Luke 7:24-35

content/bible_journal/luke_7:24-35.md

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+title = "Luke 7:24–35"
+date = "2022-11-18"
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+
+### [Read the passage.](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lk7.24-35)
+
+When John's disciples leave with their answer, Jesus begins teaching the crowds
+about John, and his role in God's plan. He starts with the question, "What did
+you go out to see?" and gives some obviously wrong answers as a rhetorical
+device. This is to get the listeners to be introspective and think about why
+they were interested in hearing what this hermit in the wilderness was saying.
+John warned of coming judgement and of the need for repentance to avoid the
+wrath of God. But why did the people think he was right about it? Because he
+was "a prophet", and then Jesus asserts that he was more than just any prophet,
+but the prophesied forerunner to the Messiah.
+
+In verse 28, Jesus says no one born of woman is greater than John, but everyone
+in the kingdom of God is greater than John. Is He saying John isn't in the
+kingdom of God, that he isn't saved? No, I think He's showing how great a
+difference there is between a physical birth and a spiritual rebirth. You can
+do all these good deeds, know a lot of truth, even have your life be predicted
+in Scriptures, but it doesn't matter at all if you aren't in God's kingdom. The
+people who had been baptized by John understood what Jesus was getting at, and
+they agreed, because it lined up with what they had already heard from John.
+
+The Pharisees and experts of the Law of Moses didn't agree with this, because
+they were banking their spiritual future on their good works and their
+knowledge of the truth. They rejected both John and Jesus, so Jesus calls out
+their contrariness. He compares them to children who don't want to play
+anything that someone else suggests. John lived an ascetic life, to an extent
+that he was accused of mental illness. Jesus feasted and attended parties with
+sinners and religious outcasts, so they called Him a glutton and a drunkard.
+These are the same critics, and they weren't satisfied by anyone's message but
+their own.
+
+* * *
+
+Let us be receptive to Your message, and not cling to our own paths, which will
+not bring us to You in the first place.