Luke 14
At a Pharisee's dinner table, a man with dropsy is healed, a seating lesson is taught, and a rejected invitation fills with the homeless and the blind.
Summary
The setting is a Sabbath dinner at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, with the guests watching Jesus carefully. A man with dropsy is present; Jesus asks the lawyers and Pharisees whether it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not — they are silent — and he heals the man and sends him away, then asks whether any of them would not pull a son or an ox out of a well on the Sabbath. They are again silent. Watching the guests choose places of honor at table, Jesus gives counsel that inverts the expected social logic: do not sit in the place of honor at a wedding feast, lest someone more distinguished has been invited and you are moved to shame; instead sit in the lowest place, and the host may come and say to you move up higher, and then you will be honored before all the others. The principle is stated twice: everyone who exalts himself will be humbled; everyone who humbles himself will be exalted. The host is then addressed: do not invite those who can reciprocate, but the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind — those who cannot repay you — and you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.
The remark about eating bread in the kingdom of God prompts the parable of the great banquet. A man gives a great feast and sends his servant to tell the invited guests that everything is ready. Each guest makes an excuse: one has bought a field; one has bought five yoke of oxen; one has just married a wife. The master is angry and sends the servant into the streets and lanes of the city to bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. The servant reports there is still room. The master sends him out again into the roads and hedges to compel people to come in, so the house will be full. Not one of those originally invited will taste the banquet. Luke follows the parable with sayings on the cost of discipleship — carrying the cross, calculating the cost of a tower before laying the foundation, assessing military strength before going to war — concluding with the image of salt that has lost its taste: it is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile, and is thrown away.
- Luke 1Chapter 1 opens with a formal literary preface — Luke addresses a certain Theophilus and claims to have investigated everything carefully, setting himself apart as a self-conscious historian among the gospel writers.
- Luke 2Chapter 2 contains the nativity scene that dominates Western cultural memory of the gospels: the census under Quirinius, the journey to Bethlehem, the birth, the manger, the swaddling cloths, the angels appearing to shepherds in the fields at night.
- Luke 3Luke situates John's ministry with extraordinary chronological precision — the fifteenth year of Tiberius, the governorship of Pilate, the tetrarchies of Herod and Philip and Lysanias, the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas.
- Luke 4The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness for forty days, where the devil offers him bread, political authority over all the kingdoms of the world, and divine protection — and is refused at each turn with a quotation from Deuteronomy.
- Luke 5By the Lake of Gennesaret, the crowds press against Jesus and he steps into Simon's empty boat to teach.
- Luke 6The chapter opens with two Sabbath controversies: the disciples pluck grain as they walk through fields, and Jesus defends them by citing David's eating the showbread when his men were hungry.
- Luke 7Three distinct episodes give chapter 7 its range.
- Luke 8Chapter 8 moves quickly across a range of narrative modes.
- Luke 9Chapter 9 is a turning-point chapter.
- Luke 10Jesus sends out seventy (some manuscripts say seventy-two) in pairs ahead of him into every town and place he intends to visit, with instructions similar to the twelve's but addressed to a larger group and a longer journey.
- Luke 11The chapter opens with Jesus praying in a certain place; when he stops, a disciple asks him to teach them to pray as John taught his disciples.
- Luke 12With ten thousand pressing around him, Jesus addresses the disciples first: beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
- Luke 13Some report to Jesus about Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.
- Luke 14Jesus goes to eat at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees on the Sabbath, watched carefully by those present.
- Luke 15The Pharisees and scribes grumble that this man receives sinners and eats with them.
- Luke 16Chapter 16 contains two of Luke's most difficult parables.
- Luke 17The chapter opens with warnings about causing stumbling — better to have a millstone around your neck and be thrown into the sea — and the obligation to rebuke and forgive a brother who sins seven times in a day and repents each time.
- Luke 18Jesus tells the parable of the persistent widow to teach that they ought always to pray and not lose heart: a widow in a city where a judge neither fears God nor respects people keeps coming to him demanding justice against her adversary; he eventually grants it not because of justice but because she is wearing him out.
- Luke 19Jericho contains the Zacchaeus scene, unique to Luke: a chief tax collector who is wealthy and short climbs a sycamore tree to see Jesus over the crowd.
- Luke 20Chapter 20 is a series of confrontations in the temple.
- Luke 21Looking up at those putting gifts into the treasury, Jesus observes that a poor widow puts in two small copper coins — the smallest unit of currency — and says she has put in more than all of them, because they gave from their abundance and she from her poverty gave everything she had.
- Luke 22Satan enters Judas Iscariot and he goes to the chief priests to discuss how to betray Jesus.
- Luke 23The assembly brings Jesus to Pilate, accusing him of perverting the nation, forbidding tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be king.
- Luke 24Very early on the first day of the week, the women — Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and others — bring spices to the tomb and find the stone rolled away.