Tag Luke

Render to God

Todd R Leave a comment

The phrase “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” which Jesus spoke in Luke 20:25 is likely a familiar one.  I had a friend in college who worked at Little Caesar’s pizza, and he showed up at Bible study with some pizza from there one night.  We had agreed to split the cost, so when he walked in he said “render unto Caesar!”  We all got the reference and a couple of us laughed (I admit one of them was me).

The “render to Caesar” saying comes from a time where some scribes and chief priests tried to get Jesus in trouble, as they often did, trying any means necessary to condemn Him.  In this case, they first flattered Jesus, trying to catch Him off-guard, then asked Him, “Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar, or not?”  They thought if Jesus said yes, it would upset the Jews who wanted their Messiah to overthrow Rome, and that if He said no, it would upset the Romans and perhaps they would arrest Jesus as a revolutionary.  They thought they had Him trapped, but His answer quoted above was unexpected by them, yet truthful and insightful.

Often the lessons taken from this story have to do with Jesus’ ability to thwart the attempts of His enemies to catch Him in His words, or with the Christian’s obligation to pay taxes, or with something about the relationship between the Jews and Rome.  There are several good applications.

Another important application that’s key to the story, can be highlighted if we shorten the saying to “render…to God the things that are God’s.”  This last part of the quote is where Jesus subtly tells those trying to catch Him that they weren’t giving to God the things they should be.  Although they were the religious leaders of their day, they were focused on the wrong things, like their money and their resentment against the government.  Or even their obsession with arguing with Jesus.

Photo by Adi Albulescu on Unsplash

What are the things that are God’s and that we should render to Him?

Paul helps answer this in Romans 12:1, which says “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

Here Paul says that the thing we should be rendering to God is our very selves, and Jesus implied this when He said “render…to God the things that are God’s.”  This answer said to the Jews, and everyone listening, that their Messiah wasn’t only going to overthrow Rome, but He was going to overthrow all kingdoms, including those we build in our own hearts and minds.  From an eternal perspective, the many flaws of Roman rule under which the first-century Jews lived were minor inconveniences, including the paying of taxes and other, real abuses.  Jesus wants us to focus on the real challenge: what to do about mankind’s rebellion from God?  This is the real mission of the Messiah.

Luke follows the “render to Caesar” story with a question some Sadducees asked Jesus about the resurrection, also to try and catch Him saying something wrong.  The story was not put there by accident, but in the sequence, I think we see that there is in fact a resurrection, and that our resurrected selves will be much different than our current selves.  Our new selves will be able to perfectly worship God, and we will be able to fully offer our “bodies as a living sacrifice” while we can only do so imperfectly now.

In the meantime, we don’t get a free pass to do what we want because we aren’t perfected yet.  Every day and every moment, we are to “render…to God the things that are God’s” in ways the religious leaders of Jesus’ day (as well as the audience of most of the Old Testament prophets) failed to do.

In closing, I’ll quote the OT prophet Micah, who differentiated between the animal sacrifices of ancient Israel from the “living sacrifice” God requires:

“With what shall I come before the LORD,
            and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
            with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
            with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
            the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good;
            and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
            and to walk humbly with your God?”  (Micah 6:6-8)

Today, “render…to God the things that are God’s.”

Sustaining the Wonder

Todd R 1 Comment

My knowledge of art and art history is just a bit above zero.  I appreciate good art, but it’s just never been a significant interest of mine.  However, that doesn’t mean I don’t have favorite works, and I’m pretty sure my number one is Supper at Emmaus by Caravaggio, painted in 1602 and posted below.  The original can be found in the National Gallery in London, where I’ve seen it in person twice.

It’s truly a great work of art.  Stylistically, I’m fascinated by the realism and the use of shadow and depth.  But what really brings it to life for me is the shocked expressions on the two disciples at the right and left, who had doubts, but suddenly realized they were talking to the resurrected Christ.

The story behind the painting can be found in Luke chapter 24, verses 13-35, where the two disciples in the painting were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus and were joined by Jesus after His resurrection, but they didn’t realize it was Him.  They shared with Him that “some women of our company” had visited His tomb, where they did not find His body, but instead found angels who told them Jesus was alive.  Then Luke tells us:

“And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”  And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”

The two disciples invited this “stranger” to stay with them, still not realizing who He was, and during dinner when Jesus blessed and broke the bread, “their eyes were opened and they recognized Him.”  This is the moment captured in Caravaggio’s painting, where you can see both their shock and their excitement, preserved for all time in oil on canvas.

What strikes me when I consider this moment and this painting is whether my shock and excitement that Jesus is alive is as permanent as the disciples in the painting.  I don’t consistently have the feelings these two men had at realizing Jesus Christ is alive.  I almost never have the uncontrollable, physical response that they had, one jumping out of his seat and the other with arms spread wide in wonder.  Granted, those two are permanently captured in paint, but isn’t their reaction as real as it should be?

Also, after Jesus “vanished from their sight” (we don’t know how), the two disciples said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”  Through His Spirit, He communicates to us through His Word whenever we are willing to pay attention about how “Moses and all the Prophets” testify to Him and His glory.  Does my heart “burn within” me when I study the Bible?  Most often not.

While the two disciples in the painting were real people, what was captured there was not all that those men were.  Those men weren’t always that excited about Jesus.  They surely had doubts at times and weren’t perfect.  They were more like you and me than the moment represented by Caravaggio could show us.  When they were weak, God’s grace was there for them, and it is there for us in our weakness.  We’d love to always have the passion these two men had on, or shortly after, that first Easter when He rose from the dead, but the truth is we are inconsistent in our devotion and excitement.

Today let’s pray for God to give us more of what we see in Caravaggio’s painting.  A more sustained sense of wonder at God’s work accomplished through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Let’s pray for the uncontrollable emotional and physical response of those two disciples.  Let’s pray for God to carry us during the inevitable times when we don’t feel that way.  And let’s pray that He would remove the things in our life that distract us.

Amen.

The Narrow Door

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Many people think the God of the Old Testament is a God of judgement, and the God of the New Testament is a God of love, but I’m not sure these people are paying attention.  The whole Bible speaks to us of the same God.  The Old Testament is full of stories about God pursuing His people, calling them to come back to Him because He loves them.  Likewise, the New Testament has many passages like Luke 13:24-27, in which Jesus says:

“Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.  When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’  Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’  But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’”

Not only does Jesus here pass judgement on “workers of evil,” but many other places point forward to a time where Jesus will come again to judge the earth in righteousness and justice.  But that may not be the scariest part of the verses above from Luke.  In these verses, Jesus isn’t talking about just any “workers of evil,” but He’s talking specifically about people who think they’re following Jesus.

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

These verses are a response to someone asking Jesus: “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”[1]  His response to the question isn’t “yes, they will be few” but more like “yes, because many are trying to get there the wrong way.”  These people say, “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets”?  In my reading, this phrase is like saying “we go to church.”  In church we “ate and drank” with Jesus in communion.  When we listen to sermons, it was like “you taught in our streets.”  They were around Jesus all the time and doing what other Christians do, but as 20th century evangelist Billy Sunday said, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.”

We can’t get salvation by our own efforts, even if we do all the “right things” but only through what Christ has already done.  Christ’s work is the “narrow door” and anything else will be a closed door when Jesus returns in judgement.  Part of what we call the visible church is going to be shut out. Jesus says many in the church “will seek to enter and will not be able.”  These are people seeking salvation, who “knock at the door” but don’t get in.

Does this mean we should spend a lot of effort on figuring out who is and who isn’t a true Christian?  It doesn’t, but it does mean we all should examine ourselves, which is what I think Jesus expected from His audience when He said these things.  As James asked “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?”[2] I ask myself, since I call Jesus my Lord, what things do I do only because He wants me to?  Do I do more than hang around Jesus and His people?  Do I do things that earn me nothing in return, but which please God?  This is what I think is meant by Paul when he wrote in Philippians 2:12 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”  Although our salvation is free, and can only be earned by Jesus Himself, if we believe in Him then He is our Lord.  We should fear Him and do works that please Him.

Therefore, “strive to enter through the narrow door” of Jesus’ righteousness that was opened for us on the cross, but know that we won’t be the same on the other side.  We will be forever changed.

[1] Luke 13:23
[2] James 2:14

Do You Want a Perfect Government?

Todd R 1 Comment

Immediately after beginning His public ministry with His baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil three times.  One of those temptations went like this:

“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”” – Luke 4:5-7

As you probably know, Jesus did not succumb to this temptation but suppose Jesus had decided to take authority over all the nations of the world in this way. He would have decisions to make.  What form of government would He choose for “all the kingdoms of the world”?  There are so many to choose from, and certainly He’d have the wisdom to pick the right one, right?

Here in the United States, technically a federal constitutional republic, people often just call it a democracy.  For many, it’s a good form of government, and as Winston Churchill said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”.  Churchill was saying that no system of government is perfect, but regardless we should choose the best.  The best available option is what we should aim for, right?

However, Jesus refused to succumb to the temptation of accepting authority over the imperfect nations from the devil (and under the devil), and we should be very thankful He did.  To us, it seemed like a very enticing offer, but from Jesus’ perspective, was it as attractive?  Was it attractive at all?  How does the Bible describe God’s attitude toward the world’s nations that Jesus was tempted to rule?

In Psalm 2:4, Jesus “laughs” at all the worldly kingdoms and “holds them in derision”.  In that Psalm, He sees all of mankind’s attempts to govern themselves as laughable!  Isaiah 40:17 perhaps takes this even further:

“All the nations are as nothing before him,
            they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”

From His perspective, “all the nations” are “less than nothing and emptiness.”  Why rule these kingdoms that are laughable and empty?  Kingdoms that are infinitely less than perfect?  Therefore, Jesus wasn’t overcome by the devil’s temptation because His objective was a perfect kingdom made up of perfect people.  Being offered “all the kingdoms of the world” was not at all attractive to Him under those circumstances.

If it wasn’t tempting to Him, why should we be tempted by it?  Why is worldly power so attractive to us, and why do we sometimes act like a perfect government can exist in this world?

We might act like this because we believe the perfect system can overcome the imperfections in each person’s heart.  Therefore, we focus on the political system; the form of government instead of the nature of its people.  However, all the power of earthly kingdoms can’t heal the human heart; only God’s can.  Any system made up of imperfect people is inevitably imperfect.  Jesus’ mission was to create a new people willing and able to live in a perfect kingdom absolutely ruled by Him.  Perfection can be achieved no other way.

Fortunately for us, instead of falling for the devil’s temptation in the desert and forming an imperfect government of imperfect people, Jesus’ response was:

“And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
             “‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
                        and him only shall you serve.’”” – Luke 4:8

Whatever system of government we live under, that government is temporary and will inevitably be abolished by the kingdom of God that already should rule in His people’s hearts.  Therefore, “worship the Lord your God” and pray for the culmination of His kingdom, while faithfully loving God and loving our neighbor, regardless of our form of government.  God’s rule of love is relevant everywhere and will outlast all the kingdoms of this earth, proving each of them to be “less than nothing and emptiness.”

Jesus knew what He was doing when rejecting the world’s kingdoms and He wants us to follow His example.

He Humbles and Exalts Nations

Todd R Leave a comment

In a parable about humility, Jesus said in Luke 14:11: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  While the parable is about individual people, elsewhere God also makes clear that he can humble or exalt entire nations.  While Luke 14:11 may contradict much of what we see in our world today, at the final judgment the truth of the verse will be made manifest, and God promises it will be so.

As an example, the Old Testament prophet Isaiah spoke of God’s power over the nations.  Around 605 B.C., Babylon invaded Judah and carried them into captivity, and about 70 years later, Judah was allowed to return home by Cyrus the Mede, who had defeated Babylon.  Over a century before Babylon’s invasion, Isaiah prophesied their entire rise and fall around 700 B.C., when Babylon was not yet even a world power.  Isaiah described the final destinies of both Babylon and of God’s people in startling images.

As recorded in Isaiah 47:1-3, God’s vengeance on Babylon was described, probably before they even considered capturing Jerusalem:

“Come down and sit in the dust,
            O virgin daughter of Babylon;
sit on the ground without a throne,
            O daughter of the Chaldeans!
For you shall no more be called
            tender and delicate.
Take the millstones and grind flour,
            put off your veil,
strip off your robe, uncover your legs,
            pass through the rivers.
Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
            and your disgrace shall be seen.
I will take vengeance,
            and I will spare no one.
Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name—
            is the Holy One of Israel.”

This is contrasted to the future of God’s people in Isaiah 52:1-2:

“Awake, awake,
            put on your strength, O Zion;
put on your beautiful garments,
            O Jerusalem, the holy city;
for there shall no more come into you
            the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Shake yourself from the dust and arise;
            be seated, O Jerusalem;
loose the bonds from your neck,
            O captive daughter of Zion.”

Did you notice the parallels?  In Isaiah 47, Babylon is disgraced, cast down from the throne and made to do menial labor.  Babylon is stripped of their beautiful clothes and publicly shamed, sitting in the dust.

Contrast to Isaiah 52, which describes the daughter of Zion as rising up from the dust of disgrace under Babylon, from whom she has been freed.  She dwells in peace, awakening and dressing herself in beautiful clothes.  What a beautiful future!

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

However, note that God removes Babylon’s temporary throne but does not put His people on a throne.  That honor belongs only to Him, and Babylon’s presumption in taking that place is the reason they need to be humbled.  By humbling themselves before God’s throne, His people follow the example Jesus gave at the wedding feast in verse 10 of the Luke 14 parable: “But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.”  God will honor the humble.

By demonstrating power over entire nations in history, He has proven He has power over nations now and in the future.  And if He has power over nations, He has power over whatever frustrations we have with the state of the world.  He alone is on His throne.

So, if you are frustrated with the powerful and influential who puff themselves up in defiance of God, or if you wonder whether being humble is really a better alternative, remember:

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

For people as well as nations.