On Line Bible Study - For the Week June 6-12, 2011
Lesson 496
Luke 18: 18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? 19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’”
21 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.
22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
23 When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”26 Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
28 Peter said to him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”29 “Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”
Where to begin .... Is Jesus a 'good teacher', or the Messiah? There is a difference. We need to be careful about patronizing the Son of God.
Note that Jesus proceeds to respond to the question after he has corrected the ruler. In other words, he says: Only God is good. Now I'm going to respond to your question ... but in so doing, Jesus is assuming an authority beyond a 'good teacher'. Only God is 'good'; Jesus has the good answer. What does that make him?
What is the motive for your faith? Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this man asks the most important question in the world - the question about salvation. However, Bonhoeffer says this is not an easy question to formulate.
Has anyone ever asked you: Are you saved? Have you felt uneasy with the question? Could it be that the motive and the assumptions behind the question are what make you uncomfortable? It's not a bad question; it's an excellent question badly formulated.
Perhaps a better way to put the question would be something like this: Are you following Jesus? Ultimately, that's where Jesus will take this man - away from a selfish concern (and a self-righteous attitude!) toward obedient discipleship. Once we get to that point the choices become much simpler. "Salvation" is not an academic construct; it is a way of living. Building on the three verses immediately preceding this pericope in Luke, we need to think about trust - and the relationship between 'trust' and 'obedience'.
Sure - the man obeys the commandments. Well then, what is his problem? His problem is simply this: He wants to obey the commandments on his own terms. He is looking for this 'good teacher' to reassure him (and anyone else who happens to be listening) that he is on the right path! The fact of the ruler's shaky ground has to do with the fact that he is trusting his own perceived righteousness. Were he to sell everything he had - something he is not willing to do - he would discover more treasure than he ever imagined. But the crunch lies here: Will you trust me? That's what Jesus is asking. Obeying commandments is one thing; fully trusting God is quite another. The fact of the matter is this: we kid ourselves all the time with our 'obedience'. It's easy to "obey" when there is nothing at stake, nothing to lose.
Will I sell it all and follow Christ? That's a simple, "Yes" or "No" question. As my father often said when we were growing up: "There are no 'buts' about it."
Isn't it amazing ... the disciples had done pretty much just that - they had walked away from it all! When Jesus said to them: Come, follow me, they went. They obeyed, and because they did, they would learn to trust - to believe. It would take some time ... but they got there.
We can, too.
Has anyone ever asked you: Are you saved? Have you felt uneasy with the question? Could it be that the motive and the assumptions behind the question are what make you uncomfortable? It's not a bad question; it's an excellent question badly formulated.
Perhaps a better way to put the question would be something like this: Are you following Jesus? Ultimately, that's where Jesus will take this man - away from a selfish concern (and a self-righteous attitude!) toward obedient discipleship. Once we get to that point the choices become much simpler. "Salvation" is not an academic construct; it is a way of living. Building on the three verses immediately preceding this pericope in Luke, we need to think about trust - and the relationship between 'trust' and 'obedience'.
Sure - the man obeys the commandments. Well then, what is his problem? His problem is simply this: He wants to obey the commandments on his own terms. He is looking for this 'good teacher' to reassure him (and anyone else who happens to be listening) that he is on the right path! The fact of the ruler's shaky ground has to do with the fact that he is trusting his own perceived righteousness. Were he to sell everything he had - something he is not willing to do - he would discover more treasure than he ever imagined. But the crunch lies here: Will you trust me? That's what Jesus is asking. Obeying commandments is one thing; fully trusting God is quite another. The fact of the matter is this: we kid ourselves all the time with our 'obedience'. It's easy to "obey" when there is nothing at stake, nothing to lose.
Will I sell it all and follow Christ? That's a simple, "Yes" or "No" question. As my father often said when we were growing up: "There are no 'buts' about it."
Isn't it amazing ... the disciples had done pretty much just that - they had walked away from it all! When Jesus said to them: Come, follow me, they went. They obeyed, and because they did, they would learn to trust - to believe. It would take some time ... but they got there.
We can, too.
posted by Mark D at 4:07 PM
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