In this Bible study, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss Luke 18:31-43. They explore the theme of the disciples’ lack of understanding and the shocking reality of Jesus’ impending suffering and death. They also analyze the story of the blind man who receives his sight and the importance of faith and response to encountering Jesus. Join them in this devotional reflection as they delve into the Gospel of Luke.
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Transcript
00:00:00:54 – 00:00:25:23
Clint Loveall
Hello, everybody. Thanks for joining us. As we close out the week. And remember, we’ll have a couple of weeks off. We’ll keep you posted on schedule. But today we find ourselves at the end of the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 18. And we are in the 31st verse two sections here that will try to get through each one. Interesting, The first one a little bit more.
00:00:25:28 – 00:00:46:10
Clint Loveall
It just kind of moves the story. Luke wants to keep the story focused and so once in a while he’ll come back and pin it back where he wants it. And that I think, is the case here. Verse 31. Then he took the 12 aside and he said to them, See, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that’s written about the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished.
00:00:46:15 – 00:01:12:32
Clint Loveall
He will be handed over to the Gentiles, He will be mocked and insulted and spied upon. After they flogged him, they will kill him. And on the third day he will rise again. But they understood nothing about those things. In fact, what he said was hidden from them and they did not grasp what was said. This is a kind of typical episode in each of the Gospels.
00:01:12:32 – 00:01:39:55
Clint Loveall
Jesus is trying as the story moves toward its fulfillment as it moves toward the cross, Jesus gets increasingly blunt about what is happening and what is going to happen. I don’t think there is a clearer explanation of it than this passage. I don’t think there’s anywhere where it’s just said quite as plainly here. They’re going to mock me and hand me over and flog me and then kill me.
00:01:39:55 – 00:02:01:06
Clint Loveall
And then on the third day I will rise again. It’s a little more cryptic in the other places. This is the the I think, the most straightforward telling of it. But even here, then we get the second part of the theme, which is they understood nothing in fact, it was hidden from them there. This is the this is the reality.
00:02:01:06 – 00:02:14:07
Clint Loveall
In every one of these episodes, Michael, Jesus warns them, what’s going to happen. But it’s unthinkable to them. It’s so far outside of their framework, outside of their expectation. They they literally don’t know what to do with it.
00:02:14:09 – 00:02:47:34
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, let’s talk about that for just a minute here, because I think that it is a theme that we see throughout the Gospels, the ways that the disciples misunderstand Jesus consistently. It’s actually one of the gospels. Most compelling aspects for me, to be honest, is when you look at religious texts throughout history, it is a common theme throughout them to glorify, to lift up, to really sort of make look really good.
00:02:47:34 – 00:03:26:26
Michael Gewecke
The the leaders of that religion, especially the earliest leaders and the scriptures, are unique in their insistence in painting the whole truth, you might say about the disciples lack of understanding their their lack of faith, their lack of imagination, their inability to hear and understand what Jesus is teaching. And I think when you see this spelled out in this way, being handed over, mocked, insulted, spat upon, flogged, killed, and then rising again, that’s like specific detail, you know, wire by wire kind of instructions of what’s going to happen to him.
00:03:26:31 – 00:03:46:55
Michael Gewecke
How do we make sense of that? You know, it’s an interesting question. How do we make sense of Jesus has been teaching all these things. He says things like this show repeatedly how the disciples not get it when he says it so explicitly. And I think your allusion there is is helpful, right? It’s an extreme statement. Maybe that’s hard for them to grasp.
00:03:47:00 – 00:04:09:37
Michael Gewecke
Maybe compared with all of the parables that Jesus teaches, some of those parables are not easy to interpret on First hearing also. So maybe there’s a sense in which the disciples get confused by that. This is rampant speculation, to be clear. It’s just, I think, one of the most winsome parts of the gospel is the disciples. For whatever reason, they couldn’t see it here, Luke says.
00:04:09:37 – 00:04:36:20
Michael Gewecke
It was hidden from them for whatever the hiding mechanism is. I think what’s fascinating is they’re completely upfront about not getting it. It’s the disciples who told these stories that Luke later wrote down and are now in our Bible and their candidness about their inability to grasp it is for me, one of the most compelling parts about their telling of it is that it’s a kind of honesty in the way it’s told.
00:04:36:25 – 00:05:11:42
Clint Loveall
I don’t think we should underestimate the power of having 2000 years of community and study and an entire faith system that is centered upon the task of understanding the world. Contrast that to the disciples who travel with Jesus, who says lots of things. He He recently said something about coming back on clouds. He he says something about give all you have.
00:05:11:42 – 00:05:45:13
Clint Loveall
He says something about, you know, the demon who get that gets exorcized and then comes back looking for a new home that the disciples are assaulted with. This stuff, some of which they may understand and some of which they may have no idea. And so I think it tempers it a little too to recognize and confess that we stand at the long the end of a long line of people who have worked very hard to make sense of what Jesus says.
00:05:45:18 – 00:06:03:55
Clint Loveall
And so I think we want to be a little bit gracious to the disciples and say it. Had you been with Jesus when he said lots of things, some of which applied to you and some of which you wouldn’t understand until later, that maybe that’s not as surprising as it could seem.
00:06:04:10 – 00:06:26:17
Michael Gewecke
And I do think that there’s an important teaching element in this that we may miss clean. I mean, look here in verse 22, this seems almost like a setup, but I think it’s really important. Everything that’s written about the Solomon by the prophets. Remember, the prophets are the the Jews. Jesus would have read the prophets as the Scriptures in his own day.
00:06:26:22 – 00:06:48:54
Michael Gewecke
And so the Son, a man by the prophets, will be accomplished. He’ll be handed over to the Gentiles, etcetera, etcetera. All these things that we know there. And what’s really fascinating is Jesus has is telling His disciples before four He goes to Jerusalem, This is what’s going to happen. And it’s not an accident. It’s not the plan going awry.
00:06:48:55 – 00:07:14:40
Michael Gewecke
It’s not everything going to pot. It’s actually fulfilling what the prophets said was going to happen here. We know, Luke tells us the disciples don’t grasp what Jesus is saying, Right? But this has a double meaning. It’s not just what Jesus taught before he died and the disciples didn’t understand. It’s also a reminder and confirmation for the disciples who come after that.
00:07:14:40 – 00:07:37:30
Michael Gewecke
Jesus was not shocked by what happened to Him. That it wasn’t a kind of surprise that came out of left field. And in fact, you know, if you look at it from the earliest Christians perspective, it’s not just that you need to take Jesus word for it or that you need to take the disciples word for it. No, Jesus really told us this, believe this.
00:07:37:35 – 00:08:13:37
Michael Gewecke
Now Jesus is claim here. Would we then invite you to go back to the prophets and to see for yourself? It would to ask yourself, Did the prophets indeed foretell the very things that Jesus said here that was going to happen to him? And to your point, Clint, there are 2000 years of Christian history of Christians taking that task very seriously and going back to the prophets, going back to what we would call the Old Testament, and finding the ways in which we might even be surprised by the number of ways in which those prophets might point us to Jesus.
00:08:13:40 – 00:08:37:18
Michael Gewecke
And to add to the story, to the thing that happens to him. And so I just think there’s so many different senses of what’s happening here. In some ways, Luke is maybe transitioning from one thing to another in other ways. This is, I think, a very interesting and compelling kind of invitation to understand both what the original disciples might have heard and understood, and then what that first generation of disciples did and what it might mean for us today.
00:08:37:22 – 00:09:05:06
Clint Loveall
I also think because we live with the reality of the story, we know the text, we know the story, we know the faith. This is a nice reminder of I want to be careful, The absurdity of it. And what I mean by that is that this is unthinkable to the disciples. It would seem that what Jesus is saying is impossible, absurd.
00:09:05:11 – 00:09:32:34
Clint Loveall
They’ve seen him walk on water. They’ve seen him cast out demons. They’ve seen him stand up to the Pharisees, they’ve seen him heal people. They’ve seen him bring people back to life. That it is unimaginable to them that he’s going to go and and be crucified, be killed by a bunch of Gentiles with the power that they’ve seen and with the displays that they’ve witnessed, they they can imagine.
00:09:32:45 – 00:10:01:17
Clint Loveall
I think all of us at some point have those moments where our preconception often makes it very hard to accept new information that we don’t want to hear. And that may be at work here for the disciples. And what what that shows us is how unthinkable it is that the Messiah will end up having the faith that Jesus has that that that’s on nobody’s radar.
00:10:01:17 – 00:10:31:41
Clint Loveall
They, they literally, I think, can’t conceive that that would be a possible path. And so I think if you read the story with that understanding, not surprising that they don’t get it. And you know, they were kept it was hidden from them that it’s interesting it doesn’t say that was divine action, though it may be implies that it also could mean, at least in the broadest sense, that it’s just not something they can understand at that point.
00:10:31:46 – 00:10:56:49
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think that we I think you said it well. I do think that these words are shocking to us still today. If we actually read them, if we slow down long enough, the idea that he’s going to be mocked, insulted and spat upon, flogged and then killed, you know, today, Clint, we have people who in popular culture will wear a cross as a fashion icon.
00:10:56:52 – 00:11:40:44
Michael Gewecke
You know, it’s a it’s a symbol of things more than just the face at this point. But when you read these words, there’s there’s no way around it. Jesus was not killed in a humane, a sanitized, very private and respectful way. No, he was murdered. He was killed by the Roman government in a intentional form of execution that was designed to humiliate, to expose, to be graphic, to to drive others, to take different actions, and ultimately, yeah, these words, if we’re willing to realize what they’re telling us, are still shocking.
00:11:40:44 – 00:12:02:40
Michael Gewecke
Even as people of faith who know the story, it’s good to be reminded that this would turn all of our guts and it would turn it multiple times. And it we don’t celebrate that. We don’t glory in that. But the reality is that that the real Jesus did really incredible things for those who put our hope and faith in him.
00:12:02:40 – 00:12:07:32
Michael Gewecke
And I just think, yeah, if we slow it down enough, we might see that ourselves today still.
00:12:07:37 – 00:12:26:01
Clint Loveall
Yeah, let’s try to let’s try to press on here and get through the rest of the chapter. I would pick up the story of verse 35. As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside, begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.
00:12:26:06 – 00:12:43:54
Clint Loveall
Then he shouted, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet. But he shouted even more loudly, Son of David, have mercy on me. Jesus stood still, ordered the man to be brought to him, and when he came near he asked him, What would you want me to do for you?
00:12:43:58 – 00:13:11:40
Clint Loveall
He said, Lord, let me see you again. Jesus said to him, Receive your sight. Your faith has saved you. Immediately. He regained his sight and followed him, Glorifying God and all the people when they saw it, praised God. Been a little while since we saw a direct healing story. I think maybe the last one we saw was the lepers, which isn’t really done with a particular action.
00:13:11:40 – 00:13:36:27
Clint Loveall
But here we have one of those more typical traditional stories. Jesus encounters a man. The man finds out that Jesus is there like the lepers, He shouts out like the children. He is silenced, but he refuses. So we’ve seen some of these themes before. And then Jesus inserts this question What do you want me to do for you?
00:13:36:27 – 00:14:02:54
Clint Loveall
What do you want? What is it? Why are you calling me that idea? Let me see again. And Jesus says, Receive your sight. Your faith has saved you, which is always a thing Jesus tends to say here. Probably be an affirmation of this man’s belief that Jesus could heal him. A refusal to be silenced, a desire to be in front of Jesus, and a willingness to stand out in order to do that.
00:14:02:54 – 00:14:30:15
Clint Loveall
And then you have these you know that all of the gospels do this, Michael, immediately. This sense of they use these words carefully to kind of move the story along, giving it the sense of urgency in everything that happens. This is a wonderful story. A great story. It’s not, I think, a story that stands out in any particular detail because we’ve seen stories like it.
00:14:30:19 – 00:14:42:43
Clint Loveall
Nevertheless, a man who won’t be silenced and is then encountered by Jesus and regains his sight. It’s an important story, maybe just not a unique one.
00:14:42:48 – 00:15:03:03
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I agree with you. I think the thing that makes this story interesting to me is not the details of the story, but the context that it’s put in. And I want to just very quickly get just go a very quick little survey with all of you. If you remember, it would have been two studies ago. We looked at this idea of people who are willing to give up.
00:15:03:18 – 00:15:22:57
Michael Gewecke
And with Peter, you know, we left our homes to follow you. Jesus. And this idea, you get all the more back with even eternal life. And then you have this story of Jesus talking about his teaching, about what he’s going to suffer, and the disciples not understanding it. So you had Peter sort of getting yet and saying, Hey, we’ve given up everything for you.
00:15:22:57 – 00:15:46:10
Michael Gewecke
Jesus saying, Yes, that’s recognized. But then the disciples, including Peter, they don’t get Jesus’s own teaching about the end of his life. And now we have a blind beggar who can’t see, and I can’t help but look at an element of a healing story like that and not see a connection to that which comes before this man. He can’t see, he can’t understand with his eyes.
00:15:46:15 – 00:16:11:18
Michael Gewecke
And when he calls out to Jesus and Jesus says, Well, what do you want me to do? Jesus not only heals the man, but your faith has saved you. And I think in Luke, the reminder here is this man’s not a disciple, right? It’s not a man who’s giving up everything for Jesus. And yet his faith has healed him and his faith Jesus goes so far as to say, has saved him.
00:16:11:18 – 00:16:36:01
Michael Gewecke
So how do you become the kind of person who’s able to see the truth of what Jesus said? What happened to him? How could you be able to understand what the disciples did? Understand You have faith. You call out and confess your weakness. You confess. You’re blindness, and then Jesus heals you. And that is a very pastoral devotional reading of the text.
00:16:36:01 – 00:16:54:30
Michael Gewecke
But I do think there’s a kind of illumination theme that’s going through the section. And I think it’s a it’s a way that you can look at what might be a very common healing story. And see that it’s been put in this context in a way that might help amplify the point that Luke’s making in a general frame.
00:16:54:34 – 00:17:22:06
Clint Loveall
Yeah, agreed. And I think also a responsiveness story, you know, verse 43, immediately he regained his sight and followed him glorifying God. And this is the devotional part of these kind of stories. What does an encounter with Jesus do? Yes, it brings healing, but it also brings worship, It brings praise, it brings elevation of the Christ. And so these things are always tied together in the gospel.
00:17:22:06 – 00:18:10:20
Clint Loveall
This man has an encounter with Jesus that leaves him not only healed, which is wonderful, but leaves him glorifying God, which is in the context of the gospel, I would argue, at least as important and possibly even more important, certainly in regard to the way that the authors are telling the story. So I think the challenge here is for us to also be recognize those moments of encounter with Jesus and ask not only how have they healed us, not only how has our faith been brought to bear in making us and others well, but how have we responded by following and glorifying those Those are the two action words of the text he sees, He
00:18:10:20 – 00:18:32:38
Clint Loveall
follows, he glorifies. That is a wonderful pattern of faithfulness in the Gospel. To see Jesus, to follow Jesus, to glorify God that is in in small measure, in the essence. That’s what it means to be a disciple. And I think Luke, he does this on purpose. This is intentional.
00:18:32:38 – 00:18:54:50
Michael Gewecke
And if you find that hard in your own life, take comfort. If you look back at the characters we’ve already surveyed in the Book of Luke, there’s very, very few that come back to Jesus with gratitude who are counted as those who follow him, who praise him time and time and time again, even those that Jesus shows mercy, love and compassion on.
00:18:55:03 – 00:19:19:39
Michael Gewecke
You might think that that’s going to immediately lead to conversion moments for all of them. And I’m not certain that that is the story that we see. Actually, I think so much of the gospel story is what happens after you encounter Jesus. That question is lived out in each one of the characters lives and depending upon how that is answered, will determine everything else.
00:19:19:39 – 00:19:22:58
Michael Gewecke
And I think that that’s an encouragement for us today in our own walk of faith.
00:19:23:02 – 00:19:45:52
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think it’s really good. This is a very surprisingly devotional kind of text. I think. I hope there’s something in it that’s been helpful to you as we move toward Christmas. Hope that your celebrations of Christmas are meaningful and wonderful, your time with friends and family, however, it is that you’re able to celebrate the giving of the Christ child, the coming of the Messiah.
00:19:45:57 – 00:20:05:54
Clint Loveall
We hope that that’s a blessing to you. You’re a blessing to us in participating in these Bible studies. If you get a chance to like the video or share the video, it does help other people find them and it kind of helps with the logistics of the algorithms, and we’re grateful for that. Remember that we’ll be off for a while, but some point early in January.
00:20:05:54 – 00:20:10:48
Clint Loveall
We’ll keep you posted and we’ll be back at it in chapter 19. And we’ll start with some really good stuff.