Luke 6 concludes with Jesus reinforcing this idea of those whose blessings depend on heaven, and those whose blessings are built on earth. He begins by talking about trees. “Each tree is known by its own fruit,” Jesus says; good trees give good fruit, bad trees give bad fruit. Fig trees grow figs. Thornbushes grow thorns. Grapevines grow grapes. Everything…
Ah, the beatitudes: I’ve heard so many completely different interpretations of these scant handfuls of words. “Blessed are the poor.” Does this mean 1) God saves the materially poor to make up for their poverty on earth; 2) Christians should strive to be poor; or 3) even the poor are blessed? To begin, there’s a clear juxtaposition between the beatitudes…
Luke 5:1-11 is a tremendously powerful little story. Jesus sees two boats, and the fishermen washing their nets—after a long night of catching nothing. The fishermen are Peter, James, and John, partners in a fishing enterprise (v. 10). Jesus gets in the boat, and He tells Peter to go out deep and put out the nets. The nets they just…