In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke continue their study through the Gospel of Luke, specifically focusing on Chapter 21. They discuss the challenging themes and language used in this chapter as Jesus talks about the destruction of the temple and the signs of the end times. They emphasize the importance of endurance and the opposition between the world and the gospel. The conversation also touches on the historical context of the early Christians and the persecution they faced. Join them in this insightful discussion as they explore the timeless teachings of Jesus and their relevance to our lives today.
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Transcript
00:00:00:19 – 00:00:43:34
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Wednesday, just a quick reminder, we won’t be with you tomorrow. We’ll be back on Monday of next week. But today, we continue through chapter 21 of the Gospel of Luke. And remember, we are moving toward the Cross and Luke as a storyteller. Luke as a writer, really, I think helps this journey. And he does or what he does as he sort of slowly ramps up the intensity in some of the language as we move toward the culmination of Easter week, Holy Week that we call it.
00:00:43:39 – 00:01:04:10
Clint Loveall
One of the practical things that means is as you get toward the end of Luke, you get a lot of stuff that is challenging. You get a lot of stuff that has kind of difficult themes in it. And we I think we get some of that today. So let me jump in just here a couple verses and then and then we’ll take a break and talk it over.
00:01:04:15 – 00:01:29:30
Clint Loveall
When some were speaking about the temple and how it was adorned and beautiful with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, Jesus said, As for the things you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another. All will be thrown down. They asked him, Teacher, when would this be? And what sign is it?
00:01:29:34 – 00:01:49:00
Clint Loveall
What sign? What will be the sign that it’s about to take place? And he said, Beware that you are not led astray For many will come in my name and say I am he. The time is near. Do not go after them. When you hear of wars and insurrections. Do not be terrified. These things must take place first.
00:01:49:04 – 00:02:12:04
Clint Loveall
But the end will not follow immediately. Then he said to them, Nation will rise against nation, Kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes in various places, famines and plagues. There will be dreadful portents and great signs in the heavens. But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and prisons.
00:02:12:09 – 00:02:36:58
Clint Loveall
You will be brought before the Kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds, not to prepare your defense in advance. For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death.
00:02:37:03 – 00:03:03:45
Clint Loveall
You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. You will gain your souls. So this is a part of all of the gospels, a kind of apocalyptic. And that’s a word that has to do with the idea of the in breaking of God. And some of the difficulties that go with that.
00:03:03:50 – 00:03:41:49
Clint Loveall
And it’s occasioned by the comment about the temple, the temples, beautiful, ornate. The Jews are impressed with it. It’s a center point of their religious life. And so this comment is made and Jesus says the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another. And I think. Michael, before we talk about this in general, may be a good reminder specifically is that by the time Luke writes this gospel, by the time these stories are being told, everything that Jesus is saying is coming to pass.
00:03:41:54 – 00:04:08:21
Clint Loveall
It is very likely. In fact, it is almost certain that by the time Luke is passing on this narrative, the temple is destroyed. That happens in 70 A.D. It’s a monumental moment for the Jews. It also is. It is a not. It’s a watershed moment in terms of Jewish-Christian relations that get progressively worse toward the end of the first century.
00:04:08:25 – 00:04:24:33
Clint Loveall
But before we read these things, sort of generally and and try to determine what they say to us, it is, I think, a helpful and important reminder that the people who are reading these words are also living them out in the moment.
00:04:24:38 – 00:04:50:51
Michael Gewecke
Actually, I think that is one of the real contentious points, I think for some Christians is because they read the texts like this and its historical place is in some ways a block for their faith. And I just want to encourage you that it doesn’t need to be. In other words, you’re exactly right. The historical record makes it clear that A.D. 70 was the moment in which all of this is going to turn on its head.
00:04:50:51 – 00:05:19:54
Michael Gewecke
The temple, which has been invested in, which is the central life of the community, is going to be destroyed. It’s going to be create massive social effects of religious effects throughout the entire Jewish community, which does have immediate effects upon the Christians who up to that point concern themselves as being part of that Jewish community. But Clint, the fact that Luke is writing this and likely all, all accounts seem to lead us to be writing after that account.
00:05:19:58 – 00:05:38:09
Michael Gewecke
I don’t think that that takes away from the power of Jesus’s voice or witness the fact that it’s written following that event and that it is applied in such a way that we’re going to talk about that has relevance to those who are living on the other side of that event, doesn’t in any way take away from what Jesus was teaching.
00:05:38:21 – 00:05:58:46
Michael Gewecke
Doesn’t take away at all the fact that Luke returned to sources to come back with Jesus’s actual teaching. Right. So like at the end of the day, yes, I think there’s some really important historical evidence that that grounds us. That puts us right in the scene that Luke is portraying. But we have no reason to believe at all.
00:05:58:46 – 00:06:22:30
Michael Gewecke
But this isn’t a lesson that Jesus taught. There’s no reason to believe he didn’t teach it in response to a time and an encounter he had at the temple itself. I think it helps us as readers to understand that, and I wouldn’t be concerned about that as a reader of Scripture. The fact that this was written later and and it has effect from Jesus’s teachings, I think that actually only underscores the point.
00:06:22:30 – 00:06:26:26
Michael Gewecke
It makes that a stronger emphasis, I think, for those who Luke was writing to.
00:06:26:31 – 00:06:49:21
Clint Loveall
I think generally there are two mistakes that we make with texts like this historically. And the first is to think that it was only written to them and doesn’t have something to say to us. The second is the exact opposite to think that it’s only written to us and doesn’t have anything to say about the time in which it was written didn’t have anything to say to them.
00:06:49:21 – 00:07:19:43
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, Michael, there’s a fairly clear example of this verse 12 here. Before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you and they will hand you over the this is a this is a constant thread in Christianity. But but then notice to whom? To synagogues and prisons. That is the experience of the early church that’s under oppression, that is under abuse.
00:07:19:48 – 00:07:50:09
Clint Loveall
From both the Jewish context, the Jewish people that live with a kind of animosity directed toward Christians and increasingly with the Roman Empire, the so you have here synagogues and prisons. We would never say that if if we were thinking of the persecution of Christians in our day and age, there would be very few places in the world where we would worry about being handed over to a synagogue.
00:07:50:09 – 00:08:29:33
Clint Loveall
That’s that’s language that is specific to the context. Having said that, as we read through this stuff, there has never been a moment in human history where these things haven’t been part of our experience. There have always been wars, there have always been earthquakes. There have there has always been famine and plague. These things rather than forming some bell that rings signify saying the end is near are a constant reality of human experience.
00:08:29:38 – 00:08:57:06
Clint Loveall
And so what Jesus is saying here to I think the disciples is is be prepared, you know, when will this be? And Jesus says, beware that you’re not led astray. In other words, be on your guard. Their people are going to come and they’re going to say, It’s me and it’s time. Do not go after them. It is interesting that the first word Jesus gives in response to the question is a word of caution.
00:08:57:10 – 00:09:24:55
Clint Loveall
Do not go after them. And so then again, listing all of the things that will be a part of the the ending of time. Jesus says don’t be afraid, don’t be terrified. I’ll be with you. I will provide words. There may be hard times ahead. Very, very hard times. I mean, some of you will be put to death.
00:09:24:55 – 00:10:05:18
Clint Loveall
It doesn’t get worse than that. By your endurance. You will gain your souls. And so one of the things that we can miss in a text like this is this call to persevere. And we put in the in the church of our experience historically, we’ve put so much emphasis on when this is going to happen and what is going to happen and who does it involve that we have sometimes missed that simple call to endure, to not be terrified, to do not be afraid by your endurance, you will gain your souls.
00:10:05:20 – 00:10:13:14
Clint Loveall
And I think if there’s a safe take away from this passage, it would be along those lines.
00:10:13:19 – 00:10:41:41
Michael Gewecke
We’re so far removed from the early church’s experience. I think for most of us, especially if you are a contemporary in North America, you likely cannot even conceive or imagine the day in which the moment you came home and said, I’m Christian meant that you would be immediately evicted from your home, that you would lose access to your career, you would lose all social staying that you formerly had and you would be poor and destitute and homeless.
00:10:41:42 – 00:11:04:30
Michael Gewecke
I mean, for most of us, that is such a far and away experience that we we really don’t know what to do with this language about being betrayed by parents, brothers, relatives, friends. This idea that you’ll be hated by all people because of my name, we forget that the earliest Christians were accused by Nero of having burned Rome.
00:11:04:30 – 00:11:36:36
Michael Gewecke
Christians were named as the primary suspects in the ones who were essentially charged with the destruction of the capital of the Roman Empire. Nero took that, as you probably know, and used it as leverage against Christians all around the world to kill them, to abuse them, to seek them out, and to ridicule them. It was an actively hostile environment, which we would say still exists in some places in the world.
00:11:36:36 – 00:12:00:00
Michael Gewecke
And we should be prayerfully aware of that. But it is to say, Clint, this language is important. Specifically, you will be hated by all because of my name. If we make the mistake of going to one of those polls that you had cautioned of, and we said that this text is all about us and we forgot it was about the earliest Christians.
00:12:00:05 – 00:12:22:12
Michael Gewecke
We might be tempted to think that that becomes justification for Christians to set out to make people hate us. It might to us become a kind of rationale to say, well, we should be caustic, we should go seek to rob our roots, we should go find places where we can disrupt and anger. Because, look, Jesus says you’ll be hated.
00:12:22:26 – 00:12:42:03
Michael Gewecke
But if you put this in context, if you remember the earlier Christians, if you balance it, then you’ll remember they didn’t seek out that hatred. It came upon them that they weren’t looking for others to come down on them. In fact, we remember Paul talking about as far as it is possible for you to live at peace with everyone.
00:12:42:14 – 00:13:04:36
Michael Gewecke
No, the early Christians had it happen to them because of their faith and because of their life. So in a more nuanced understanding of a text like this, there’s a real cost and consequence of faith when we follow Jesus, the kind of life that requires the humble graciousness, the commitment to others, the desire to submit to God as opposed to man.
00:13:04:40 – 00:13:34:16
Michael Gewecke
That itself is enough to set us in difficult relationships with culture, regardless of what culture and what time. And I think that if we are able to read a text like this through that lens, it becomes far more instructive. It helps us to live out our faith in our current context, far more than time of using it as a predictive tool or trying to look ahead and see, well, you know, if all the stars align when, when’s the end times going to come, which the the church has done with this text.
00:13:34:21 – 00:13:42:02
Michael Gewecke
But I think it betrays much of what Jesus was teaching in terms of the ethic of then how do we live?
00:13:42:07 – 00:14:02:03
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think there are two important takeaways. And the first, it’s not in the Gospel of Luke, it’s in the Gospel of John If the World Hates You, It hated me first. So the idea is not that Christians are hated because of what they are, because of who they are or because of what stand they take on issues.
00:14:02:07 – 00:14:24:11
Clint Loveall
It’s because the world and the gospel are opposed to one another and the same reason Jesus is he is hated. And keep in mind, this is being this is being spoken during his last week of life when because he is hated religious leaders, people who say I follow God above all else are going to put Jesus to death.
00:14:24:16 – 00:15:10:12
Clint Loveall
And Jesus is saying, when you follow me, do not be surprised that it puts you at odds with the world because the gospel and the world are not cohesive. They don’t work together. They are opposed to one another. And you know, Paul really works on that idea in some of his letters. And secondly, I think a word to us, if this is a little bit of a hard text to have a take away from, but maybe one of them would be I’m I’m always surprised when Christians encounter resistance and are surprised by it when someone says, can you believe they wrote a book about how Christians are idiots?
00:15:10:12 – 00:15:46:01
Clint Loveall
Can you believe they don’t want us to put Christmas trees? Can you believe we don’t get to sing Christmas songs at the school? Yes. If you say any of that to the Bible, the Bible goes, Yeah, I can totally believe that they put people to death because of their faith. So I think one of the encouraging hints and the takeaways for this is that in the world you can expect if you live out the faith, that it will create some rough edges and points of contact, points of conflict.
00:15:46:06 – 00:16:09:32
Clint Loveall
We don’t look for those, but to the extent we’re faithful to Jesus, we may encounter them. And when we do, we do what Christians have always done. They rely on Christ. I will give you the words. I will give you courage. I will send you out. So I think I don’t think this is a text we should be fascinated by.
00:16:09:32 – 00:16:34:14
Clint Loveall
I think we should be informed by it. I don’t think we should build elaborate theologies on it. I don’t think we should, you know, get the maps out and see where there are earthquakes. As if this text is the secret decoder ring. I think if we do that, we would tend to miss the broader point. The world and the gospel don’t get along.
00:16:34:19 – 00:16:42:32
Clint Loveall
I am with you, and by endurance you gain your soul. I think those are probably the takeaways we should focus most of our energy on.
00:16:42:32 – 00:17:01:42
Michael Gewecke
Well, and you move there quickly. I think it’s an important note to come to conclusion with verse 18 and 19, not a hair of your head will perish by your endurance. You will gain your souls. I want to make something very clear. There’s an inherent contradiction in this, because just recently or just before this, it says in verse 16, they will put some of you to death.
00:17:01:42 – 00:17:23:15
Michael Gewecke
How in the world can we say they’re going to put some of you to death and not a hair of your head will perish? Well, the reality is, because Jesus is talking about something more long term, much more lasting than this earthly life that Jesus is talking in a deep, deep way about the endurance that leads us even into the next life, the endurance of souls.
00:17:23:16 – 00:17:48:56
Michael Gewecke
You will gain your souls. And Clint, that that word that you led us to is an important word. And I think in the essential takeaway that faith is about endurance and endurance expects difficulty. Endurance can only be endurance when it is fighting against wind and struggle, and in this case, fighting against culture and world. And and it doesn’t need to seek out those things to do it.
00:17:49:01 – 00:18:25:46
Michael Gewecke
It simply happens by nature of living in the way of Jesus Christ. Living under the cross means that we will live as those who have been convicted of of ushering in a speaking of that new kingdom breaking into the world. And wherever that happens, there will be disruption. And so the promise that Jesus offers is not one that would remove us from the world or cares of the world or active in our communities, nor does it move us into position where we should think that we’re going to be able to solve all of the problems of the world.
00:18:25:46 – 00:18:52:22
Michael Gewecke
No, no, we are ultimately those who stand under the cross of Christ that will ultimately bring with it things that need to be endured. But the hope and promise, let’s not forget that you will not a hair of your head will perish that in Christ. All will be restored. All will be preserved for eternity. And that’s the good, great news that if we have the years to hear it, a text like this has to offer for us.
00:18:52:37 – 00:19:26:06
Clint Loveall
Yeah, and I think a nice reminder for those of us who don’t live under significant hardship because of our faith in the current moment, to be grateful for that, to be thankful for blessings that allow us to practice our faith openly without fear and without the, you know, the likelihood of harm coming to us. However, it should also call us to be mindful and prayerful of those who live in other places, who still live under the reality of of the warnings and and some of the circumstances that Jesus is talking about here.
00:19:26:11 – 00:19:41:15
Clint Loveall
Because that involves a lot of our brothers and sisters throughout the world. And this text can both make us grateful for the lack of hardship in our own life while it makes us mindful of the hardship of others.
00:19:41:20 – 00:19:55:24
Michael Gewecke
Absolutely. Thanks for being with us. We’d certainly love to have you like the video. If you find it helpful, share it with someone else if they would appreciate it and subscribe so you can stick with us along the study through the Book of Luke. Hope you’re blessed and we will see you next week as we continue this study.
00:19:55:26 – 00:19:56:09
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.