From b6c607568f76a6939bde3dd85fda6ef362883a0c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Lyle Mantooth Date: Tue, 17 Jan 2023 23:37:01 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Luke 19:1-10 --- content/bible_journal/luke_19:1-10.md | 56 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 56 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/bible_journal/luke_19:1-10.md diff --git a/content/bible_journal/luke_19:1-10.md b/content/bible_journal/luke_19:1-10.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cd0f29 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/bible_journal/luke_19:1-10.md @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ ++++ +title = "Luke 19:1–10" +date = "2023-01-17" ++++ + +### [Read the passage.](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lk19.1-10) + +You've likely heard how the song goes: "Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a +wee little man was he." We can't know exactly how short he was, but it was +enough that he couldn't see over the crowds who had gathered to see Jesus when +He was going through Jericho. News had probably also spread about the healing +of the blind man at the gate, so it would be even more difficult to get a good +look at Jesus. + +One thing the song doesn't tell us is that Zacchaeus was a "chief tax +collector" (_v. 2_), which is apparently not a phrase encountered anywhere +else. But Jericho was a large city near a major trade route, so the Romans had +almost certainly set up a hierarchy of tax collectors there to oversee the +commerce. Zacchaeus was in charge of all of them, and had therefore grown quite +rich because of it. + +And yet, Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus. "He was seeking" (_v. 3_), Luke says, +which indicates that it wasn't just a passing curiosity. He needed to see +Jesus, and he was willing look a bit foolish and climb a tree by the roadside +in order to do it. Imagine a Wall Street investor climbing a tree to see a +passing celebrity. + +But then Jesus does something amazing. He sees Zacchaeus up in the tree, and +invites Himself to stay at his house. This is even better than Zacchaeus had +hoped for, because he scrambles down and happily takes Jesus to his house. The +crowd doesn't like this, because Zacchaeus might be the most hated man in +Jericho. Not only is he working with the foreign invaders, he's managing all of +the other guys who are fleecing them to line the Romans' pockets (as well as +their own). + +Zacchaeus is no fool, so he does what he can to show Jesus the sincerity of his +heart. He pledges half of all his wealth to give to the poor, and anything he +has gotten unfairly he promises to repay it back four times. That makes me +wonder how he could afford it, if all his gains were ill-gotten. But it might +be that Zacchaeus hasn't been charging more taxes than he ought to have done, +and the amount he just committed to pay back was 0 as far as he was aware. That +would make this more of a boastful promise, in the sense that he's guaranteeing +that he has done the right thing or he will take a more severe penalty if he is +wrong. The Law of Moses only required fraudsters to pay back an extra fifth of +what they had stolen, not four times as much. + +Whatever his accounts looked like, Jesus declares the impossible has happened: +a rich man has been saved and entered the kingdom of God. Unlike the rich, +young ruler from before, Zacchaeus recognized that there was something to +treasure more highly than his treasures. God had been working in his heart long +before Jesus arrived in Jericho. + +* * * + +May our treasure vaults be full in heaven because we have prioritized Your +kingdom over our own.