Luke

In Jesus' day, there were two religious/political parties in Israel: the Pharisees and Sadducees.  They were politically important because they held the majority of seats in the Sanhedrin - the highest religious court which, later that week, would 'try' Jesus.  Pharisees believed it was important to keep all the small details of the Jewish Law because God would call them to account when He raised the dead.  But Sadducees did not fully accept the authority of God's Word and did not believe that there was any life after death.  

The Sadducees had laid a trap for Jesus. They did not believe in any resurrection of the dead.  For them, this life is all there is, but it was important to please God … even though they did not accept that they would give any account to God (Ecclesiastes 11:9; Romans 14:12).

The Sadducees, who did not believe that a dead person could be raised to life, were trying to trap Jesus about the resurrection (Luke 20:27-40).  The Lord used their question as an opportunity to teach about the nature of eternal life.  Showing that He fully honoured the text of the Old Testament as God's revelation, Jesus referred to Exodus 3:14-15 when God spoke to Moses at the burning bush.  When Moses asked God to reveal His Name, He identified Himself as the ever-present one, "I AM who I AM".  He also described His relationship to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob i

Trying to trap Jesus, the religious politicians posed a series of riddles.  Now Jesus asked them a question about the identity of the Messiah (the Christ).  Everybody thought the Christ would be a powerful earthly king like David.  But by quoting Psalm 110:1, Jesus challenged that assumption - because the verse clearly states that David speaks of somebody who would be his Lord with equal ruling rights to Father God Himself.  If David had meant the Christ to be a mere human descendent, he would never have called Him 'Lord'!  

Some of the 'teachers of the law' may have been Pharisees, as they commended Jesus’ teaching about the resurrection - which had been opposed by the Sadducees (Luke 20:39).  Some may have been scribes.  Originally, scribes were all Levites (priests) who transcribed the Old Testament text from one generation to another.  But by Jesus' day they were devout educated men who became religious teachers and religious lawyers acting as the legal advisors to magistrates, always ready to accuse people who disobeyed the commandments.  Yet, at the same time, they pretended that they

Some religious people seem to like money ... too much (1 Timothy 6:6-10).  Standing by the temple offering boxes, Jesus had just criticised the spiritual leaders for demanding money from the vulnerable, particularly widows (Luke 20:46-47).  He saw rich people making a show of how much money they were giving, when a poor widow came to make her offering. Her money made very little noise as it went into the box because she had only given two small copper coins.  But Jesus knew that her gift was the only money she possessed.

We easily assume that temporary structures like tents are used for a short time, but iconic grand buildings will last for ever.  Jesus often taught at the huge temple in Jerusalem which had been built by Herod.  It was physically splendid in every way, built of new hewn stone which was either pure white or covered in gold.  The stones used in construction were massive and looked permanent; one stone at the southwest corner was 36 metres long.  The disciples, like many religious people, took pride in the physical structures associated with worship.  They assumed that

Jesus had just described how the massive and beautiful temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed (Luke 21:5-6).  Naturally, the disciples wanted to know when it would happen.  But instead of announcing a date or focussing only on the terrors of the city's destruction to come in AD70, Jesus gave them a series of snapshots of the many hardships the church would need to endure before the end of the age and His return.  

Although it would be nice to think that everything in life is wonderful, it is not reality.  Since the world first rebelled against God, nothing here is absolutely perfect.  God's creation, however beautiful, is always defective in some way especially when it comes to human relationships (Romans 8:22-23).  That is why Jesus was preparing His trainee apostles for the immense hardships they and the church would face before His second coming (Luke 21:12-19).  And He straightforwardly predicted that international hostility and natural disasters would be the normal environmen

Those who are being persecuted often feel that their discomfort is part of an evil strategic plan to demolish the church and disable the gospel.  And that is true: Satan is furious because he knows his time is short (Revelation 12:12), and so he does whatever he can to incite hatred against Christ's followers by sowing lies into the minds of people who can be enticed to persecute believers.