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Luke 13:18-15:32
We are in the Christ Stream reading from the Tree of Life Version.
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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis
God, thank you for sending Jesus and saving us as we respond to your relentless love. Your ways are not only perfect, they are fascinating. Amen.
13 – Luke is bolstering up a few lessons here as Jesus is finalizing His time in Perea; a region east of the Jordan that started ca. 25 miles south of Galilee and ran south to about 15 or so miles worth of shoreline on the Dead Sea. Jesus is teaching about the Kingdom of God and the fact that it is going to grow. Plan on it. Jesus did not come to earth to teach maintenance. The Kingdom of God is an enterprising growing Kingdom. A Bible study of 6 should be the headwaters of 8-10 church plants throughout life. If 6 spends 55 years remaining 6, they are not “Kingdom-minded.” God is not impressed with “terrarium faith” {just seal it in and hang on to what you have}. One preacher called this, “getting what you can, canning what you get, and sitting on the can”. The interaction about whether a few will be saved or not is a perceived question that came out of the person’s misperception. And with Jesus’ answer about the “narrow door”, some surmise that only a few will be saved at a time…like a crowd being shuffled through a single turnstyle that acts as a funneling bottleneck. Others then envision St. Peter on the other side of the pearly gates bellowing to slow down because he is getting overwhelmed since he can only check-in so many people into heaven and can only do so at a snail pace…it might crash his computer data processor. All of this limping logic is understandable but none of it is true. The phrase “narrow door” is the translation that surfaces often but it actually is referring to an abrasive entrance [This becomes obvious when reading the Greek Translation ~ though it is a trifle skewed and muddled abit in our English versions.] It requires committed focus to enter – one must be ‘all in’ or he will be ‘all out’. Pay attention to Jesus. walk the balance beam not the Highway to Hell. Jesus is leading a team to another world that will reside in another solar system. He is not hosting a cocktail party where even a fake I.D. will get you in and we hang out and sauce around, play with yo-yo’s, dwell in hammocks and angels serve from an open bar stocked with “holy spirits”. My husband and I talk about this regularly – that an alarming number of people are simply ‘chillin’ in Church. They’re just there because they are … well, just there. We can say we know about God, but have we really let Him in to be Lord? The Pharisees acted like they cared about Jesus’ welfare claiming He should leave Herod’s district warning “Herod wants to kill you…” REALLY? Herod wanted to see a miracle when he finally met Jesus during the trial. He didn’t want Him dead. He kind of didn’t care. The truth is the Pharisees wanted Jesus dead…so they feign concern cc. Herod. Peculiar deflection and aside. The Pharisees were phoney as a wooden nickle! Jesus’ reply to these Pharisees of Jerusalem gets the precise response from Jesus. Herod gets called a [sly] “fox”, and these Pharisees get called murderers of the prophets.