Preparation for the Coming Kingdom: Integrity (Luke 12:1-12)
After teaching about the dangers of religious power and hypocrisy, actually condemning the leaders of His day, Jesus turns to teaching His disciples. This is a rich section combining a lot of ideas that Jesus appears to have taught about on multiple occasions and in various contexts. There are at least six related ideas here:
First, Jesus’s followers are to avoid the specific hypocrisy of the religious leaders. The danger of all religious systems, even the ones built on solid foundations, is that there is always a temptation towards power and control. Leaders in the church should be on constant guard against this danger. The Pharisees valued their power more than the ideas that their movement was built upon: a genuine desire to please God and live rightly.
In relation to this temptation towards power, Jesus warns that all things done in secret will be revealed. We can never hope to sacrifice our integrity and get away with it. Ultimately, we will answer to God for the things we kept from the world around us.
We should fear God and not man. Beyond that, we should live to please God, not the crowds of people around us.
Related to this, Jesus warns His followers that they need to always acknowledge and confess Him before the world. If we are ashamed of Him. If we deny Him, downplay Him, or fail to confess Him as the source of our life and hope, He will not acknowledge us either. We either accept Jesus or reject Him. We can’t have a middle ground option where we “accept Him” in secret and hide that from the world.
What about the Spirit? What does rejecting the Spirit mean? What is this blasphemy of the Spirit Jesus talks about here? Similar to the denial of Jesus, it is a rejection of the work of God in one’s life. It would seem like less of a momentary act and more of a persistent attitude. After all, God forgives all sin through Jesus if we will repent and turn back to Him. A persistent rejection is unforgivable as it persists until repentance is no longer an option.
Finally, Jesus ends this section of teaching by assuring the disciples that the Spirit will give them the right words to say when they are confessing Jesus. We need not worry how we will defend our faith, because we are not alone in that act of defense.
First, Jesus’s followers are to avoid the specific hypocrisy of the religious leaders. The danger of all religious systems, even the ones built on solid foundations, is that there is always a temptation towards power and control. Leaders in the church should be on constant guard against this danger. The Pharisees valued their power more than the ideas that their movement was built upon: a genuine desire to please God and live rightly.
In relation to this temptation towards power, Jesus warns that all things done in secret will be revealed. We can never hope to sacrifice our integrity and get away with it. Ultimately, we will answer to God for the things we kept from the world around us.
We should fear God and not man. Beyond that, we should live to please God, not the crowds of people around us.
Related to this, Jesus warns His followers that they need to always acknowledge and confess Him before the world. If we are ashamed of Him. If we deny Him, downplay Him, or fail to confess Him as the source of our life and hope, He will not acknowledge us either. We either accept Jesus or reject Him. We can’t have a middle ground option where we “accept Him” in secret and hide that from the world.
What about the Spirit? What does rejecting the Spirit mean? What is this blasphemy of the Spirit Jesus talks about here? Similar to the denial of Jesus, it is a rejection of the work of God in one’s life. It would seem like less of a momentary act and more of a persistent attitude. After all, God forgives all sin through Jesus if we will repent and turn back to Him. A persistent rejection is unforgivable as it persists until repentance is no longer an option.
Finally, Jesus ends this section of teaching by assuring the disciples that the Spirit will give them the right words to say when they are confessing Jesus. We need not worry how we will defend our faith, because we are not alone in that act of defense.
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