Luke 20

Enemies repeatedly try to trick Jesus in Chapter 20 as they look for opportunities to arrest him in the temple. He blunts their attacks with riddles, a parable, reasoning and defiant statements. Jesus' responses first infuriate (v. 19) and then confound (v. 26) those seeking to stop his teaching. This appears to be a coordinated attack involving chief priests, scribes, elders and Sadducees (a rival party to the Pharisees -- of which some of the others likely were). But even in predicting his own death (v. 15), Jesus gets the upper hand rhetorically. Remember, we are in Jesus' "passion week" -- just two chapters away from his arrest and three from his crucifixion. Before that drama, though, he has much to teach.

Arresting Jesus or even speaking against him is a challenge for the religious leaders, partly because the people embraced him and his teaching. We can see their concern over this dynamic in verses 6, 19, 26 and 45-47. The leaders ask Jesus a series of three questions (vs. 2, 22 and 33) designed to entrap him. I'd like to hear your thoughts on why they asked these questions and see what you think of Jesus' responses. Do you have a favorite?

After answering the first question about his authority to teach, Jesus goes into the parable of the vineyard owner. What is he talking about here? On Sunday, let's see if we can identify each of the characters and figure out Jesus' point. From verse 16, it sounds like people Jesus had been teaching understood what he was getting at. It seems to be unthinkable for them, but he responds by pointing to two passages of scripture to prove his point (v. 17-18). Again, I just want to see if on Sunday we can get a sense of what he is saying here, so be ready to talk about it!

In case you are thinking about your favorite response from Jesus, I'll tell you that I liked his answer about marriage and the resurrection. He quickly lays out why who you're married to is an irrelevant question after death (v. 36) and moves on to challenge their underlying skepticism about the resurrection (v. 37-38). [If you're interested, I can explain on Sunday why the Sadducees were skeptics on this issue.] He turns to scripture and eloquently shows that even Moses accepted his physically dead ancestors as still existing spiritually. Verse 38 is a beautiful statement that speaks of our hope as believers -- that in death our souls live on. We'll be with God immediately and after the resurrection of the dead at the end of time.

Jesus makes claims to divinity repeatedly in this chapter -- in the parable (v. 13), in his response to the people afterward (v. 17-18) and as he quotes another passage of scripture (v. 41-44). This  is, again, an interesting couple of verses. Let's talk about this final passage on Sunday.
Jesus has verbally jousted with the religious leaders and won. Now, as the chapter closes, he takes a parting shot at them by calling out their hypocrisy (v. 46-47) and condemns them. He has won this battle, but they'll be back.