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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the Journey family. Hey, we are going through Luke chapter 14, 15 and 16 today. We're in the thick of Luke right now. Actually, these are some of my favorite chapters of the book. Hey, if you haven't done the reading for today, stop, pause. Just go ahead. I'll be right here. Go read Luke chapter 14, 15 and 16, and then come back. All right, so we're going to launch into Luke chapter 14. I will call this like the battle of the banquets. Okay? Just to give you some context clues, in the book of Luke, there's already this battle of the banquets that's happening. I don't know if you can remember. All right, we're going to go all the way Back to Luke 5, 27, 29. It says this after this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. Follow me. Jesus said to him, verse 28. And Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. Verse 29. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. So if you want to think like, these are kind of the dinner parties, the. The banquets that Jesus like, gets in trouble for having. And I think there's a lot of us that have no issue with Jesus eating with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners. But then In Luke chapter 7, Jesus does something that is a bit of a curveball. Luke chapter seven says this. When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisees house and reclined at the table. So Jesus is down to go to a tax collector's house and a Pharisee's house. We were in a sermon series at, at my church called God Loves Blank. And I think the first week was like, God loves LGBTQ plus and then God loves addicts, and then God loves sinners. And then we did God loves prisoners. Finally we got to my week and I announced on stage, I was like, man, for everybody who's been thinking to themselves, man, I'm so glad God loves them. You know, I'm so glad God loves those inmates or, you know, those prisoners or those sinners, I'm so glad God loves them. This week is for you. Guess what the title of my week was. God Loves Pharisees. Right? Like, you know, because for the Pharisee, you're not the prodigal. You're actually the other brother. And we'll get into the parable of the prodigal son a little later. And so for a lot of us, here's. Here's, like, the tension is that it's easy for us to admit that God loves the LGBTQ+ community because nobody in the LGBTQ+ community has ever hurt you. But it's hard for us to admit that God loves Pharisees because for a lot of us, there's some church hurt associated with something mean or foul or off putting that a Pharisee said to us somewhere. And here's the reality. There are Pharisees at every church. Pharisees are not just stuck in the first century. They're Pharisees at every single church. And Jesus loves even the Pharisee. And I'll say this, this is really hard to hear, but my inability to love Pharisees means that I am a Pharisee. Actually, it's really tempting to go, yeah, yeah. Jesus can go to the tax collector's house and Jesus can go hang out with the prostitutes. But the moment Jesus goes to a Pharisees house, I'm kind of like, dang, Jesus didn't do what I thought he would do. And here's where, like, the same way that Jesus calls Simon the zealot and Matthew the tax collector, Jesus will go to the dinner party of the ratchet and the dinner party of the Pharisee. And we don't get to control where Jesus goes or what Jesus does or he who. Who he extends love to. So Luke chapter 14 starts out one Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat at the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. This perfectly sets up kind of the next big theme for Luke, which is a parable of the great banquet. This is still in chapter 14. It says, Blessed is the man who will eat the feast in the kingdom of God. Jesus replied, a certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet, he sent his servants to tell those who'd been invited, come, for everything is now ready. But they all alike began to make excuses. They first said, I have to sell a field or I must go. I bought a field. I got to go see it. They kept making excuses. Finally, the master told his servant, go out to the roads and the country lanes and compel them to come into my house may be full, go to the streets, go to the alleys of the town, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. This parable right here, really, if you are looking for one parable that kind of encapsulates Luke's theme, it's this, that the people who were invited to the banquet did not show up. These are the insiders, the Pharisees, teachers of the law, prominent Jewish leaders. They didn't come. So therefore, that is why Jesus is going out and saying, okay, bring the woman with the issue of blood. Bring the Samaritans, bring everyone on the outside, bring them in. This is a massive theme. Then I need you to remember that Luke is writing to a man named Theophilus, who is most likely wealthy. And we are going to get three stories that actually all put wealthy people in a positive light in chapter 15. Chapter 15 says this. Or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Well, guess what? If someone has 10 silver coins, they are probably wealthy. That is the context. That is a context clue that most of us miss because we don't understand how money works in the first century. Here's the next one. Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the 99 in the open country to go after the lost sheep until he finds it? Anyone who has 100 sheep is a freaking wealthy human being. That's like. That's a lot of sheep. So the parables are actually putting people in. In high prominence, like people of. Of high status. They're actually saying pretty positive things about them. They are the. The protagonists in all these parables. And here's the final parable. There was a man who had two sons. I think sometimes we forget that this is not just the story of a prodigal son, but a story of a man with two sons. I'm going to give you some nerdy nuggets here. The younger one said to his father, father, give me my share of the estate. So the father divided his property between them. Keyword them. The father divided the property between them. The only way that it is possible for the father to have given the younger son who becomes the prodigal his share was for the older son, the older boy, to agree that the father could liquidate the assets and divide anything between them. The older brother is immediately suspect. From the very, very, very beginning of the story, there's no way for the younger brother to even move forward with his plan without the older brother signing off. On this plan. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and squandered all of his wealth. Okay, we know the story. He's a prodigal. He's living wild, he's living crazy. He comes to his senses. He wants to come back to his dad's house. He got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and filled with compassion for him, ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to his father, father, I've sinned. But the father said to his servant, quick, bring the best robe. Put it on him. Put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet. So the dad's wealthy. This a wealthy family, okay? There's no way around this. He's got an inheritance. There's an estate. There's rings, there's sandals, there's robes. Wealthy family, bring a fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. These are the themes that we've been going through. There's a banquet for the at the tax collector's house. A banquet at the Pharisee's house. Another dinner at the Pharisee's house. Then we get a parable about banquets. And now the dad and the prodigal son story wants to throw a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead, is alive again. He was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. And this is where most of us stop reading the story. But the story's not about the prodigal. Who is the story about the older boy who even allowed the dad to divide his inheritance between the boys anyway, which means the older boy has his inheritance as well. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard the music and the dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him, what's going on? Your brother has come home. The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. The same dad who goes out to meet the prodigal is the same dad who goes out to meet the older boy who's just as lost, but has been living two doors down from the dad his whole life. And this is why God loves Pharisees. This is why it's important that we preach that God loves Pharisees.
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What if I told you that what you're learning in this video was just.
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The tip of the iceberg?
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The Bible department is actually powered by Arma what is arma? I'm so glad you asked. ARMA is an online subscription based platform that we design to help people, everyday people, learn the Bible for themselves. We started ARMA so that anybody, anywhere could have access to trustworthy and entertaining Bible and theology content.
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In addition to this podcast, we have.
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Over 60 courses on individual books of the Bible, on theology topics, and on some hot topics like homosexuality, tithing and women in ministry. But really, ARMA is a community. A community of people that I've gotten to to know. A community where thousands of people are currently finding family, asking questions and nerding out on the Bible together. If you want a community to read the Bible with you this year, or if you want to dive into some deeper theological content, or if you want.
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More exclusive access to me and the.
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Entire armor team, how about you go.
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To thebibledepartment.com I'll be sure to post the link in the description of this video.
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Let's make this your year to become a Bible narrator.
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The same way that the father goes out to meet the boy who had squandered his wealth, found a life of sin, and finally came to a sense that came back. The same dad who goes out to meet that boy goes out to plead with the boy who's been living in the house with him forever but doesn't have his heart. The gospel isn't just for prodigals. The gospel is for Pharisees as well. And guess what? For many of us, like I bet, like it's a 5050 split, some of us are prodigals and we have done a whole bunch of ratchet stuff that we're not proud of. And God found us. He found us in a bar. He found us at a nightclub. He found us in a pregnancy clinic. He found us all kinds of places. He found us in an abortion clinic. He found you. He. He found you at the depths. He found you when you was tempted to eat the food from the pigs. He found you.
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But guess what?
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There's a whole bunch of other others of us. Guess where God found us in the field. Upset, Mad. Far from God. Not in proximity, but far from him. In terms of our heart's posture, we are the older brother. And the story is not just about the younger brother. It's about the older brother as well. And the older brother is bitter. The he's angry. He's upset. And the older brother thinks that it's all the stuff he's done that has earned his dad's approval. But what he doesn't realize is that he's done a whole bunch of work for his dad, but he has never actually grown in an intimate relationship with his dad. This is the ditch that a lot of us church folks fall into. We think that as long as you're volunteering and tithing and serving and doing all the stuff, that God's happy with us. But God can look at us and say, you did a whole bunch of stuff for me, but you never lived your life with me. I want an intimate, close relationship with you. You've lived in the house with me. You have occupied the same space as me, yet you have. Yet you have failed to adopt my heart and my spirit and my mentality and my worldview. And that is disappointing for God. My son, the Father said, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. Why is that true? We know that as true because he divided his wealth between the two sons, literally. And the older boy got the lion's share. Everything that the dad has is the older boy's property. But we had to celebrate and be glad because his brother of yours was dead, is alive again. He was lost and he's found. So banquets, wealthy people, all seen in. In positive light. Then we get to Chapter 16, Parable of the Shrewd Manager. There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. We get all the way down. The Pharisees who loved money heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, you are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others. But God knows your hearts. What people value highly is the devil, detestable in God's sight. So at no point is Jesus teaching that wealth is bad. And then we get the rich man and Lazarus. If you drop down just a couple more verses, we get the rich man and Lazarus. At no point is Jesus saying wealth is bad. But at every turn, Jesus is providing a warning around those who are wealthy. Because it's not a problem to have wealth. Here's a problem. If wealth has you, that is a massive issue for God. Wealth, not a problem for God. Greed, huge problem for God. Wealth, not a big issue for God. Idolatry, massive problem for God. Luke is 1000% talking to people of means. And when we get to the Book of Acts, there are going to be wealthy people. There's going to be a woman by the name of Lydia who's incredibly wealthy. Who? One of the churches that, like, supports Paul a ton is the Philippian Church is full of wealthy people. So there's women in Luke chapter Eight who are supporting Jesus ministry out of their what? Their wealth. So Jesus doesn't have a problem with wealth. Jesus through the pen of Luke, is 100% communicating to this audience that wealth isn't a problem. However, wealth can easily get its tentacles around your heart and wealth can begin to rob you of the biggest joys in life. And that if you are truly wealthy and truly privileged, that God has a challenge for you. That the same way that the older brother has to begin to love his younger brother even though he doesn't deserve it, that there is some relational equity, that the church is going to provide space for people of different socioeconomic positions to cross pollinate. And so I remember growing up poor and thinking, I remember villainizing all wealthy people. And then a couple of wealthy guys started discipling me. And I remember thinking to myself, my whole life I've thought that you were the enemy. But here we are in church, and while walls are broken down, you are teaching me how to steward wealth and steward property and use wealth for the upbuilding of God's kingdom. So I would say that Luke's Gospel has some of the most nuanced content when it comes to wealth. The middle of the book here is jam packed with, with teachings of Jesus as it relates to wealth and finances and property and stewardship. And there are characters who are very wealthy that are going to be, that are going to be portrayed in a positive light. And then there are characters who are wealthy who are going to be portrayed in a negative light. Like the rich man in Lazarus who ends up in, in hell and he wants to send a message back to his brothers and Lazarus ends up in paradise and the rich man doesn't. And Jesus has some really, really hard words. So I think a lot of times in church when we start talking about finances and money, we can make extreme statements, but God doesn't make extreme statements. He makes really nuanced statements. All right, I hope that our dive Into Luke, chapter 14, 15, 16 was helpful. We do this every single day. So I hope that you meet me back here tomorrow for the next three chapters or the next couple of chapters of the book of Luke. I can't wait to see you right here. I'm super, super, super proud of you that you would make this year the year that you read through the entire Bible and become biblically literate. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. Peace. Thank you so much for joining me on the Bible department podcast. If this episode was helpful, it would mean the world to me. And if you'd give us a follow rate and review the show. And don't forget to share. You can learn more about the show@thebibledepartment.com and find us on Instagram hebible department if you want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.