Video is normally posted early Sunday Afternoon.
Video Notes: "Facts about Bread"
- What types of bread were eaten?
- Sukkot: booths or Tabernacles...wheat harvest
- Shavuot: weeks or Pentecost; barley harvest (poorest people)
- Their staple food was bread, and it was such a vital part of each meal that the Hebrew word for bread, lehem, also referred to food in general. The importance of bread to the ancient Israelites is also demonstrated by the fact that Biblical Hebrew has at least a dozen words for bread, and bread features in numerous Hebrew scriptures. Bread was eaten at just about every meal, and is estimated to have provided from 50 to 70 percent of an ordinary person’s daily calories. The bread eaten until the end of the Israelite monarchy was mainly made from barley flour; but during the Second Temple period, bread from wheat flour become predominant.
- Everyone likes to eat. Not many enjoy eating alone. Community and table fellowship play a large role in the gospel narratives and should play an important role in our congregation as well.
- Bread was generally leavened, except around Passover when the feast of unleavened bread took place.
- Bread was not just the meal, but the utensil and plate as well. Bread was used instead of fork and spoon to dip gravy or flavored broth and grab food.
- It was little like Tortillas on steroids.
- If you dipped bread into the bowl and then gave it to someone it was considered an honor.
- Jesus dipped his bread in the bowl and handed it to Judas on the night he was betrayed.
- Village life celebrated community and bread was always at the center of it.
- Each family would bake once or twice a week. Women of the village would always knew who had bread left on any given day.
- Breaking break became synonymous with fellowship over a shared meal
- People grew grain, harvested it, threshed it, ground it into flour (one source said that it took 3 hours a day to hand-grind enough grain into flour to feed a family of five), and baked their own bread.
- Jesus claims to be the bread come down from heaven
- Bread comes to symbolize the body of Christ broken for us.
Text: This week we’re
covering Luke 14:1-24 dealing with
Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees regarding another Sabbath healing (to which
they were silent), and parables about humility and honor, about invitational
motivation, as well as the surprising guests at the Great Banquet.
Other passages to read: We
encourage you to read "horizontally" in these passages that are
parallel to our text from Luke:
·
Sabbath healing is an idea repeatedly touched on in
the Gospels: Luke 6:6-1; 13:10-17; Matthew 12; Mark 3; John 5:1-17; 7:23-24;
John 9.
·
Take the lowest place rather than the highest: Proverbs
25:6-7; Luke 11:43; 18:14.
·
Instructions about inviting those who can’t pay you
back: Luke 6:34;
·
The Great Banquet: Isaiah 25:6-9; 56:6-8; Luke
13:22-30; Matthew 22:1-14; Prov. 9:1-6.
Points to ponder: In your
study this week, you might want to think about one of these questions:
· Once the man with
dropsy is healed he was sent away. Have you ever wondered why he was at the
dinner in his condition and why was he sent away? Look closely at the text for
clues.
· To whom is each of
the parables spoken? Who else would have been listening? Does this observation affect
how we interpret them or add a level of meaning to this passage?
· What is it about
these three excuses that just don’t make sense?
· What makes the
master mad in this parable? And what does he do when he is mad?
· What word is used
more than any other in this passage? What does this tell us about God’s heart?
We try to answer these questions on the
Jesus4Everyone blog in the next week’s post (so you have time to think about
them and then check your work!).
Questions to ask ourselves: The
following questions are intended to help us move towards greater application of
what we learn about Jesus…
- Do we seek public
recognition and honor from others or do we humble ourselves and allow God
to raise us up?
- Have we ever prepared a
special meal for others who then chose not to show up? How did we handle
it? What did we do with our feelings?
- When God invites us to spend
time with him, do we come with enthusiasm or do we offer lame excuses and
keep doing our own thing?
- What excuses do we use
most often? What are some ways we can prevent this?
- Where do we see ourselves in these parables? Who do we most closely identify?
“This passage and the following one incorporate several elements--healing,
conversations, and a parable--all tied together in dinner-table conversation--a
familiar device in ancient literature. The conversation, except for its
opening, revolves around the response and behavior of dinner guests. This leads
into the response of would-be followers of Jesus and the cost of discipleship.”
(Expositor’s Bible Commentary Vol. 9, 976)
“Luke’s gospel has more meal-time scenes than all the others. If his
vision of the Christian life, from one point of view, is a journey, from
another point of view it’s a party…In chapter 14 Luke has brought together two
parables about feasting.” (N.T. Wright, Luke
for Everyone, 174).
“In the kingdom of God points to the
future messianic banquet, to which the people of Jesus’ day would have
understood only godly Jews would be invited. Jesus, however, uses the parable
to teach his listeners, contrary to their expectations, that the guests invited
originally will miss the banquet (v. 24) and will be replaced
instead by “the poor and crippled and blind and lame” and the outsiders (the
Gentiles) found in the “highways and hedges” (v. 21, 23). (ESV Study
Bible)
v. 16-17 Two invitations would have been
involved. The first would have concerned reservations for the banquet and would
have been given well in advance. The second invitation would have been given on
the day of the banquet, announcing that the time for the banquet had
come and everything was ready. (ESV-SB)
v. 22-23 “Once again, therefore, the challenge comes to us today,
Christians, reading this anywhere in the world, must work out in their own
churches and families what it would mean to celebrate God’s kingdom so that
people at the bottom of the pile, at the end of the line, would find it to be
good news. It isn’t enough to say that we ourselves are the people dragged in
from country lanes, to our surprise, to enjoy God’s party. That may be true;
but party guests are then expected to become party hosts in their turn. (N.T.
Wright, Luke for Everyone, 178-179).
“This final image is a reflection of the heart of the master of the
banquet. Above all, he is determined that his feast be full, no matter what the
social station or class or pedigree of the persons who come. He wants his house
to be full, like his heart.” (Michael Card, Luke:
The Gospel of Amazement, 178)
Previously on
Ponderables:
- Why do bad things happen? Do bad things only happen to bad people? Bad things happen because we live in a
world tainted by sin, fallen from perfection, and subject to frustration.
Sin is endemic in the world today. However, God’s mercy and grace are also
at work. The truth is that we all deserve to die (Romans 3:10-12, 23;
6:23), but that most of us don’t die…right away. Difficult circumstances
and disasters cannot with consistency be explained as punishment for specific
personal sin. God’s cycle of reward and retribution is not fully contained
in this life.
- If you were to characterize God, as he is revealed in the Bible, how
would you describe him? What metaphor would you use to describe his
default attitude towards mankind? Well we
know that there is nothing that really can be compared to him. However, He
does reveal himself via a number of metaphors. However, imagery aside, the
most consistent description of God in the Old Testament is Psalm 103:8 “The
Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (See also Exodus 34:6-7; Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:15; 145:8; Nehemiah 9:17; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2) - When we consider these two sections in verses1-5 and 6-9, what
connections can we see between these two sections? The urgent need to repent and bear fruit!
- Are there
repeated themes or phrases in these verses? In 1-5, there is the repeated
idea that they thought those who suffered were worse sinners. Repent
and perish are also used twice in identical phrases in v. 3 & 5. In v.
6-9 the idea of seeking fruit is repeated along with “Cut it down” if it
continues to be barren.
- How many years
of mercy did the fig tree receive? Three. The parabolic present was
the third year of looking for fruit. The first year of looking for fruit
was when it was expected. The two years since were mercy and now a third
year of mercy is added.
- How does the story of the fig tree end? This parable was a “create-your-own-ending” sort of story. Unfortunately history tells us that the Jewish leadership failed to produce fruit and the “tree” was cut out of the ground in a.d. 70.
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