Luke 11:27 - 32
27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Questions:
ReplyDelete1. Why would this woman thank that?
2. What made that generation evil?
3. What is the sign of Jonah?
4. Who is the Queen of the South?
5. Are people rising up at Judgement Day condemning others?
https://hartmangroupdevotionsmark.blogspot.com/2018/06/mark-81-13-during-those-days-another.html says:
ReplyDeleteThe sign spoken of, that would be given, was Jesus' body lying three days in the earth and rising again, as Jonah spent three days in the whale's belly and was returned to the earth.
Signs can make faith unnecessary – or they cater for those with only little faith. Jesus considered that his work and his person were sufficient to generate faith. Anything else might serve only to trivialise the genuinely sacred: mystification replacing mystery.
Jesus did not perform his general healings and exorcisms as means to elicit faith in him. They were signs of the advent of the Kingdom and anticipations of it, illustrating it and calling for faithful commitment to it. Jesus worked particular healings in response to people’s faith, not as ways to arouse faith.
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These Pharisees were not innocent enquirers, not people looking to put their faith in Jesus. They wanted to discredit Jesus. They wanted to bring his work to an end. Jesus sensed it, sighed deeply, said no sign would be given to that generation, got back into the boat, and set off for the other side of the lake.
There are four lessons here.
1. In any kind of Christian work, there will always be people we can’t please.
2. The danger of trying to present the gospel on terms others like.
Jesus would not yield. He would not let anyone tell him what he must do. Only God set his agenda. He told his disciples: “…the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19). He would not deviate.
These Pharisees had set their own terms for following him, and he would not meet their demands. Take him as he was; accept the evidence already there.
3. Some people will never be won by argument.
Jesus did not engage in debate with these people. They were not honest enquirers; they were people who had come to trap him. He didn’t ask them what they meant by “a sign from heaven” or whether, if they got a sign, they’d demand another sign and then another and another.
4. Ultimately we have to be willing to let some people go.
Jesus cared. It was very serious that people would not listen. But he would not run after them. They made their choice, and Jesus would neither force nor plead that they would change their mind.
The lesson from Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees is this: There are people we will never please; people who will not let go of their needs; people who always have more demands; some Very Draining People who will always have another issue or another reason why they cannot do the right thing. Jesus faced them; we will too.
https://hartmangroupdevotionsmark.blogspot.com/2018/06/mark-81-13-during-those-days-another.html continued:
ReplyDeletethe Word of God initially is to believe in the Son and be saved.
Steven Cole on as the crowds were increasing - “You’re all wonderful people. God loves you and so do I.” That’s not what He said! Jesus wasn’t into giving strokes to everyone to build their self-esteem. Centuries before the false prophets won a large following by saying, “Peace, peace,” when there was no true peace (Jer. 6:14; 8:11). Any preaching that does not confront sin is false preaching. God doesn’t heal by giving lots of hugs to make sinners feel better about themselves. He heals by confronting and cutting out the cancer of sin that is slowly but surely destroying people. We tend to view success in the ministry by numbers. If a church is growing, if thousands are flocking to it, then the pastor becomes a model for church growth.
Yes, the "crowds were amazed" (Lk 11:14) at the many miracles Jesus was performing, but it was as Jesus was a great "carnival act" to see, but not a Messiah to be believed in. And thus Jesus crashed the gravel down in His judgment of them as a wicked generation. And with this declaration, Jesus was not just speaking of a few Jews but of the majority of their generation. And as discussed above, Jesus was not addressing a generation that was overtly immoral in their conduct. No, these Jews were moral, like the Law keeping Pharisees. However Jesus saw through to their hearts and what He saw on the inside was that they were spiritually wicked to the core! And tragically, as discussed above, in their moral deception they were in an even more deadly condition, for they would think of themselves as having no need for the Gospel of Jesus, no need for repentance.
They thought they were a righteous generation and that’s why they hated Jesus. They were moral but filthy. They were void of the purifying presence of God. They were damned by morality, damned by religion, damned by reformation!
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-11-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteAny faith that is based upon a sign, the observation of a miracle, the proof of logic, a feeling of something spiritual, an experience, or anything else other than the revelation of God in holy scripture is a false faith. True, God-given, saving faith has for its foundation the Word of God alone. That is the message of the text before us. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Ro 10:17) May God give us grace to believe him, not our experiences! him, not our feelings! him, not our reason! him, not signs and wonders!
For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites - Jonah was in the belly of the sea monster for three days until "the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land." (Jonah 2:10, cf Jonah 3:4, 10). And how did the Ninevites respond? Jonah 3:5 says "Then the people of Nineveh believed in God; and they called a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least of them."
Just as Jonah was all but dead in the belly of the sea monster, after three days he came fourth alive. So too Jesus would be in the "belly" of the earth, He would come forth alive after three days. The Resurrection of Christ was the greatest "sign" ever given as it was the seal authenticating that His sacrifice on the Cross was acceptable to His Father.
The Queen of the South - Queen of Sheba in 1 Kings 10:1-13 (2 Chr 9:1-12), which begins "Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the LORD, she came to test him with difficult questions."
Questions and findings:
ReplyDelete1. Why would this woman thank that?
There was great excitement about Jesus. The people wanted to make Him the king. Reading Luke we can see what Jesus was about, how dark forces rose against Him, and how His would-be friends always tried to derail His agenda. Most of the people who were "pro-Jesus" had their own agenda and were not interested in Jesus' agenda. To this woman, Jesus was a celebrity and yelled out something semi-random in celebrity-worship. Jesus, in turn, used this woman's random comment as a teaching moment.
2. What made that generation evil?
There's no evil as evil as stubborn, misguided religion. The problem is that they had their own very strong ideas about what God wanted, and weren't interested in listening to anything that countered their ideas - even from God Himself. That unwillingness to open their ears and question their own misguided beliefs is what made them so evil. You can see the same thing happening in terrorists today. They allow their own misguided ideas drive them to do the most horrible acts.
3. What is the sign of Jonah?
Jesus dying on the cross and rising again in three days. It's His ultimate message to us all. Believe and repent, or be forever condemned to outer darkness.
4. Who is the Queen of the South?
The Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon in 1 Kings 10.
5. Are people rising up at Judgement Day condemning others?
I think that this is hyperbole. I don't think people will be verbally condemning each other on Judgement Day. I think what Jesus is saying that when both Nineveh and "this generation" is judged, it will be clear that the comparative judgements will be a stark statement against "this generation".