Luke Chapter 20
Jesus was teaching and preaching the gospel in the temple. The exact place where He should have been received with great reverence and honor. Instead, the religious leaders of that day (the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders) were greatly upset by His teaching and they questioned His authority. They had convened for one purpose – to accuse Jesus of teaching without having the authority to do so. But Jesus always answered their accusations with great wisdom and truth.
Let's Reflect
1. What question about John did Jesus ask of the religious leaders instead of answering their question directly? These men knew that John had taught that Jesus is the Messiah.
2. In the parable of the rented vineyard Jesus taught that there are those who would take advantage of a situation where they are hired to keep the land for the landowner. This was a common way of farming in Jesus’ day. And it was common for people to try to take advantage of the situation. The religious leaders were quick to catch on that Jesus was talking about them when He spoke of the vinedressers or the tenants in the parable. Who did the owner of the vineyard send thinking that the tenants would respect him? And did they?
3. How did the religious leaders respond when they heard that the owner of the vineyard came to destroy the tenants that killed his beloved son?
4. Jesus quoted from Psalm 118, a passage that taught about the coming of the Messiah to Jerusalem. Jesus had been presented as the Messiah in the Triumphal Entry but the religious leaders were still rejecting that He was the Messiah. In this teaching Jesus calls Himself the cornerstone. The cornerstone of a building is the stone that is used to support the rest of the structure. And since He is the cornerstone, He is also the judge and as the judge what will happen to those who reject Him?
5. Who were the religious leaders more afraid of than Jesus?
6. Other religious leaders of the Sadducees came to question Jesus’ authority. The Sadducees thought they would be able to bring Jesus’ teaching into question by talking about marriages in heaven. What did Jesus teach them?
7. What beautiful truth do we learn about heaven in this teaching? See verse 36.
8. Jesus wanted to teach the Sadducees that resurrection from the dead was not only possible it was truth. He made them think about their false beliefs by pointing out from the Old Testament how God gives His name, when Moses was at the burning bush. He was God of the living. What three men did God say, “I am God of…” as in, the present tense? These 3 men were referred to as living but they had already passed away in Moses’ time.
9. Jesus taught them that He is the Christ, the Messiah that David called his son. How could the Messiah be both the son of David and the Messiah? David recognized that his son was also what? See verse 44. Jesus was proving that He was direct fulfilment of prophecy!
10. What did Jesus say will happen to the religious leaders who are hypocrites?
Devotionals
