In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, focusing on the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. They explore the implications of the parable and its critique of the Pharisees. Clint and Michael provide insights into the symbolism and lessons conveyed by the story, emphasizing the importance of caring for others and the dangers of being consumed by wealth. Join them as they delve into the deeper meaning of this thought-provoking parable.
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Transcript
00:00:00:55 – 00:00:30:27
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us. We are in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, a parable that Jesus gives us a tough parable. Not no, I mean, not not easy to interpret, but also not easy to hear a parable that I think has prompted some odd things in interpretation. So let’s look at it. We are this is called the Rich Man and Lazarus.
00:00:30:27 – 00:00:59:35
Clint Loveall
We’re in the 19th verse of the 16th chapter of the Book of Luke. Jesus said there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted scrumptious every day at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores who long to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table.
00:00:59:40 – 00:01:26:02
Clint Loveall
Even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. So let’s stop there. Michael. That’s not very far in, but just kind of set the stage here. Jesus does a couple of things as he sets up this parable that are maybe not obvious as you read it.
00:01:26:02 – 00:01:59:51
Clint Loveall
So the first thing is the mention of purple Roman law dictated who could wear purple and how much they could wear. So purple in Jesus world is a sign of wealth. It’s a it’s a hard color to make. It’s an expensive color. It’s very labor intensive, it’s very costly. And so even something like a mention of what he’s wearing, purple and fine linen linen, this is to set him apart as kind of that top percentage of people.
00:01:59:56 – 00:02:27:31
Clint Loveall
And he feasts sumptuously every day. So his life is a life of privilege. It’s a life of extravagance. It’s a life of wealth. Then you have on contrast to that at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, and the word lay here really is the word throne. So the idea is almost that there’s a man who just is thrown at the gate.
00:02:27:36 – 00:02:59:54
Clint Loveall
He he’s simply there and his name is Lazarus. And interestingly, here, Michael Lazarus is the only person ever in Jesus parables given a name. I don’t know what we make of that, but this is unusual in Jesus stories. And unlike the rich man who lives a life of luxury, Lazarus lives a life of difficulty. He’s covered with sores, he’s hungry, he would eat scraps, and the dogs come and lick his sores.
00:02:59:54 – 00:03:12:40
Clint Loveall
So he is basically he’s the equivalent here is almost he lives the life of an animal. And then as Jesus would have it, both men die.
00:03:12:45 – 00:03:33:14
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. And that the set up here, both with the name Clint, but also with the extravagant kind of difference here. I think Jesus is doing new things and old things with this parable that the new thing may be giving this man a name, an old thing. He’s setting up the parable with extreme things that shouldn’t be considered together, right?
00:03:33:14 – 00:03:55:19
Michael Gewecke
You have the man of extreme wealth and the man of extreme poverty. And as Jesus will tend to do in his parables, he’ll allow that to be a cause for the inciting action. We just saw that not long ago, right, where you have the youngest son who wants to squander 50%. Well, he wants to take 50% of the inheritance, which is unthinkable.
00:03:55:19 – 00:04:19:30
Michael Gewecke
And then you have the older brother who is back home laboring and working hard and gives this whole speech about never even getting to celebrate. And so the the disjunction there is not new to Jesus parables. We also have stories of the king forgiving a man’s debt. So so just suffice it to say we have Lazarus named here, but we also have a way that Jesus teaches.
00:04:19:30 – 00:04:23:27
Michael Gewecke
He’s going to show us extreme contrasting things. And then there’s going to be a lesson that comes out of it.
00:04:23:31 – 00:04:48:05
Clint Loveall
Yeah, yeah, a significant difference snapshot to snapshot of these two men. So okay, then we continue here with verse 23 in Hades where he was being tormented. He looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and sinned Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.
00:04:48:05 – 00:05:17:30
Clint Loveall
I am in agony from these flames. But Abraham said, Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner, evil things. But now he is comforted and you are in agony. Besides all of this between us, there is a great chasm that has been fixed. So that those who might want to pass over from here to you cannot do so.
00:05:17:34 – 00:05:45:46
Clint Loveall
And no one can cross from there to us. This is where in terms of interpretive stuff, Michael, we get a little bit of weirdness. There are people who approach these this parable and they’re fascinated by the details. And we’ve we’ve said this, I think ongoing as we’ve been in this study. You have to be very careful in making too big a deal of small things in Jesus story.
00:05:45:46 – 00:06:16:09
Clint Loveall
So people have read into this Hades the creation of a place that sort of between heaven and hell, the idea of torment, all of these things people have read to see if they give us some insight into the spiritual realities of the afterlife. None of that is the point of the parable. The point of the parable is simply that by their circumstances, they now find after death a reversal.
00:06:16:13 – 00:06:37:01
Clint Loveall
It is the rich man who suffers and it is Lazarus who is comforted and who is received by Father Abraham. And so I just it’s one of those moments where we’re reminded that we have to be careful and not overdo it. When we come to details of a story.
00:06:37:06 – 00:07:00:34
Michael Gewecke
When you think of Jesus as parables, Clint, you know, they’re tricky because I’ve never heard anyone and I grew up a very conservative Christian tradition. I don’t remember anyone ever making that claim or trying to make the argument that the the parable of the Lost Son was a historically descriptive story, that there was a son and the older brother.
00:07:00:34 – 00:07:21:00
Michael Gewecke
And not to say that it’s not real or wasn’t a true story, but just to say the people understand that, that parables making a point, it’s a lesson. It’s it’s a story that’s being told. As an illustration, I think the same thing mean we even have textual evidence for this. The story of the king or the master who has the slave, right.
00:07:21:00 – 00:07:44:19
Michael Gewecke
And the slave how how big was the debt that was owed that the king just forgives? And then the servant goes and holds their slave to account? Right? Right. This parable, the amount of money there is so gargantuan that no one believes that that’s a real amount of money. That’s not a story being told with a historical basis, at least not the numbers it’s told.
00:07:44:24 – 00:08:11:51
Michael Gewecke
To illustrate a point. We do this all the time, and I think it’s what’s fascinating. Clint, you come to a story like this and people have said, now we need to read this and glean from it. Literal descriptions of afterlife life and the way that things are constructed. And that seems really interesting because on one hand, the scriptures are very sparing in their talk about those that what the experience of the afterlife is.
00:08:11:51 – 00:08:33:00
Michael Gewecke
And I think therefore we come to a text like this, and some do come with a prevalent temptation that because the scriptures are generally quiet about that, except for a few places, that this is a place that we really need to focus on. And there’s a real danger in that because the moment you do that, you forget that Jesus is teaching a lesson here.
00:08:33:00 – 00:08:53:18
Michael Gewecke
Like all the parables, this is being told to particular people. Let’s remember Pharisees who were just mocking Jesus. Go back to yesterday’s study if you missed that, so you can get up to speed on that. And Jesus is moving into this parable. We’re going to see by the end in strong critique and condemnation of those Pharisees, the keepers of the law.
00:08:53:32 – 00:09:18:57
Michael Gewecke
And you would miss that if you turn this into some kind of theological exploration, a cosmic description of the afterlife. Is there interest in that? Absolutely. Is that the point that Jesus is teaching here? I think as with the other parables, no. The point is that how to sow seeds. The point is will the seed grow in you To reference another parable and I think something like that is happening here.
00:09:19:06 – 00:09:43:46
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And so we just have to be careful with those kind of things. And we just point out that people have tried to build sort of a theology of afterlife based on this text, and I don’t think that it’s intention. So let’s talk about what it is saying. What it says here is what Jesus has said. The first will be last, the last will be first.
00:09:43:51 – 00:10:12:34
Clint Loveall
This wealthy man unconcern for Lazarus lived his life in luxury day after day after day. Why a poor man suffered at his gate. And he didn’t take he didn’t take notice of him, nor did he help him. Now, even in death, right? He says, Father Abraham, send Lazarus to dip his finger. Even now he sees Lazarus as someone who can help him as if he was a servant.
00:10:12:39 – 00:10:43:53
Clint Loveall
Even now, he doesn’t recognize this poor man as fully human as an equal. And so Abraham says, No, you you’ve had your reward, you’ve lived a great life. But he has had evil done to him. And now here he’s comforted while you suffer, while you struggle. And this is fixed, you can’t switch sides. Once death has been once death comes, this is your reality.
00:10:43:53 – 00:11:12:38
Clint Loveall
This is your new life. And, you know, again, this is an it isn’t a parable about being saved. There’s nothing here about a profession of faith. There’s nothing here about Abraham as the one who decides who to get into heaven and who does it. It’s not that it is this reversal that Jesus has warned about in the Gospel of Luke, and especially in the Gospel of Luke, that those on the bottom who are kicked and kicked and kicked will one day be on the top.
00:11:12:43 – 00:11:30:29
Clint Loveall
And those who have done the kicking will one day be on the bottom. This is a warning to those who are unaffected and unconcerned by the plight of others. And and I it really is, I think that clear for Luke.
00:11:30:34 – 00:11:52:06
Michael Gewecke
I agree. I think that also we need to be careful here to not make the point that there is some sort of you get what you put into it kind of theology here, which I think would be easy to get out this this statement that Abraham makes your lifetime. You received your good things, Lazarus got evil. So now he’s in comfort and you’re in.
00:11:52:19 – 00:12:19:55
Michael Gewecke
It’s not the point of this lesson, is it? Do good. Then you push the cosmic vending machine button and good’s going to come to you. Or that if bad stuff happens to you in life, you’re promised an equal opposite measure. And the point isn’t that. The point is, as we’re going to see it, that not everyone in life has the same gifts, resources, capabilities, but what you do with them, regardless of your position, matters.
00:12:19:55 – 00:12:46:01
Michael Gewecke
That that there’s a kind of economy of grace and a reversal that God is capable of doing. And that’s you get flushed out as we go on. I just want to be clear that we’re all on the same page or that there’s not some kind of 1 to 1 transactional theology being taught here, that this is setting up the parable to show us how the divide that was real on earth is now also seen in the cosmic eternal sense.
00:12:46:06 – 00:12:53:11
Michael Gewecke
And that’s going to have something to teach us about then how we should live our life, which is what Jesus parables are always about, right?
00:12:53:11 – 00:13:16:45
Clint Loveall
And so then we move on. Verse 27, the man said, Then, Father, I beg you, send him Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers that he may warned them that they will not also come to this place of torment. Abraham replied, They have Moses and the prophets. They should listen to them. But the man said, No, father.
00:13:16:49 – 00:13:46:46
Clint Loveall
If someone goes to them from the dead, then they will repent. And Abraham said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced. Even if someone rises from the dead. So again, keep in mind here that the backdrop of this story is Jesus speaking to Pharisees, particularly as we found out yesterday, Pharisees who were lovers of money.
00:13:46:51 – 00:14:11:13
Clint Loveall
So what do we have? We have wealthy people who have looked down on others and been unconcerned about the coming back to the house, the fold of sinners and and tax collectors and prostitutes and those who have been returning to Jesus. They have conspired to keep them out and not to be gracious, not to welcome them, not to treat them as human.
00:14:11:18 – 00:14:37:34
Clint Loveall
So what happens here? This man now sentenced with this torment, says, will then let Lazarus, if he can’t come and help me, let him go, help my family again, treating him as a servant. And Abraham says, Well, no, they should read the scripture. And he says, Yeah, but if someone from the dead tells them, and this is the most beautiful part, Luke does this really well.
00:14:37:39 – 00:15:03:34
Clint Loveall
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead. Now that last line, even if someone rises from the dead, is important in Luke because it’s foreshadowing, right? We know what that means. The Pharisees not only won’t read the Scriptures and understand them, they won’t be convinced even when Jesus rises from the dead.
00:15:03:34 – 00:15:25:51
Clint Loveall
So Luke both wraps this parable up with a lesson. But then. But then in the backdrop of the bigger picture, he also sets the stage for this last few chapters and the movement that is coming Jesus heading to the cross and ultimately to Easter.
00:15:25:55 – 00:15:57:07
Michael Gewecke
I Clint, this is genius. I just think the way that this is told is done really, really well because what we might miss and the danger of reading this thousands of years later is that we miss that the people who would most identify with wearing purple and the people whose life experience would include eating sumptuously would be the people who were described as the Pharisees who loved riches.
00:15:57:07 – 00:16:30:14
Michael Gewecke
And how do we translate that into our modern context? Maybe it’s those pastors or those religious leaders who are very vocal about wearing really nice clothes and they show off their cars and pictures. I don’t know if that’s an analog or not, but then the idea that that person has become so fixated on this stuff and on the recognition and on the symbolism of what that means, that they have completely lost sight of the eternal significance of hearing God’s word, and that transforming and changing your life.
00:16:30:14 – 00:16:57:16
Michael Gewecke
And you’re exactly right, Clint, the implication that that this rich man has lost sight of the humanity of another child of Abraham is an absolute condemnation upon this individual. The idea that that the love of God and money, which Luke has just referenced in Jesus’s teaching, that idea that that person’s gone all in on the love of money.
00:16:57:28 – 00:17:18:55
Michael Gewecke
And so therefore they have no concept or love of God. And the thing that makes this so brilliant, of course, leading to Jesus, and we need to talk more about that. But the thing that makes this so brilliant is this is just a complete rhetorical smackdown on the Pharisees. It’s to say that at the end of the day, you don’t even know Moses.
00:17:19:06 – 00:17:49:10
Michael Gewecke
You haven’t even recognized the prophets yet alone. How would you recognize someone if they raised from the dead? It’s to say you experts who believe that you are the definitive, authoritative interpreters of Scripture. You don’t even understand the basic level of Scripture, and it just rips the carpet from underneath. And then simultaneously, Luke spins that around to show us that foreshadowing of their also, by the way, not going to get it when Jesus resurrects it.
00:17:49:12 – 00:17:52:32
Michael Gewecke
We all know that’s going to happen and Luke just drops it in.
00:17:52:37 – 00:18:34:04
Clint Loveall
Yeah, this is the gospel of Luke. So being wealthy is dangerous and there is a there is perhaps some of the condemnation of this passage pointed to this man simply because he lives an excessive lifestyle the purple, the food, the gate, the dogs, the whatever. You know, there is some of that here. But the deeper and more serious sin of this man is being unconcerned for the poor to not care about those underneath of you.
00:18:34:04 – 00:19:05:58
Clint Loveall
The Pharisees don’t care about the sinners and tax collectors. They don’t care about them spiritually. This man from the top of his mountain doesn’t care about Lazarus all the way down at the bottom, unable to to fend for himself. And so it is it is not simply being wealthy. That is this man’s dilemma. It is being isolated and insulated and not having a broader sense of what his wealth would allow him to do on behalf of others.
00:19:06:03 – 00:19:46:25
Clint Loveall
And and Jesus is equating that in a very subtle way with the Pharisees who have the treasure of Scripture but don’t use it to benefit others. They use it to judge others. They they use it to condemn others. But but they don’t share with them. They’re not welcoming them. They’re not being gracious to them. So if you stitch these chapters together, the last two or three chapters we’ve been on, it is a very subtle, very well done sermon that Luke gives us as he ties these threads together and sort of brings them to conclusion here at the end of the 16th chapter.
00:19:46:30 – 00:20:19:48
Michael Gewecke
There is also a very telling, very convicting kind of move. And I’m taking a step out of the text here to make a reflection that the Israelites, including the Pharisees, they thought of themselves as being the underdog, the minority, the oppressed. They thought of themselves as being the ones under the thumb of the Roman rule. And what’s interesting is Jesus’s major critique against the Pharisees is that they are doing that same oppressive work to their own people.
00:20:19:53 – 00:20:50:02
Michael Gewecke
And that’s the danger that we always find ourselves in, I think, as humans is we we look at ourselves on some kind of ladder and say, well, I’m under this, and so therefore I’m going to hold others down like this, that I have people above me so that it’s fair for me to put down people below me. And and that’s what Luke reacts against substantially in his telling of Jesus’s teaching is, is that Jesus is always concerned about the lost and the least.
00:20:50:02 – 00:21:12:38
Michael Gewecke
He always says your attention needs to be pointed at the person at the gate. That’s uncomfortable. It’s hard to live that out. It’s not always clear what that means. And I don’t even believe we’re expected to get that perfect. I don’t think that’s that that’s the call to call is, though, to have a heart for it. And and Luke makes it very, very clear that that that is a core of what Jesus had to teach.
00:21:12:43 – 00:21:34:14
Clint Loveall
Yeah. Luke’s. Luke’s very practical. And it is our actions toward others that in large measure show or do not show our faith and the conviction of our hearts. And so but a troubling but clear example of it here today.
00:21:34:19 – 00:21:49:48
Michael Gewecke
Thanks for being with us. Hope you found this video helpful. Hope it’s maybe cleared up what could be a difficult text to read and study? If you did find it helpful, give it a light that helps others find it in their own study and subscribe so you can find more videos just like this. And until then, be blessed.
00:21:49:53 – 00:21:50:36
Clint Loveall
Thanks everybody.