall
Thursday we move into a section today as we continue through the 12th chapter of Luke’s Gospel with some difficult stuff in it. We’ll talk about this. This is a theme that makes its way into the Gospels. Luke presents it pretty bluntly as we reread Luke. I’m reminding myself or being reminded how direct Luke’s Jesus is in some of the things he says or in the way that Luke presents.
00:00:52:37 – 00:01:22:07
Clint Loveall
And we see that in a couple of ways today so that these are troubling words and we’ll do our best to explain them. But let me read them first, verse 49. Chapter 12 Jesus is speaking. I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled. I have a baptism with which to be baptized and what stress I am under until it’s completed.
00:01:22:12 – 00:01:48:56
Clint Loveall
Do you not? Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth? I tell you no, but rather division. From now on, five in one household will be divided three against two and two against three. They will be divided. Father against son and son against father, mother against daughter. Daughter against mother. Mother in law against daughter in law and daughter in law against mother in law.
00:01:49:01 – 00:02:21:37
Clint Loveall
So let’s stop there. Again, these are heavy words. They they in some ways continue our theme from yesterday, the idea of faithful and unfaithful. The idea of a decision. The idea of separation. We’re not always comfortable with the scriptures, language of separation. But in often, often it is the case in the gospel where Jesus presents a teaching that is intended to show that the gospel really does divide people.
00:02:21:37 – 00:02:48:42
Clint Loveall
The idea of believers and nonbelievers, the idea of those who repent and those who don’t. And here we get that Jesus is saying, you know, the gospel is a divisive really anti now. I think one thing that may be important here, Michael, is the idea that part of what the gospels do is record what Jesus said. And Luke intends to do that faithfully.
00:02:48:43 – 00:03:16:46
Clint Loveall
And there are those who question and try to determine and if Jesus really said something or not, I don’t find that a helpful way to read the Scripture. But it is worth remembering that another thing that the Gospels do is show us a glimpse of the early church, and they highlight some of those passages that are indicative of their experience.
00:03:16:51 – 00:03:45:39
Clint Loveall
And Luke is writing in a time where it is very likely that the Gospel is dividing families, that as Jewish people or Gentile people are coming to faith, they’re making decisions about being owned or disowned by their family, where it is splitting up people, where it is causing division. And Luke’s encouragement in that is the recognition that that that’s what the gospel does.
00:03:45:39 – 00:04:16:14
Clint Loveall
That’s what the truth does separates us into those who understand the truth and those who don’t. Now, lots of other scriptures about be compassionate and be patient and try to pursue peace and unity. But here Luke is highlighting that divisive element of Jesus’s work. And, you know, these are uncomfortable words, Michael, but they’re prominent words and they’re important words and they find their way into each of the presentations of the gospel.
00:04:16:19 – 00:04:41:18
Michael Gewecke
So one of the dangers of a difficult text like this is that we may be uncomfortable with we may be uncomfortable with the ideas in a larger sense. And more specifically, we might become uncomfortable with the words themselves. And in those moments, it’s often wise to settle ourselves a little bit, slow down, maybe take a few deep breaths, and then dig in a little bit deeper and see what we’ll find.
00:04:41:25 – 00:05:08:36
Michael Gewecke
I want to definitely turn our attention to verse 49. Any good basic commentary is going to have a little bit of a conversation about this word fire here, because the word could reasonably be translated fire in the sense of judgment. It’s translated that way in other places. It could also reasonably be translated for purification purifying fire. It’s translated that way in other places as well.
00:05:08:36 – 00:05:34:35
Michael Gewecke
And an opening like that provides a little bit of an onramp, an opportunity for us to exercise some imagination about what may be happening in a text like this. Because the idea here that follows in verse 50 is the idea of a baptism, which is, you know, this sort of further image of the idea of purification is a basic kind of definition of the Christian understanding of baptism.
00:05:34:40 – 00:06:17:47
Michael Gewecke
And I think that this is where we begin to see some of the intention of the text, this idea that it is the fire that that kind of purifying, maybe some sense of judgment, fire paired with the idea of baptism, that that necessary step for inclusion in the Christian community. So washing away of sins and then being rejuvenated, that then leads to this idea in verse 51 that the opposite or antonym of peace that Jesus references here is the idea of division, and that that when you pair it with the idea of baptism, the idea of fire, you could easily come to this understanding that what Jesus is talking about is Jesus’s judgment, the division
00:06:17:47 – 00:07:01:10
Michael Gewecke
that the splitting between good and evil, right and wrong that gives a kingdom coming and the difference between the spiritual kingdom and the present earthly kingdom. I go through all of these things to come back to the point that you were making. I think it just sort of provides a subtext or background text for for your point that we can honestly read this as being comforting words for the early church, the people practicing baptism, the people who are very much experiencing the pain and trouble and trials of the purifying fire, of being Christians and living in a world that is openly hostile to that faith in many places in that first generation of the church.
00:07:01:15 – 00:07:36:04
Michael Gewecke
And for these folks who then also find that they are being rejected by their families, they are not finding support. In fact, they’re being pushed out of those relationships. This becomes a teaching of Jesus that directly addresses the reality of that experience, and it would actually provide a great sense of comfort that even in the midst of the division and divisiveness of those who did not choose Christ, that that this is not accidental, that Jesus knew it would happen, that Jesus gave words to the church in preparation, that it was going to happen.
00:07:36:09 – 00:07:52:46
Michael Gewecke
And for people receiving a text like that in that moment of life, in that moment of the faith, this might be received as a great explanation and a great encouragement, an affirmation of an experience they were going through.
00:07:52:51 – 00:08:29:25
Clint Loveall
Right. And I do think it’s important for us to put this a text like this in conversation with broader scriptures on the whole. Because while we see in this a reference to judgment, in part, this whole back half of the 12th chapter, even into the 13th chapter, is tied together with the theme of judgment. We also see throughout other scriptures, I think, themes that inform this.
00:08:29:25 – 00:09:17:49
Clint Loveall
So in other words, Jesus here presents a picture of the gospel, the truth which is divisive. But there are certainly other places where Christians are clearly not called to be divisive. So while the gospel may separate people, Christians ourselves are called to pursue peace, to pursue unity, I think it is dangerous to take a text like this spoken by Jesus, and think that it somehow gives us the right to speak it to others as if we are the ones who now bring division, that we are the ones who now possess the separate the separator of truth.
00:09:17:54 – 00:09:55:18
Clint Loveall
Jesus clearly calls his people to a higher standard. But Luke and some of Luke’s contemporaries live in a world in which they are being oppressed and punished because they believe in Jesus Christ. And in that world, these words matter. These words capture an experience. And these words comfort them with the idea that when there is division because of the gospel, it is not unexpected, it is not unknown.
00:09:55:30 – 00:10:28:43
Clint Loveall
It is woven into the fabric of the truth of Jesus Christ. And I think it I think it matters. I don’t think Christians have license to use these verses to sow discord and to judge others and to somehow be cut people off because we are called to go to the ends of the earth for the lost. And this, though, a comforting word to the church, is not a directive word for how to live as people of faith.
00:10:28:48 – 00:10:53:28
Michael Gewecke
To your point, I think that we need to be very, very clear very quickly. The cause of division is not Christians. Jesus himself is the cause of the division. He is the one at the center. He says that explicitly. If you want to see that verse 51, I have come. Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?
00:10:53:29 – 00:11:23:11
Michael Gewecke
No, rather division. Not that he’s come so that Christians can bring division. And that may seem like simple vocabulary. That may seem like just a form of rhetoric, but I actually think that that, to your point, is essential because I don’t know how far you want to go today, but I do think the following texture is going to help us in that, because there’s a kind of humility demanded by this text, which we see emphasized in the next section in Luke here.
00:11:23:11 – 00:11:34:19
Michael Gewecke
And it would just be very foolish for us to think that we can count the times correctly so we could create the division. And and that’s clearly not what Jesus has in mind here.
00:11:34:28 – 00:11:53:28
Clint Loveall
Yeah. So let’s go ahead here. He also said that the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the West, you immediately say it’s going to rain. And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say there will be a scorching heat and it happens. You hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky.
00:11:53:33 – 00:12:22:45
Clint Loveall
But why do you not know how to interpret the present time? So this essentially is a correction or a rebuke of the people who see Jesus doing what he’s done and yet don’t know who he is or don’t put their faith in him. The Gospel presents Jesus for the reader with a kind of obviousness, and it critiques the culture of Jesus Day for not seeing it.
00:12:22:49 – 00:12:51:32
Clint Loveall
It critiques the religious leaders, for seeing people healed and the and the blind being able to see in the lane, being able to walk and even raising from the dead and not understanding that that is clearly the work of God. It criticizes the crowds and the religious leaders for hearing the teachings of Jesus as one with authority and seeing Jesus cast out evil spirits and not being convicted and convinced by his words.
00:12:51:32 – 00:13:15:12
Clint Loveall
And so Jesus here again, in a word of judgment, you think you know all this stuff, you know these little things about the earth you live in on in the world you live in. And yet when it comes to spiritual truth, so clearly obvious right in front of you, you are blind to it. And you know, it continues here.
00:13:15:12 – 00:13:17:46
Clint Loveall
The theme of judgment in this part of Luke.
00:13:17:51 – 00:13:48:07
Michael Gewecke
And the judgment, as you say, Clint, is interestingly not rooted in the thing that religious people are most accustomed to. Most of the time. When we come to a text in the scripture, our temptation is to see ourself in the role of the one who has the law to who has the moral uprightness, and then that one who sort of leverages that against the other and says, you know, stands as accuser, Well, you should be this way.
00:13:48:12 – 00:14:19:04
Michael Gewecke
But here this this text is really, really interesting because what it’s reminding us of is that at the end of the day, the very people standing, the physical presence of the creator, God, Jesus Christ, God incarnate, these folks were unable to see the truth literally in flushed in front of them. And this is the kind of demand for humility that is just intrinsic to the gospels.
00:14:19:04 – 00:14:43:18
Michael Gewecke
These accounts are accounts of people who have seen Jesus. Luke, as we said time and time again, is a well-resourced, well-written account of Jesus’s life. And it’s told with the purpose of providing of a really basic understanding of everything necessary of Jesus life that you need to know for a life of salvation, a life of trust and faith in him.
00:14:43:22 – 00:15:13:28
Michael Gewecke
And here what we see is that at the end of the day, humans are not good at interpreting the time that we’re in. We’re not good at judging what this is and what this isn’t, and that matters when the text immediately preceding it is a text all about division. So before we think that this is some kind of call to go out and create division, we need to slow down and recognize that it’s Jesus Christ who alone is the one who divides.
00:15:13:28 – 00:15:37:10
Michael Gewecke
If we are following him, we shouldn’t be surprised when division is present, but that also should trouble us. I mean, it should be a thing that we are mindful of, that we are creating it and fabricating it because at the end of the day, we we are always people seeking to follow and seek this, that the spirit of God’s work within us.
00:15:37:15 – 00:16:00:06
Michael Gewecke
And that should be done with this massive caveat of recognizing that even in the Gospels themselves, the portrayal of our encountering Jesus, recognizing Jesus for who He is, humans have a distinctly bad track record of getting it right. And so that should inspire with us a desire to be humble and to confess when we get it wrong, and to be open to the fact that we might be getting it wrong.
00:16:00:10 – 00:16:25:34
Michael Gewecke
And that is the kind of nuanced faith I think a text like this gives us. There’s there’s some people who I imagine find these words very prescient and might even call words like this among their favorite in the gospels. And if we revel in them, I wonder if we’ve misheard them. I think that this is a challenging critique.
00:16:25:39 – 00:16:32:57
Michael Gewecke
I don’t know that this is some kind of blanket permission for Christian behavior.
00:16:33:01 – 00:17:26:12
Clint Loveall
I think I would say, Michael, that while these words describe a reality for Christians of all ages then and now, they don’t celebrate it. Jesus is not celebrating the fact that some don’t know him. He’s calling them out. Jesus is not celebrating. I think the fact that families are divided over the truth claim of the gospel, he he’s telling those who are experiencing that painful reality that that that’s not unexpected, that knowing Christ we saw this in the difficult language of my mother and who is my brother?
00:17:26:16 – 00:18:02:06
Clint Loveall
Right. He’s saying that the allegiance and the understanding of himself is the highest commitment and the most important relationship in our life. That is the center. And while this is a word of criticism for those who haven’t been able to see the truth, even those who look at Jesus and don’t see the truth, I it’s it’s in my reading, not a celebration of it, nor should it be celebrated by Christians.
00:18:02:11 – 00:18:37:31
Clint Loveall
It it should both give us motivation and sadness that there are people who have not yet understood how much they’re beloved by Christ. It should convict us and impassioned us that there are people who don’t yet know the truth of the gospel and the joy of the gospel. We should take that as marching orders, not as some kind of badge of honor in which it’s us against them.
00:18:37:31 – 00:19:07:03
Clint Loveall
That’s not the way the Scripture is written. And yes, there are moments in the gospel that say hard things about hard topics, but we can’t let them. We can’t miss that they stand out as an exception and not the rule. And I think if a Christian were to do that, they would be missing the forest for the trees.
00:19:07:08 – 00:19:20:08
Clint Loveall
They would be focusing on a small piece and they would be missing the much larger piece that is written far more clearly and far more commonly.
00:19:20:13 – 00:20:06:02
Michael Gewecke
I think that those are really wise words to end on, and I think it emphasizes the importance of this task that we have before us, and that is that when we study a book like Luke start to end, what we commit to do is to hold intention and to not allow the tension to flatten so that Jesus becomes either a permissive character who says everything is good and happy and rainbows, and on the other hand, that Jesus is a constant voice, deadset on judgment and division.
00:20:06:07 – 00:20:33:48
Michael Gewecke
These are both present in the Gospel and Jesus is purposefully shown in the ministry to to be able to transcend both of them in a way that they’re held in his deity, in the the fact that he’s the son of God. And, you know, I think for humans, for those of us reading this text, this this may seem like these things are held in awkward or difficult tension.
00:20:33:48 – 00:20:56:33
Michael Gewecke
And that’s that’s not an accident. That’s an invitation. That’s an opportunity. That’s a possibility. And when we commit to study a book in its entirety, I think what we discover in it that there is so much more depth and nuance, there’s so much more intentionality in its telling than what we get when we just sort of hear the platitudes about who Jesus was.
00:20:56:38 – 00:21:17:52
Michael Gewecke
Jesus was deep, and our study of him should be deep. And I certainly think today is going to challenge us. It should challenge us. But I think your words are wise. We must understand the intention upon which or in which it’s embedded in the rest of this book. And the only way we will do that is to take this seriously and also to take the rest seriously.
00:21:17:52 – 00:21:20:15
Michael Gewecke
And I hope that you’ll continue with outside that journey.
00:21:20:29 – 00:21:39:50
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think a way to say that Michael’s the gospel presents a picture of Jesus that is both judge and Savior. And while we would like to choose one over the other, the Bible, if we’re if we give it a fair reading, is not going to allow that. It’s going to present Jesus in the full spectrum of both of those things.
00:21:39:50 – 00:21:47:12
Clint Loveall
And therefore, it’s always going to challenge us to have a broader, more comprehensive view.
00:21:47:16 – 00:22:03:15
Michael Gewecke
Well, we’re glad that you would spend this time with us, especially if you’ve made it this far. Give this video a light that helps other people find videos that we’re doing in a series like this, and we hope that they’ll go with us on the longer journey. You can, of course, subscribe to get more videos like it, and today’s a great day.
00:22:03:19 – 00:22:16:44
Michael Gewecke
Have you been encouraged to go down to the comments? Let us know that drop your name, drop a greeting. We’d love to know that you were with us here today that said, we will not meet tomorrow. We will be back at the study on Thursday and we look forward to seeing you then. Be blessed.
00:22:16:46 – 00:22:17:29
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.