City Life Starter

Written by Efe Abbe

The Word

^(…30 but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.)

³¹ “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? ³² They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,

“‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
    we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’

³³ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ ³⁴ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ³⁵ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

Luke 7:30-35 ESV

²⁰ Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice;
²¹ at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:

Proverbs 1:20-21 ESV

Reflection

²² For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; ²³ but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 

1 Corinthians 1:22-24

In Luke 7, sandwiched between four portraits of Jesus being for all people, we have the record of Jesus’ response to John the Baptist sending his disciples to confirm his identity as the Messiah.

Luke divided the crowd that witnessed the exchange between Jesus and John’s disciples into two camps: those who acknowledged God’s justice in John’s ministry (the people and tax collectors; v. 29) and the Pharisees and the lawyers who, sadly, rejected God’s purpose for themselves because they didn’t believe John and subsequently, Jesus (v. 30).

It is the second group that Jesus is addressing in our verses today. While John and Jesus had very different approaches to ministry the following was true of both: 1) they publicly invited all to repent towards God, i.e., neither of them was a secret; and 2) they each fulfilled God’s prophecies to send the Messiah and his forerunner (Luke 4:18-29; 7:27), yet the Pharisees who thought of themselves as wise, rejected them both — they thought John was too strict and Jesus was too loose.

Jesus countered that regardless of their approaches that the true wisdom of each of their ministries would ultimately be shown by those who actually received God’s word and entered God’s kingdom.

Application

I can’t tell you why God called John to an austere life in the wilderness and Jesus to travel ministry; bottom line was that it didn’t matter that much. What mattered most was God’s invitation to repent.

We should not risk rejecting God’s purpose for us because we think ourselves too wise and are dismissive of the “style” of God’s minister — the call of God to repentance carries eternal consequences. Sadly, many reject Jesus, because the gospel sounds foolish to them in their worldly “wisdom”(1 Corinthians 1:18), yet God still uses the “folly” of the gospel to save the humble who receive Christ as “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24).

Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for making the gospel plain and available by coming to us from God. Please give us the humility to keep receiving Your word for our ongoing repentance, sanctification, and maturity, amen.