Big problems among the Scribes, as Jesus points out

After Jesus answers some questions meant to entrap him, we get this bit:

45 ¶ Then in the audience of all the people he said unto his disciples,

46 Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts;

47 Which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation. (Luke 20:45-47)

What exactly is Jesus saying here?

He’s warning the disciples to beware of the scribes who do certain things. It seems to me He’s not telling the disciples to shun them necessarily, but to beware of becoming like them.

So what exactly is wrong with this behavior, and are there modern equivalents that must be avoided?

They desire to walk in long robes – Long robes are not easy to move in, and they get dirty easy. I get the impression that long robes were a sign of status, and hard work was not done in them. People in long robes don’t gird up their loins to serve others; they are usually the ones being served. The modern equivalent might be people who desire to wear suits all day.

They love greetings in the markets – This seems pretty benign at first. Who doesn’t love to run into friends at the market? The problem, I think, is when it becomes a point of pride, when one preens over one’s connectedness and how all those greetings by all one’s acquaintances lead one to say, “Look how important I am! Everyone knows me and loves me! Even people who don’t know me can see I must be special because of all the people who greet me!” It is hard to focus on others, when others are so focused on you.

They love the highest seats in the synagogues and the chief rooms at feasts – High seats in the synagogue are probably leadership seats. They love the best places and aspire to importance and status. They love the visibility more than the opportunity to serve.

They devour widows’ houses – Here’s a sad thing. These scribes will visit widows (thinking they are charitably bestowing their attention and encouraging presence) and then the widows are obligated by the rules of hospitality to feed them a big fancy dinner, so the widows have to spend beyond their means to do it, and of course, those scribes have to do justice to the spread, so they eat it all, and thus the widow is far worse off financially after the scribe’s visit than she was before. The scribe is devouring her house. And she lives at poverty level, anyway, so it is all very bad for her finances. At bottom, this is a lack of awareness of how hospitality is going to affect one’s host. It is inconsiderate, and a lack of charity. If these scribes had any real charity, they would host the widow and not obligate the widow to host them. Or they’d bring a nice big present of grain or something to make up for the burden of their visit.

For a show, they make long prayers – Their prayers aren’t doing them any good if it just a show to impress other people. If there is no real desire or repentance or gratitude behind the words, the prayers mean nothing.

The thing that is the greatest warning is that Jesus says, “the same shall receive the greater damnation.” To me, this is saying these characteristics get disciples more spiritually stuck and stop progression more than some others.

To summarize:

Long robes >> status clothing that precludes service and work

Loving greetings >> status and such connectedness that prevents one from forgetting oneself and focusing on others

Loving high seats and the best rooms at feasts >> obsessed with public shows of status at religious events and gatherings. Preoccupation with position and visibility more than opportunities for service and ministering.

Devouring widow’s houses >> Lack of consideration and charity for those who really need it. Making a show of attention that doesn’t really help and leaves the widow worse off afterward.

Making long prayers for show >> Desire to look holy has overcome any desire to actually be holy.

So, the pattern I see here is that status and show for these scribes has become the most important thing, such that they completely miss the increased opportunities for service and charity and ministering that come with a leadership position. They are stopped in their spiritual progress from becoming more like Christ.

Can we draw any conclusions from what one should do instead?

1)    Wear clothes you can help people in

2)    Focus on others and appreciate the humility of anonymity

3)    Care more for the opportunities to serve than position, status, or visibility

4)    Find ways to give notice and charity without taxing others’ resources to give hospitality

5)    Pray with sincerity

These things tell us that Jesus was strongly aware that if leaders weren’t careful, some of the earthly advantages of status created awful spiritual disadvantages with eternal negative consequences. He wanted His disciples to be aware of those problems and do all they could to avoid those behaviors and attitudes so that their position could be a real blessing to them and to all those around them.

3 Scriptures with neat things to say about the atonement

As I was studying for a Sunday School lesson on the atonement, I found three scriptures that talked about it with interesting imagery. As I thought about each of them, I really liked the implications of those images, so I wanted to share them with you.

1)   Isaiah 53:12 “…he hath poured out his soul unto death”

I get an image of pouring water out of a pitcher until it is all gone. But instead of water, this is Christ’s soul that is poured out of His body. And He’s the one doing the pouring, not those who crucified Him. So this teaches in an interesting way that He was the one who had control over whether He’d die or not.  

It also might say He gave His all. He poured all of Himself into His ministry until His death.

2)   Isaiah 25:8  “He will swallow up death in victory”

This uses the idea of swallowing something unpleasant. I think this tells us about how Christ tasted and ate death, then rose again afterwards. I think it also teaches about how He tasted all the bitterness of our sins and weakness and afflictions and infirmities when He suffered for us, and He overcame it all so we can too.

3)   Hosea 13:14  “…O death, I will be thy plagues…”

This uses the image of a plague that sweeps through a town and uses it to describe how Christ’s victory over death would spread.  I think our knowledge of disease makes this even more meaningful today. You catch the life disease from contact with someone who is alive, and it starts to grow and multiply in you as the natural man’s antibodies fight it desperately, but if you give in to it, you can carry it to others and get a full-blown case of eternal life!   And when our bodies lie in the grave, maybe resurrection will be like disease reversed.  I really like the idea of death dying of the Christ plague.

Something else I think this teaches is the inevitable nature of catching physical life from Christ.  Sooner or later we’ll all get it, but we get to choose whether we’ll be in the first wave or not.

The big lesson from all the attempts on David’s life in 1 Samuel 18

1 Samuel 18 has so much happening in it that it is really compacted.  A cursory reading makes it seem like the chapter only records two of Saul's attempts on David's life, but there are actually at least five.

Attempt #1

We know Saul tried to spearDavid while David played his harp for Saul.

Attempt #2

After Saul's failed spearing attempt, v13-16 records:

13 Therefore Saul removed him from him, and made him his captain over a thousand; and he went out and came in before the people.

14 And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways; and the Lord was with him.

15 Wherefore when Saul saw that he behaved himself very wisely, he was afraid of him.

16 But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before them.

What this tells us is Saul put David over a thousand men in the army and David went out on military missions set by Saul.  Can we imagine Saul giving David easy stuff to do?  No.  He would give David the dirtiest, most dangerous missions in hopes of getting him killed.

Do you think David was blind to what was being done to him?  I doubt it.  I think he had a feeling he was being treated like cannon fodder.  He could have complained, but it doesn’t seem like he did, and instead he just did his best.  That uncomplaining obedience may be what the text means when it says he behaved himself wisely.

The result was that Saul’s attempt failed.  God kept David safe, and David kept his mouth shut, and he ended up more loved by the people than before, which was the opposite of what Saul wanted.  Perhaps Saul hoped David would turn out to be an ineffective leader and was trying to “promote to discredit.”  Instead, God used it to increase David’s talents and made good come of it.

Attempt #3

In Saul’s next attempt, he tries to praise and incentive-ize David into doing something exceptionally foolish to get him killed.

And Saul said to David, Behold my elder daughter Merab, her will I give thee to wife: only be thou valiant for me, and fight the Lord’s battles. For Saul said, Let not mine hand be upon him, but let the hand of the Philistines be upon him. (v17)

Notice Saul gives this incentive—marriage to his eldest daughter—and his instructions are “only be thou valiant for me; and fight the Lord’s battles.”  That’s like saying, “Your only job is to be brave and fight.”

But… war takes more than just bravery and fighting, and in asking David to do that, Saul was attempting to discourage David from being smart about how he fought, hoping he would take stupid risks and get himself killed.  (As an aside, I’ve recently been reading a sci fi space opera series that has as a major plot point a space fleet’s tendency to suffer terrible losses because bravery was higher priority than discipline and strategy.  It gave this verse much greater significance than it would have had otherwise.)

How does David respond?  He refuses to take the bait and says that he and his family are nobodies and the last people to become connected by marriage to the king.  He’s okay with not being famous or connected to the king’s family.  His humility saves him.

Attempts #4 & 5

This is a two-parter. 

20 And Michal Saul’s daughter loved David: and they told Saul, and the thing pleased him.

21 And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. Wherefore Saul said to David, Thou shalt this day be my son in law in the one of the twain….

25 And Saul said, Thus shall ye say to David, The king desireth not any dowry, but an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to be avenged of the king’s enemies. But Saul thought to make David fall by the hand of the Philistines. (v20-21, 25)

Saul intends Michal to be a snare to David and of course he also requires David to pay a dowry of 100 Philistine foreskins to marry her, and we know he hoped David would get killed trying to fulfill that requirement.

But how did Saul intend Michal to be a snare?  I had to think about this one and read more about Michal to figure this out.  I have a feeling that Saul meant it in the same sense that the Lord told the Israelites the Canaanites would be a snare to them and the same way the Moabite women were a snare in Numbers 25.  Michal may have been idolatrous.  I Samuel 19:13,16 tells that she put an image in David’s bed as a decoy so that David could escape Saul’s servants.  But what was an image doing in their house when there is that commandment in the Law of Moses to not have any graven images?  This was a full-sized statue and it was moveable.  David was a man after God’s heart, so it had to be Michal’s.  So Michal was idolatrous.

It seems Saul hoped that Michal’s idolatry would begin to pull David down once he was married to her.  Saul hoped to destroy David’s righteousness and favor with God in a manner strikingly similar to what Balaam taught the Moabites to do to the Israelites.

No, David!  Don’t marry her!  It’s a trap! 

Yet David does obtain the 100 Philistine foreskins with God’s protection.  (Note: v27 says he brought back 200 foreskins, but 2 Samuel 3:14 says it was 100.)  And he does marry Michal.   (At this point we should holding our heads and yelling “Oh noooooooo!”)

But… instead of Michal becoming a snare to David, the Lord uses Michal as a means of delivering David.  Remember when Saul sent his men to kill David, Michal warned him of his danger and helped him escape.  Then, she took the image she worshipped and put it in service as a decoy.    The very things that Saul meant to destroy David became the means by which the Lord saved him.  How’s that for showing the Lord’s great power to bring good out of evil?

It’s really a sad thing reading about all the ways Saul planned to try to get rid of David.  Yet, we get a great lesson from David.  As we see all the ways that the Lord brought good out of evil for him, we can gain greater faith that the Lord does the same thing for us today.   If we try to be as faithful to the Lord as David was (at this time in his life), the Lord can similarly take the bad things and turn them to our good.   To use an airplane analogy, if we keep our wings tilted up, the winds of opposition will lift us higher. 

Whose is this image?

16 And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men.
17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.
20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. (Matthew 22:16-21)

Usually when we read this scripture, we read it to mean that money may belong to the government that coins it, but our service or something else (we’re not quite sure what) belongs to God.

I believe that the key to understanding exactly what it was that should be rendered to God is in that word “image”. Somehow Jesus was trying to draw a parallel that his hearers could perfectly understand.

I made progress when I remembered an important scripture in the Old Testament that I’m absolutely sure the Jews of Jesus’s day knew extremely well. A scripture from Genesis about the Creation.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:27)

There it is. Render to Caesar the things that are in his image, but render to God the things (meaning us) which are in His image.

And that word “render”. According to the dictionary it could mean “give help” or “submit for inspection” or “hand over” or “deliver” or “cause to become”, among other things.

(Image credit - LDS pictures, ldspictures.wordpress.com/)