Pharisee

October 13, 2025 –  This Is How I Fight My Battles — Acts #16

David Chupp Acts , , ,

October 13, 2025 –  This Is How I Fight My Battles — Acts #16
Acts 5:33-42

Today, we will conclude our story in Acts 5.  Remember that the apostles are all placed in prison overnight for disobeying a specific order from the highest court in Israel.   But God decided that they didn’t need to stay there overnight.  He sent an angel to release them so they could return to the temple and resume preaching that same message.  As the choir just sang, “If you need freedom or saving, He’s a prison-shaking Savior.  If you got chains, He’s a chain breaker.”

Acts 5:33-42  When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

First, let’s discuss the principal players in this section of the story.  They are meeting in the council of the highest court, the Sanhedrin.  Remember that the high court of priests was composed of two religious groups, the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  These two groups differed in their religious beliefs, their social standing, and the focus of their religious practice.   

Social/Political Standing- 
Sadducees were the aristocrats; they were generally wealthy.  They were politically involved and often allied with the Romans.  Pharisees were a lay movement popular among the ordinary people and the middle class. 

Religious Beliefs
Sadducees accepted the first five books of the Torah.  They rejected the Oral Torah (the laws added by the Pharisees).  They did not believe in supernatural beings (angels or demons) and dismissed the idea of an afterlife and the resurrection of the dead.

Pharisees accepted the authority of the entire written Torah (our whole OT) and the Oral Torah (the laws they believed were handed down to Moses but not written in the Scriptures.  Laws that their predecessors continued to refine over time.  They believed in angels, demons, and other spiritual beings as well as in the afterlife and the resurrection of the dead.  

Religious focus
The Sadducees’ religious focus was on the temple and the rituals there (and of course, the collection of temple taxes, contributions, and other sources of revenue).  The Pharisees focused on righteousness, as defined by keeping all of the commandments (written and oral).

The Sadducees were against Jesus from the beginning.  His teaching emphasized the resurrection that they completely rejected.  And Jesus threatened their political power, and then he threatened their authority and their pocketbooks when he cleansed the temple of the money changers.

We often overemphasize the conflict between the Pharisees and Jesus.  Initially, they were curious about Jesus and his beliefs, and their debate with him was not aggressive but rather their usual learning style.  Jesus certainly had more in common with the Pharisees than the Sadducees.  He often ate in their homes.  Nicodemus was a Pharisee, as was Paul.  At one point, Pharisees warned him of a plot on his life.  Later, as his rejection of the Oral Law became clearer, some of them (not all) joined the Sadducees in their opposition to Jesus.

In the days of Jesus and Acts, the Sadducees had a greater representation on the Sanhedrin, and they controlled the high priesthood.  But they needed the support of the Pharisees there to maintain social stability.

Knowing this, let’s look back at the story we have been working through in Acts.  The apostles are continuing to preach their primary story of Jesus being the Messiah and God raising him from the dead.  You can now understand why the Sadducees on the court are particularly angry about this, for they say resurrection is impossible.  That is why 

Acts 5:33  When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

We looked at this word translated here, “enraged,” back in July.   The Greek is diaprio, which literally means “sawn in half.”  This is an abbreviated version of what we see in Acts 7:54, which in Greek is “diapriō kardia autos” and is translated in the ESV “enraged,” but in the King James Version more literally “cut to the heart.”  This is extreme anger, bordering on rage or madness.  These apostles have, according to the Sadducees, “filled Jerusalem with your doctrine [of resurrection from the dead]” and they are thus way beyond just angry to the point of planning how to kill them.

These religious leaders think they stand on righteous ground when they desire to kill the apostles.  They feel like they are defending the true religion against some new heresy.  They believe these apostles are deceiving people and leading them astray.  They must be stopped to protect the true faith. They feel that it is their duty to defend the faith.  They are defending God himself.  

Enter Gamaliel.  
Gamaliel was no obscure figure. He was the most respected Pharisee of his day, later known as “Gamaliel the Elder.” According to Acts 22:3, the apostle Paul himself studied under him. Jewish tradition holds Gamaliel in high esteem—wise, balanced, and respected by all. Here, in Acts 5, Gamaliel demonstrates that wisdom. He commands the council to pause and consider what they are doing (always good advice).:

Acts 5:35  “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men.”

He reminds them of two failed movements—Theudas and Judas the Galilean—both of which at first received considerable support but fizzled out after their leaders died. Then comes his key insight:

Acts 5:38-39  “If this plan or undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

In other words, you don’t need to defend God. If this movement isn’t from Him, it will collapse. If it is from Him, nothing can stop it. That’s faith. That’s confidence in the sovereignty of God. And it stands in stark contrast to the anxious defensiveness that we see in the Sadducees and that so often characterizes religious people—even today.

Let’s be honest: most of us are more like the Sanhedrin than Gamaliel. When Christianity is criticized, when society moves away from biblical values, or when our beliefs are mocked, we feel a surge of indignation. We want to “strike back”—with words, with politics, sometimes even with hostility.

The church has a long history of poorly reacting to perceived threats against religion.  Let me give you just a few examples:

The Crusades (11th–13th centuries): After centuries of Islamic military expansion and the conquest of the Holy Land by the muslims, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095, asking knights to come to the aid of the church to defend it’s honor, to expell the Muslims from the Holy land, and in doing so, to get remission of all their sins.  They did liberate Jerusalem, but along the way, crusading armies responded with violent sieges and massacres of thousands of people, including entire Jewish communities in the Rhineland, seeing the Jewish “enemies of God” as a more immediate threat than Muslims in the Holy Land.  Many Jews were given the option of forcibly converting or dying.  This established a violent pattern that was repeated in later crusades and pogroms. The Crusades are part of our sad history, reflecting an aggressive and militarized response to a perceived religious threat.

The Counter-Reformation (16th–17th centuries): The Catholic Church responded to the rise of Protestantism with a Counter-Reformation. This involved theological reforms, but also violent persecution in Catholic-dominated territories. Protestants were labeled heretics and subjected to torture, as in the Spanish Inquisition. Many were hanged or burned at the stake for their views. The French Wars of Religion involved decades of brutal civil war and included the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, in which Catholics slaughtered thousands of Protestants.  All in the name of “defending the faith.”

Lest you think it was only the Catholic Church responding with violence, John Calvin participated in the trial of a theologian, Michael Servetus, who was burned at the stake; Martin Luther endorsed the brutal drowning of Anabaptists and the burning of heretics.  He wrote pamphlets that encouraged the violent suppression of a revolt in Germany, and also wrote a pamphlet supporting the persecution of the Jews, including burning their homes and synagogues.  Again, all in the name of defending true religion.

Witch hunts (15th–18th centuries): In both Protestant and Catholic areas of Europe and in the US, hysteria and fear of witchcraft led to the persecution and execution of tens of thousands of people, most of them women. Theologians often conflated magic with heresy, justifying the punishment of witches as a way to defend Christianity against perceived Satanic threats.

How about in our times?   
One morning in December 1994, my wife was in a grocery store just across the street in Brookline, Massachusetts, when John Salvi opened fire in an abortion clinic on Beacon Street, killing two people and wounding five others.  This, Salvi said, in defense of the Catholic Church.

And you know of the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church that have held protests at military funerals as well as at the funerals of gay victims of crimes.  On May 14, 2008, two days after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, which claimed the lives of at least 70,000 people, WBC issued a press release thanking God for the heavy loss of life in China, and praying “for many more earthquakes to kill many more thousands of impudent and ungrateful Chinese.”

And you know of Jerry Falwell, who in 1980 proclaimed that the AIDS epidemic was a divine punishment for homosexuality.  John Hagee commented on Hurricane Katrina in 2005, stating he believed New Orleans was being punished for its “level of sin.”  The day after a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, televangelist Pat Robertson claimed the disaster was the result of a “pact with the devil.”  And then, after the events of 9/11, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other conservative figures suggested that the attacks were divine judgment for America’s supposed moral failings, including the acceptance of abortion and homosexuality. 

And this is just a tiny sample of centuries of hostility and hate, all in the name of protecting religion, defending the church, or standing up for God.  This is the same attitude driving this Jewish court in our story. 

So how are we to respond?  How do you react when you feel someone is attacking your religion or your church, or Jesus himself?   Aren’t you responsible for speaking up when people are berating your God and your faith?  You can’t just sit back and let it go on, can you?  Someone has to fight that battle, don’t they?

Seven years ago, a song came out of Overcomers Church in Dallas, Texas, with a great message, though I have to admit that I initially found it annoyingly repetitive. The lyrics are:  “This is how  I fight my battles.  It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you.  This is how I fight my battles, right here at your table. Your blood and your body have overcome.  Grace, Grace, Grace.  This is how I fight my battles.”   

There is a great story in 2 Chronicles 20:19-23.  The armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir have come to attack Judah.  King Jehoshaphat set up his army to stand against them.  And who did he put on the front lines?  Who did he put right at the front of his army?  Not his infantry.  He appointed Levites and singers to go out before the army, praising God with loud voices.  And God defeated those armies, with the soldiers of Judah never having to fight.   This is how we fight our battles.  We fight our battles with praise to the Lord.   

In Second Kings 6, the prophet Elisha and his servant are under attack by the armies of Aram, and the servant is scared because they are surrounded.  

2 Kings 6:15-17  When the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. And the servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Yehovah, please open his eyes that he may see.” So Yehovah opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.  It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by you.   This is how we fight our battles.

The Israelites are escaping Egypt.  They have a body of water in front of them that they cannot cross, with the Egyptian army coming toward them.

Exodus 14:10-14  When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to Yehovah. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of Yehovah, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. Yehovah will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.

And the Israelites pass through the water on dry land and the Egyptians drown. Stand firm, be silent, Yehovah will fight for you. This is how we fight our battles.

And one night in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is taken prisoner by the temple guards.  And Peter takes a sword and attacks those arresting Jesus. 

Matthew 26:52-54  Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”

A few hours later, Jesus stands before those who can sentence him to death.

Matthew 27:12-14  But when he was accused by the chief priests and elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate said to him, “Do you not hear how many things they testify against you?” But he gave him no answer, not even to a single charge, so that the governor was greatly amazed.

Silence before those who berate and accuse you.   This is how I fight my battles.

Why was Jesus silent?  Because He knew the truth didn’t need to win an argument. He didn’t need to win a court trial or a debate.  He was there to win a battle with sin and death.  A battle that he would win not by winning, but by dying on a cross, and by lying 3 days in a grave, and then by rising from the dead.  This is how I fight my battles: in silence before my accusers, then with the thundering power of an almighty God who can conquer death.  God’s truth does not need a verbal defense.  His truth will be evident in His will being done despite any opposition.

And the entire story of Scripture shows this: God’s truth has never needed human defense. It only needs faithful witnesses.

We need to study scripture and learn the lessons there.  When we feel attacked, we don’t act in fear and panic.  We don’t rush to the offensive or the defensive.  We stand still in silence and see Yehovah fight for us.  We don’t need to win debates on Facebook or in public.  We don’t need to win arguments; we need to win hearts.  And that comes through the body and the blood of Jesus, the love and mercy and grace of the Father, not through our words or our swords.  This is how we fight our battles.

If we feel like we need to defend God, then we don’t understand who God is.   Ancient people believed that their gods needed human support in the form of sacrifices — animal or even human—to live. We saw in Egypt how they felt they needed to bring their Gods food to eat and people to serve them.  Yehovah, however, makes abundantly clear in the Bible that He is not like that. He does not need our sacrifices or offerings, and He doesn’t need us to defend His honor.  He is self-sufficient.

And we do not need to defend the gospel message.  Charles Spurgeon said it best: “The Gospel is like a caged lion. It does not need to be defended. It just needs to be let out of its cage.”If you look up every use of the word “defend” in the Bible, you will see that it is God who is our defender.  We are not to defend ourselves, and we are not to defend Him.   This is an essential message to a world where Christians are constantly talking about defending “our” rights.  

But the Scripture does call us to defend somebody.  Not God and not our rights or ourselves.  We are called to defend the fatherless, widows, oppressed, afflicted, poor, and foreigners.

Proverbs 31:9  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
Isaiah 1:17  Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
Deuteronomy 10:18  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing.

What if Christians focused their energy on these things and defended the purity of the gospel message? The faith that Jesus initiated would suddenly become much more attractive. And remember, God doesn’t need us to defend Him. He wants us to represent Him!  There’s a big difference.

These apostles were sentenced by this court and flogged, chained to a post, and beaten with whips.  Then they were released, and how did they respond? 

Acts 5:41  Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

Their backs are bleeding with deep wounds, and in intense pain, they rejoice.  They had seen their Lord just months ago, punished in this same manner.   They celebrate they they are worthy to suffer like him.   This is how we fight our battles.  Did this stop the spreading of God’s message?  No, because as Gamaliel said, “if it is of God, you will not be able to stop it. Chapter 5 ends with this verse:

Acts 5:42 “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

This is how we fight our battles.

January 12, 27 A.D.  –  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? —   The Year of the Lord’s Favor #67

David Chupp The 70 Weeks with Jesus Blog , , ,

Week 48 —Guess who’s coming to dinner 
Matthew 20:1-16 

After Hanukkah, Jesus left Jerusalem and traveled east of the Jordan, spending the winter in the region of Perea.

It seems every few months, we hear of a political leader or religious leader of some denomination who is caught in some moral failure.  They may have had illicit sexual relations or have embezzled funds or whatever.  That doesn’t mean all politicians or all preachers are wicked.  You don’t judge all the pastors in churches of America by the failures of a few.

But wait a minute, isn’t that exactly how we tend to judge the Pharisees in the New Testament?  

If I say Pharisees, the first word that comes to many people’s minds is “hypocrite.”  We are often quick to over-generalize and lump them all together, but not all Pharisees were the same.  Some leaders of the Pharisees had worked their way into high positions, some even on the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court.  These mostly stayed in Jerusalem, lived in the finest homes, and became wealthy.  These are the ones who most often find themselves in conflict with Jesus.  Understand that not all Pharisees were trying to kill Jesus, but mostly just the powerful ones in Jerusalem.1  And Jesus spent 90% of his ministry away from Jerusalem in the countryside.  Many Pharisees lived in small villages, and while they were financially stable, they were certainly not rich.  They were highly respected in their communities.   And they weren’t trying to kill Jesus; they were confused by him, and they were just trying to understand him and figure out who he was.

In Israel, in Jesus’ day, every child wanted to grow up and become a Pharisee. It was the most highly respected vocation. It was like kids in our day who aspired to grow up and be president (but kids don’t say that anymore.)  Children today want to grow up and be professional athletes or entertainers.   But if you were a child living in Israel in the first century, you wanted to become a Rabbi.  So, you would study hard in school and memorize much scripture.  You would try hard in every aspect of your life to follow every commandment.  From childhood, you would be indoctrinated in the theology of ritual cleanliness and proper sacrifices.  Hundreds of years of tradition were passed down to you on how to live as God wanted you to live. 

But only a few were chosen.  Only the brightest children would continue school past 13 years of age.  The rest would learn a trade.   If you made the cut and did well in school, perhaps you would find a rabbi who would allow you to be his disciple.  Your family would be so proud.  You would then study even harder and carefully follow all of the laws and ways of the Pharisees.  Then, one day, you would become a rabbi and gather your own disciples.   You would be in charge of the spiritual development of not only these young men but also your community.  You would take this responsibility seriously.  You would continue constantly studying and discussing the scriptures with your fellow rabbis and disciples.  You would keep ritually pure at all times.  You could quote all the written law, the oral law, and the sayings of the ancestors.  By this point, you felt that you knew all you needed to know about being a true child of God.  You had arrived.

And then this Jesus shows up.  He seems to be a prophet, but he doesn’t fit the mold you were taught.  He seems to ignore some aspects of ritual purity that you were taught were so important.  Oh, he keeps the ones written in the scripture, but he seems to ignore the ones passed down as oral law from your father and grandfathers.  He says things that challenge your teachings.  You would think he would have studied under a prominent rabbi, but he didn’t study under anyone; he just set out to gather disciples on his own.  And he is not too picky about who he chooses.   He has poor fishermen, a zealot, and even a tax collector among his disciples.  None of them had proper schooling.  He even has women following him.  Can you imagine that?  It is almost like he is making a mockery of your profession.

And yet….he heals people.  People no one else can heal.  You have never healed anyone.   He casts out demons.  You have never done that.  It is said he walked on water.  Where does that power come from if not from God?  Some of the leaders in Jerusalem say his power comes from the Satan, but that is hard for you to accept because he helps so many people and does so much good, and the adversary does not do those things.  And though he has no official rabbinic authority, he speaks with great authority.   He knows the scriptures and quotes references from scripture that back up everything he says.  But he interprets scripture in ways different from what you’ve been taught, and what he says seems to make so much sense to you.  You are simultaneously curious to know more about him but also scared of what he may do.  Some say he has claimed to be the Messiah.  Your leaders in Jerusalem have decided that he is a blasphemer, a false Messiah.  And you know that every time we have someone rise up and claim to be the Messiah and gather a large following like this, it brings enormous trouble from Rome.  Whole towns have been burned to the ground because of a rebellion started by such a person.2  That scares you most of all.

So don’t assume all Pharisees are alike. Many live outside Jerusalem in Galilee and Perea and are not angry at Jesus. They don’t want to kill him, but they are very confused by him.  

The Gospel of Luke records three instances of Jesus being invited to dinner with Pharisees.   In Roman times, people were very strategic with their dinner invitations.  Hosting dinner in Roman times was a social investment. It was a chance to increase your social standing by having important people dining in your home.   By having them as your guests, they would be expected to reciprocate and invite you for dinner in return.  You don’t invite enemies to eat with you.  You don’t invite people you don’t like.  You don’t invite people who can not return the favor or raise your social standing.  So, Jesus would never be invited to dinner with the Pharisees in Jerusalem.  They have already decided he must go.

But these Pharisees in small towns in Galilee in Luke 7 and Perea in Luke 11 and Luke 14 did invite Jesus over.   Jesus obviously can’t return the invitation.  He has no home.  So why did they invite him over?    If you assume all of the Pharisees are out to get Jesus, then you would guess that they were trying to trap him.  The Bible is clear that some did try to trap him, but this was always done in public because the point would be to make him look bad in front of a crowd.  A private dinner would not be a good place for this.  Pharisees gathered together frequently to discuss scripture and how to interpret it.  How can they best live out God’s law in their time under Roman oppression?   They wanted to see exactly who Jesus was away from the crowds.  They wanted time to ask him questions.   So, let’s look at one of those dinners with the Pharisees in Luke 14.

Luke 14:1-6   One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.  And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.   And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”   But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away.   And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”   And they could not reply to these things.

Besides Jesus, these Pharisees also invited a man with a chronic disease.3  It was the Sabbath.  This was a set-up.  They wanted to see if Jesus would heal him.  Again, the Bible doesn’t say they were trying to “trap him” as it does three times in Matthew 22.  They were “watching him carefully.”  

Healing on the Sabbath was not against the Sabbath rules in the Scripture.  The Old Testament rules of what is allowed and not allowed on the Sabbath are not very specific.  Here is what is specifically regarded as work:

Plowing, reaping, binding, threshing, winnowing, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, gathering wood, kindling fire, sewing, tearing, and carrying burdens (essentially any activity related to harvesting or construction of the tabernacle or preparing food, as well as tasks requiring physical labor or creating a fire)

So, in defining what is work and what is not, there were many grey areas, and the scribes and Pharisees often discussed whether something was work or not.  Together, they looked at the scripture and came to a conclusion so they could provide guidelines for their community.   For example, is walking work?  Walking 20 miles (a day’s journey) would certainly seem to qualify as work, but what about walking next door or in your home?  They had to draw the line somewhere.  So this was debated, and a strict distance was determined.   You can walk 2000 cubits, a little over half a mile.  Walking further than this was considered work and breaking the Sabbath.

The Scriptures listed carrying burdens as a violation.  But could you carry food to the table for dinner on the Sabbath?  This was debated (and you can read some of these debates recorded in the Mishna), and it was determined that you could carry things inside your house, but you could not carry things outside of your house.  So today, an orthodox Jew can not carry a handkerchief in his pocket while walking to the synagogue on Shabbat, but when he arrives home, he can carry furniture up and down the stairs without breaking the law.

This seems odd to us, but someone had to help define work so the people would not accidentally break the Sabbath laws but could still function.  It was an important job for the experts in the law.

During the Maccabean War, around 160 years before Jesus (the victory that we celebrate at Hanukkah), the Macedonians attacked a strictly observant Jewish village on the Sabbath.  The people of this village viewed warfare as work and refused to defend themselves.  Not surprisingly, all of them were killed.  The next day, the priest determined that self-defense was allowable on the Sabbath.4

Healing was also debated. There is a principle called “Pikuach Nefesh,” which means “preservation of life” and takes precedence over all other commandments, including those of the Sabbath.  You were allowed to break almost any other law if it was required to save a life. Saving a life imminently in danger was not only allowed but was required.  The Mishna says, “If any person saves a single life, Judaism considers that he has saved the whole world” (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4.5). 

But healing outside of immediate life-saving measures was not so clear. In Jesus’ day, the question of healing was highly debated. Some sages said it was allowed on the Sabbath, and others said it was only allowed if it was immediately life-saving. We have records of this debate hundreds of years before and hundreds of years after Jesus.  

Jesus likely performed most of his healings on days other than the Sabbath. Mark 1:32 shows evidence of this: The people waited until sunset (when the Sabbath was over) to come to Jesus for healing.

Mark 1:32   That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons.

In Luke 13, Jesus heals a woman who had a disfiguring back problem on the Sabbath and says:

Luke 13:15-16   Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?

Here, he is using the Jewish principle of “tzar baalei hayim,”  or the prevention of suffering to living things. 

Jesus is in line with the school of Rabbis who accept healing on the Sabbath. Scripture records instances when Pharisees opposed him for this view. However, the debate among the Rabbis raged on for hundreds of years and was not settled until around 200 AD.5

Luke 14:1-6   One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully.  And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy.   And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”   But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 

Jesus tries to engage them in the question of healing on the Sabbath.  They don’t want to commit to the discussion and remain silent.   They set this up to see what he would do.   Jesus states his opinion by healing the man.  He then gives them an argument they can’t refute.

And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?”   And they could not reply to these things.

Of course, they would all immediately retrieve their son or animal from a well. But that would be work. Jesus asked hard questions. Again, they have debated whether healing is okay on the Sabbath for hundreds of years.   And Jesus seems so sure of himself.  He speaks as though he has immediate access to the wisdom and heart of God.   They really don’t know how to respond to that.  They are silent.  So Jesus moves on.

Luke 14:7   Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them….

Luke then provides us with some irony. Remember that the passage began with, “They were watching him carefully,” and now Jesus is speaking after he notices their behavior. The tables have turned. Who is watching who?

Luke 14:8-11   “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.  But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.   For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

What is Jesus communicating to these Pharisees and experts of the law?   He has observed their self-seeking behavior and starts with some social advice on how to avoid embarrassment.  Honor must be given, not assumed, pursued, or taken.  But then, his last sentence hints at a worldview where honor is based on a completely different measure.  In Jesus’ view, it is humility that is highly valued.

This flies in the face of the standard of dinner invitations of the day.  Again, Jesus has an entirely different worldview.   The greatest deed is doing good to someone who can not possibly repay you.   Note that there will be repayment, but it will not come now.  You will be blessed.  There is our Beatitude word, ‘Makarios’  — as in Blessed are the pure in heart….  It doesn’t mean you will receive a blessing, but it means you will be happy, fulfilled, and in a state of bliss.  You forfeit the possibility of the reward of a return dinner invitation, but you gain happiness and fulfillment from living as God would have you live.  And note there will be a reward. Not in this world but in the next.  “You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”  Jesus says there is a reward for doing good to those you cannot repay: ‘in as much as you have done it unto them, you have done it unto me.’  Do you want to have Jesus over for dinner?  Invite the poor, the invalid, the forgotten to your home to eat.  Jesus will one day thank you for having him over for dinner.

Then, one of the Pharisees present hears Jesus give a blessing that speaks of the resurrection and the world to come. He riffs on that and offers a blessing of his own. Or maybe, sensing the tension in the room, he is trying to change the subject quickly.

Luke 14:15   When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”

Who could disagree with that?  It is a true statement.  Those who join God in the kingdom and dine in the great messianic banquet will be most blessed.  Jesus could just say, “Amen,” and let it go.  But they are at a dinner, and Jesus is just talking about who gets invited to banquets.  Jesus knows these religious experts are making a dangerous assumption about the banquet God throws in the last days.  They are assuming they know who will be invited to God’s banquet.  Why, of course, they will be there; they are the children of Abraham.

Jesus is in the same area that John the Baptist preached and baptized.   Remember what John said when the religious elite came out to see him there:

Matthew 3:7-9     But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.  And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

John told them they needed to repent and be baptized.  It wasn’t enough that they were Jewish.  

Sometimes, we just assume people around us have a good relationship with God.  After all, they go to church, say the right things, own a Bible, and come from a good Christian family.  However, these people John called out were the religious leaders of the day, the most observant people in the country.  John said don’t presume.    Do you know where your friends and family members stand?  We don’t talk enough with each other about things that matter.

Well, Jesus is not going to let this opportunity pass.  The conversation at this dinner has been about who gets invited to dinner, and then someone brings up the dinner of the last day.  So Jesus gives a parable about who will be invited and who will attend that great banquet at the end of days. 

But we need a little context.  The Old Testament is full of references to the Messianic Banquet.   Here is one from Isaiah:

Isaiah 25:6-9   On this mountain, Yehovah of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.   And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations.  He will swallow up death forever, and Yehovah Elohim will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for Yehovah has spoken.  It will be said on that day,   “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.  This is Yehovah; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

A feast of rich food.  For those in Isaiah’s day, well-aged wine and bone marrow were on the menu of kings.  I have never had either one, but the chefs on the Food Network love that bone marrow.  The point is that when God throws a feast, it is the best of the best.  (I am sure there will be prime rib and Diet Coke just for my wife.)

And as the people swallow the food, God will swallow up the veil over all the nations – the veil of death.  They dine and rejoice in their salvation.  God has spoken, and God is victorious over death and reproach. This is the banquet the man at the Pharisee’s dinner referred to.  But Jesus needs to say a little about who will be there.

Luke 14:15-24   But Jesus said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.  And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’   But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’   And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’   And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’

  So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’   And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’   And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.   For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

A man gives a banquet, much like the banquet they are currently at.  He invited all the right people, and they agreed to come.  This initial RSVP was essential in those days.  Your choice of meat for the meal would depend on the number of guests coming.  You wouldn’t slaughter a cow for four people.  Whatever is prepared has to be eaten that day.  There is no refrigerator for leftovers.   But when the preparations for the meal are complete, the servant is sent out with the announcement to come now, for the banquet is ready.  

But in Jesus’ story, it says, “they all began to make excuses.”  All of them.  Jesus gives three examples.  They are flimsy and clearly fabricated excuses.   ‘I have bought a field and must go out and see it.’  This is not believable.  No one bought a field they had not inspected.  This would be like a guest calling you at the last minute before dinner and saying they could not come because they had just bought a house they had not seen yet.  The second man bought five yoke of oxen and needed to check them out.  When a team of oxen was sold, there would be a field to test them to ensure they were healthy and could pull evenly together.  That would be like your dinner guest calling to say, “I just bought five cars, and I need to see what color they are and if they can start.”  The third excuse is equally weak.  ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I can’t come.’  But they didn’t just get married.  You would have never scheduled a banquet at the same time as a wedding celebration in your town.  And you aren’t asking him to leave the country or go to war; he would be absent for only a few hours.  Jesus has them give excuses that are not reasonable.  They are just not interested in the host or his banquet.  Their land, oxen, and other people are more important than keeping their commitment to the host. 

So the food is already cooked, and his expected guests are more preoccupied with their possessions and family relations.  What does the host do?  He sends his servant out into the “streets and lanes” to the poor area of town.  Still not filling the banquet hall, he sends his servant out of town to the Gentiles to invite them to the banquet.   The host has broken all ties with the social system of status and reciprocity.  He has followed Jesus’ advice in verses 12-14.  No one is too unclean to attend this banquet.   

It is not evident when you read the parable in English, but the last line is different and key to understanding Jesus. The host in Jesus’ parable has been speaking to a single person, his servant, but in the last line, the ‘you’ is plural. That changes how you read it. I think when Jesus speaks, he tells the parable, looks up, and delivers the last line to everyone in the room.

Luke 14:24   For I tell all of you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet. 

Jesus is telling them that the Messianic banquet is his banquet.

God is preparing a banquet for the end of time.  It will be a feast, a festival of celebration of salvation.  This is the great Messianic Banquet, and God has sent his suffering servant out to issue invitations to the banquet.  Many who were invited first refused to come, so Jesus extended the invitation to the unexpected – to us.  God wants his house to be full.   He is not willing that any perish but that all come to repentance.  But Jesus tells us repeatedly that those you expect to see are not there.  Those who are very sure they will attend will not be allowed in.  

The story of the Pharisee’s dinner ends right there.  We aren’t told how this group of Pharisees reacted to Jesus’ parable.  And I think Luke did that on purpose.  What is most important to know is not how they reacted but how do you react.   The day of that banquet approaches.  Everyone is invited, but not all will choose to attend.  I hope to see you there.

  1. I found 27 instances in scripture when people desired to kill Jesus.  All but two of these happened in Jerusalem.  The exceptions are after the healing of the man with the withered hand (Matthew 12:14, Mark 3.6, Luke 6:11) and after his message in the synagogue in Nazareth  (Luke 4:28).  
  2. The capital of the region of Galilee, Sepphoris, was destroyed and its 30,000 residents either crucified or sold into slavery in 4 BC, about the time of Jesus’ birth.  This was Rome’s reaction to an uprising by Judas the son of Ezekias.  Sepphoris was only 3.7 miles northwest of Nazareth and it is likely that Jesus and his father and brothers worked in Herod’s rebuilding of the city that continued throughout Jesus’ time here.
  3. “Dropsy” was the symptom of generalized swelling or edema that we now know is most commonly due to congestive heart failure or chronic kidney disease.
  4. See 2 Maccabees  2:31ff.
  5. It was Samuel of Nehardea who finally gave the final opinion on healing on the Sabbath with an interpretation of Leviticus 18:5 “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments; which if a man does, he shall live in them.”  Simon “revealed” the hidden meaning that the Jewish people can only observe the Torah if they stay alive.  So, acts of healing should not be restricted on the Sabbath so that the people will be well enough to keep the Torah law.  (from The Jewish Chronicle, February 19, 2015.)