Living Forever
How to inherit eternal life
Lawyer tested Jesus
Luke 10:25–12:3
SPIRITUAL DETOURS
Overview
Luke emphasized the humanity of Jesus. It is only appropriate that many of the teachings of Jesus which Luke recorded show us how to live a human life in union with God.
This portion of Luke contains some of the best-known stories about Jesus’ life. Here find the story of the Good Samaritan, the conflict between the sisters Mary and Martha, and the Lord’s Prayer. As you show how each of them is linked with Christian spirituality, you will be communicating a vital message to the members of your class or group.
Here your group members can learn to recognize the false trails down which some believers are led, and to recognize spiritual reality from spiritual illusion.
➔ Spirituality. In the New Testament the adjective “spiritual” (pneumatikos) is contrasted with “soulish” (psychikos). The word “spiritual” is used to describe gifts, the law, the resurrection body, understanding, and the believing community, as well as a person. Thus a “spiritual” person or thing belongs to the realm of the Spirit. A spiritual person is, in essence, one who is not only indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but who also lives in obedience to the Spirit’s promptings.
Christians have historically been uncertain about the nature of the truly “spiritual” life. Is it a life without sin? A life of prayer, or fasting? A life of withdrawal? In these paragraphs of Luke we begin to understand more of what spirituality is not—and how to live our lives in union with our God.
Commentary
When I was 19, after two years of college, I joined the Navy. At Great Lakes Naval Training Station, I sat in a barber chair and became a “skinhead,” was issued my uniforms, and was introduced to Navy life.
There I received the traditional misdirection given newcomers in any special group. Left-handed wrenches and lost firing lines, and toothbrushes to scrub cracks in the barracks floor, were just some of the things I was told to fetch. And, because at first I really didn’t know what was expected in this strange new life, I was often confused enough to follow false trails. It was all so new. And I wanted to do the right thing.
In many ways it’s the same for us as Christians. To become a believer is to launch out toward a unique destiny: to become more and more like God the Father as the new life He has planted in us grows and matures. We are to learn to think and feel and be like Him.
This godly way of life we’re to learn is distinctly different from the ways we have known. It’s far more than mere morality; it’s transformation. So it is easy to become confused about the road to personal spiritual renewal. It’s easy to wander away from God’s pathway, onto sidetracks that look promising but are really only dead ends.
Luke 10 shows how Jesus began to train His followers in discipleship. He began to show them how to live a new life. His words and actions drew contrasts between the way men of the world live and the way His followers are to live. All that is reported in this section of Luke reveals both the straight and narrow path of discipleship, and the dangerous detours and illusions that keep us from our new life’s goal.
What are the false trails down which Christians wander? Perhaps members of your group have been disappointed because they have wandered down one or more of them, and missed true spirituality.
Activism: Luke 10:25–11:13
One of the most deeply ingrained human notions is that a person must do something to merit God’s favor. We accept gifts from other people. But we seem to want to say of what we receive from God, “I earned it!”
The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). The activist’s approach to life is implicit in a question put to Jesus by an “expert in the Law” (e.g., Scriptures).
But first, it’s instructive to note that the man who portrayed the activist attitude put an insincere question to Jesus. He asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 25) But the man was not really concerned about Jesus’ answer. He was not motivated to ask his question by a personal sense of need: he was trying to trap Jesus. If he had been motivated by honest desire, the answer Jesus gave might have been more direct. As it is, the answer came all too clear. It was so clear that the questioner soon realized that he, not Jesus, was trapped!
“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The query contains a contradiction. What does anyone do to inherit? Why, nothing! An inheritance is something someone else has earned. An inheritance comes as a gift. If your father is a millionaire and makes out a will leaving all to you, what did you do to inherit? Why, you were born into his family. The inheritance is based on relationship, not on performance. You do not do something to inherit.
Jesus turned the question back on the asker. How did this expert in Scripture “read” the Word? The man answered correctly. The heart of the Old Testament Law, and of all that God seeks to do in the human heart, is expressed in the command to love God fully and to love one’s neighbor as oneself (v. 27). All the specific commands in the Law can be summed up by “love,” for a person who loves fully and rightly will do what God’s Word reveals to be the right thing (see Rom. 13:8–10). This, then, is at once the simplest and most profound demand in the Word of God. Love God completely. And love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Phillips translates Jesus’ reply: “Quite right. Do that and you will live” (Luke 10:27).
But this of course is the problem. Do all that! Put all self behind; love God purely and perfectly. Love others as you love yourself. Do all that and you will live.
These words sounded doom to the questioner. He had been convicted from his own lips. For he, as every person who has ever lived, had fallen short of doing “all that.” We have all had selfish thoughts. We have all neglected to put God first. We have all hurt our neighbors. Rather than bring hope, Jesus’ demand that a person “do all that” brought dismay.
The expert in the Law now attempted self-justification. This is characteristic of the activist. He wants to earn what he gets. But he wants to use a balance scale to determine value. He wants to weigh his “good” against his “bad,” hoping there will be more on the “good” side. Jesus’ reply said in effect, “All right. Use your scales. But remember: your ‘good’ acts are not weighed against your ‘bad’ actions. Your acts are weighed against the standard of perfection! Your acts are to be weighed against all that love demands!”
When the expert realized that he had condemned himself, he quickly attempted self-justification. “Who is my neighbor?” (v. 29) How quickly we tend to do this. When we feel condemned, we try to modify the standards, whittling a little off here and shifting something there in a vain attempt to better measure up.
I recently visited a 21-year-old in the hospital. He had shot himself with a rifle. He went to church as a child, but left as a young teen. He said the thing that earned him an invitation to leave the church was a question he asked. “Why, when you’re so proud of sending money overseas for missionaries, won’t you have anything to do with the poor people across the street?”
Now, I don’t blame the church for my young friend’s drift to drugs at 13, or for his choice of bad company. But I do wonder. How many of the things we are proud of—our missionary budgets, our separation, our doings and duties—may at heart be expressions of an attempt to whittle God’s standard of perfect love down to lists of things we can do, and in the attempt feel some pride?
At any rate, the expert in Scripture asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” He didn’t want to think he must love everybody!
We all know the story. We know how an injured Israelite lay, beaten and robbed and in pain, along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. We know how a priest and a Levite (both men who knew and were to teach the Law) hurried on by. And we know that a Samaritan, a foreigner and a hereditary enemy of the Jews, risked stopping to help the injured man. He carried him to an inn and there paid the full cost of his care.
And we know what Jesus said to the expert who had questioned Him. “You go, and do likewise.”
The expert in the Law had come in pride, trying to trap Jesus. Now he went away, and we can hope he went away feeling a personal sense of need. For Jesus challenged this activist on his own field of honor: “Go and do.” You go, and try. And when you realize that you cannot possibly do all things that are required by the divine law of love, then perhaps you will realize that relationship with God can never be based on human works or accomplishments!
Go and do. Then, perhaps, this man would recall the message that Jesus so often taught. Life with God begins with confession and forgiveness. Life with God begins when we abandon our works, and throw ourselves on the overflowing mercies of our God.
♥ Link to Life: Youth / Adult
The story of the Good Samaritan has often been used, appropriately, to help Christians realize that the “neighbor” Christians are called on to help is anyone we know who is in need. It is need, the human condition itself, that makes all of us neighbors.
But in telling this story we too often miss the fact that this incident is intended to display the futility of trying to win eternal life through human effort.
Help your group discover this emphasis by listing key phrases on the chalkboard. Have group members work in pairs to answer questions about each designed to help them understand this passage.
phrase
question
do to inherit
What does anyone do to inherit?
love … with all heart, etc.
Who can achieve the standard described there?
do all that
Why did Jesus say this?
who is my neighbor
Why did the expert ask this?
go and do
What would the expert discover if he tried?
Use the commentary to help shape your a